I didn't sleep longer than a hour. My head was still pounding, the day ahead of me was horrifying, and Uncle's roast duck did not sit well with my stomach.
The clock in the corner of the room was fast approaching 6:30, the time Iroh repeatedly told me to wake up at. I sat up and stared out the window at a little bird on the windowsill. It had to have been leaving soon, there was already frost on the ground.
A pan clanged against the stove downstairs. He was already awake. He was singing something too, like always. How can he always be so happy?
"Good morning, Zuko. I made you eggs and toast, and you need an orange as well, unless you prefer apples. Just be sure to eat a lot. Breakfast is most important," Uncle rambled on.
I rubbed my eye without thinking and immediately stopped. It was still warm and tender. It was never going to heal. I would always be scarred.
"Where's my suitcase?" I asked between pieces of toast.
"Somewhere in the house maybe," he answered from the kitchen.
"Very helpful," I mumbled, taking the toast with me and heading back upstairs to find it.
"You better hurry!" Uncle yelled from downstairs.
I pulled on the clothes I was wearing yesterday and smoothed out the wrinkles. It would be fine. No one was going to notice.
"What's taking you so long? Are you primping for the ladies? I can help!"
I ran downstairs and frantically dumped the books from my backpack and tried to save anything useful. Pencils, blank paper, erasers, calculator. I let it sit in a pile on the table. Panic was setting in slowly. Nothing was where I needed it and everything was terrible.
"Get in the car or you'll be late!" Iroh yelled from the porch. My lungs heaved once and I zipped my bag. Ready to face the day.
I rode shotgun for a full mile and a half to Basington High School. It was a big facility, three stories high with a slightly dilapidated roof. There was a run down playground beside, along with a small patch of half head trees.
"How is your neighborhood's school so ugly?"
"A lot of kids commute from the outer part of the city. They don't prioritize the upkeep." Groups of students passed our car carrying books and backpacks.
I immediately regretted my choice of clothes. They ran around with T-shirts and jeans that fit too tight. Half were absorbed in hoodies.
I looked down self consciously at my grey sweater and rich boy khakis. I was an immediate outsider.
They didn't look like me either. Their skin was darker and most had lighter brown hair. I didn't fit here.
"Stop being so self conscious," Uncle rolled his eyes. "You're dressed fine."
"I wasn't-,"
"Yes you were. Go on and get started," he shooed me out of the car.
"I can walk home afterwards, I remember the way we came."
He laughed. "2:30. I'll be here."
I shut his door and pulled on my backpack.
They looked. I felt every eye on me and saw none. They were pointing and exchanging whispers. They had to be.
"Look at his eye," I thought I heard a voice from behind me.
I turned around, but no one was looking at me at all. Don't freak out. Stay calm. Be civil.
A simple "Head to the office first" was the only direction Uncle gave me.
I looked around the main entrance for something, anything. There was corridor upon corridor. It was like being eaten alive. I started to panic, but remembered the words again.
Stay calm. Be civil.
"Are you lost?"
I turned around to an old man with a short white beard. "Yes," I answered quickly. My heartbeat was steady in my throat.
"I assume you're headed to the office?" he looked at me knowingly.
"Yes."
He smiled gently. "It's in front of the third story staircase."
"Thank you," I nodded and moved immediately to the nearest stairway.
I climbed the steps twice, dodging students and teachers carrying stacks of papers. I was panting when I was through. Who the hell puts the office on the third story?
I walked up to the front desk and the woman there looked above her half frame glasses. "Can I help you?" she sounded irritated.
"New student," I said quickly.
She turned to the computer. "Name?"
"Zuko Lee."
She clicked the mouse and stood up to get something from the copier. It was a little slip of paper. "Here's your schedule. How's your Uncle?" She asked nonchalantly.
"Fine, great, I mean."
She looked displeased. "Your first class is the last room on the right," she pointed down the hall.
"Thank you," I nodded.
She grunted.
The schedule read Chemistry, one of the few I wasn't dreading. There isn't much reading, just a lot of math and lab instructions. It should be fine. A nice way to start a new day.
I pulled open the door and the room was almost empty.
It was the old man from downstairs. He made it up the stairs surprisingly fast. "You found your way?" he asked with a smile.
"Yes," I answered quickly, too embarrassed to think normally or rationally or really even consider what I sounded like.
"Sit next to Jin. She's very bright," he pointed to a girl at a middle table scrawling problems in her notebook.
"Can I sit here?" I asked with a cough.
She looked up at me and smiled. "Of course!"
Jin turned out to be the single most talkative person I'd ever met. "So where are you from? Do you have family here? Do I know them? What school did you go to? Was it different? Does everyone there have ponytails?"
I was thrilled when the room filled with students and the teacher started to lecture. The plaque on his desk read Mr. Roku.
He started by making a drawing of four beakers arranged to represent a reaction.
"Who can tell me what I did wrong?"
Jim raised her hand to the sky.
Mr. Roku looked around the room for other hands and then smiled at Jin. "Who would have guessed you would raise your hand?"
The class laughed lightly. Jin blushed. "Sorry. You have it labeled as an exothermic reaction, but according to solubility rule number 1, the Sodium Nitrate is aqueous, so in actuality there could be no reaction if both of the products can be dissolved and there's no formation of a solid to drive the reaction. Also you forgot to make a legend," she shrunk in her seat, obviously embarrassed.
I was astonished. She was beyond bright, and beyond hyperactive.
"Anyone else?"
The class laughed again.
"She's right for the first time," he said sarcastically.
He assigned us book problems that proved pretty easy for me. Nation Academy was weeks ahead of this curriculum. It was a nice easy review.
The bell rang and Jin gathered her books in record time and almost flew out the door. "Nice to meet you!" she said without even looking up at me.
I stood a little perplexed as to what I thought of her. My next class was both flights of steps down. The stairways were treacherous and full of students talking and running and moving too slow.
I opened the door to the history room and almost had to cover my ears. The students were loud and obnoxious.
"New student?" The teacher was a middle aged woman with dark pinned hair and slightly drooping eyes.
"Yes," I answered, still holding onto the straps of my backpack.
"Let me see your schedule."
I pulled the slip out of my pocket and handed it to her. I scanned the classroom and found that no one had even seen me yet. They were completely absorbed in their conversations.
"I'm Mrs. Wu, and I have a feeling you will enjoy this class. Sit in that backseat, please," she emphasized the word feeling in an odd and uncomfortable way, like she'd been having premonitions or something weird like that.
I took the seat, almost right next to her desk, behind a tiny girl with shaggy black hair and a larger than normal textbook.
"Please take out your textbooks and read, not skim, chapter 11. When you are done I'd like you to answer questions 1-4 at the end."
My palms got sweaty. I was dreading this. The chapter was forty pages long and full of convoluted words that seemed to change every time I looked at them.
I skimmed the first paragraphs and realized we had been through this at the academy. I was safe, for now. The class was a couple weeks behind as well, if our textbooks were parallel. The questions weren't that bad, so I pretended to read to avoid drawing the teacher's attention.
Eventually, she asked for the questions and the class started fidgeting. It must be over soon. Everyone was packing up papers and throwing away trash.
An irritating bell rang over the intercom. Judging by how quickly everyone jumped up to leave, I figured it was signaling lunch.
The girl in front of me didn't get up at all.
"Did you bring your lunch, Toph?" Mrs. Wu asked the girl in front of me.
"Yeah," she sighed and reached under her desk for her bag. It was out of her reach, and she wasn't coming close to grabbing it.
I stooped down to pick the bag up and set it down on her desk. She looked up at me. Her eyes were odd, glassy almost. It wasn't even like she could see me.
I looked again at her textbook and it hit me like a pile of bricks. It was in Braille.
"Thanks," she mumbled and turned her head.
"Yeah," I left the room quickly, feeling completely embarrassed.
She was blind and in a regular class. There weren't disabled students at Nation Academy. If you needed help, you didn't get in. Of course, there were always other reasons they'd cite, like a grade they made in elementary school, or a made up story about a fugitive family member. We never questioned them, it was in our interest, they told us.
The lunchroom was huge and full of wandering students. I dodged their eyes and focused on looking confident and not lonely.
I found an unoccupied table in the corner and sat down there. Intuition told me that Uncle packed me a lunch somewhere in my bag.
In the front pouch, a little note card read, "Remember to hydrate". A closed lid cup of green tea and a container of tuna salad and crackers sat at the very bottom of the pocket.. I smirked and twisted off the lid. It smelled awful, but I appreciated how thoughtful Uncle was.
Sitting alone was just embarrassing. Kids would pass and stare at me and I wasn't sure what to look at or pretend to do. Nothing felt completely right here.
The bell finally rang and sent me to the second floor library for an hour of study hall. Kids were throwing paper airplanes and wads of homework at each other.
I stood up from my table and forced myself to find a book to read. I picked up a thin paperback and quickly realized it was a kids book. Against my better judgement, I took it back to my seat hidden under my sweater.
I pulled it out and started to read with my lips. The section of the library was empty, I was safe.
"Thrilling literature you've got there."
I looked up and met eyes with a boy whose eyebrows reached his hairline. He had a toothpick in his mouth like he was in an old western movie.
"I think I read that one in second grade," the boy behind him said. His hair was almost a bowl cut and his face was almost rosy looking.
I didn't say anything. Stay calm. Be civil.
"Are you mute or something? What's your name?"
I only stared at him.
"Hey, let's go put paper clips in the librarian's coffee," the bowl cut one suggested.
"I don't want to," the tooth picked one replied, staring at me intently.
"Come on, Jet, you're making it weird."
He turned finally with a smirk. I sighed in relief and started reading again. The text was pretty simple and the illustrations helped. I had no library card yet, so I shoved it in my bag when the bell rang.
Math had always been my favorite subject by far. I qualified for the advanced class at this school, which was full of kids dressed slightly more like me. They were more perceptive of me than the others as well. More of them stared at my eye.
Jin was sitting in the front row and didn't notice me. I was relieved, and slightly disappointed. She was irritating, but kind. Kindness wasn't something I denied myself when it was finally available. I took my seat, yet again in the back.
"You're in my seat."
I looked up and saw a rough looking boy in green hulking over my seat. He looked angry, most likely not just at me. I begrudgingly picked up my bag and moved to the seat over.
The teacher was eccentric. His plaque said professor, and a framed commendation read Basington University. He must've been fired, I thought.
He gave us busy work, and a little assignment to complete tonight. After the bell rang, I waited to make sure Jin was gone before I left the room. I'd decided I could wait for chemistry to answer all of her questions.
Reading. The class I'd been dreading. Reading was always impossible for me. Everything was terrible and nothing was worthwhile when I read.
A girl sat behind me drawing something fervently. She looked up barely, and immediately back down.
I pulled out my books and got my paper ready. This class will not bring me down, I told myself.
"Hey, it's The Little Prince!"
My heart dropped. I didn't look at them. The not responding worked fine last time. Just give them a cold hard glare and there will be nothing to work with.
"Jet, it's the kid from the library."
"Look at that dumbass ponytail," they snickered.
"Why are you dressed like that? Are you from some rich kid school?"
My hand clenched involuntarily.
"Jet, stop," the girl behind me muttered.
"Shut up, Katara," he retorted. "Don't get me started on your weird hair beads."
I heard her sigh and click her tongue.
"Where'd you think he got that scar?"
"Probably fell climbing out of his daddy's Ferrari."
"No, I bet he forgot his sunscreen to keep him all white."
There was a heat in my chest and it horrified me.
"Shut up," I said slowly.
They feigned surprise. "He talks! Look at that there."
"Shut up," I said again, even slower this time.
"Look at this," the little one stood up and started playing with my ponytail.
I turned around flew my fist into his teeth. He moved to punch back, but I grabbed his arm the second before.
His friend with the hat down to his eyes screamed and punched my stomach. I fell back and got the taste of tuna in my mouth. I was vaguely aware of the girl behind me turning her desk over jumping back. Her leg looked caught.
With a knee to the groin, the boy with the bowl cut was on the ground screaming. I kicked hat boy in the stomach, sending him flying against a desk. His head hit the wall with a crack. He hit the floor doubled over.
The last boy with the bad eyebrows and toothpick looked horrified.
I grabbed him by the throat and pulled him to the floor. He gurgled and spat at me. Both of my hands clenched against his neck.
Vaguely, I could feel hands pulling me backward. I let go of the boy and felt myself being taken away.
Sound came back. There was screaming, a tooth on the floor. Someone was puking.
I was sitting in the office by the time the headache left and I could register what was happening.
"Principal's Office" the door read. I'd never been to the principal at the Academy. I'd barely even been reprimanded.
They made me wait a while, probably to try and scare me.
Finally the principal, a tall man with and ugly beard came in. "Zuko," he said, lifting up a paper on his clipboard. "Looks like you haven't had the best first day."
I stared forward with my arms crossed.
"You've been relocated to your Uncle's house, your grades are average, lower than normal in reading," he looked up at me. "Must have been quite a fight to get a shiner like that," he pointed to my eye.
I only glared.
"Usually, in cases like this, where the child has been relocated, we see some anger problems. They don't usually get in fights first thing, mind you, but your situation isn't atypical. I'm going to enroll you in our Supplemental Art class. I think you'll relate to the kids in there."
He had that stupid looking hair that poofs up in the middle, something he probably copied from a kid in the hallway. His shirt was half untucked and there was a mustard stain on his chest.
"Why are you giving me an art class?"
"Technically it's a therapy class. After a major infraction, you qualify. The class is during study hall on Wednesdays."
He handed me the slip of paper with the room number. "I expect you to attend this week. For now, you're suspended."
"Suspended?"
"You choked a student," he laughed. "How do I let that slip?"
"He provoked me," I gritted my teeth.
"All three of your victims say different."
"Did you even ask anyone else? Like the teacher?"
"You're obviously riled up. I've already called your Uncle. He's on his way."
I sat there in silence. He'll be disappointed. He'll tell dad.
It took him no time at all to get there. Uncle was a fast driver, coupled with how close his house was.
"Principal Zhao, how have you been?" Uncle asked in a surprisingly passive aggressive voice.
"Very well. Worse when your nephew came in today," he smiled politely.
"I apologize for him. He has been having a rough few days."
"Well, we can make excuses for our children all we want, but some of them are just rotten," he shrugged his shoulders. "It runs in the Lee family doesn't it?"
Uncle's smile faded. "Go sit in the car, please, Zuko." He handed me the keys.
I snatched them and almost ran out of the front door. Uncle parked in the same place. I sat down in the passenger seat and stayed completely silent.
"You could have waited a little while to have your first fight, couldn't you?" Uncle said once completely situated in the car.
"They wouldn't shut up about my eye."
"You have to learn to not let anything get to you. They used to make fun of my hair in the Academy, but I would just remember, the ladies still love me. It doesn't matter unless you let it."
"You don't look like a freak."
He had no reply. He sighed deep and waited a minute.
"Are you hurt?"
"I got hit in the stomach pretty bad."
"I brought you more chamomile," he picked up the thermos in the cup holder.
I took it from him and drank slowly. "Thanks."
"I thought we could go out tomorrow, with you being home all day."
"Okay," I mumbled.
"You could use a little flush from school stresses," he tapped the steering wheel.
"What did you talk about with Zhao?"
"We didn't talk. I punched him in the face."
I gasped involuntarily. "You hit the principal?!"
He looked ashamed. "I have known Zhao for many years. He insulted my son and my nephew. I didn't hit him hard at least. Just enough to shock him."
"What the hell were you thinking?"
"The hypocrisy of punishing you for your temper now is not lost on me."
We got out of the car and stood on the front porch while he looked for the front door key.
"Tea?"
"You just made me some."
Iroh filled the kettle and set it on the burner. "You need more."
I set my bag down on the floor and took my shoes off.
"Sooo, other than your fight, how was school?"
"Fine," I sat down at the kitchen bar.
"Did you meet anyone interesting?"
"No."
Iroh sighed and set down the box of tea. "I love your father. He is my brother, and I am bound to love him. I would never mean to speak against him."
"And?" I swallowed.
"I hate that he has done this to you."
I rolled my eyes, "You don't know anything."
"I had a son too, and I never would have hurt him. Ever."
"I know, bring up your son again. That always works!"
I stormed up to my room and slammed the door. I fell on the bed with my clothes still on. Comfort wasn't achievable anyway.
I laid there for hours, just watching the clock.
"Come out, Zuko. You have to eat."
I stood up, ignoring my headache, and opened the door. Guilt washed over me.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you."
He put a hand on my shoulder. "Come have some pork."
He'd made ginger pork, my favorite. I ate two plates full and listened to Uncle's stories.
"Tell me about your teachers."
"There's this old guy with an ugly beard, not like your beard. He teaches chemistry. And my history teacher is a middle aged lady that acted like she had a vision I'd be in class today. My trig teacher used to teach at the college, and I don't think I even met my reading teacher," I rambled on. He was listening intently and nodding at times.
"How do you know the secretary?"
"Ohh, well, that's not the best story to tell," he scratched his chin nervously.
We watched TV until late in the night. I stayed on the couch after Uncle went to bed.
My hand kept wandering to my burned eye, feeling the lumps, the tender spots, and the smooth skin where my eyebrow used to be.
I'll get through this, I told myself. I still have time to heal.
~
AN
Apologies for making this story so sad and angsty so far. Such are the drawbacks of writing about poor little Zuko. Next chapter will be a POV switch:)
