She drove us the 400 meters to school. Were you freaking kidding me? "Now, you two take care, OK? Nia, you look out for your little brother."

"No promises." I muttered, nose deep in a Jodi Picoult book, Sing You Home. So good. "Can I go yet?"

"Nia!"

Luke was used to it by now, given that I'd barely spoken to him since he showed up and just smiled. "Goodbye, mum."

She shook her head, blushing a little. "Oh, I don't think so. No, Sarah Jane's just fine." I went to open my mouth but she knew what my mind was like. "Nia, you stick to calling me mum, thank you. Oh, hi Maria."

Then mum did the worst thing imaginable. She kissed Luke on the cheek, then tucked my hair behind my ears. So right away people laughed as she stated to drive home. All 400 meters. "Why were they laughing?"

"First day and your mum's kissing you goodbye and tucking away your hair?" Maria smiled, looking as embarrassed for us as I felt. "Bit embarrassing."

"She wants you to call her mum, by the way." I told him, not looking up as we rounded the corner to look at the building.

Maria's eyebrows rose at the sight of the glass building with a giant satellite on the side. "That's a bit flashy."

I shrugged. "They closed the school early last term to make it. It's all brand new. It's ICT, I think, not that I take it. Year 10's don't have to. Plus, mum doesn't trust me not to hack the servers again to fix my attendance." I skipped lessons like PE or anything where people could target me. I might have been stronger, faster and smarter than everyone here, but I had to keep that hidden, so I was just a freak.

Assembly was first and I sat down between Maria and Luke, having not yet looked up from my book. "I'm feeling anxious."

"So am I."

"But you've been to school before."

Our neighbour shook her head. "Not this one."

With a sigh, I glanced at them. "It's fine. This place is easy, if you know how to keep your head down, that is."

Some other newbie came up then, seeing an empty space. "Budge up." We did so, Luke fixing his tie. I refused to wear mine. "You new today?"

"Yeah, Maria."

"Niara. Disturb me while I'm reading and you won't make it to year 10." I told him, not looking up. "I'm also not new, I'm just babysitting."

He smiled at that, his eyes fixing on me. "Clyde, I'm new as Nia there would know." Huh. He got my name right the first time. "Probably hang about with you till I meet some cooler people."

Luke then decided to shake his hand in a formal greeting. "How do you do? I'm Luke Smith, Niara's younger brother."

That was something I really didn't wish to admit or agree to. "He's adopted. I'm year 10, you're year 9."

"OK, that was a joke." Clyde frowned at the social idiot. "Now I mean it. Might hang around with you, Nia."

I went to tell him to get stuffed, but then Blakeman turned up at the podium. "Good morning, everybody." Then promptly broke wind, making most people laugh. "What's funny? The wife gave me cabbage and bean tartlets last night. Yet another reason to despise Jamie Oliver. Right. Assembly, yah di dah. Welcome back, everybody. It's a new year. Hope you all do well. Don't run in the courtyard, Niara Smith look where you're going." Bite me. "Don't even think about wearing make up, and study hard, because I guarantee that none of you are going to be pop stars."

Clyde looked at me that, but I shrugged. "He hadn't been that bad the year before. "So what else is there?" A new teacher walked on stage before sitting down. With yet another bout of flatulence. "Oh, yeah. What a bright future you've all got, children of the world, etcetera. Right. As you've seen, we have a new technology block. I'll be taking you over in groups to look at our amazing new facilities, starting with form 10B." Fan-fucking-tastic. "Niara, par your mother request, you've been excluded from most lessons in that building without supervision."

"I'd like to see any of you actually try and stop me." I muttered, getting a bigger grin off of Clyde.

I didn't see any of the others until lunch, by which time I'd almost finished my book and was sat with Maria while she ate her school dinners. I didn't eat much, yet never needed to. "Can I sit here?"

"Only if I'm not going to shame you as my brother does."

"Well, I either sit here with you two, the bookworm and her friend." I didn't have friends. I had my brother and his friend whom I had no choice but to sit with. "Or sit with that."

A portly boy who was getting slapped. Another newbie, I didn't recognise him either. "What, there's someone worse than Nia?" Maria asked him with a sly smile as he sat next to me.

He smiled back, nudging me to the point I almost dropped the book. "Just, hey bookworm."

"So where you from?"

"Hounslow." Clyde replied to my neighbour. "My parents split up, so I moved down here with my mum."

Maria nodded, knowing the story well. "Like me. Only I moved with my dad."

Clyde gave her a weaker smile. "Yeah? How's that?"

She shrugged. "Better than them rowing all the time."

Another nod of agreement as I finished my book, putting it down to take a drink of coke. "What about you, Nia?"

"Lived in Ealing since I was 7. Before that it was Croydon with my Great-Aunt Lavinia, my cousin Brendan and my mum. Moved when Auntie L died and that's it. It's only ever been me and my mum, at least until Luke came along."

"Nice story. Shame your brother's a bit of a drip."

I looked over at him from my next book, starting a Terry Pratchett this time. Tiffany Aching was my world, I wanted to go to the Discworld. "I may not be overly fond of him, Clyde, but he is still my brother. I won't let you just insult him."

He put his hands up in surrender, while I resisted the urge to turn my hazel eyes blue for dramatic effect. "Sorry. Sorry." And then went to ear some of his food, only it was grey and mouldering. "What's wrong with that? What kind of slop are they serving here? Is this leftovers from last term or something? Sir, sir?" The headmaster stopped, looking frustrated. "How am I meant to eat that?"

Mr Blakeman didn't sound overly concerned at the vile mess on his plate. "You just pick the bad bits off."

The stinking man walked off, getting Clyde angrier and more sarcastic. I prefered sass. "Great. That leaves me with a pea."

"Mines off too." Maria added, looking at her pasta. Damn, I loved pasta here as well, I ate it once every so often. "That is disgusting."

"What's wrong with this place?" Clyde asked, not looking happy. Happiness was overrated, I rarely felt it. I rarely let myself feel anything. "It stinks, the food's rotten. Something weird's going on here."

The day ended without further strange occurrences, bar mother coming to pick me and Luke up from school, giving a lift to our lazy neighbour as well. And had her dad cycled up to us as we came into the driveway, looking amused. "Oh, I see, you've cadged a lift, have you?"

"I offered."

"I don't know, Lady Muck, getting neighbours to chauffer her around." Maria told her to shut up as I stood between mum and Luke, reading as usual. "How was the big first day then? Did Nia look after you?"

The girl nodded. "Sitting with Nia successfully scared away bullies." Because no one wanted to go near the freak with anger issues worse than the Hulk. My attacks were verbal and hit far harder. I didn't use it often, but my voice was definitely my best weapon, I didn't know what would happen if I lost it. "A bit weird though, the headmaster keeps farting and there's a boy-"

OK, if she was about to say something about Clyde liking me, I wanted that to stop. "Mum, do I have any post?"

She nodded as I gave Maria a quick cut throat gesture, and she got the memo while her dad got interested in the form of flatulence. "Really? What, noisy smelly ones or silent but deadlies?" She made a noise of disgust. "What?"

So Luke did some explaining. "The place stinks like batteries and the canteen food was off."

"I'll make you both a proper tea." Mum said quickly, knowing full well that I probably wouldn't eat it if it wasn't some form of fish or salad. It wasn't a diet thing, I just didn't like much else besides plain pasta. "You go get changed, both of you. Nia, Baby, your post is on the shoe rack, it looks likes it's that Lazarus letter."

"Bye, see you, Maria." Luke smiled as I just walked inside to have a look. "What's it for?"

"A potential threat." I replied, opening it to see it was an unconditional yes and invitation to the opening gala. "I applied to be the apprentice to a man trying to change the human race, and given my grades and publicised IQ, they couldn't resist. But don't tell mum, she thinks that I'm just getting uni experience."

I didn't give him much choice as I then hid the acceptance letter in my bag, knowing that I'd have to tell her if things went south, but for the moment I could easily lie. "I kept making social mistakes today."

Mum sighed then, coming into the attic as I changed clothes into a tank top and leggings, starting my daily stretches for 'anger management'. I was supposed to find other ways of getting out my aggression without a poison tongue or a steel toe capped boot. It was less fun, but I liked the workout the yoga gave me. "I think I made one too. Driving you both to school when it's around the corner, kissing you goodbye. Even tucking your hair, Niara. I'm still new at this, even after all these years."

"I don't know anyone except Maria, Niara and Clyde. Maria's in different classes to me most of the time. Nia's the year above so she's always somewhere else. And Clyde thinks I'm uncool and just asks about Nia."

"Clyde's not the only kid in school."

Luke just looked terrified. "What if I make more mistakes? People are wary of me because of Niara's attitude. They called her out on things in assembly." Thank you, for that. I didn't tell her quite how bad things were for me at school. It made her worry and if she worried, she got more scared to let me do things. I loved my mother, but she always, always worried too much.

"Then you'll never make the same ones again. Listen, anyones nervous starting a new school, a new job."

"Do I have to go?"

Another sigh as I paused in the downward dog. Clicked your back in all the right places, and your wings felt incredible. "I could take you out, teach you here. I considered it, did it for a few years with Nia at first. But you, Luke Smith, you're going to have a normal life. As normal a life as I can give you. You've got it easy compared to Niara, she's not allowed in certain lessons due to her wings and tail."

I saw that Luke really didn't want to go. Lucky him. I fought for two years to be allowed to go to school. He had a super brain and no belly button. I had a tail, wings and eyes that shine like the moon in the night. The odds of making friends were far more in his favour.

"What if I get it wrong again?" He asked as I started to click all the parts of my body, causing mum to cringe. "It makes me feel stupid."

Mum just gave him a warm smile. "Remember, you saved the world the day you were born. Not many people can say that. Even Nia can't." Because you were hidden away and Uncle Alistair faked all my birth paperwork. You couldn't exactly give birth to a baby with a tail and wings in Croydon University Hospital.

"No one else can say that. That's the problem." He cried, already knowing how I'd felt my whole life. I was so, so different. "Nobody else is like me, or like Niara. We're outcasts." Then he frowned at what Mr Smith was doing. "What's going on?"

"Checking up on the firm who built your new block." She replied, nervously looking at what I was doing. "Nia, Baby, please be careful. You've severed tendons in your back before." And healed in barely 2 days. I was fine. "Coldfire Construction. They started expanding 18 months ago, contracts all round the world. Some odd things cropping up. Now they're putting up school buildings all around London." I stopped the stretch I was doing to look at her with raised eyebrows. "Well, it makes a change for me. Not aliens, is it?"

Mum got to work as I curled up reading on the futon, my tail absently twitching before the lights went out. I could still read, perks of being a Stryx Halfling, but mums computer clicked off. "Power cut?" Luke asked, having been doing his homework. Suck up, they already knew I was too smart so they didn't expect me to do any.

"Yes. Mr Smith's not responding. The computer just went pfft." That was a very accurate description, well done, mother. "And guess who forgot to save her work?" Clever. Good thing you had a hacker daugher. "I'll just see how long it's going to be. If I can check the local power grid, thank you, Baby." Only she started at the scanner watch I made her. "That's impossible. It never loses power."

I was by her side in a flutter of purple and pink wings, holding her wrist. "It's not able to lose power. It's a fuel cell I nicked from the TARDIS, it's self charging." Only then, as quickly as it had come, all the power came back. "I don't like this."

"Weird."

"Must be faulty."

Nothing I ever made was ever faulty, dear little brother. "Or the same thing that cut the electric, cut off this off, only I don't have the right tools for a diagnostic check. I'd need the TARDIS for that." Plus admit that I had sticking fingers the first time I'd been in there.

The next morning, the worrying powercut mostly forgotten, we headed off to school, Luke sticking with Maria where he could, and Clyde, especially at breaks, seemed to like following me around like a puppy. At lunch he seemed unable to find me though, good as mum called to talk about some other place she'd visited that morning. "And that school has exactly the same problem as your school. So I'm off to Coldfire Construction."

"Do you want me to do anything? I have chemistry next, it's basically a feww period anyway."

"Stop skipping lessons just because you've already got the A Level." No promises. "But have a look around. See if you can find where that smell is coming from."

Yes, explore the area I'm not allowed to be while unattended, brilliant. "OK, see you later. Love you."

"Love you too, Baby."

Then she clicked off as Clyde found me, eating fish and chips from the local. "Who's that then, your boyfriend?"

"No, my mum." I replied, swapping my phone for a book. "Back of the kitchens or reception?"

"What?"

"To get off campus. How did you go?"

He blinked at me before laughing. "Kitchens. You're really different to your brother, you know that?"

I shrugged, walking over to where Maria, who had probably received a text from mum, was heading off towards the tech block with Luke. "Preaching the choir, mate."

He smirked before looking at my neighbour and annoyance of a brother. "What are you doing?"

Luke didn't understand a need to know basis. "We're investigating the new block. Right Nia?"

Maria quickly pulled up. "I left something of Nia's in the new block."

They both headed off, but Clyde grabbed my arm, stopping me from following. "What is it with you two and her? I've seen weird people, I know weird people. But you three? You're gorgeous, Niara, but you're beyond weird. I've seen that tribal tattoo on your back."

I resisted the urge to slap him. My therapist, Mr Smith, would have been so proud of me. "Go find some normal people them." Only he started to follow me around the tech block. "Nothing here is right."

"I want answers. Where are you from?"

"I was born in the UNIT Base in Mount Snowdon, grew up in Croydon or Ealing." I told him, knowing he wouldn't believe me anyway. "The layout of this building seriously doesn't make any sense."

Clyde was still asking me questions. "But where have you been all your life? You've never got your nose out of a book for longer than 20 minutes. Your mum brushed your hair off your face in public and you didn't fight it." Why would I want to be anywhere but a fictional world unless I was fighting the good fight with my brother.

"I started school when I was 7 years old. They wanted me off the map. I was taught at home by my mum, Sarah Jane. There are 16 classrooms in this building."

"Where's yours and Luke's dads? His parents?"

A bit hard to explain, really. "Abroad. I've never met Elijah and Luke's parents tried to kill him." Not really lying. Mrs Wormwood did try and kill him, she just wasn't his parent. "The block measures roughly 1539 square meters, times that by two as there are two floors. It's just not adding up, there's an empty space. Through there. You need to go home." He just kept following me. "Or not then. Your funeral. THere's another room, one they don't want students find, behind there." Clyde tried to talk to me but I was finally not bored, so wasn't listening. "But how do you get inside?"

He gave up then and left letting me pause to pull my hair up, the long mass of it getting in the way, then stared at the blank white wall. "It's a door, then there has to be a handle. Here."

And touched the door where it should have been and smiled as I was let through a sliding door, letting my tail uncoil and whip the air, wings fluttering out like a butterfly's. Chances were, it wasn't human, so why I have to pretend?

Stepping through, I stared around before my inhuman eyes fixed on the man behind everything. Mr Blakeman. "So, Niara, how do you like our science project? We're about to start on dissecting a butterfly child, to find out what makes her tick."