Thalia was waiting for us at the bar when we returned home, she sat with an angry expression and her school bag discarded on the floor by her feet. "And where were you two in world history?" she asked sternly, as she drummed her fingers on the bar table.
"Exploring delinquency." I answer simply.
That made her laugh, "is that what they said?" she looks disapprovingly at Jacob with a scowl on her face.
"Thalia-"
"Quiet!" she snapped. "next time, just take me along with you and I won't drop you in it." She smiled.
"You told them!?"
"I had to suffer through the history of modern government alone, with no-one to copy from!"
"Your poor soul."
I flopped down on one of the seats next to her, resting my head on my hands. Tiredness wore at my body, a buzzing sensation ran through me.
"You ok Shion? You look a bit pale." Thalia asks.
"I think I'm just a bit tired."
"Same. I think I'm gonna crash as well." Jacob agreed, plonking himself down beside me.
"Well too bad! For leaving me, you can do my homework. Shion youre on maths and Jacob youre on English." She says, while taking out a stack of papers from her bag and slamming them on the bar.
"And how is this different from any other night?" he grumbled.
I stare at the page for a while, watch the numbers dance across the paper, while Jacob frantically scribbles and crosses it violently. Reluctantly, I start writing, but my mind is elsewhere. Tiredness pulls at my mind and body, I feel myself dozing off when Thalia says, "Shion, that aint right. That seven should be a three."
I look at what I had written, and she was right. Infact, the page was riddled with mistakes, "sorry thalia, but I really don't feel well, could we do this tomorrow?" I ask.
Her expression is full of worry and confusion, "yeah of course."
I dragged myself up the staircase, and as soon as my bed was insight, I fell straight asleep, half hanging of the bed, fully clothed.
By the time I'd woken up Jacob had already left for school the next day, and the street were starting to fill with people. I'd contemplated leaving school for today, but despite skipping school yesterday I really did like it, and even if I missed the first hour it was worth it.
By the time I got there, we were halfway through second period, as I found my seat next to Thalia in the slightly darkened math room. The shades were drawn, and I got a sleepy vibe from everyone but Miss Scott, who was pacing up and down the rows diligently.
When she sees me, she gives a humourless smile "nice for you to join us. You know you can just turn up when you feel like it, right?"
"Sorry miss, I overslept." I apologised.
"Nice for some." She grumbled, "page thirty-two, exercise three. And you better finish it if your turning up late to my class."
I turned to the correct page and started working on the math.
"Feeling better?" thalia whispered.
"Yes. Thanks." I whispered.
"Good. Whats the answer to this one?" she asked.
"Ninety-three." I answer after giving it a quick look.
"Cheers."
"Quiet you two. Thalia I don't want you helping him because he turned up late."
Thalia muffled a giggle.
"What's so funny?" she demanded.
Thalia hid her smirk, "Nothing miss. Sorry." But she was too late, Miss Scott was already making her way back to us.
"Shion where's your workings?" she demanded, taking my notebook from under my pencil which I caught just before it rolled off the table.
"My workings?" I ask innocently.
"At least if you're going to cheat copy the rest of the sum not just the answers." She shook her head.
"I didn't cheat." I defend.
"So you did integration on the top of your head then?" she sighed.
I nodded, and she looked at me despairingly.
"I wouldn't go there. This guys like a human calculator." Thalia sighed, unable to copy my answers while the teacher held to notebook.
"Integrate x cubed plus x squared plus one between one and three."
"Thirty and two thirds… roughly." I answer.
A voice calls out from the other side of the room, interrupting the intense silence, "Miss! I'm finished!" matilda interrupted. She sprang up from the back of the classroom, but she goes unnoticed, as I squirm under her piercing glare.
"X cubed, minus x squared, minus two x, between minus one and two."
"Three and one twelfths." I answer.
"The square root of x minus two. Between one and three."
"Twelve and two thirds."
She chuckled, "incredible."
"miss, what you want me to do now?" Matilda yelled again, trying desperately to draw her attention away.
"yes, I'll be there in a minuet… Four hundred and three multiplied by seventy-two."
"twenty-nine thousand and sixteen."
"seven to the power of fourteen."
"…
"ok, just this once I'll let you off for being late. But in future, I want you on time."
Thalia covered her smirk with her hand, "if only we were all smart enough to get out of trouble using math." She whispered as miss Scott made her way back to Matilda, who, with her back perfectly straight, was beaming up at her as she read through her workbook, waiting for her approval.
The class continued in that fashion till the bell rang, and miss scott's hold suddenly vanished, noise erupted from the quiet and chaos of class change recommenced.
"What did I miss earlier?" I asked, swinging my bag over my shoulder as we left the class.
"Nothing much. Harriet accidently dyed her hair green last night though. She tried to cover it up, but sir made her take her hat off. She ran out of the room crying when Shamus made a joke about it."
"That's horrible!"
"Don't feel too sorry for her, this is the same girl who made fun of you for not knowing where mt yoma was."
"But still… Why was her hair green?"
She giggled, "She tried to use an old-world recipe for dying hair, but she must have got the ingredients wrong… but anyway, to top it off, she got suspended for dying her hair."
"That's harsh." I commented.
I blushed and wished she hadn't reminded me. My studies with father hadn't included the geography of the human world, but this was only made apparent in my first (extremely embarrassing) lesson on my second day at school. which happened to contain a pop quiz, that I gained the grand total of zero correct answers. So, I was made to do classes with the younger kids until I could raise my grade high enough. To be honest, even that level was far too difficult, lacked even the basic knowledge the entire subject was built upon. But to make the human adults happy- I attended.
I was given a quiet seat at the back of the class away from the younger children, blending into the background like furniture, as if I wasn't there at all. It made a change not to be the centre of attention- I knew they wanted to bombard me with questions, but they daren't bother an older child that had been put there by the administrator himself. Instead they whispered behind their hands when the teacher wasn't looking, and what started off as mysterious older student taking supplementary lessons, became wild adventures containing spies and government conspires. Correcting them just became too disillusioning.
I frantically scribbled down notes as the teacher spoke at the front of the class, sometimes switching from English to latin when he spoke too fast. And like after every other geography lesson, by the time it was over, I was exhausted. Plus, I received a load of homework that was only meant to take half an hour, but I know will take me much longer. I was shocked when the thought crossed my mind to ask Jacob to do it for me, and I shook my head, wondering if I'd been spending too much time with Thalia.