Many thanks to Vilinye for the review and encouragement!

Chapter Two: Registering Human

After Sarah Jane departed, Sky stood on tippy-toes and peered through the mysterious little window into the classroom beyond. It was bright and filled with people, and Sky swallowed.

She'd never had to face so many people, so many humans, all at once before… She took a deep breath and opened the door, just enough to allow her to slip through. Most people glanced at her, and she quailed, unsure of what to do next.

The blonde woman who was talking about something (it might as well have been Judoon for all the sense Sky could make of it) finally turned and looked at her.

'You're late,' she said shortly. 'There's a seat waiting for you next to Al.'

Sky's brow wrinkled. 'But how do you know who I am?' she asked uncertainly.

'Don't be cheeky,' the blonde woman snapped. 'Take your seat and we'll get on.

'But-' Sky protested, but she was interrupted by a hand waving from the third row.

'Your seat's here,' an unseen voice announced in lugubrious tones.

'But-' Sky tried again, thoroughly confused. 'Aren't I supposed to register?'

The blonde woman sighed. 'Oh, for – You're Sky Smith, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Sky said, reduced to unaccustomed meekness by the woman's brusque manner.

'Yes, Miss Jones,' that lady snapped. 'Girl wonder or not, I won't tolerate rudeness.'

'I wasn't,' Sky started, her eyes starting to fill from bewilderment.

'Just sit down,' Miss Jones told her wearily. 'Of all the insane things,' she continued in an undertone that Sky could hear as she passed. 'Who makes a child start school on a Friday?'

Sky stiffened at the implicit criticism of Sarah Jane, but the owner of the hand was standing up, pointing at the seat next to him, and she took the hint and subsided into the uncomfortable chair.

'It makes perfect sense,' she muttered, darting an unfriendly glance towards Miss Jones at the top of the classroom. 'She just doesn't understand.'

'Grown-ups don't,' her neighbour agreed glumly.

Sky looked at him with sudden interest. He was the first person who'd tried to be nice.

'You're awfully short,' she said in some surprise. 'You're even shorter than me. And you're ginger,' she continued, reaching out a hand to try to touch the short carroty spikes that covered his head. 'I've never seen anyone ginger before.'

'And you're weird,' Ginger Boy retorted, shying away from her touch. He reached up to smooth the spikes, his magnified eyes glaring at her from behind his round spectacles, making him look like an indignant insect.

'I know,' Sky agreed easily. 'Are you Al?'

'Yeah,' he said gruffly. 'Al … Potter,' he admitted, giving her a wary sideways look.

Sky held out her hand. 'I'm Sky Smith,' she said, using the tone she'd heard Sarah Jane use in similar situations. 'Pleased to meet you.'

Al shook her fingers carefully, as if he thought they might turn into something sharp and pointy. 'You're definitely weird.'

And the pair grinned at each other, a new alliance formed.

'Will you two be quiet?' Miss Jones bellowed from the top of the room, causing them to jump violently. 'Otherwise, Sky Smith, you'll have detention on your very first day!'

Sky blinked at her. 'I don't mind,' she said. 'Clyde says detention is cool, but not to tell Sarah Jane.'

'Shhhh!' Al hissed, jogging her with his elbow. 'Can't you see she's pissed off? Prob'ly got PMT,' he continued with the weary patience of a boy all too accustomed to feminine vagaries. 'If you don't shut up she'll put us all in detention – and we'll lose most of our lunch.'

This was all the hint Sky needed. For the rest of the morning until the bell rang for break, she said exactly nothing, a worried line deepening between her brows.

At break time, she was abducted by Rani when that young woman passed her on her way to the coke machine.

'How's it going?' the Sixth former asked, dropping her coins in once they reached it. 'Made any friends yet?'

Sky opened her eyes widely. 'How can I make friends when I'm not allowed to talk?' she asked. 'There's only one person who's been nice so far,' she continued sadly, 'and that's a boy called Al. Imagine,' she went on confidentially, leaning against the coke machine to watch the machinery with some fascination, 'he's ginger, really properly ginger!'

Rani looked amused. 'Why does that matter?'

'The Doctor wanted to be ginger,' Sky said vaguely as she watched the coke smash its way into the bottom of the machine, ready for collection. 'Sarah Jane said so. I didn't know what she meant until today.'

'What about Miss Jones?' Rani asked, breaking open her can. 'Dad said he would be putting you with her.'

Sky wilted. 'She doesn't like me. She's horrible.'

'She didn't like Luke much either,' Clyde said, his head appearing behind Rani's left shoulder. 'Doesn't like anyone much, does Jonesy.'

'Why did your dad want me to go with her, then?' Sky asked.

Rani shrugged, absently handing her can to Clyde. 'Because she's a good teacher, and she won't treat you differently, no matter how brilliant you are.'

'But I'm not,' Sky burst out, her eyes filling again. 'Everyone keeps saying I'm like Luke, but he was a genius and … I'm not, I'm just … sparky, that's all!'

She turned away from the coke machine and her friends, determined to get away. School was proving to be more terrible than her worst fears, and all she wanted was to go home… but she could not even go there, she thought despairingly as she ran. Sarah Jane expected her to be brilliant, like Luke, and she wasn't, she was just … Sky.

'Oh, bugger!' Clyde breathed with unparliamentary fervency as the small girl disappeared into the heaving crowd of teenagers. 'The bell's about to go any second. Now what are we s'posed to do?'

'That's not the only thing,' Rani told him, one long finger pointing upwards. 'Look at the lights. They're flickering.'

Clyde groaned and leaned heavily against the nearest wall. 'Worse and worse. Thought Sarah Jane said she was just an ordinary kid now?'

'We've never seen her really, really upset before,' Rani said thoughtfully, chewing a fingernail. 'After all, she was created as a weapon. That can't be completely wiped out. The question is, how far does the disruption go?'

Clyde's expression morphed from worry to dawning glee as the bell started to jingle. 'Yeah, and you know what we've got next?' he asked, jabbing Rani's upper arm with a light punch. 'ECDL, that's what. An' if all the computers are down… no beer.' He chortled and adjusted his bag on his shoulders. 'Suits me fine, I'm behind in my art coursework –'

'Clyde!' Rani hissed. 'Stop and think. This is Sky we're talking about. I know Sarah Jane said we had to let her sort out her own problems, but … shouldn't we try to find her? Just in case? Imagine what Sky could do if she got really, really upset…'

The lights flickered a final time and died, and Clyde glanced up. 'Yeah,' he said, his glee evaporating. 'You're right. We'd better find her before more unexplained things start happening.' He adjusted his bag again. 'Should we phone Sarah Jane?'

Rani stood and thought. 'No,' she decided after a pause. 'We can sort this out ourselves, can't we? After all, it's just Sky, an upset kid, not an alien invasion or the end of the world!'

She headed off in the direction that Sky had gone, ignoring Clyde's muttered 'famous last words' and her own inner conviction that where the Smith family was concerned, nothing was ever simple.

'Where's the new girl?' Mrs Pittman asked when 7BJ came to her for their history lesson after break. 'I thought the Head said she was starting today?'

'She did,' Al told her. 'But she's disappeared.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Mrs Pittman scolded. 'People don't just disappear,' she scoffed. 'Al, run along to the office and find out if they know where she is.'

Al gave a longsuffering sigh and obeyed, his glum expression deepening as he winded his way through the school's corridors in his journey to reception. He had little hope of the office staff treated him seriously, message from Mrs Pittman or no; chances were that he'd be told that they were sure Sky'd be fine and then they'd tell him to run along. If he was really unlucky, they'd even pat him on the head. That was the worst of being short and ginger, he thought resentfully. No-one ever took him seriously, especially not wom-

'Oooof,' he grunted as he walked into something tall. He squinted up and shrank back as he recognised the tall dark girl who he'd been told was the Headmaster's daughter.

'I'm sorry,' he squeaked. Today was going downhill, fast.

'It's fine, kiddo,' Rani told him absently, her eyes scanning the air above his head. 'Where're you off to anyway?'

'Mrs Pittman sent me,' Al told her hurriedly. They didn't have prefects at Park Vale, but Rani was a Sixth former and she was the Head's daughter. Who knew what she'd do him if she thought he was indulging in a little illicit wandering?

'Why?' Rani asked, sounding truly interested, and Al relaxed. P'rhaps nothing awful was gonna happen after all.

'That new girl in my form, Sky Smith, she's vanished,' he said. 'I know it sounds dumb,' he added quickly before Rani could behave like all the other grown ups, 'but she's gone. I can't find her anywhere, and I looked – even in the Girls',' he ended in a sheepish whisper.

Rani peered at him in a way that made him oddly uncomfortable, as if wheels were turning in her mind. 'Are you Al?'

'So what 'fiam?' he responded, a touch aggressively.

Much to his surprise, Rani beamed at him and clapped him on the shoulder. 'Pleased to meet you, Al. Sky told me about you. She said you're friends.'

'Sort of,' Al agreed warily, ignoring the warmth that welled within him at her words. No-one in Park Vale, as far as he knew, had ever called him friend. And Sky seemed like a good kid, even if she was weird.

'Good. Come to help?'

Al's eyes popped from behind his glasses. 'With what?'

Rani grinned when multiple car alarms began to sound. 'To find Sky, of course, before the school blows up!'

Al sqeaked and nodded, wondering whether somehow he'd fallen asleep and this was all a dream.

Meanwhile, the cause of all the commotion was sitting in the middle of a vast rhododendron bush across the road from the school. She was huddled in a tight ball, wincing from the piercing shriek of the car alarms in the school car park that she'd inadvertently set off.

She stretched her small hands in front of her, and sighed at the sight of the blue sparks fizzing from her fingers.

I need to calm down, she thought as her breathing hitched, verging on hyperventilation. A spark flew from her fingers and she yelped when it momentarily ignited the debris at her feet.

I'm not an ordinary human girl, she thought sadly, and I'm not a superbrain like Luke is, either. Sarah Jane said there's people out there who want me for the wrong reasons, but how do I know she really wants me either? I'm just an ordinary kid … who could explode her house at any minute. Who'd really want me around?

TBC.

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