The mealroom looked like a very large dining room. One could tell that it had once been an ordinary dining room. Everyone but the children, of course, for they had known nothing else.
There were long colored plastic tables that looked like they belonged in a school cafeteria. Bins and trays of cereal, eggs, and other food was stacked on a large table that had been wheeled in from the kitchens. The School had once been a hunting lodge, so the kitchens were ample.
Sarah grabbed a bowl and filled it with cornflakes.
Other: May be able to fly
She sat beside Ozymandias and Icarus, an ash-blond boy with dirty-white wings and luminous, sightless eyes. There was nothing to talk about, save how bad testing was going to be today. The testing, interspersed with joyless education, had been unrelenting. They talked for a while about what they had done during recreation time; Sarah mentioned some things that she had found out while reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Ozymandias described the interesting history book he was reading, and Icarus complained about the lack of books in Braille. He took a big bite of toast and munched thoughtfully. Blind from birth, he didn't have many problems with his condition. He was just irked that he couldn't play videogames like Max did.
"Max likes Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. But she's prettier than Lara Croft," Ozymandias said quietly, regarding a small blonde girl at the next table, who was speaking in whispers to a younger blond boy sitting across from her. A few wingless toddlers fed themselves awkwardly, attended to (with only slightly more expertise) by the four-year-old twins.
Sarah shrugged. "Tomb Raider is boring." Ozymandias looked sharply at her, and she nonchalantly took off her glasses and polished them on her smock.
"Um...long silence?" Icarus queried. "What happened?"
"Oh, nothing, Ic," Sarah laughed. "Oz is just mad because I insulted the videogame his girlfriend loves."
Ozymandias froze as the pale-blonde girl trained her bright green eyes on him. They were a very intense jewel-green, with yellow around the outer edge of the iris. Her wings were sugar-white; some of the feathers possessed an iridescent silver-blue quality, and a few blonde feathers haphazardly dotted the pristine surface.
The chesnut-haired boy swallowed, his eyes wide and offset by his fine cheekbones. He opened his mouth to say hello to Max, but never got the chance, because Matthew chose that moment to speak.
"Oz! Hi, Oz!" It was the little blond boy sitting across from Max; he was her younger brother, with wings that, although smaller than hers, were the same pure white. He looked up to Ozymandias, but Oz didn't look down on him.
"Top of the morning, Matthew." Ozymandias beamed down at the towheaded little kid.
"Hey Matthew, Max," Sarah nodded at the beautiful girl. Maximum, or Max as she was called, was only slightly older than Sarah. The firstborn. She awed all of the adults with her intelligence and grace; Uncle Thomas' pet name for her was "Tinkerbell." Max enjoyed the attention, but Sarah (perhaps by dint of sour grapes) saw right through Uncle Thomas' doting façade.
You'd have thought that it would be Sarah who escaped successfully in the end, but it wasn't. It was Max. It wasn't for lack of trying, though. And in the end, that was her downfall.
To be continued.