Jace was sitting in his first period English class in the back of the room. He kept getting glances from girls followed by fervent whispering between their friends. Everyone was talking as the teacher, an old, thin woman who looked like a zombie, called attendance.
"Jonathan Herondale?" She called.
"Jace." He corrected.
She nodded and made a note.
"Jace. I haven't heard that nickname before." A girl sitting next to him said.
"It's the name I prefer." Jace said.
"But it's weird. Usually Jonathans go by "Jon" or "Jonny" I've never heard Jace before."
"Well it's what I prefer to be called." He said. This girl was annoying him.
"So who was that guys dropping you off?" The girl asked.
"My brother's boyfriend."
"Were those other people your siblings?" She asked.
"Isabelle is my sister, Clary is my girlfriend." He said stressing the "girlfriend". "And Simon is Isabelle's boyfriend." He said.
"The black haired girls Isabelle right?"
He nodded.
"She doesn't look anything like you."
"I'm adopted."
"No shit, you're adopted!?" A boy said chiming in.
"Yes."
"Are your parents dead?" The boy asked. The girl kicked him in the shin.
"Yes."
"How old were you when they died?" The boy asked.
"That's not polite to ask, Jeremy!" The girl exclaimed.
"Class! Class!" The teacher said getting everyone's attention. "I'm passing around the silibus, don't lose it. It will tell you what books we'll be reading."
Jace was passed a paper. He skimmed the list. He had already read most of the books because Valentine had him read a lot. His gaze lingered on A Tale of Two Cities. He remembered the night when that other him- the one Sebastian had controlled- had read to Clary.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the teacher's voice.
"Tonight you will have to write a one page biography of yourself." She raised her voice as the entire class groaned. "I will be grading them so make them good."
Jace tried not to laugh. He was definitely going to have to ask Clary for help faking his backstory. He imagined writing it truthfully in his head-
I was carved out of my dead mother by a murderous psychopath because he fed my mother blood while she was pregnant. Then that murdering psychopath raised as his don't while he was pretending to be another man. When I was ten, he faked his death and I went to live with the Lightwoods. I became their son's parabatai. Years later I meet this girl, Clary. I kissed her and several days later, after discovering the murderous psychopath pretending to be me father told me she was my sister. While working to stop my "father" from taking over the world I learned she wasn't my sister I also discovered my fake father was not my father and that he raised another son- his biological son- who had demon blood. I killed him then, I was killed, then I was brought back to life by an angel.
Several months later my fake father's biological son, Jonathan, came back to life and possessed me partially. Long story short, I was stabbed with a giant sword, had heavenly fire trapped in me, went to hell, came back and lived happily ever after.
The bell rang and he had another class, band. It was Maryse's idea that he take band, and music theory. She said it would be less suspicious if he pretended to be studying music, especially since he was taking Latin.
He entered the room which had a bunch of chairs in a semicircle. Everyone was chatting excitedly.
"Hey you're Jonathan, right?" A man said. Jace turned and saw a tall, chubby balding man.
"I prefer Jace."
"I'm Mr. Connor, the band teacher. I noticed on your form it said you played piano. Some of the songs we play won't have piano so I must stick you on zylos or another percussion instrument." He said with a smile.
"That's fine." Jace said.
"Okay everybody we won't be playing today so go to the auditorium." Mr. Connor announced.
Everyone began to shuffle towards the door. Jace followed the crowd into an auditorium. Everyone say in groups and Jace was about to find a seat when a girl shouted, "Hey new kid!" He turned to see a curvy girl with light brown hair sitting next to a tall boy with greased up hair and a gangly looking boy with wild brown hair.
"Hey want to sit with us?" She said with a wide smile.
"Okay." Jace said. The girl seemed strange, too giggly.
"Hey, you're hot." She said, poking his arm.
"So I've been told." Jace sighed.
She giggled some more. Jace put the pieces together in his head. There were girls and guys at pandemonium who would giggle a lot and laugh.
This girl was high.
High School just kept getting better and better.