After dinner everyone scattered almost immediately. It was almost impressive… She shuddered and pretended to look away at some distant object as Jean walked right towards her, probably to bitch at her. She seemed like one of those way-too-perfect-popular-sports-star- cheerleader-types whom she hated.
"I am so sorry about before," she apologized, "It's just that-
"No need to apologize," smiled Jean, "Let's start over again; I'm Jean and I'll be showing you to your new room."
"My name is Claudine," she echoed in surprise.
Jean led her up the stairs and into a uniform door on her left, "Here you go," she presented, "You are so lucky. You get your own room for now until another student moves in."
"yay, closet space," she said unenthusiastically. She had sort of wanted a roommate-at least someone who she could walk to class with and get to know better.
"Almost forgot, here's your schedule for classes," Jean handed her a slip of paper and walked out with a wave, "By the way, breakfast is at 6."
"Thanks," she called to her new acquaintance. She couldn't help but wonder how she could possibly go to school though. She hated missing school and all, but wouldn't she scare everyone half to death. She had to admit that she did look a little like a vampire. She shrugged off her feelings of self-doubt and opened her new closet to find it fully stocked with her old clothes. She silently thanked the Professor for nabbing her old clothes out of her old apartment.
She combed out her silky black hair and brushed her teeth, rediscovering her pointed canines. She spent nearly ten minutes looking in the mirror at her new appearance. It scared her but she laughed anyway because she figured that just about everyone in her new school would know she was a mutant and on top of that she was had already decided to ignore anyone who came into contact with her. Between those two things she would be dead meat that was if she didn't accidentally kill someone with her super strength or something. She remembered how the mutants had gotten treated in her old school. When the word had gotten out of the mutant 'crisis' it became a point to make any mutant's life a living hell. She had just ignored the whole thing, but now how could she if she was one? She resolved that she would go to school for the learning and nothing else.
She flopped onto her bed in exhaustion and fell almost immediately asleep.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP!" The alarm-clock caused her to spring out of bed with superhuman agility and smash the imminent threat. Her eyes widened, realizing it was just a clock and not some sort of killer robot from planet x. "Looks like someone's gonna have to buy me a new alarm clock," she muttered to herself.
She walked over to her closet and pulled out a black hoodie, jeans, and a pair of lace up boots and hastily threw them on.
"So, are you excited about your first day of school?" asked Jean enthusiastically.
"Yeah," She nodded groggily and took a bite of her bagel.
"Scott will be taking you guys today in the X Van."
There were a series of groans from Kitty, Kurt, and the others. "Why do we have to take that old thing? It practically screams loser," moaned Kitty, crossing her arms, but despite their protests Scott drove around front with the massive van anyway. Claudine had to admit that it was really dorky and would just add to her mutant predicament. "Remember; you don't care what they think of you. You're just there to learn and then get the hell out of there. It'll be fine. What's the worst that can happen anyway? They hang me. That's the worst that could happen or even worse; they could send me to the principal's office. I'm not cut out for that stuff. I'll die in there first."
"I can't do it!" she blurted out as she got into the car.
"What?" asked Kitty who was sitting next to her.
"They're going to kill me or run away from me. I just can't do it!"
"Relax," Scott assured, "the Professor told me to give you this." He handed her a watch, "Put it on and you'll look just like everyone else."
She slipped it on and pressed the button in the center. She gasped as her skin turned to its normal color again. She looked in the side view mirror to find that her teeth looked human again and the red mark on her forehead had disappeared. She touched her face and smiled, "How-
Kurt relied from the front, "It's a hologram, see?" He put his on and looked just like any other normal guy. She sighed. At least she could be normal to the outside world.
She was surprised at her first day. It had been rocky getting to class, but her initial fear that the inducer would break didn't come to fruition and she got by pretty well.
Her second period had been chemistry. She got there early and chose a seat in the front where she could best see the board.
She sat in front of Kurt and felt relieved that another mutant was in the class with her. The teacher arrived late, papers falling out of her arms as she walked.
"She started off the class taking attendance and then progressed to organic chemistry.
"Who can tell me what makes up an ester?" Claudine immediately raised her hand to the question. It way too easy for an AP class, but everyone else seemed reluctant to answer. Was that like, an unwritten rule or something? Never answer chemistry questions? "Oh well, guess I've got no competition."
"An organic acid and an alcohol," she said confidently. The teacher nodded and smiled enthusiastically.
"It seems we have a new student. What was your name…was it Clarissa or-
"Claudine Renko," she replied softly. Everyone was staring at her with animosity. "Is my image inducer faulty or something?" She looked at her hands to find perfectly normal, human skin. At least that hadn't went wrong so far. The rest of the class was made up of her answering just about every question and the rest of the students glaring at her. She didn't understand why they didn't want to participate. It did affect your GPA, right?
The teacher called class dismissed and everyone filed out except for Claudine and the brunette who had been sitting beside her.
"So, you really want to be pinned as a nerd on the first day?" asked the girl, pushing in her chair.
"I just want to ace this course is all," she stuttered, unnerved by someone besides the kids from the institute talking to her.
"You're from that mutant place, right?" asked the girl whose name turned out to be Tammy.
"What do you mean?" asked Claudine in mock confusion. Maybe if she just played dumb she would buy into it.
"You mean you aren't from that place?" Claudine pretended to look at her watch and began to run, I'd love to talk, really, but truth is I'm going to be late for calculus. Bye!" That was a close one. She almost just got in even bigger trouble than she already was in. She didn't want to be known as the mutant girl.
Despite her crisis, she bit the bullet and sat by the others at lunch. The rest of the day passed uneventfully by and consisted of the usual school activities; note writing, lectures, and all. It seemed like forever before the final bell rang and she could get all her stuff from her locker and go back to her new home. She saw the others sprinting back towards the institute.
"Where are you guys going!" she shouted at them.
"Ve have one of Wolverine's intensive training sessions," yelled back Kurt to her.
"He gets real mad if yur late," added Rogue for emphasis. She didn't know what Kurt had meant by training session, but she sure didn't want to get Wolverine mad. She had already seen him yelling at some of the other kids before and he was intimidating to say the least.
She panted and threw her backpack down to the ground. Kitty threw her a balled up uniform and told her to go put it on (quickly of course).
