Truth? Life just kept getting weirder and weirder.

High school was a brave new world for Amara, and she hadn't had a lot of time to get used to it before everything had changed so drastically, but even she could see the difference.

After all, it was hard to miss, what with people acting like she had the plague.

She'd sat through the better part of three class periods, and the most interaction she'd had with anyone was the teacher taking attendance. It was confusing her in no small way. Sure, she wasn't popular. Sure, she didn't really know anyone, and they didn't really know her. That was no reason to shun her, or to whisper about her. She hadn't done anything.

Amara bit her lip, torn between paying attention to the teacher and trying to eavesdrop on the conversation going on a few desks behind her.

The bell rang and she took her time gathering her things up, then slowly made her way to the front of the class. She was the last one out of the room - kind of stupid, she knew, because that gave any potential attackers a chance to set up a trap. The pre-departure talk Professor Xavier had given them all that morning had been explicit: they had to be very, very careful at school.

So when someone in the hallway said, "Hey!" loudly, Amara whirled and barely reined in her instinctual fireball. A cluster of normal girls stood not far away, but pushing right past them was a missing member of the team and one of the few people Amara considered to be a real friend.

She was delighted. "Tabitha! Where did you go? We were looking for you-"

"Oh, I've been around," Tabby said, waving it off. As far as Amara was concerned, Tabby was the pinnacle of cool, and that casual dismissal just made her even cooler. "So how's mutant manor?"

"Being rebuilt," Amara said.

"Yeah, I could see that." Tabby cracked her gum, loudly, and gave the cluster of girls an arch look. "What's up, norms?"

"You're a mutant," one of them said, faintly accusing. "Both of you are."

"And you're an idiot, which makes us even," Tabby said, turning back around to Amara. "Go on, Amara."

"You should come back," Amara told her, choosing to ignore the side conversation. "Really. It's not the same."

Tabby shook her head, blowing a big purple-pink bubble before popping it. "I dunno. I don't think the team thing is really... me. I've been kicked off two now. That's gotta be some kind of record, huh?"

Amara looked down, disappointed. "Oh."

Tabby put an arm around her shoulders - the gesture of the big sister or the cousin that Amara wished she was. "Hey, I'll still be around. Where else am I gonna go?"

Amara almost said, "Home," then remembered at the last moment that Tabby going home was just as unlikely as she herself going home. Instead she shrugged and closed her mouth before anyone noticed.

"Oh, fine," Tabby said, releasing her with a hint of something like amusement. "I'll come hang with you guys every now and then, as long as no one tries to re-recruit me."

"Okay," Amara said, grinning.

"Can't split up the Sirens," Tabby added, winking. Amara's smile widened further. That had been so much fun - nevermind the part where they almost got arrested. She was just about to say so when Tabby straightened abruptly and said, "Uh-oh - administrator on the hunt. I gotta go. See ya!"

"Goodbye," Amara called out. Tabby waved, practically running down the hall. An administrator - she'd learned that you could tell who was a teacher and who wasn't because the office people wore suits - ran after her.

Amara shook her head, still amused. Tabby hadn't changed. There was some comfort in that.

"The Sirens? Like, the Bayville Sirens?" one of the girls asked, taking a step closer to Amara. "The ones that busted up the carjacker ring?"

"Yes, but we don't do that anymore," Amara said. She wasn't sure where this was going, so her answer was a little on the tentative side. "The police made us stop."

The girls looked at her for a moment, and then another one of them said, "That's so awesome. What are your powers?"

"I generate fire." There was more, but that was really all she felt like explaining. She started walking to her next class, and the girls moved with her.

"Ever burn anything down?"

It embarrassed her to say it, but she had. "Um... a few times. Not for a while, though."

"So what, you just snap your fingers and - whoosh?"

It wasn't exactly friendship, but it wasn't fear either, and Amara felt that Professor Xavier would be pleased. She couldn't fault them for asking questions; she was brimming with them herself, albeit about different subjects. Maybe they didn't need to be careful - maybe they just they needed to be nice.

She spent the rest of the walk being hopeful and providing the best answers she could.