ONE OF THE COOL GIRLS

I had no proof, but I was sure Jasmine told the guys I was the culprit to the lack of access to female toilets on our level. Not that it inconvenienced them. Next time I needed to punch something, I would choose what I hit more wisely.

Besides being on the receiving end of sidelong glances from the guys when they thought I wasn't noticing, I think today would be the template for the typical school day from now on.

Lunch break was taken at the side of the school old building, Aladdin knew not to show himself again, and I could eat undisturbed. Then I headed to the library for a bit. Maria came at the end of lunch and we took a walk pass Dino's class. She hadn't tried to mess with my head, not yet anyway. I met up with the pack again after lunch.

Today we had home ec though. That was new.

In this school, the boys took woodwork class while the girls took home ec, which was mostly cooking lessons for the first half of the year.

Why can't girls take woodwork? Because the tools were sharp and dangerous. Let the girls play with knives and fire instead.

But I'm not complaining. I would have chosen home ec anyway. Cooking lessons meant yummy food to eat after the lesson. Here I'm assuming I won't burn anything.

Mrs Martinez, the home ec teacher preassigned our cooking partners. So Jasmine couldn't sit with me.

Thankfully, I wasn't paired with Maria either. Because I don't think vampire princesses can cook. Just saying.

My cooking partner's name was Sarah Keely. I learned her name when Mrs Martinez called them out. I would have sworn I've never seen her in my life, except that I also knew we shared the same homeroom class for the last 3 days.

Once our names were called, we picked a counter, actually Sarah did. Although all the work counters looked the same to me, Sarah seemed to have a clear preference. We took a middle bench. It smelled faintly of bleach and other generic cleaning agents, and there was no trace of decaying food scraps or greases.

It became quite clear that Sarah's choice of work counter wasn't due to its satisfactory hygiene standards the moment she greeted the two girls already stationed at the counter behind us. Seeing Sarah with those two girls made me recognize them as a collective. They were the girls seated somewhere in front of me in homeroom. Maybe even directly in front of Liam? I never paid attention.

"I'm Zara." Sarah told me, "with a 'z' because it's cooler like that. This is Krystal-"

The girl named Krystal cut her off, "It's with a 'k'."

I nodded stupidly, mentally finding the 'k' in her name.

"And that's Leia." Sarah indicated to the third girl.

"Actually it's Leah, but everyone calls me Leia." The third girl explained.

I'm beginning to see a pattern although I still struggled to understand the purpose of it

"I'm Sam." I say, "Just Sam."

Krystal with a K nodded her decision, "Well Sam, since you're with us now, you can be Zammi."

What?

"That's spelled Z-A-M-M-I, with two 'M's." Explained Krystal who sounded very much like and expert in this foreign etiquette.

"Why not just Sam?" I wanted to know.

"Because Zammi is cooler." Sarah, I mean Zara answered, sounding like she was holding back the "duh".

"Cos you're with us now Zammi." Krystal said, "You're one of the cool girls now."

I eyed the three human girls. Should I take this to mean that I've been accepted into their pack? That was fast, and rather sudden. Human friendships always mystified me.

We didn't cook anything on the first class of the year, which was disappointing, but pretty much expected. Just another list of rules and introduction to the subject. And then it was time to go home.