Gabriel had still been in a brooding bad temper when he got to school, but it had slowly dissipated as his day went on. He had gotten an A on his quiz in English and there had been an interesting discussion in History about how the railroad had changed warfare. As school days went today wasn't bad.
The lunch bell rang and Gabriel worked his way through the crowd down to his locker. He caught his reflection in the small magnetic mirror on the inside of the door as he pulled it open. His eyeliner had gotten smudged. That had probably been there all morning. Gabriel sighed, he was sure there was something in the world that was more embarrassing than having to fix your makeup in a high school boys bathroom, but if there was he hadn't discovered it yet. He brushed the smudge with his thumb, trying not to bring attention to himself.
"Hey fag!" Gabriel heard a voice shout. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Derek Kingsley loping down the hall toward him, two of his fellow hicks in tow, insipid grins plastered across their broad stupid faces. So much for not bringing attention to himself, he thought with frustration.
"Whatsamatter GAY-briel?" Derek sneered, "Is your mascara running?"
Gabriel tried very hard not to roll his eyes. Derek and his cronies usually got bored with him fast enough. Taylor Macintosh, the smallest member of Derek's posse, pulled Gabriel's mirror from the inside of his locker door and threw it. It skidded down the hallway as the three jerks closed in around him.
"That's a real nice blouse, fag," Ross Cleary snarled, "Did you make it yourself?" he shoved Gabriel back into his locker. The edge of the door caught him painfully in the wing. Gabriel gritted his teeth tighter and tried not to react, it would only spur them on.
"Hey!" another voice shouted from behind Ross, "Hey, I'm talking to you!" Derek, Ross and Taylor wheeled around and stepped far enough apart for Gabriel to see between them.
Gabriel groaned inwardly. Sera Peterson, wearing a shirt with sleeves that hung nearly to her knees, a flowing ankle length skirt and earrings whose dangling ends came to rest on her collar bone had come to his rescue. She stood with one hand on her hip, the other hand was pointed at Derek and clutching the mirror. Gabriel was going to be rescued by a loony dressed like a damsel in distress.
"Helping a fellow freak Sera?" Derek leered at her.
"Why don't you jackasses go gang up on someone at your own IQ level?" she spat, "Then maybe you can wipe each other out and save the rest of us the pain of your company."
"Ouch," Ross laughed, "Someone didn't take their Midol this morning."
Sera rolled her eyes ostentatiously, "Ooohhh good one Cleary. I get it. Because I'm a woman all my actions are a result of hormones," her skirt swung back and forth as she stepped toward him coming to stop with her finger poking into his ribs and her nose inches from his "But because you're an idiot all your actions are based on intolerance and a fear of falling outside the norm lest you be mocked as you mock others," she poked him in the ribs again, hard enough that he flinched and stepped further back from her, "Or maybe you are driven by your own latent homosexuality."
Ross had backed so far away from Sera that he was nearly pressed into Taylor, who had been standing behind him. Looking distinctly overwhelmed Ross glanced at Derek, who shrugged, then at Gabriel, and then back at Sera.
"You're a bitch," He hissed lamely before edging away from her. He looked to Derek again as though he couldn't leave without his leader's okay.
"Maybe we should leave the little freaks alone, fellas," Derek tried to leer, but his grin was rather feeble as he gave Gabriel the obligatory post-harassment push and walked off with Taylor and Ross scurrying behind him. Taylor turned back and made a very rude gesture. In return Sera mockingly mimed being stabbed through the heart.
She sighed throatily and turned away from the three retreating boys to face Gabriel "Here's your mirror," she said casually, holding it out to him. Gabriel took it carefully. Like most people he thought Sera was disconcertingly odd. The way she dressed, the way she talked, the way any paper she was asked to write was always at least 2 pages longer than the guidelines suggested it should be. She was nice enough, but whenever she talked to him in English class he was always suspicious of her motives. She hung out with a group of people that comprised the weird hippie kids, the few gay kids outside of the theater department, and the only three kids in school that couldn't hide the fact that they were Mutants. Gabriel was under the impression that she collected interesting specimens to add to this group and that she was trying to recruit him because of his unique manner of dress. If she only knew how different he really was.
"Thanks," he said after a small uncomfortable pause.
"No worries, any excuse to get on Ross Cleary's case. That guy is such an asshole," She made a violent gesture. Her sleeves flapped.
"Yeah," Gabriel agreed, uncomfortably fiddling with putting his book away. He wished she would walk away.
"Howdya do on the quiz today?" She inquired.
"Oh, fine," Gabriel said, still with his head in his locker.
"I ended up just spark noting the last chapter because I hate the book so much. What do you think?"
"Oh you know, it's Huck Finn. It's boring and you spend the whole time wondering why it was ever popular and why we still read it," he emerged from his locker with his lunch bag and glanced at Sera, who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, before he pretended to be preoccupied with stuffing books into his bag.
Sera laughed appreciatively, "Yeah. I don't agree with banning books, but every time Mrs. Mahill assigns us a block of chapters I think I could make an exception for that one," she twirled an earring around her finger, "Your point about the symbolism of the river was interesting though."
"Um... thanks." Gabriel said self-consciously.
"Oh, hey! Gladys!" Sera called to a blonde girl down the hall. Gabriel saw Gladys look up to see who had called her name and felt his stomach begin to tighten as she gave him and Sera a friendly wave and walked over to them.
Like most of the other kids at school, Gabriel did his best to avoid the three known Mutants. They made him nervous, none more so than Gladys Miller. She might have been very pretty if she had stayed normal. She had a pale, heart shaped face and wavy blonde hair that flowed to just above her waist, but her most striking feature was her eyes. They were noticeably larger than normal people's and more protuberant, and were entirely midnight blue. There were no pupils, no irises, no whites, just patches of midnight blue peeking out from under her eye lids. Whenever her creepy gaze fell on him in the hallways, or in Math class, (which they had together) he felt like she was looking right into him, and all his secrets were laid bare. It gave him chills.
The fact that she had been relatively popular when they were younger also scared Gabriel. She had been, if not the Queen of the sixth grade, one of the better liked princesses. But on the first day of seventh grade the rest of the Middle School High Court had arrived in the hall ways with their new haircuts and new clothes and she shown up with oversized sunglasses, which had preserved her precarious perch pretty well, until class started and she was forced to remove them.
Gabriel hadn't been there, but everyone had heard the story. There had been a total uproar. People had run screaming from the room, a few had burst into other classrooms to shout out the news. Gladys had been dragged to the principal's office and her parents were called to come and take her home. They had come but refused to let their daughter be sent home. There had been a very long and loud argument between the principal and the Miller that had finally ended when the harassed old man had been completely unable to find any clause in the school rules or bylaws that specifically prevented Gladys from staying. The fact that Gladys had fallen so far down the social ladder because of something as minor as her eyes made Gabriel worry what might happen to him if anyone found out exactly how much of a freak he really was.
"Hey guys," Gladys greeted them fixing her strange eyes on each of them in turn.
"Hey," Gabriel replied, clutching his lunch uncomfortably and wondering how rude it would be to leave the two girls at his locker and go eat in peace.
"Can you still go over that worksheet with me? I couldn't do, like, the last 10 problems," Sera said, then added for Gabriel "I'm so terrible at math it's just sad."
"Yeah, no problem," Gladys said, "I'll grab mine out of my locker."
"Groovy," Sera and Gladys started off down the hall and Gabriel gave a small sigh of relief.
"Oh, gosh," Sera stopped suddenly and turned back, "Gabriel, do you want to eat lunch with us?"
Gabriel was completely taken aback, "Oh! Well... I was... actually..." he stammered. Gladys looked at him as though he were a worm on the bottom of her shoe.
"I don't bite, you know," she said stiffly.
"No! no, it's just that..." I always eat alone? The thought finished itself in his head and sounded awful, "Never mind. Yeah. Sure."
And he walked down the hall with Sera and Gladys, who were verbally abusing their abysmal Math teacher, realizing that the three of them together really didn't garner more surreptitious glances than he did all by himself.