Before anything else, I should introduce myself.

My name is Nerida Lily Jackson, and I am blind.

Well, not completely blind, but I'll get to that in a minute. First things first, yes my name really is Nerida, and no of course I did not choose that name for myself, what kind of dumbass asks that question? Of course, the answer is the kind of kid who attends Yancy Academy. These fancy snobs were already getting on my nerves, and I'd been here for all of five wonderful minutes. In that time, I had been tripped over three times, had several projectiles thrown at my head, and I'm fairly certain I'll return to my seat and find something stuck to it if my intuition was any good. I was late starting on account of certain transfer issues that I shall not go into since they're not important, but now that I was here, I already hated the place. The only reason I'd asked for a transfer in the first place, begged practically, was because my brother was here. My little brother, Percy. He was…I won't be delicate about it. He's a moron. He was one of the biggest pains in my ass to ever exist, and he was always getting into some kind of trouble which ended up with an expulsion from one school or another, but to be honest, it usually wasn't entirely his fault, or at least he'd never meant anything malicious by it. It was like bad luck just followed him around like a shadow, and often I'd be caught up in it in some way or another. Seriously. Little brothers were supposed to be annoying, I get that, but Percy sometimes took it to a whole new level. Anyway, enough about him for the moment, I wasn't finished introducing myself. So, like I said before, my name is Nerida Lily Jackson, but I just go by the name Lily, only my mom calls me Nerida and because she's my mom, I let her. This honour extends literally to no one else. Not even Percy. So, Lily was how I introduced myself to the class, hands delved deep into my pockets as I listened to them all gasp and whisper about me as I felt their stares practically boring holes into me.

Sure, I'm blind but I have pretty sharp ears, and these guys weren't even trying to be quiet. Rude. It's like they've never seen a blind person before, but I guess being private academy students, the poor darlings must have been raised in such sheltered homes. Although a private school, it was still a school for trouble makers and castaways, the kids whose family's had thrown away just to be rid of the problem rather than dealing with it at least during the school semester. You could tell it was a private school from the way it smelled. It didn't have that grungy, sweaty smell most public school had, it was fairly clean, though it wasn't exactly pristine. I could still smell the salty sweat of a handful of kids in this special class for the special kids, meaning the kids that the school didn't have any clue how to handle or know what to do with. At least for now. So I had been shoved in here, lucky me, but one good thing about me being blind was that people tended to avoid me, like my blindness was contagious so that was something at least.

Standing at the front of the class I tapped my wrist against my side, jittering slightly as I became agitated from standing still too long, feeling a little restless as I rushed through my introduction with a droning tone that could not convey the full extent of how little I cared about talking to these kids. I mean, come on this was the eighth grade, in another year we'll all be freshmen in High School somewhere, and none of us will care about those new kids either. What was the point, really? Even after I sat down where, of course something had been stuck to my seat and I was delighted to find it to be gum from the sticky consistency of it as I fumbled around to check and had it stick to my hand, the teacher just carried on about one thing or another until I was bored out of my mind. In the end I just pulled my headphones over my ears and listened to an audiobook reading just to pass the time as I closed my eyes since I was starting to get a headache.

Now. To explain the elephant in the room. Yes I was 'technically' blind, but that didn't exactly mean I couldn't see. First off, I have excellent senses in other areas, my hearing was pretty good, and I could feel a lot of my surroundings simply by feeling the emptiness around me being filled by shapes and density of things, if that made any sense whatsoever. Other than that, I wasn't totally blind, but rather my eyes were filled with a kind of greyness with a grainy texture that constantly shifted and sometimes took on the shapes of the things I was seeing so long as they were large, so usually people. But this gave me headaches, so often I just closed my eyes and ignored the world around me to block it all out. Music and books were my only solace, as well as temperatures and textures. I adored the feeling of sunlight as it warmed my skin and seemingly filled me to the core with a sense of peace and comfort just as much as I enjoyed the feeling of rain surrounding me in a downpour. When it rained I could almost see better, though Percy thought I was just fooling myself on that count. Perhaps he was right. He thought I was as big an irritation as I found him, but in truth we loved each other deeply, and no one was allowed to mess with the other's sibling. Often Percy would get into fights if someone tried to take advantage of my blindness or try to make me a target because I was vulnerable, which often ended in expulsion because teachers suck.

Similarly, if ever I found out that Percy was being picked on, or he was in trouble somehow, then I was always there to defend him. Blind? Yes. Helpless? Definitely not. I had an extremely useful trait of repulsion that seemed to surround me. Wherever I went, just a single look from my pale, sightless eyes sent people in the opposite direction. I've been told more than once by blunt mouthed people that my eyes were freaky. Not only were they almost colourless in appearance, but I had very distinctive scarring around the corners of my eyes that appeared almost like forks of lightning had been etched onto my skin. Of course I couldn't see what they meant, but to me I thought that sounded pretty cool. I mean. I sometimes felt pretty badass? I don't know. Who cares really? I've been blind since childhood, when I was really young though I don't remember when exactly, or how. It just sort of happened. Hence I knew what colours were and things in general, I'm not dumb. However I had been blind for so long it had become normal, and it no longer affected me like it used to. Now the insults and whispers just rolled over me and I drowned them out one way or another, closing myself off from the outside world as I began to fiddle with the bracelet around my wrist. My mom had given it to me…god I don't even know when. Forever ago. I'd worn it every day since, and to be honest I didn't feel comfortable without it. From what I could tell, it felt like a simple chain which had surprisingly withstood the test of time and my clumsiness, meaning it never broke and shockingly, never got lost. The few times I had misplaced it, it always turned up somewhere to be found, usually in my pocket though I'd have no recollection of ever putting it there. On the chain, however, was a charm shaped like a seashell with two pearls either side, and I liked to think of it as my lucky charm. It went with me wherever I went, like a sense of security or protection. Mom always said it would keep me safe, and although those had just been words for a scared little girl who'd woken up blind one day, it still held sentimental value.

God, how long left until this stupid lesson was over? To be honest, I have no idea actually what kind of lesson this is supposed to be. Was it math? Or Science? Literature? Who knew? I wasn't paying attention, and I'm pretty sure none of the other students were either from the way they were talking and fooling around. One kid I'm pretty sure fell off his seat, feeling the chair scrape back against the floor which sent shooting vibrations up my foot as a body struck the ground near me, but I ignored them. I stayed in my own little world until I heard a bell go and felt the rush of everyone standing up around me, indicating that class was over. I carried nothing with me other than my headphones and cellphone which held all my music and audio tracks, so I just got up and ghosted a hand over the back of the seats to make my way in the general direction of the door as I could pretty much guess the size of the classroom from the way it felt, and remembered where I had been shown in before. This show of independence, however, caught the attention of a couple of students who began to whisper at one another again. "Dude, I thought she was blind. How does she know where the door is?"

"I dunno. Maybe she's faking." Idiots. Just ignore them. "Hey!" Ignore them. Ignore them Lily. "Hey you! I'm talking to you! Hey!" When a hand grabbed hold of my arm, I immediately shook them off and turned what I hoped to be a dark scowl upon them which immediately caused them to back off, sensing them moving away from me as I heard them gulp. "Um…are you, like, actually…you know?"

"Blind?" I offered blankly, already losing my patience as I tapped my wrist against my side in irritation, just a thing I did. "Yeah, I am. So get out of my way and don't come near me or you might catch what I got." If I could see, I would imagine this kid would have a really stupid look of shock and horror on his face, and I wished so desperately I could see it as the mere sound of his voice breaking caused me to grin wickedly.

"It's contagious?!"

"Oh for sure. That's why I had to leave my old school. Over half the kids were infected when I was asked to leave." The girls all screamed and I felt a sudden rush of people either fleeing for the exit or getting as far away from me as possible. So gullible, I mean come on, who heard of contagious blindness? At least I could have some fun with my own condition, that was something at least. So feeling rather pleased with myself I left the classroom and went on my way, ignoring the fact that I was supposed to wait for someone to come and collect me so that they could lead me about the school since I was new and would most likely get lost. Although this seemed likely, I had a strangely good sense of direction, and it almost always pointed me directly to where Percy was. It was like he was my homing beacon, always drawing me back towards him wherever we went. It was great when we were out and about and he'd get lost, because I'd lead my mom to where he was and she'd have her little freak out but then we'd all be good again.

It was difficult at first getting my bearings, but being able to at least feel the absence of space and the moving tide of people helping to guide me along, I was able to follow the corridors in a general direction without too much bother. I refused to use a cane on principle because well, being blind was well enough. Walking around with a cane just wouldn't help me in this kind of situation. These kids would probably steal it and beat me with it first, so I wasn't about to walk around with my own bludgeoning weapon to hand directly over to them. No way, I could manage well enough on my own, so long as I took the time to familiarise myself with my surroundings. Anyway I think Percy's around here somewhere, I can sense him ahead and it didn't take too long for him to spot me since kids were starting to part ways around me, sending me dirty looks as I passed which I pointedly ignored. They can all go screw themselves anyway. "Hey Perce." I said to the open air, coming to a halt so that he had to make the effort to walk the rest of the way to me.

"Hey Lils, how was it?"

"No idea, I had my headphones on the entire time." Shrugging my shoulders, I turned my head slightly when I heard the sound of rather…odd…footsteps coming to a halt beside Percy. I'm not exactly sure what sounded weird about them because I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but my confusion clearly showed on my expression because my brother then asked me what was wrong. "Nothing. Is there someone next to you?"

"Oh, yeah this is Grover. He's a friend."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you. I'm Grover Underwood. Percy told me a little about you." The friend did not sound like what I expected from another twelve year old kid. Like I said before, my ears were sharp. Not so much that I could hear things from miles away or, like, a needle hitting the floor in Grand Central Station, nothing stupid like that, but I guess they were perceptive. I could pick up on the tiniest of nuances, the subtle intonations in a person's tone and with practice, had become rather adept at placing people's age, height and even their accent. With Grover, I could do none of this, and that stunned me at first. He sounded older than twelve, but if he was Percy's friend then he couldn't be that much older, right? More than that, there was a subtle reverberation in his voice at certain points which I almost missed but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I had heard something odd. Maybe I was just going crazy. Nodding my head I acknowledged Grover, managing a brief smile before returning my attention on Percy, asking him how class had been but all he had to say was that it sucked and there was a girl who was a real pain. Nancy something.

"Come on Perce, just hit her with a book or something and let it be over with. I doubt she'd mess with you again after that." I told him as I sighed heavily and folded my arms, staring off into space as I listened to the rhythm of footsteps around me, catching a rather spicy scent that caused my head to turn slightly out of interest because it smelled delicious, like curry. I guess it must have been one of the students, though I couldn't be sure.

"Shouldn't you be telling me to just…I don't know, ignore her? Tell a teacher? Something like that?" Percy questioned me however I just snorted, fiddling with my bracelet as I started to feel agitated and anxious as the hallways grew increasingly crowded and people started to become pressed against me as they fought their way through, shouts and yells rising in my ears as the boisterous and unruly students of Yancy Academy began their antics as lazy teachers ignored things like someone setting fire to something, it sounded like burning paper so I'm gonna go with a textbook of some kind.

"Please. When has that ever worked for us? You know it's either kill or be killed in this kind of backwards society. Stand your ground, little bro, if not then just send her my way. I'll make sure that she walks away sobbing somehow." To this end, I could literally feel Percy's scowl as he looked at me, but it gradually withered away into a smirk as I felt his shoulder shrug against mine as we pressed our backs into the wall to let the main flow of traffic pass us by as a teacher finally caught onto the fact that one of the students was setting fire to stuff. A real pyromaniac. "Man. Sometimes I wish I had a cane. It would be so much fun to use it to trip people over right now and just listen to the carnage that followed."

"Wow, that's a little dark." I heard Grover mutter to Percy, which of course only made me grin all the more.

"I'm blind, I can be as dark as I want so don't judge the humour Mr Clip-Clop." Both Percy and Grover stuttered, though my brother did it more out of confusion and humour whilst Grover just sounded shocked and started to stutter wildly, asking me what was up with the sudden nickname whilst most likely going red in the face. I couldn't tell, but he sounded like he was blushing, he had that kind of tone going on. "It's the sound you made when you walked just now. It was bugging me for a bit just then but now I think I got it. Anyway, what's happening now? Is there another class?"

"Yeah, let me see your schedule a second and we can take you to your next class if you want."

"I don't need a babysitter Perce, I can get there fine on my own."

"Oh really? In a school you've never been to before?" Kid had a point, but I didn't exactly want to admit that. He was already digging into my pocket and looking for my schedule that I'd crumbled up somewhere so I begrudgingly let him with a roll of my eyes. "You'd think they'd give you a schedule in Braille or something. How do they expect you to read this?"

"Haven't you noticed? They're not exactly bright here." To this end Percy did not disagree, scanning my schedule before I heard his tone brighten, meaning he was smiling.

"Hey, you've got Mr Brunner next, he's cool. He teaches Latin here, we'll take you to the class." And so I ended up with both Percy and Grover as my escort to my next class as I mapped out more of the school in my head, remembering all the turns and the number of steps it took to get to each change of direction until Percy took my hand in order to lightly place it upon the handle of the door leading to the classroom. I pushed it open but didn't step inside, letting the door swing wide in order to gather myself for a moment. My head was hurting with all the noise going on around me and my eyes were starting to throb as the grainy grayscale texture of my non-existent vision went a little nuts on me. With a wince I started to rub at my temple, feeling a little lightheaded but it settled after a few deep breaths as a deep but rather gentle voice sounded from within the class a few paces away from the door.

"Percy, Grover, who have you brought here today? Is this perhaps a new student?"

"Yes sir, this is my sister Lily. We were just showing her the way here." Percy offered and I detected a little bashfulness in his voice, as well as the sense that he didn't want to hang around too long. I thought he said Mr Brunner was cool? "Well, good luck sis. See you later."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I waved him off but smiled to myself, listening as his and Grover's footsteps started to recede from my hearing. Huh. Grover really did go 'clip-clop' for some reason. It was like he was totally flat-footed or something and I kind of wanted to ask him why. Anyway now wasn't the time, and so I stepped into the class and took a deep breath but immediately regretted it as my face scrunched up in distaste and my head swivelled towards where I thought the teacher was sitting. "I smell horse."

"I beg your pardon?" Clearly what I said was shocking to the guy, however he quickly cleared his throat and attempted to pass it off with an apology for his brusqueness and invited me to take a seat. "Do you need assistance finding a place to sit, young lady?" Shaking my head, I surveyed the room and got a general for its size and shape, reaching out with my hand to feel for the first table. From there I was able to find my way to the very back and picked out a seat by the window, which was large and cooling because of the glass with direct sunlight, which allowed me to feel like I was photosynthesising and my headache eased off a little as I rubbed my temple again. Must be the stress of a first day at a new school. A sucky one, at that. Really glad I got here on the government's dollar otherwise mom would so be wasting her money. "Are you certain you will be alright back there, Miss Jackson? Will you be able to hear me?"

"Sure thing. Loud and clear." I offered whilst secretly muttering that I had no intention of hearing anything in the first place. I mean, come on. Latin? Why give me a class where it would be pretty much entirely impossible for me to learn anything since I couldn't see? They hadn't even issued me a laptop or anything yet for me to type with so I could do work, though I could just envision that thing getting trashed by these kids so maybe I wouldn't be getting one after all. I had been assigned a tutor, though, someone to help me with my work and also be some kind of counsellor, so that was going to be fun. I had no idea who it was going to be, however, since it appeared Yancy Academy functioned on very poor organisation skills and their administrative department seemed to still be working weeks behind schedule. I was lucky to even get a class schedule today, to be honest.

"Excellent. Now is there anything I can do for you to make it easier for you to learn in my class? I should warn you now that I do not accept laziness, everyone must participate." Mr Brunner continued to speak to me even as I started to raise my headphones to cover my ears. "And I am also afraid that listening to music is not allowed in class. You shall have to put those away or hand them over." Now that was just unacceptable.

"I get headaches, sir. These help to drown out the excess noise around me. I can't hand them over. I need them." Frowning deeply, I held onto my headphones possessively. This dude better not try taking them from me, or we were going to have problems. Listening, I heard him approach me but there were no footsteps, only the light squeak of something metallic and the sound of wheels turning. It threw me for a second, however when finally Mr Brunner reached me and spoke again, I realised that he was at the same height as me when I was sitting down. Which could only mean one thing. He was in a wheelchair. I was surprised, since Percy gave me no forewarning about that little detail, the jerk.

"These headaches, do they affect you often?"

"Often enough." He still smelled of horse, I just couldn't ignore it. It was practically hitting me in the face, so I couldn't help but ask the question that was bugging me. "Do you own horses or something? Because the smell of them is literally all over you." To his credit Mr Brunner wasn't offended, he didn't even get angry or scold me or anything, but instead he smiled. I could hear it through the gentle and oddly soothing tone of his voice as I listened to him and felt my headache naturally ease itself off.

"No, I do not own horses. Perhaps I simply smell like an old man to you. Now, back to my original question, how can I modify my lesson to better assist you?" Okay, now I understand why Percy thought Mr Brunner was pretty cool. Cooler than all the other teachers, at least. His lessons were fun, and I found myself listening with interest as we were all taught Latin and since Mr Brunner literally took no nonsense from anyone, none bothered playing up in class so it was pretty chill. He did his best to help me learn by speaking clearly and slowly for me to follow along with his words, and putting them into context or stories to help remember them. By the time the next lesson with him rolled around, I arrived at my seat to find a pile of books all written in Braille, to help me learn. He must have paid for these out of his own pocket, because none of my other Braille textbooks had come yet. He was strict, but good humoured, and I found myself rather enjoying his lessons even when most of the time I hadn't a clue what he was talking about.

So I agreed with my brother, Mr Brunner was pretty awesome. Mrs Dodds, however? She was a whole other story. She liked to pick on me for some reason and Percy said he had the same problem. She had her clear favourites, usually the worst behaved kids in the class who always acted sweeter than sugar around her, but turned into absolute monsters in her absence. God she was annoying, and whenever I was near her I always had this tart, burning smell in my noise, with a slight acrid tone which to me smelled like sulphur. I have no idea what kind of soap she used, but it clearly wasn't doing her any favours. Anyway, I sucked at math, so she hated me. It was as simple as that really. Sometimes she'd call on me to read or write something on the board to answer a problem, only to then have the class snort and laugh at me as I would just zone out and let it all wash over me, fiddling with my charm all the while. Pre-algebra. Who used algebra in the modern world anyway? This was such a waste of time. I'm bored here, she wasn't even a good teacher, I don't think I can recall her actually teaching, just a load of senseless droning of her voice that I could barely pay attention to, and often gave up trying.

Anyway, so that was school, and this is me. It's nothing exciting, and school could totally be a lot better, but hey I get to laze around and skip classes a lot with no one caring so I can't really complain. Soon enough I just abandoned Mrs Dodds' class altogether and never got in trouble for it, because if ever I was brought up on it, I'd just say I got lost and people would believe me. That excuse didn't exactly work with my support tutor, however, who as it turned out, happened to be Mr Brunner, and soon I didn't have any excuses whatsoever to be behind on work. He'd tutor me privately in one-on-one sessions at the library or in his office depending, and I'd work on the computer which he'd set up with special programs just for me. That part was kind of cool, having learned to type very accurately and whenever I needed to, I could just playback what I'd written through audio, or I could just speak what I wanted and the computer would translate my words into type speech as I said it. As far as I was aware, this was pretty high end stuff, and admittedly it did make life a whole lot easier.

Mr Brunner encouraged me to pursue my own interests and work at my own pace, especially with things like history. He was big into that, so I ended up learning a great deal about ancient history and some of the myths which he seemed to know everything about. Literally, I could give him any topic concerning Ancient Greece and he could talk for hours on the subject. It was pretty impressive, though I dozed off once or twice since he did tend to go on a little too much sometimes. Other times I got so restless my knee would be jumping up and down so much that the entire table would shake, and Mr Brunner would finally consent to a break. He was by far the best teacher at the whole school, and him being there made it tolerable, I guess. Soon enough an entire week had passed, allowing me to kick back and relax for a while as well as catch up with Percy, who had once again gotten into trouble for something that wasn't exactly his fault. Honestly. Adults could be so dumb and blind. And that's coming from me.