Chapter 2

If Only Will Was Here

Lyra did decide to go to Dame Hannah's boarding school, not of course by her own freewill, but because she knew that she had no say in the matter, and thought it better if she just went without argumentation. Lyra would've surely stayed with her ragamuffin friends, and that may have lifted her sorrow, but being in Dame Hannah's school had only made it sunk in more deeply. Schedules. Classes. Boredom. It was slowly killing her, and she and Pantalaimon both knew it.
"Ms. Lyra, how many times do I need to ask!" Lyra's English teacher was a short women, perhaps only around four feet, and had the same kind of haircut as most teachers, the same curly, short, hair, her daemon, a sparrow whose feathers were the same, light brown color as the teacher's hair was a few feet off cleaning his feathers on the teachers, wooden desk. "Stop daydreaming in class!"
"Yes, ma'am." Lyra mumbled, "I'll try not to again, ma'am."
The teacher seemed to have accepted Lyra's answer and continued insisting to the class how the word aunt, pronounced by her as 'O-nt' was spoken differently than ant. But Lyra did not stop daydreaming, in fact she daydreamed even more.
Everyone here had received more schooling than her, and were constantly making point of it, tricking her with confusing word gamers, and algebra. Luckily however, the girls here were not foolish enough to inflict any physical harm on her.
Lyra sighed, and whispered under her breath "If only Will was here..."
She missed Will terribly and it consumed all of her will power to not sink away beyond help in a trance of depression. It was as if a Specter was leeching away her life. She felt a horrible pain and if she thought about it long enough as Will had she would've discovered that it was like being separated from Pan.
As if reading her thoughts Pantalaimon, wrapped around Lyra's neck, rubbed Lyra's cheek with his soft pine martin's head. He also rubbed away a tear falling down her cheek, although Lyra didn't even know that she had begun to cry.
A girl sitting to Lyra's left sniggered, and her daemon changed into a hyena to imitate the girl's laughter. But when Lyra gave her an icy glare she turned back to the short women in the front of the room. Lyra's daemon had been the only one to settle in her age level, and that was an advantage for Lyra, the other girls figured that she was a year or two older and most of them kept their distance. Pantalaimon was gave the hyena, now changing into a mouse, a dangerous glare, and it climbed into the girl's shirt breast pocket. Lyra tilted her head sideways so that Pantalaimon's fur warmed the side of her face.
The only friend Lyra had made was actually a year older and was in none of Lyra's classes. However she was one of Lyra's roommates. Each sleeping room in the boarding school generally accommodated three-four girls, and they tried to keep them around the same age, but that was not always an option. And Lyra was paired with her friend, Emily, and a girl several years younger than the two friends who generally kept to herself.
Emily's daemon had settled into a small terrier. Not by a lover's touch, but on its own accord from age. Or so Lyra thought, she never saw Emily with any other boy on their short visits to Oxford, so Lyra assumed that Emily's daemon had just settled on its own, besides even if he had settled the other way, Emily would have probably never talked about it, as Lyra strayed from talking about Will.
Emily knew of Lyra's adventures into the north but nothing else after Roger was killed, nothing about the other worlds... or Will. She expected something was missing but did not question into it, seeing Lyra getting first thoughtful and then miserable as if thinking of more than just what she had told Emily. Lyra didn't know if Emily believed her or not, after all, the Gobblers had quickly disappeared, and the missing children, the exact opposite. So it seemed that Emily had believed her.
"Ms. Lyra! Daydreaming, again!?" The teacher stood at the front of the class, the blackboard pointer rapping against the aluminum rim that's rounded trenches kept the chalk pieces in place.
Lyra knew what was coming next, as it had happened many times before. "Yes, ma'am."
"Honestly Ms. Belaq-"
By now Lyra was thoroughly upset with all her teachers responding to her as that, and even though she could withhold it long enough she didn't feel calm enough to do so today, "Its. Silver. Tongue. She spoke slowly and each word had a harsh edge to it.
"Yes, yes, but I'd rather use your real name, you can call yourself whatever you want." She said this with the same kind of calm manor as most of the teachers here did, but if you listened closely you could tell that there was a deep edginess hidden away in it. "As I was saying, The Master of Jordan College has generously paid for your application and you choose to squander it away, dreaming. Your entire career revolves around your schooling, you can't expect to dream away your adult life. I don't know what to do about you Lyra." The teacher shook her head weakly.
By now the rest of the class had been looking directly at her and she felt her cheeks blushing. However Lyra didn't look away from the teachers face. "You could let me leave." Lyra wished it sounded less like a suggestion and more like a command but she knew that she had no authority in the situation.
Several of Lyra's classmates tried to refrain from laughing but many let out small giggles. The rest had grins on their faces, eager to see how the teacher would respond.
The teacher shook her head yet again and gestured for Lyra to come into the hallway. The girls who had giggled before, did it again, but louder than before, and the more mature girls who had refrained from laughing and sat with smirks on their faces couldn't help from letting out a small giggle. But Lyra just stood up, straightened the hideous school skirt, and began walking out of the school class room. At the door way she paused, If only Will was here. If only any of them could be here, Iorek Byrnison, Serrefina Peckala, but they were, she remembered that Lee, Rodger, the gallivespians, they were all with her, their atoms were in the same room as she was. And that was calming.