"30 FEBRUARY"

2 MARCH, TUESDAY MORNING

It's March???

So here I was just enjoying a very rare normal day, without dream traveling to some goddess forsaken place in my pajamas, or having a bomb explode in my face on the way to school, or anything remotely newsworthy like that.

The crowds and cameras were still around. For most part, I pretended they weren't there, just as I pretended it was normal for me to walk into school with a bright smile on my face. Like which highschool student did that?

I also waved back and called back "Good morning!" to whoever yelled "Alpha Princess!" loudly enough. I don't know, it just felt more natural than to stoicly ignore them like I was deaf or something.

I even signed my autograph for a few seniors. One of them handed me a gold marker to sign on the cover of a small blue notebook, "Please write 'Happy 8th Birthday, Marcy!' on it too."

Her little sister, Marcy was such a fan, I wouldn't believe it. (Should it bother me that my fans seem to all be elementary school girls?)

It was a little bit tiring just to get to class because of all that, but nothing terrible or awkward happened. We got to class. Fluffy, and EJ, and me.

Elena got to class shortly after. She cast me her wide-eyed look, like she was deciding if she wanted to acknowledge me, and then proceeded to act like I didn't exist. I guess she decided to ignore me. I can take the hint, I adverted my gaze to admire the pale morning sky. She took out a fresh magazine from her bag. It was so new I could smell it from where I was sitting.

I heard Elena's mum wasn't sending her to school anymore, so she was no longer the first soul to reach school. She was still pretty early though. Maybe she liked the quiet start to the mornings. Me too... this was really nice. I took out my surface pro to read more reports.

What would be even nicer would be reading the manga tucked neatly in my bag, but after my talk with Dad last night, I felt like I should really get my head in the alpha game and work harder.

When Harvey ran through his usual updates in the car this morning, and I had to admit to feeling a little stressed when I realized I hadn't read anything about what he was saying yet. I was pretty sure I had caught up on most of the reports yesterday, but reports liked to pile up when I'm not looking. It's like my betas liked to vet and submit reports while I was sleeping.

Anyway, being behind in my reading wasn't anything different from usual either. So everything was uneventful and as normal as life could be... until the cool girls came in to copy homework.

Okay, I had expected some kind of fuss over my new hairstyle. Even one of my seniors had commented, "I like your hair" when I gave her my autograph. Ki had braided the long strands of excess black ribbon around the diadem into my hair. It was a new look, and cool girls didn't overlook things like that.

Or so I thought. Because they truly acted like they hadn't noticed. Come to think of it, they didn't comment on my new leather satchel bag either. Anyway, it wasn't about anything I was wearing.

Leia snickered the moment she looked at my math worksheet (which was an after exam sudoku puzzle), "29 Feb? Zammi, what planet are you living on?"

Krystal who picked up my English worksheet (which was an after exam crossword puzzle), stopped to look over. Leia pointed to the top corner of my math worksheet. Krystal checked the top corner of the English worksheet in her hand and then scoffed, "Is today 30th Feb, Zammi?"

It sounded like they were mocking me for something, but I didn't know what.

"What? I don't get it." Zara said.

Krystal and Leia showed Zara my homework.

"Zammi thinks it's leap year." Leia was truly enjoying this.

It was Jasmine who kindly broke it down for me, "Sam, yesterday was the first of March."

"It's March?" I totally didn't see this coming.

"The SECOND of March, Zammi." Leia told me highhandedly.

Wait... How did I skip a whole day? Or did I skip two days? Did I sleep through it? I felt myself panic.

"It's okay, Sam. February is kinda short. I always feel surprised too." Jasmine tried to console me, "We can help you change the date to the 1st on your homework. I've got correction tape."

Oh... So I didn't skip/sleep through any day. I just wrote the wrong date. Whew.

"It's not really that big a deal, Zammi. Chill." Krystal told me, "It's not like the teachers would mark the date."

"This isn't even real homework." Leia scoffed.

Oh. Haha. Was my panic so obvious even the humans picked up on it?

"Yeah." I nodded. No biggie.

But what if....

"What if we wrote the date today as the 30th of February?" I asked, "Like if our whole class did it, do you think the teachers would notice?"

"Why would you want to do that?" Zara asked.

"I just thought maybe it'll be funny." I said.

"It's not like it's the 1st of April, you know." Krystal told me.

"Let's do it!" Leia was surprisingly game.

Krystal narrowed her eyes at her cousin, "Why? What are you up to?"

Leia gave a really sly smile, "I'll tell you later."

So when the guys came in from football. Leia instructed Liam to write the date as the 30th February on the board instead of the 2 March.

Henry and Marcus had also come in by then, and naturally would have some comment.

"You're going to confuse everyone, Sam." Marcus complained.

"It's fine." Henry smirked, "It's just homework, not some multimillion dollar contract."

The rest of the guys made a fuss about it too. Mostly Troy who had to point out too loudly that the date Liam wrote on the board today was wrong. Some of the guys explained it was a prank and it was wrong ON PURPOSE.

To which Terrence exclaimed, "What? It's March?"

And I found out I wasn't the only one who wrote yesterday's date as the 29th February.

The cool girls were much blunter about it to Terrence.

"So stupid." Leia scoffed, and then her eyes widened at me.

I grinned at her, "Are you sure you want to copy my homework?"

"I was talking about myself." Leia immediately amended, "Anyone can see it's really the 30th of February!"

"It's not!" Troy yelled.

"I knew it!" Terrence decided, "You can't trick me, Troy!"

"What?" Troy yelled.

Some of the girls yelled back, "Shut up Troy."

"But..." Troy tried to plead his case.

"Look Troy, if Liam says it's the 30th, it's the 30th." One girl told him sternly, "Ugly boys like you have no say."

Troy took offense immediately, "You girls are so shallow and superficial!"

"Wow, Troy knows a big word." Henry muttered under his breath, but I heard it.

"I knew this is going to confuse everyone." Marcus sighed.

"Only the stupid ones." Henry smirked.

I think it was at this moment that it hit me: I was really going to miss this class.

Mrs Henderson came in at homeroom and we all sat upright and waited for her to realize that the date on the board was wrong.

"My, this is unexpected." She told us when she looked at us, "You're all so alert today."

Yes, which should be a strong indicator to any teacher that something was up with their class.

"I guess you must have heard about it." Mrs Henderson shrugged.

Wait, heard about what?

She handed Liam a stack of papers to distribute, "All the year ones will be participating in community service projects in Term 2. I'll play you a video about it, and you can fill in the questionnaire to help the school assign you to the most suitable project for you."

Oh.

Henry raised his hand, "What if we're transfering out?"

"Well..." Mrs Henderson considered it, but I didn't think she wanted us to just kick back, so she said, "You can fill up the questionnaire too. It's quite an interesting one, and reflecting on it can help all of us learn more about ourselves and what we can do for the less fortunate around us."

"Is Henry transfering?" Troy asked. I think he was trying to whisper to Ivan, but the whole class heard him.

"Good riddance." Ivan said without trying to whisper.

"Likewise." Henry smirked, because he couldn't just shut up and pretend not to hear that.

"Now, class..." Mrs Henderson tried to guide us back to the task at hand, "We will talk about who's leaving on a later date. I was thinking of a small class party to say goodbye to some of our friends and wish them well."

"Who else is leaving?" Ivan asked.

"Some of you will be leaving to other schools at the end of the term. Some of you will be selected for pull-out classes too. I'll let you know when it's finalized." Mrs Henderson said very diplomatically.

"It'll have to be Terrence." Troy told Ivan too loudly, "I bet he failed everything."

Terrence slammed his desk and stood up, "What the F did you say?"

"Sit down, Terrence." One of those girls called across the classroom.

"Yeah," Another one cackled, "Troy would probably be pulled out too!"

"Hey!" Troy protested.

"Enough, class!" Mrs Henderson tried to be the peacemaker again, "The pull out classes aren't for kids who are doing badly, they are for kids who the teachers think would benefit the most from a smaller, more interactive lesson. And every person is different, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, the only thing I expect from my students is the maturity to treat each other respectfully."

Someone give this teacher a noble peace prize.

"Now please, have you all gotten your questionnaire? I want you to take this time to reflect and think through the questions. You're going to be attached to one of these projects for a whole term, so answer carefully."

I looked at the first blank on the top corner of the first page, "Date" and grinned.

I wasn't the only one who spied the chance to put our prank into action. There were a few sniggers in the classroom.

"Now class, I hope you take this questionnaire seriously." Mrs Henderson reminded us when she heard the sniggering. She shook her head, "I can't help but feel you kids are behaving strangely today."

As if to prove her right, two of the girls in front started squabbling a little because one of them actually wrote the right date and the other wanted her to change it.

"Girls..." Mrs Henderson walked over.

The rest of the class tensed up, were we going to get called out already?

"Sorry, Mrs Hen." The first girl said, "She wrote the wrong date."

"Yeah. I wrote the wrong date." The second girl quickly agreed.

Mrs Henderson looked up to the board. I held my breath.

"The date is up there." Mrs Henderson said, "Please focus on the questionnaire, class."

Eh? Did she not see that it was the "30 February"?

I blinked. Wth.

And then I realized Maria was smiling eerily next to me. Wth! I narrowed my eyes at the vampire - using a mind wrap was going too far!

Mrs Henderson looked my way, "Samantha, please answer the questionnaire on your own. I want to see what Samantha would like to do for the community, not what Maria would like to do twice."

I quickly ducked my head to read the questionnaire in front of me.

"That's obvious, Mrs Hen." Zara answered on my behalf, "The best thing for her to do is shake hands and sign autographs."

"Or make her autograph a bunch of things and sell it on the internet to raise funds." Krystal said.

"Oh, good idea." Zara brightened, "Zammi, sign some of my stuff later, okay?"

"What charity is that going to?" Leia asked, "Zara pocket money fund?"

Apparently, someone had auctioned off one of those build it yourself ponies with my signature on it for a cool 50 grand.

Wait, why didn't I know about this?

I turned to Henry, "50 grand? The pony I signed at your inauguration?"

"How would I know when you signed it?" Henry shrugged, but he showed me the photograph of the pink and blue pony. I swear, I never saw that pony in my life.

"I didn't sign that." I said.

"What, are you sure Sam?" Henry asked.

"Yes." I would remember if I signed a pink a blue pony, "Why? Were you the one who bought it?"

"Of course not!" Henry was quick to snub out any such ideas, "But that makes it a fraud, right?"

"It's a fake?" Marcus exclaimed, "Are you sure very sure, Sam?"

The class started tittering. A fake? A 50 grand fake! Why would anyone go through the trouble to fake my autograph on a pony? It was done quite well too. I always wrote the "A" like an incomplete star. (I thought it was a nice touch.) The signature in the photo was similar, but I was sure I signed a white a blue pony, and I had written the words "To Mae. Be brave." on its back hoof with my autograph. The photo of this auctioned pony just showed "Alpha Princess" scribbled on its front hoof.

But the most mind boggling question was WHO would pay 50 thousand dollars for something like that? Just build your own pony and write Alpha Princess on it with a permanent marker. It would have saved you a lot of money.

"That's enough class. Please focus on your work." Mrs Henderson tried again to get us to focus. But questionnaires about whether you liked to pack canned food or visit the local orphanage were far less exciting than a fraudulent toy pony sold for a small fortune.