Thursday, December 6
It's been a week since the awkward encounter with Phantasma and Isaiah. They're officially dating now, and have been pretty much inseparable since then. They have spent pretty much every moment they can together.
I still don't like Isaiah. He's just not right for Phanty. He's rude, he screws around, and he's just all around not a very considerate person. Phanty can do better.
Did I say I was over their relationship last week? Well, I'm not. I have to convince Phantasma that this creep is totally wrong for her.
Sybella sighed and put her journal down. She wished she could just stay in her journal world and process her thoughts all day, but she didn't have time. It was their last two days of the semester, so Sybella was as busy as ever trying to study for final exams between her other normal obligations. The first of these exams happened in a matter of a few minutes, in their last Science class.
The vampiress chose to dress a bit fancier today and slipped on a black shirt with a white collar as well as a red skirt embroidered with black bat prints.
She felt sort of awkward around Phanty, even though nothing had really happened between the two of them. Phantasma wasn't mad at her or anything, and Sybella never really expressed her disappointment with Phanty. It was more of an internal awkwardness, because Sybella couldn't get the thought of Phantasma's poor choice in a boyfriend out of her mind. None of the five had ever had a significant other prior to this, so this felt like a huge deal to the vampiress.
Sybella went down to breakfast and greeted the others as she got her normal cereal. To her surprise, Sidney joined them at the dining hall this morning.
"'Sup y'all." Sidney greeted, as she went over to the cereal dispensers and headed for the one marked 'Frosted Flakes'. The witch began fake tearing up. "Rest in peace, you poor, poor tiger."
"Aren't you going to get any milk with that?" Winnie inquired, noticing Sidney's dry cereal bowl.
"No need. I can fill the bowl with my tears!" Sidney continued to fake-cry.
"Seriously though guys, are you ready for the test today?" Tanis asked. "I'm not sure if I am."
Sybella was. Mr. Menville's class was always super easy, so she had no doubt this final exam would be as well.
Before she could respond, Phantasma jumped in. "I am. I'm so ready for Science!"
Of course she was. Because Isaiah was in that class with her.
"Mr. Menville's class is always pretty easy. I think you'll do great, Tanis." Sybella assured.
"Thanks." Tanis beamed.
"We won't do great if we're not there. It's already time to get to class, guys! We've gotta hurry so we're not late." Elsa pointed out.
Sybella hadn't realized how late it was already! She quickly gobbled down the rest of her cereal and packed up her belongings before heading to class.
The test was incredibly easy. If you'd even vaguely listened to Mr. Menville throughout the semester, it would be a snap to get an A.
Sybella was one of the first students to hand in her test. The vampire sat quietly and read her book "The Loch Ness Mess," a novel about a group of teenagers discovering a sea serpent and three colonial ghosts, while the rest of the class finished their exams.
Isaiah was the last to finish. Sybella had gotten a few chapters into her book when he turned in his test.
"Now that we're all done with the test, I just want to say you have been an amazing class! You all are such intelligent little scientists!" Mr. Menville complimented. "That's all I have for you today, unless you have something else you'd like to discuss."
"Yeah." Isaiah spoke up. "I just wanna announce that y'all should stream my friend, Lil Galapagos, cuz he's got a new song out!"
"Excellent, Isaiah! That's a great subject to talk about! Galapagos is the island where Charles Darwin studied birds." Mr. Menville explained.
"You're so silly. What do you mean by streaming?" Phantasma asked.
"You know, stream, like go to Sam Stream's Record Store and buy it off the shelf." Isaiah clarified. "I guess there are other stores you could buy it at too, like Spotify's CD Emporium on 5th Avenue, or Apple Music Shop over between Jones Street and Blake Boulevard."
"More specifically, Darwin studied finches and mockingbirds." Mr. Menville continued.
"Darwin? As in Lil Darwin? Nah, Lil Galapagos is in a feud with him. In fact, he just released the diss track "Evolution" last week to call out Lil Galapagos." Isaiah explained.
"There's kind of a lot of rappers naming themselves after historical figures and places." Kathryn observed.
"Oh yeah. There's also Lil Galileo. He's gonna be a big star." Isaiah informed.
Most of the students weren't really listening at this point, but Mr. Menville continued going on about Darwin until the bell rang. Sybella was in fact happy when it rang, because she was ready to be finished with Science class. She was always more into the humanities subjects, so while certain things she learned were interesting, she felt like she had a sufficient amount of scientific knowledge after finishing the test and just wanted the class to be over.
"¡Eso concluye mi presentación!" Julia exclaimed. "¡Gracias!"
"Muy bien, Julia!" Mrs. Innes complimented. "Alright, Jacob is next."
Jacob, a werewolf Sybella previously had in many of her classes, had transferred into the class late, and was doing abysmally.
Suddenly, Jacob started playing with Mrs. Innes's computer and pulled up a Spanish song.
"This is your presentation?" Mrs. Innes interrogated.
"Yeah. Daddy Yankee can say things a lot better than I can." Jacob admitted.
"The point of your presentation is to demonstrate you can speak Spanish fluently at an intermediate level." Mrs. Innes reminded.
"Fine." Jacob sighed. "¡Voy a improvisar totalmente esta presentación y la Señora Innes nunca lo sabrá! Jajajaja!"
"You just said you were going to wing your entire presentation, and I'll never know it. I'm the Spanish teacher; the whole point of me being here is to test you on your Spanish! Did you suddenly think I forgot how to comprehend Spanish?" Mrs. Innes questioned.
"Well, I was hoping." Jacob said.
"Jacob, all you have to do is say something meaningful in Spanish for two minutes. Is that really so hard for you to understand?" Mrs. Innes snapped.
"Okay, here goes. La clase es muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy, muy -" Jacob started, before pausing mid-sentence. "Am I at the two-minute mark yet?"
"No." Mrs. Innes crossed her arms.
" - muy, muy, muy, muy, muy…" Jacob continued.
"Enough! You clearly have little to no Spanish speaking skills." Mrs. Innes growled. "Melissa, your turn."
"Mein Name ist Melissa und ich bin im zweiten Jahr hier bei Grimwood!" Melissa began.
"I'm sorry Melissa, but that's German." Mrs. Innes informed.
"Scheisse!" Melissa swore. "That's the last time I use one of these."
Melissa whipped a book labelled "Rosetta Stone" out the open window. A bit drastic, but perhaps she was on her time of the moon. That sometimes made werewolves do hormonal, irrational things.
The vampiress sat back and listened to the remainder of the presentations. Everyone's presentations were quite decent, particularly Elsa and Phanty's, both of whom spoke quite fluent Spanish. Sybella had been a tad nervous during her presentation, but it was going quite well.
"¡Con esto concluye mi presentación! Espero que todos hayan disfrutado." Sybella concluded.
"Excellent work, Sybella." Mrs. Innes said, right as the bell to end class rang. "And we got through the presentations just in time! I hope you all enjoyed taking this class as I did teaching it. Have a wonderful break!"
That was it. Another class was over.
"Great job, Sybella!" Julia complimented.
"Thanks! You did amazing too!" Sybella reciprocated. "I'm sorry, but I've got to get to an interview for Yearbook now. I'll see you tomorrow!"
She had to get over to Coach Micucci's classroom, as she'd promised to interview him for the Yearbook today at 4:00pm. Sybella was quite interested to see what he was going to say.
It was a long walk over to the other side of the school in order to get to the gym, but the vampiress finally arrived so she could interview Coach Micucci.
"Hey, Coach Micucci. Ready to do your interview?" Sybella inquired.
"Oh yeah." Coach Micucci said. "Fire away."
"What's your favorite part of teaching?" Sybella asked her first question.
"I love connectin' with the kids on what they're interested in." Coach Micucci answered.
"Hey Gabriel." a male mummy snickered as he cut through the gym with Gabriel. "If your girl asked you to do a strip tease for her, what song would it be to?"
"Ayy, that's an awesome question. 'Sexy and I Know It' by Lmfao." Gabriel said.
"'I'm Too Sexy' by Right Said Fred." the mummy answered.
"Ooh! My turn! Mine would be the Cops theme song!" Coach Micucci jumped into the conversation, to which the two students looked mortified. "How was that for an example?"
"Repulsive." Sybella plainly answered. "In fact, I wouldn't mention that to anyone ever again if you don't want to lose your teaching license."
"Noted." Coach Micucci responded. "Next question?"
"What do you think students take away from learning health and gym from you at Grimwood's?" Sybella inquired.
"They learn from the master. You'll be the fittest and the healthiest ever if you do what I do." Coach Micucci backtracked a bit when he looked down at his heavy set figure. "Well, you know the saying. Do as I say, not as I do."
"Okay. What's the best part of working at Grimwood's?" Sybella continued.
"I love getting to know all you ghouls. I never knew ghouls were so cool before you guys, but you're the best!" Coach Micucci complimented.
"Aww." Sybella smiled. "That's really sweet. That was my last question, unless you have any other comments you want me to take into consideration for the yearbook."
"Nah. Thanks for interviewin' me though. It means a lot!" Coach Micucci appreciated.
"Of course." Sybella walked away feeling very appreciated. That was the nicest thing Coach Micucci had ever said about his students, she thought. Sybella was glad she and her friends were able to make an impact on a human's view of monsters, even if it was just one. That's all she could ever ask for.
"How was the Coach Micucci interview?" Savana asked when Sybella arrived in the Yearbook room.
"Good. He actually said something super sweet. He said that Grimwood's made him realize monsters were cool!" Sybella informed.
A chorus of "awws" broke out from Savana, Sami and Sam. Sami pretended to fake cry by wiping imaginary tears from her eyes.
"And that's the beauty of interviewing, girls." Miss Lillard interjected. "You get to find out things about people that you never would have known before. Speaking of finding out things though, it's time to look through the results of your class polls. Students have been voting all week in the lunchroom, and now you get to see the results. But remember, you can't tell anyone before the yearbook comes out in May!"
"The votes are in?" Sami asked.
"The votes are in!" Savana confirmed.
"I've also ordered you girls some pizza as a thank you for all your hard work this semester." Miss Lillard smiled.
As Miss Lillard handed the girls the ballot box, Sam began pawing through the ballots vigorously with her werewolf paws.
"Jeez Sam!" Savana laughed. "You dying to see the results or something?"
"I wanna see if anyone put my name in there!" Sam elaborated.
"Well, is it in there?" Savana followed.
"No. Not one person voted for me for awesomest most OG homie." Sam shook her head. "Miscreants."
"Winnie won sportiest." Sybella replied, as she separated out the votes. It made sense. Winnie was definitely the most into sports out of any of them.
"Teacher's pet is Julia. By a large margin." Savana giggled.
"Same with most innocent. Tanis won." Sybella revealed. "No surprise there."
"Bubbliest personality is Alexis." Sami added.
The ghouls continued counting for a minute, sharing the results as the votes for each category were fully counted.
"Best dressed...ooh, Sybella! You won this one!" Savana announced.
"Best smile is also Tanis." Sam said, turning to the "best couple" pile next.
"Drama queen is Jessica." Savana revealed.
"Most organized is Elsa." Sami counted.
"Most likely to become famous is Dan." Sybella replied. She didn't know who that person was.
"Social butterfly is Winnie." Savana read off her tally sheet.
"Ooh! Best couple is Isaiah and Phantasma!" Sam shared.
Sybella had just picked up a piece of pizza from the box Miss Lillard had put out, but nearly spit it out when she heard that.
"Aww. Yeah. They're cute together." Savana said.
No, they're not! Sybella wanted to say. Why did everyone think Isaiah and Phanty were so cute together? They were almost as repulsive as imagining Coach Micucci strip teasing to the Cops theme song, in her opinion.
Friday, December 7
This is it. The last day of the semester. Why can the last day of the semester ever be this amazing, celebratory day? There's always got to be some kind of angst...whether it's losing a friend, an argument with a friend, feeling guilt over Tanis having to retake Driver's Education, Revolta taking over the school, and now about Phantasma's love life.
Maybe me being upset about Phanty's romance is a reflection of the fact that I don't have a boyfriend. It would be really cool to be in a relationship and have someone always making me the #1 priority. Someday…
Sybella quickly slipped on a red panel dress and hustled down to breakfast. She hadn't thought about this last night, but she hadn't been at dinner, which is when Miss Grimwood usually gave everyone their schedules for the spring semester. She wanted to have time to get her schedule from Miss Grimwood before she went home this afternoon, so she'd know what courses she had next semester.
Luckily, Miss Grimwood was actually at the breakfast table.
"Can I get my schedule Miss Grimwood? Sorry I wasn't at dinner last night, we had to count up the polls for Yearbook." Sybella apologized.
"No worries, Sybella. Actually, as class president, Tanis asked me if I could wait to get you all your new schedules until you were here." Miss Grimwood informed.
"Aww, thanks Tanis." Sybella put her hand up to her heart as a gesture of emotional warmth.
"Here's your schedules." Miss Grimwood handed out, just as Phantasma arrived (without Isaiah, thankfully).
"Economics, Sociology, Film Studies and Human Studies II." Sybella read off. "Human Studies II? I can't wait for that!"
Human Studies had been her favorite class thus far at Grimwood's, so she was super excited to be in an upper-level version of that class and delve deeper into the subject.
"Economics, Philosophy, Film Studies and Communication." Phanty read her schedule.
"Spanish, Philosophy, Film Studies and Broadcast and Mass Media." Tanis said.
Winnie was next. "Spanish, Philosophy, Film Studies and Communication."
Elsa was the last to share her schedule with the others. "Economics, Philosophy, Film Studies and Communication."
"Hey, most of us have the same schedules! Cool!" Phantasma smiled.
Sybella felt a bit left out by Phanty, as Sybella didn't have most of the same classes with the others like the rest of them did.
"I'm in a bunch of classes with Isaiah too! He's got quite a few of the same ones as we do." Phanty added, causing Sybella to scowl.
"What's your problem?" Phanty said when Miss Grimwood left the room.
"Nothing." Sybella scoffed.
"I saw you scowl at me. What's the matter?" Phanty replied in a combative tone.
"Honestly, I don't really like your boyfriend. You could do so much better than him. He's just a self-centered, pompous jerk and I don't know what you see in him." Sybella ranted.
"Fine! I don't need your opinions. I've gotta get to class." Phantasma grumbled.
"What'd you do that for?" Tanis inquired in a disappointed tone.
"Well, somebody had to say it." Sybella stayed on her high horse.
"No, they didn't. Sure, Isaiah might be a little rougher around the edges than us, but that doesn't make him a bad person." Winnie defended.
"I guess not." Sybella lied. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize to us." Elsa corrected. "Apologize to Phantasma. She's the one whose feelings are hurt."
"Okay. I'll go find her." Sybella replied, as she got up from the table and made it look like she was going to apologize. In reality, she was just going to go to Communication early. She had nothing to apologize for. If anyone was being ridiculous, it was Phantasma for dating a lout like Isaiah.
Sybella finished her final exam for Communication in quick order. She was the second to finish, as the exam was very easy, only finishing after Eric. She would've been surprised, given Eric's dimwittedness, but Sybella convinced herself that Eric probably winged the whole thing and put down a bunch of wrong answers.
"How'd it go?" Sarah whispered from the seat next to her.
Sybella didn't really want to answer as she knew you weren't supposed to talk during a test, so she just gave a thumbs up and waved goodbye.
The purple-haired vampiress got out of her seat and gave her exam to Mrs. Lange.
"Great to have you in class again, Sybella." the instructor whispered.
"Thanks. It's been great to be in your class again." Sybella beamed. "Have a good break!"
"You too." Mrs. Lange whispered back.
Much to her surprise, Eric was standing at the door waiting.
"Hey, you want a Junior Mint?" Eric asked, not as quietly as he should have.
"Sure." Sybella shrugged, as she grabbed a mint from Eric's hand and prepared to head out of the classroom.
"Can I have one?" Ali inquired in a whisper, as she too finished her test.
"Well, you're a sophomore, but I guess you're now only one semester away from being a junior. I suppose I can make an exception, but just this one time." Eric compromised.
Ali played along as Eric was about to hand her the mint. "If it helps, I'm a transfer student too, so I technically have more credits than you guys anyway."
"Oh no!" Eric angrily snatched the mint back out of Ali's hand. "Go get yourself some Transfer Mints! These are only for real juniors!"
Sybella couldn't help but chuckle at the wacky antics.
Her final class of the semester: Philosophy. Sybella prepared to head there after lunch. Lunch was a bit awkward, as Phanty wasn't there, likely due to the events of the morning. Tanis wasn't there either, oddly.
"I passed! I passed!" Sybella heard a familiar voice coming from down the hall.
All of a sudden, Tanis came up to her and gave her a huge hug.
"I didn't think I'd pass, but I passed my driver's test! I was so nervous, but now, I have my driver's license! I passed! I passed!" Tanis shouted as she cutely skipped down the hall with excitement. Tanis usually was a bit shy, and certainly never this elated, so she must have been really nervous of failing again to be in such an invigorated mood.
Sybella's excitement for her mummy friend quickly dampered when she bumped into Phantasma.
"Hey, Phanty. Listen, I'm sorry for this morning." Sybella blushed a little. She still didn't feel actually sorry, which is part of why she was a tad embarrassed.
"It's okay." Phanty said. "I just hope you didn't mean what you said."
"No...um...I was just...jealous. Yeah, I was kinda jealous." Sybella lied. She'd had enough arguments with friends in recent years, and had learned from her past mistakes. She didn't want to create any more waves, even if she was kind of mad at Phanty for her poor choice in men, so she decided to just apologize,
"Aww. That's cute. Okay, I gotta get to Music, but I'll see you later." the phantom waved as she walked in the other direction.
"See you later." Sybella repeated the sentiment in reciprocation.
Philosophy was the only class Sybella didn't have some sort of final project, presentation or exam in. As far as the vampiress knew, they were just having a normal discussion in class today.
"Hello class." Ms. Ward was just beginning the class as Sybella came in the door. The vampiress was a little embarrassed that she was nearly late to the last class. She must have talked to Tanis and Phantasma longer than she had thought. "To conclude our final class, I'd like to have a discussion of emotion and reason with you all. Can one have emotions and reason at the same time? Emotion and reason are often framed as polar opposites. If you have strong emotions about something, people think it is not reasonable. If you are thinking scientifically about something, emotions are not often considered. So, what do you think? Are emotion and reason opposites, or can you have both at the same time?"
A very challenging final question indeed.
"They're completely opposites. Emotions are unreasonable." Johnny replied.
"Yeah, I agree. That's why I don't have any emotions." Jessica crossed her arms, looking increasingly angry. "You have to think about everything scientifically, without putting any emotion into your reasoning. Right? RIGHT?"
"I think emotions and reason should be separate, yeah." Sarah added. "That doesn't mean emotions are unreasonable, but they aren't scientific or factual in any way."
"So it sounds like there's a consensus among these three. How about anyone who does think that emotions and reason can exist at the same time?" Ms. Ward prompted.
"I think you can have both. Your emotions often make you have reasons for doing things. Maybe you wouldn't use them in a scientific experiment, but feelings are good facts for explaining behavior." Sybella pointed out.
"Great point, Sybella. Anyone else?" Ms. Ward asked.
"I think emotion is reason. You don't just get, like, randomly angry for no reason whatsoever." Julia explained.
"I DO!" Jessica shouted.
"I just mean, there's usually a reason behind your emotions, so maybe emotions are reasons that explain who you are and what you're feeling." Julia explained.
"What a wonderful point, Julia. Thank you. I'm really going to miss this class's insightful, philosophical opinions." Mrs. Lange smiled.
Maybe Julia did have a point that could help Sybella better process through her emotions with Phantasma. She'd have a whole month of break to do so, after all.
"Bye, Julia!" Sybella waved, as she headed for her room after class to pack up her belongings, before her father came to get her.
"Have a great break!" Julia well-wished in return.
Sybella sort of wished that she had walked with Julia when she saw Isaiah up ahead. That was the last person she wanted to talk to right now, especially alone. She just wanted to pack up and get home. The vampiress just tried to keep her head down and walk past quickly so Isaiah wouldn't say anything to her.
"Yo, Sybella! Can I talk witchu for a minute?" Isaiah replied in a sly voice.
Sigh.
"Yeah. Um, what's up?" Sybella replied awkwardly.
"So Phanty's been tellin' me that you don't like me very much. Stuff like you think I'm wrong for her or somethin'. How come you been sayin' that?" Isaiah confronted.
"Uhh…." Sybella stuttered quite a bit. She didn't know what to say to such a sudden confrontation. The only thing she could do was be brutally honest. "Honestly, you just seem to screw around a lot any time I'm in class with you. Phantasma's super smart and not like that at all."
"Okay, so let me see if I'm hearin' you right. You think I'm stupid and Phanty should go out with someone who's not dumb like me?" Isaiah responded in an accusatory tone.
"No...no. I'm not saying that." Sybella gulped. She honestly didn't know how to respond to Isaiah being so combative with her.
"Whatchu tryna say then?" Isaiah fired back.
"I…" Sybella remembered the one instance Isaiah was mean to her in Woodshop. "You were harassing me in Woodshop that one time. Making fun of the way I made my bench. I don't want my friend dating a bully."
"Look Sybella, I know I mess around a lot, but that's just cuz I'm bored with school and tryna have a little fun. I'm not tryna make anyone feel bad or nothin'. Just cuz I use a lotta slang and try to be the class clown and stuff doesn't mean I'm some dumbass. There's not some prerequisite to bein' smart like ya gotta wear glasses or carry a dictionary with ya everywhere or some shit. I wanna be my own person, and that means speakin' my mind. That's what Phanty says she likes 'bout me. And sorry to say, but you're gonna have to deal with that." Isaiah explained. "You don't have to like me, but if you like Phanty as much as you say you do, let her be happy and make her own decisions."
"I...um, yeah." Sybella was a little lost for words.
"Why you carin' so much 'bout this shit anyway?" Isaiah inquired. "It's Phanty's life. How does me bein' in it affect you?"
"I...I guess I just wanted Phanty to be happy." Sybella admitted.
"Then let her make her own decisions, my man. Feels like you tryna call interference up in this bitch like it's a hockey game or some shit." Isaiah metaphorically stated. "If she thinks I suck, she'll leave me. But she's happy now, and you tryna ruin that for her."
"I wasn't trying to." Sybella defended, before softening. "But I completely misjudged you, and I'm sorry about that. I did think you were dumb. I need to work on judging people less based on stereotypes I have of them. I don't know you that well, but I guess if you're going to be in Phanty's life now, I should at least try to get to know you."
"Awesome, dude. We cool?" Isaiah asked.
"Yes, we're cool." Sybella smiled, as she high-fived Isaiah.
Isaiah was an interesting person alright, but he sort of challenged Sybella's perception of the stereotypical "dumb guy." There were a lot of students Sybella thought were just useless screw-arounds and class clowns at Grimwood's, but maybe not all of them were actually dumb like Sybella thought. Perhaps there was some purpose behind Phanty dating Isaiah. Maybe it would teach Sybella to be less judgemental, and get to know a person before she judged them.
As her semester officially concluded, Sybella and Isaiah walked to the front entrance of Grimwood's together, finally getting to know each other after so many years of having classes together.
Author's note:
So if by some off chance you're reading Fangs every week and trying to be like, "I'm going to internalize this life lesson and improve my life!", this one is a hard one. I admittedly don't even have it down yet. I purposefully tried to write a character that I find a little bit annoying and in-your face (though Isaiah does have some funny bits) in order to challenge myself. It just goes to show that sometimes people behave in ways we consider odd or different and they might genuinely be super nice people. There's no way to know that though if you prematurely judge them. Again, this is a super hard life lesson that even I haven't fully learned yet, so it's not as easy as just reading it and being like "I won't do that anymore!" It definitely takes some work to not be quick to judge others. Anyway, this has been life lessons with WildwindVampire haha.
Keeping up with what I always do in every chapter that concludes a semester, every minor character from the semester that has a name shows up again, and gets at least one line in the chapter.
Speaking of keeping up with traditions, you know what time it is!
Reference time:
- Sybella's book "The Loch Ness Mess" (and the plot of it) references The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode of the same name. Fun fact, it's also my favorite episode of the entire Scooby franchise.
- Jones Street and Blake Boulevard were named after Fred and Daphne's surnames, respectively.
- Lil Galileo is a fictional rapper referenced in Wizards of Waverly Place in the penultimate episode of season 2, "Wizards & Vampires vs. Zombies."
That about does it for this chapter and this semester, but stay tuned for another chapter next week! Favorites, follows, and reviews are always welcomed and appreciated!