Chapter 2: Jessamine Elliot

8:10 am

"Alexia! Alexia hey!" I'm screaming from the back of the crowd of my classmates. One of my bff's, Alexia Luthor, is way up in the front as usual. Shes wearing her hair down, pink sleeveless blouse and white pencil skirt plus matching white sandals. She always looks so put together. She turns her head, sees me and gives a little wave. She looks upset, I see who's standing next to her and understand why. She hates her father's bodyguard. I can't help but laugh, my poor little Lexi. Thank god I don't have one of those.

I turn from Alexia and look around for my other friend. Still no sign of my "brother" I notice. My eyes stop when I spot Helena. She's off to the side, standing dangerously close to a golden goblet on display. Dangerous for the cup that is. I inch toward her to take her by surprise.

Helena is wearing black, again. The girl is ALWAYS in black. Today its a black and dark purple striped sweater, leather jacket and black skinny jeans. Black and white converse on her feet. The girl has no sense of color I think as I get closer to her.

"I know you're behind me Jess" she says.

Caught!

"How come I can never surprise you?"I ask wrapping an arm around her.

"Sneaking around is MY specialty, it's in my blood remember? Besides you always smell like flowers and cut grass. Kinda hard to miss" she says without taking her focused cat eyes off the cup.

"Regardless" I say taking my arm off her to fix a stray flower in my hair "you had better get back to the group. Mrs Reynolds just finished the intro and the tours about to start, besides, I'm not the only one to notice you over here."

She glances at our teacher whose giving Helena the 'get back in line' look. Helena is in the Outreach Program. The school's special provision for "troubled students". That means the teachers keep a close eye on her.

"Fine" she says as we make our way back over "I can always get it later." I shake my head, Helena is always looking to swipe something.

Once we get back to the group the tour starts up. Mrs. Reynolds and The Red Tornado take us through the first exhibits.

"The beginnings of heroes..." she starts, standing in front of the giant mural that greets us at the front of the Hall.

Yawn.

This tour is beyond boring. Why should I care about the origins of heroes? They don't have museums for people like MY parents now do they? And why do I have to be here if my "brother"still inst? I am so telling mom on him when I get home. I don't care if he says "shes not my mother" he'll still get in trouble. I smile as I think of my mom, I love her and dad. Even if Tommy says dad is not my real dad.

See mom can't really have kids. Being part plant kinda makes that difficult. So when she married my father, the brilliant surgeon Thomas Elliot, she had to be creative. She developed a special seed taking from both of their DNA, planted and nurtured it, then nine weeks later pulled me out of the ground. Her beautiful baby born from earth. My skin covered in light green leaves, my hair dark red, my eyes blue like my fathers. They couldn't be more proud. My mom says I made their family whole.

My brother disagrees.

Tommy is my dads son from before he met my mother. I don't know who his mother was, no one talks about her. Either way Tommy hates us, me & mom. I try not to be offended though considering he hates almost everyone, except Spade that is. All alone in his separate part of the house, I swear he's plotting all of our deaths in there. It makes me shudder to think about.

If only he could be more like me, beloved by our parents and pretty much everyone. Bringing life everywhere I go. Literally. Wherever I walk flower and grass sprout up behind me.

Yeah life is good, minus this boring field trip!

I look ahead at my teacher, and imagine the potted plants lining the walls grabbing her and holding her upside down. Wouldn't that be funny?!

I turn to the plants and move my hand, beckoning them to do my will. Slowly the vines grow and stretch across the floor till they reach Mrs. Reynolds shoes. They wrap around her feet and as I pull my hand back, they yank her to the ground.

Yes! I think only it's not my teacher who falls down. The whole class has gathered around Briana Wayne, it was her shoe my vines grabbed. Maybe I need more practice.

Whoops.

Her brother Diruce and The Red Tornado help her up and fuss around Gotham's little princess. I glance over at her half sister and see Helena's visual disgust.

"I'm fine, I'm fine really" Briana starts "must have just tripped" she says to everyone but looks at me. I shrug my shoulder and mouth a fake sorry. She turns and Mrs. Reynolds continues talking. As everyone starts moving again Helena comes up to me and gives me a secret high five.

"Good job tripping the princess" she practically purrs.

"Thanks" I say and we both laugh. We link arms and keep up with the class. Like I said, life is good.