Before summer of 2011, all students of class Celestine in 11th grade of Divine high school, died arcanely. One of those students was my sister, Gabriella Villarreal.
People fear that all the students in that class, even in that whole grade were cursed, so getting information of their death was uneath. The only thing I knew is that my sister was the last female to die and the last male was her boyfriend, Raymond Bruce. I was really close to my sister, but of course there are things she wouldn't want me to know.
Two years after Gabriella's death, my mother died. She couldn't accept Gabriella's death and began starving herself, drinking and the sort.
Then, I was only twelve years of age.
During her burial, I put on a strong face. I never liked it when people felt pity for me. For some reason, it even irritated me. So I insisted I was okay and all I needed was time to heal. I played the game of belief. I acted as if I believed everything was all right and with that, I was able to actually accept my situation
Years passed by and I found myself in the same class as my sister, Class Celestine. Though in 10th grade, I was in class Onyx. I put in so much effort to get to Celestine just because I wanted to secretly uncover truth about the deaths in 2011 (though I was only this strong minded about the deaths BEFORE I entered the class). Celestine was a class with the most intelligent or talented students among a set of 4 classes; Celestine, Onyx, Jade and Selenite. Onyx and Jade contained the above average and average students while the Selenite students where the obnoxious one's who didn't care of their grades and broke rules.
I had to be extremely good to enter class Celestine, so I engaged myself in sports, Art and Science courses. You don't actually need to be good in all three, but you need to excel in any one. My choice was Art.
I played 7 instruments; which I learnt from a young age. I learnt Graphics (which I did because I had the opportunity), I painted, I drew, I reluctantly engaged myself in plays and I tried my best in literature. All just for class Celestine.
"They called me a freaking parrot, A PARROT! "
At this point I remembered I was having an unwanted conversation with Helena Monroe.
I was eating lunch in the cafeteria, minding my own business, when Helena came and started talking to me. I stopped paying attention after her first sentence.
"How could they even say that?" I shook my head eating a potato chip. I had finished my lunch since, but I didn't want to do nothing with my hands while 'listening' to Helena.
"Exactly! Imma just let them think whatever they want to. Those idiots, there's literally no difference between me and an introvert." I choked on my snack. She called herself an introvert, *scoff*
To tell you how much of an extrovert and talkative Helena is, would even get me exhausted. On a norms, Helena barely listens to anyone while she talks, she would just talk and before you get a chance to speak, she's talking again. Her best friends seems to be used to it though.
"Where are your friends? I asked.
"Worse things that when Abel started talking, everyone joined him! It's like they were all against me." She cried.
"And we're was-"
"Nobody, I mean nobody looked at me with a hint of sympathy, Bridget and Joan weren't there to back me up!" That's the Helena I know, never shuts up.
Before she could say anything again, I stood up with my bag and left the table. He's was screaming all sorts of thing behind me, but I couldn't care less. She would forget she was angry tomorrow morning.
I walked to the library, avoiding people as I moved, because when you're walking alone in the hallways, you're prone to meet lots of dramatic people. Especially the girls. I know you love to see me, but we stay in the same hostel for Pete's sake, we see almost all the time.
The librarian greeted me with a 'PLEASE BE QUIET' sign as I entered the library. The poor old lady was already tired of walking around and clicking our heads with her finger when we were noisy like when we were juniors.
"Yes Mrs shush." Yes, we called her Mrs shush. Sometimes it's 'Old madame library'. She took the library quite seriously compared to the other library keepers.
I climbed the stairs to our usual spot in the library. getting there, i saw my two best friends. Alma Mukhtar and Archie Ambrose.
"All this reading you guys are doing got me thinking you'll be admitted to a class higher than Celestine." I whispered as I sat with them. They were writing a test. I had written mine the day before.
"Glad that class doesn't exist." Archie said gravelly, he looked tired.
"If it did you'd be the top student there Archie." Alma giggled.
"Naaaaah, your class head and his assistant would be the only ones there." Archie called.
"You forgot Sage and Vesper." I added.
"Yeah... It's break over in 9 minutes. I don't think I'm ready for any classes yet." Alma sighed and adjusted her hijab.
"Especially if I have to sit next to Vesper throughout the class." Archie complained which made Alma and I laugh out.
Realizing what we both did, we subconsciously looked down and saw Mrs shush glaring at us. We gave pleading faces and held our lips to give her a form of assurance that we wouldn't make any more noise.
"Let's leave." I suggested.
They grabbed the things they came with and we left the library.
"But Vesper isn't that bad Archie." I said once we were out.
"Yeah, he's worse. The guy puts his hair in his mouth Aubrey, in his mouth." Archie howled, calling my name in a cry.
Every two weeks, our class's head rearranges our seats. It's was mandatory to do so. Though only the Celestine's actually follow that rule without a slack, the other classes do it occasionally, like when the vice principal, Mr Madlock, gives a check up in the classes, or anything concerning the authorities.
Archie was one of the most attractive boys in class Celestine (of 11th grade). Perhaps he was THE most attractive guy in Celestine. Besides him, there was the class head and his friends. The rest of the boys were nerds and dorks(few are cute). Even the sport top sport players weren't as attractive as Archie with their well built body. Archie had beauty and brains, which contributed to his beauty. He excelled in science. We sometimes called him Archimedes, after the Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer. Archie hated alot of things though, the slightest thing could irritate him. So sitting next to Celestine's weirdest member wasn't much to his pleasure.
As much as things irritated Archie, he still had a good sense of humour.
"But Vesper is a really nice guy Archie, right Bree?" Alma smiled.
Alma was the nicest amongst us. She was the only Muslim in the while school (Divine high school didn't have a very high population). She was soft too. Always smiling and always trying to see the good in people. Archie would tell her time without number that being soft would get her nowhere, but that didn't change a thing. Alma would just laugh or smile when he said something like that to her. I never said anything about Alma's character, I was too used to her behavior to consider her changing.
"Yeah, I guess" I agreed with her.
'Bree' was what everyone called me. It would be better off if I say 'almost' every one called me. Some people choose to call me fully, Aubrey. Which sounded formal in my ears.
Archie left Alma and I for something, so we walked to class ourselves. When we were almost there, my eyes caught of Asher Lark. Alma's eyes also saw him and her face turned pale red.
"You should really talk to him one day, I mean a REAL conversation." I said elbowing her.
"I firmly disagree. Stop talking Bree and tell me if I look okay" She ordered and eyed her head to toe. She was practically covering her whole body. Her hijab covered her hair and neck, then our uniform's long sleeved shirt and suit, even her skirt was with black tights underneath. All I could do was adjust her hijab to the middle of her head and cleaned the misplaced lipgloss .
Alma would never remove her hijab, even if her life depended on it. They take religion greatly serious in her home. I respect that, but it's creepy that I, her roommate and best friend never saw her hair. Even if I did. I would assume it was an illusion later.
We walked pass Asher and and his friends and he didn't even spare a glance.
Asher was in class Onyx. He was the class topper, and was able to choose whether or not he would stay in Onyx or move to Celestine(he has this privilege because he's also the class head). But he chose Onyx. Alma cried after that.
I didn't really see anything special in Asher, but Alma never had a boyfriend and she never showed any interest in a guy until she laid her eyes on Asher. To her, every guy was 'nice and cute', but Asher was dreamy and handsome.
Her crush for him had being going on for quite a long time, but she never approached him. All she did was try to look cute while walking past him.
We entered the class room and made our way to our seats that were so far away from each other. As I sat, the bell rang for break over and everyone quickly entered the class. If you're caught outside your class 10 minutes after break, you would be penalized. Archie entered the class and looked at Vesper with an irritated look while walking to his seat. You could see some girls blushing as Archie passed them. Like they aren't used to his face after all these years.
You would think Celestine girls only had time for books, but no, they weren't that type. At least most of them weren't.
Vesper looked down when he noticed Archie's glare. He knew very well that Archie didn't like him.
The scene made me slap my forehead and laugh.
"Bree" someone silently called from behind. I looked back. The person sitting behind me gave me a folded paper. I looked at the guy and shook the paper with a questioning look. He shrugged, as if to say 'i don't know the source'. I eyed him. 'Of course you don't' I mouthed.
I looked around to see if anyone was acting weird or looking at me. They were all looking at me, at least nearly everyone. It was like they passed the paper and were waiting to see my reaction after I read what was in it.
There was no teacher in class, but we were accustomed to staying quiet until the teacher came in. While the class head, Luca Lark would stand in front of the class to ensure it's coordinated. Even he was staring at me.
I opened the paper and silently read the contents.