THE CONTINUATION OF SCHOOL

17 FEBRUARY, WEDNESDAY, END OF LUNCH

The moment I agreed that a shower would be nice, Fluffy disappeared and returned to me with a black duffel bag - very similar to the ones I've seen in Mate's closet at the underground. So similar, that it was labelled, "SAM@SCH" on its handle.

From that, he pulled out a spare uniform for me, packed with travel size bottles of my usual pink shampoo and shower gel. It was all in one very neatly sealed zipper bag.

"I need an extra zipper bag." I informed Fluffy.

"Yes, Alpha." Fluffy rummaged and found one from the magical black bag. Actually, he found 3... in different sizes. I picked the smallest and largest one.

I wanted to ask him what else was in there but Marcus had chimed in, "Hurry and go, Sam. You've got 20 minutes."

So I ran for it, following my lucky sense of direction to the nearest showers - which was all the way at the gym locker rooms.

The shower rooms were empty. I had never showered in school before. Usually, we would use the shower rooms, but just to change in and out of our gym gear. Nobody actually showered, unless you were in a sports club. I heard the sports clubs were often arguing about who got dibs on the shower rooms.

I let my lucky sense of direction pick a room. It wasn't all that clean. There was mold on one wall, but I think if I didn't touch any of the surfaces, it would be okay.

Oh, and the water heater wasn't on. I guess no one was supposed to be showering. Luckily, I had lots of experience showering in ice cold water. But brrrr.... It was freezing. I almost wanted to rewear the jacket again, but I refrained.

I shook dry my hair and was very grateful to find a towel in the zipper bag. My uniform had been washed and lemon scented, but otherwise it was brand new. It even had a new school pin, ribbon, hair tie... Everything. Beta magic.

Then I put my clothes into the bag, and the rogue jacket into the other, careful not to get contaminated by the smell, I transferred the picture into the small zipper bag. Now I could see the picture without smelling the paper!

Okay, I should've sealed the contaminated clothing BEFORE I showered, but what was done was done.

After gingerly sealing everything, I washed my hands and wiped off the wet outside of the plastic with paper towels.

Okay! I brought everything out and was quite surprised to find Fluffy waiting outside along the hallway for me.

He took my bags, checked that the zippers were sealed and stuffed them into the black duffel he had with him. I checked the small zipper seal, just in case, before slipping it into the pocket of my skirt.

"What else do you have in there?" I asked, but the bell rang, opps we were going to be late. 

"Quick, Fluffy! We're late!"

I wasn't so much concerned about History class, but I knew the student council would patrol the hallways straight after the bell, and I didn't want to be caught with the stragglers and given demerit points.

We ran down the empty hallways and stepped through the backdoor of the classroom just in time. Our new history teacher was just putting her things on the teacher's desk. And then school continued as it always did...well, almost anyway.

Maria was in a bad mood because she didn't get to see Dino after lunch, but I didn't realise it from the onset. I mean, she hadn't said one word to me, which arguably should have been an early warning indicator, but I didn't notice.

She even put away her handkerchief and shifted her desk neatly against mine. I thought that meant all was forgiven for smelling like a rogue in school. But more than her forgiveness, her reaction also reassured me that the shower had successfully removed the rogue stench from my person.

Actually, maybe I was being too sensitive and her bad mood had nothing to do with me. Did vampires have PMS?

Our new history teacher had been quite dismayed by our quiz results. She said so as she returned it to us. Only a couple of kids scored an A grade. I wasn't one of them. I got a B. I frowned at my grade and flipped through my answer. I had been quite confident about this topic.

Anyway, she was very disappointed in us. She will take today's lesson block to revise the chapter and we should take notes and do the corrections for our quiz.

It was unfortunate that our class did so badly in general. The grade was going to count in our GPA.

"If you wanted us to get better grades, you should've at least taught the chapter." Ivan informed her.

"You mean this class had not finished chapter 9 yet?" Our history teacher fumbled.

"Actually, we're on chapter 4." Ivan told her.

Oh her face! Our new history teacher stared at us in disbelief, her mouth hanging open soundlessly for a full minute before she tried to recover, "Ch...chapter  4. You mean to tell me that you have not covered chapter 5 to 9 at all?"

We nodded our heads solemnly.

She still didn't believe it. She made us open our textbooks to spot check. Since nobody (except Ivan and Fluffly) had bothered to read their history textbook ahead of the lessons, it was almost like new. Any notes or highlights were made up to the halfway point of chapter 4 where there was some crossword puzzle activity we had filled in.

Then she made us take out our files and show her our assignments and worksheets. Because she needed more proof. She really couldn't believe this. It was the end of the term. The other classes were at Chapter 10. (The other classes had the teacher who wasn't too sick to show up for class too.)

Anyway, all our files had nothing beyond chapter 3, and some of the boys were missing that too.

Now our history teacher panicked. We were at the end of the term!

"Okay, stay calm!" She instructed us, even though she was the only one who wasn't.  For most part, she looked like someone was physically punching her in the guts with an invisible hand.

"We can do this." She said. Let us call today's lesson, the New History Teacher's Last Stand.

We would begin at chapter 5. She was going to go through five chapters very quickly and we had to take proper notes and hand them in by the end of the day. She would have our worksheets printed for Chapter 4 to 9 and we had to finish it all by the end of the week. The notes and the worksheets would then complete our history file, which would constitute our everyday work, a good 30% of our final grade.

Which would be impossible, but desperate times, and the unchangeable grading system set by the history department, called for desperate and miserable measures.

By the time the bell rang, my hand hurt from writing so fast. My notes were for most part illegible, but I did find out why I scored so badly. Apparently, the facts in our history textbook and the ones in our Lycan Group Study did not always match.

At Winderhill, we studied Human History, not Lycan History. Thus my B. I lost marks due to inaccuracies and missing details - which I had no idea about. Frankly, I suspected one side (let's not point fingers now), had tempered with the facts. Not with the dates, or obviously documented events of course, but the innocence and heroism of one particular human General seemed somewhat whitewashed and over-decorated.

Beside that particularly arduous history lesson, the other thing that didn't feel like a normal day was how I was being treated by the general student population. Total strangers in the same school uniform would point me out to their friends when we had to switch classrooms. On the way to the computer lab, I was well aware of my photo being taken by other students.

It wasn't crazy or anything, and I wouldn't have noticed except for Fluffy suddenly switching sides so he was between me and the small group of students holding out their phones. EJ would bomb whatever video or photos they were taking, "Hoi, Hoi! What are you taking a photo of, pretty school mate? Are you taking a video? Take me! Take me!"

I couldn't decide if he was ruining it for them, or helping them get a more interesting footage.

And then every now and then, someone from my class would come up with a Smelly Sam joke. Since most of my class was human, they hadn't actually smelled anything to begin with, so even though the rogue stench had long gone, they were still at it.

"What's blue and smell like a skunk?"

"A blue skunk?"

"No, Sam!"

First a racoon, then a porcupine, now a skunk? Did I somewhat remind people of friendly woodland creatures? If I were a woodland creatures, I would be the wolf, you know.

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Smelly."

"Smelly who?"

"Smelly Sam!"

Hahahahaha.

No, it wasn't that funny, or original either, but they were doing their best.

"Don't laugh, Sam." Henry growled, "You'll only encourage them."

"But they're trying so hard!" I said.

"Our Alpha is full of compassion." Fluffy demurred.

"Hoohoohoo! Hahahaha!" EJ had laughed till tears came to his eyes, "Guys, that one's so bad it's funny!"

(No it wasn't. It was just bad.)

But all the guys laughed and congratulated each other for coming up with yet another Smelly Sam joke.

"Don't mind her, Abigail." One of the girls said as they passed us on their way to the computer lab, "Some people just love the attention."

"Such an attention w****."

I decided to pretend I didn't hear that.

Abigail gasped on my behalf, "I'm sure she isn't doing all that on purpose."

"Please!" Her outspoken friend held up a hand and announced to the entire hallway, "Stop defending the b****. The only reason she stinks is because she's a wet b****."

Wow. If we were playing the game, Never Have I Ever, I would be able to get points if someone said, "Never have I ever been called a ..."

Fluffy growled lowly. EJ blinked in shock.

Yeah, your alpha was just called a couple of bad words. Whatcha gonna do about it?

But this was when I realized Fluffy and EJ weren't my security roll out just because they fell in the right age bracket, or because the other warriors just wanted to get them out of their hair (which would have also been legitimate reasons).

I'm not sure what training they had to have prepared them for such a moment, but Fluffly put on his smiling mask and wondered aloud, "I wonder who they're talking about."

"I didn't know there were scary girls in our class." EJ hid behind him.

"Not all springs produce fresh water." Fluffy shrugged, "Some are quite salty."

The cool girls were also "trained well" for this moment, although they were far less poetic about it.

"You're the ones who stink!" Zara shouted at their departing backs, "Don't think you can get away with talking s*** like that in front of us!"

"Oh yeah? What are you going to do? Post it on your social media?" One of the girls turned around to challenge.

"Nah! You girls are too ugly! I'd lose all my followers!" Krystal yelled back.

"Don't waste your time talking to them, let's go." Another of Abigail's posse decided.

"Run away! Next time if your butts are going to talk, do it in the toilet!" Zara yelled.

"Was that their butts?" Leia asked, "Poor girls, their butts are so ugly."

Did that make them buttheads? Hahahaha. I'm so funny.

"There are scary girls everywhere." EJ realized. I laughed at that, "EJ... All girls are scary."

It's true. Even my Luna Mama. I know it's hard to imagine, but there was a good reason I never crossed her.

"Even you, pretty Alpha?" EJ asked.

Are you kidding? I gave him my widest smile and boasted, "EJ, I'm the scariest one of all!"

You know how pride comes before a fall, my boast fell flat the moment it came out of my mouth. 

"No way, Sam. You're like the least scary girl ever." Zara told me earnestly, "The only thing scary about you are your bodyguards."

The others laughed and dared to agree.

"Yeah, sometimes I don't even think you're a real werewolf." Krystal said.

What?

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Well, you're not really fierce or anything." Zara said, "More like cute, like a hamster."

Now I was really insulted. A hamster? Wth.

"A hamster?" I repeated, "For real?"

"A nice pretty one." Zara assured me, "Not like Blackie."

"Or a rabbit, or a lamb." Leia suggested, "One of those."

"Luckily, you're a princess. I don't think someone like you could survive on your own in this world." Krystal informed me.

This coming from a human. Gee. Thanks