After the school bell rang, it almost sounded like there was a stampede outside the classroom. It was the sound of the horde of students running along the corridors racing to get to the cafeteria.
"Ok, I will guide you all to the cafeteria. For the first day, the cafeteria has been closed off to everyone but the first years." Mr woods explained and then waited by the door.
Everyone in the classroom got up to follow him. Ame was the only reluctant person to go. She mumbled something about her tail getting dirty under her breath.
We waited for the bulk of the crowd in the hallway to disperse and finally began walking to the cafeteria. To someone who had only just gotten used to magic existing, it was almost comical to see multiple animal people rush in the same direction.
Some students even transformed into their animals to get there faster, so it was a mix of animals and people huddled together.
The cafeteria was on the first floor, so we had 3 flights of stairs to travel down. Ame nearly cried at every one of them.
Once we arrived, it was surprisingly empty. There were over 200 students who were eating and chatting, but the room could easily hold 4x that amount.
I stuck with Davy and Lleu, and we continued to talk outside the classroom. I had managed to learn that Lleu's family were all tailors who made clothing with their own wool, and he wanted to be a part of the family business. He talked very passionately about it and nearly spent a whole 30 minutes in the classroom explaining the benefits of hybrid sheep wool over regular wool.
We all sat at the same table a little further away from the rest of the students. The other members of the omega class decided to mingle with them, leaving us relatively alone. The only other person who was sitting away from the others was the owl girl, Elizabeth. She was reading a book.
At the end of the cafeteria, there was a kiosk where people were getting served food.
"Hey, do you guys want anything?" I asked the two of them as I got up to check it out.
"You don't have to." Lleu said hesitantly. He was still a little nervous around me.
"It's no trouble. I want to check it out anyway, so it will be no extra effort."
"Ok, I will have a salad then."
"Tuna."
"I'll be back in a minute then." The kiosk was on the opposite side of the room from where we sat, so it took a while to walk there.
Once I got there I was greeted by a smiling woman wearing an apron. She had black and white stripes across her hair and tail, so I guessed she was zebra. There were other staff members there but they were serving other students.
"What can I get you?" She asked cheerfully.
"Do you have any sandwiches and salads? Also, my friend wanted tuna."
"We do have all of that. Although we don't have tuna on its own. Would your friend be fine with a tuna sandwich?"
"Probably. I'll take two tuna sandwiches and a salad then."
"Ok." The woman opened a freezer near the back of the kiosk and grabbed everything I ordered. It was all neatly packaged, and she put them in a paper bag. "All together that's 2,20."
I pulled out the money from my purse and handed it to the woman. Now with the food in hand, I started to head back to our table, but when I looked at where we were sat they were more people there than before.
There were two extra people who both looked like they were cats. One had a mane like a lion, and the other had spots all over them like a leopard or cheetah.
'Maybe they are Davy's friends.' I wondered as I walked back towards them.
As I got closer their voices got clearer, and I realised they weren't talking to them, but shouting at them. The lion guy was the loudest, and he seemed to be directing his shouting toward Davy.
"So you were put in Omega class, Davy? It honestly doesn't surprise me that where you would end up! I knew it was the right idea to get rid of you when I did." The lion guy was saying disgusting things to Davy whilst he and his friend kept laughing. Davy looked upset and frightened, but he wasn't saying or doing anything back.
The urge to kick the shit out of them was nearly impossible to suppress. I could feel my body preparing to transform, but I bit down on my lip to keep my focus. 'Calm down Kate. I'm sure I can settle things peacefully without beating them to near death.'
I began to pick up my pace, but before I got there, Lleu stood up and got in between Davy and the lion guy.
"I won't let you talk to my friend like that. I would like to ask you to leave, please." Lleu's voice was shaking, but he stood with conviction.
"What are you gonna do sheep boy? Bhaa really loudly?" The leopard pushed Lleu onto the floor, and their cackles brought me back to the day when I first transformed. I could see Rose laying on the floor bloodied, and I realised if I don't act then the same thing would happen to Lleu and Davy.
I through the paper bag at the head of the lion guy and positioned myself, so they would have to get through me to touch Lleu.
"Hey shitfaces, what do you want?" I growled at both of them still trying to stay calm. The last thing I wanted to do was cause an incident on the first day, so I was hoping they would just back away. I could always find them after school and make them regret leaving then, but here in front of everyone was probably the worst place to get into a fight.
Unfortunately, they weren't planning on backing down since they believed they had a two-on-one advantage. They got close to me and began screaming in my face for all the cafeteria to see and hear. "You think you can win against us?!", "Why are you protecting little rats like that?!"
Nearly everyone's eyes were on us, except Elizabeth who was still reading her book.
'Don't hit them, Kate!'
Their voices grew louder and louder, and they grew more confident with my lack of action.
'I can't hit them on the first day!'
The leopard guy tried pushing me, and they both started laughing after they saw I wasn't going to do anything.
'A slap doesn't count as a hit, right?'
Finally, I snapped and decided to hit the leopard in the face with all the strength I could put into my arm. I could feel all my blood rushing to the muscles in my arm as I did it, almost unnaturally.
The boy went flying over two metres away from me and fell on his back. When he looked up at me his face had a claw-like cut across it, and his blood was leaking all over the floor. I looked down at my hand to see it wasn't a hand but a paw. I quickly shook it confused at why it had changed. After a few seconds, it transformed back into a normal hand.
Whilst I was distracted by the hand fiasco, the lion tried attacking me. He punched me in the gut winding me. I tried to breathe, but I could see he was about to punch me again, so I tried moving backwards.
However, before I had the chance to move away a cat jumped up at the lion's eyes and started scratching at him. The cat was Davy, and before the lion grabbed hold of him he jumped next to me.
Davy's scratching managed to give me a few seconds to recover, and the lion guy was holding his eyes from the pain. I smiled devilishly at the opportunity to win. Faster than I thought I could move, I kicked the lion in the side of the leg to knock him to the ground. I then put my foot over his neck, I knew a lion could do a lot more damage to me than he was, so if he transformed I needed insurance.
His body started convulsing as his transformation began.
"If you move a muscle then I'll crush your throat before you can even finish your transformation!!!" I punctuated my threat with a roar that resonated in the entire cafeteria (even Elizabeth looked up from her book). I wasn't actually going to do it because I know how much trouble that stunt would get me into, but a threat doesn't hurt anybody.
I could see the fear of death in his eyes, and his body went deathly still. The hair that had grown on his body mid-transformation began to recede, and his body started to return to the shape of a human.
The leopard boy had already finished his transformation whilst I was fighting the lion. He was now back on his feet and growling at me.
"Hey shitface, if you like intaking oxygen then I suggest you get your buddy to pipe down!"
"Stop it! We will not have fighting on the school grounds." Mr Woods's voice echoed behind me.