Chapter Twenty - The Third Place!

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AT THE SCHOOL'S ENVIRONS

It was the second day Jemima came to Skye Evander High School. She looked modish in her outfit – a fancy patterned shirt and a pair of close-fitting denim trousers inside a black, long and loose-fitting jacket with a furred gray beanie and a pair of black thigh boots as accompaniments. Indubitably, her kid sister, Mildred forced her to wear that. Jemima never had time to always keep her wardrobe in check, she would use such time to read and write articles.

Sighting from her stance, she could see the other three girls – The Resolute, looking so restless and twitchy, especially Khloé.

"Golly! You came today?!" Shelbie exhaled twitchily. Beads of heated but cold sweats was dripping from her forehead and even her carbuncle headband was drenched. She must have been so tensed and fried up.

Jemima walked up to them with a surprised look on her face. "What happened?" There was no reply and she could see shock plastered on their faces. "Why are The Resolute looking so edgy and fidgety?"

Caitlyn suddenly smiled. "It's a miracle that you came to school today! We thought we'd never set our eyes on you again…"

"What?!" exclaimed Jemima. "I don't understand what you girls are saying."

Khloé who had not spoken a word since Jemima walked up to them decided to explain to her. Jemima didn't understand the weird things that was going on in Skye Evander High School.

"It's just that…something occurred before you didn't…like you did not know much about Skye Evander High School…so…" Khloe stammered in fright. Jemima was just looking petrified and confused.

Shelbie just cut in. "Yeah. I know it's so awkward to say that even tho folks and scholars think that this high school is one of the exceptional schools a soul could wish to step a foot in, it's just the total antonym."

"Like how?!" Jemima chipped in with confusion in her voice.

"Do you know any girl named Freya MacLee?" Caitlyn asked Jemima.

"Nope…" Jemima contemplated and tried to remember if she had heard such names. "Nay…never heard of such names before…Freya MacLee…nope!"

Caitlyn then went ahead to let the cat out of the bag. "Freya MacLee once came to this high school, but never came back on the second day all because of…"

"Desha and her bloc." Jemima interrupted her and Caitlyn could only nod to show that she was correct.

Khloé added to what Caitlyn said. "Yep! And Desha has always been a thorn to our fleshes. Miraculously, we are big-time survivors, we've gone through thick and thin in this high school."

Jemima who once looked confused and scared stiff like a mouse beaten by the rain could only chortle. There was a wild smirk hanging on her lips and one could tell that she was amused by the tales the girls were telling her. "Oh my! This girl must be a wet blanket…"

The scenario was put to a halt when the school lessons commencement bell rang.

"Golly! Time for geography class!" Jemima exclaimed! She remembered the so-called stern teacher a schoolmate told her the previous day while she was surfing thru the school's social media pages.

Caitlyn's knees quavered when Jemima mentioned about the geography class. "OMG! Geography?! We better get going before those big-headed robots catch up with us."

"Exactly!" Shelbie supported. "And if we don't get there, we'll get interminable but inevitable supplementary four hours geography class in Madam Yvette's office…"

The other girls glared at Shelbie in shock and Shelbie could only shut her mouth while she was halfway.

"We better get going!" Jemima yelled at the other girls and they started running to their class at the sight of a robot charging towards them.

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IN CLASS 528

It was the time for the geography class as according to the class course outline. The robot in charge of academics had gone to alert the geography tutor, Madam Yvette Trooper. She came into the class and everyone suspended their activities at the sight of her. Everyone in Skye Evander High School was scared of her. Her darkish eyes held incomprehensible nihilism in it and anyone who stared at those eyes of hers would certainly feel the dark sensations it held.

"Hello students of Skye Evander High School!" The menacing woman laughed. Her laughter was enough to pull someone into the depths of despair. "Well, we'll be having a class test today. Hope you're ready?!"

The shocked students murmured heavily amongst themselves. Only few knew about the test that would be holding that day, but how on earth did they know that they were going to have a test?

"The duration (time fixed for the test) is just forty-five minutes and then five minutes for the submission of test scripts…" She continued, not minding whether the students could hear her or not. She passed the test scripts to the robots who shared the papers to the students.

The students were writing the test, some wrote with ease, some others with difficulty and confusion etched on their faces. But Jemima could be seen writing with such levelness as if it wasn't difficult at all. On the other hand, Jayden was writing ardently and Desha was writing the test with such straight-faced mien.

The stringent Madam Yvette could do nothing but walk around the students. She would chortle sometimes and then smirk and put on all kinds of facial expressions when she peeped into students' scripts.

"You have ten more minutes to round up you test. Get ready for the test submission!" She deadpanned.

She then caught two students cheating. The two would secretly swop their papers every now and then but they were unlucky this time around. Madam Yvette stood behind them as they tried to secretly swop again. She collected their papers and tore them into shreds before the very eyes of other students. Crude shock could be seen on their faces.

"Take them to my office!" She ordered the nearby robots. The two underhanded students were pushed away from the classroom as murmurs filled the classroom.

"All pens up…!" She shrieked.

The robots quickly collected the test papers and the students began their murmurs again.

"Geez! The test was somewhat easy!" Jemima puffed out. She tugged her ash blonde hair with her slender fingers and tied it to a bun, few strands of hairs were lying by the sides of her head.

A stout-looking dude looks dotingly at Jemima: "Wow! She's amazingly beautiful. Wish I could be given the opportunity to express my endless love for her."

"Are you okay?" Jayden asked Vince.

"Hm-hmm…"

"Any problem? 'Cause it seems like you're lost."

Vince then turned to look Jayden, "Nope! Just feeling fretful after I wrote that bombshell test."

Jayden laughed so loudly and smacked Vince. "Be serious for once, Vince. You're more than that, I know you to be such a nifty and crafty bloke but you only apply that when you wanna hunt down a girl…"

Madam Yvette stepped into the classroom with six mean robots holding the test scripts. She looked so stern as students rumored. She surely looked like a despot whenever she kept such expression.

"Oh boy! She's here." Vince whispered and sat on his chair immediately.

The despot harrumphed and the robots shared back the test scripts to the students. "Without wasting much time, I'd like to call out the winners for today's surprise class test."

The alleged surprise test was not a surprise to few students like Jayden and so on but the other students were fidgeting and murmuring. People like Jayden and Desha could pass Madam Yvette's test and there were rare cases of few people to be among the first three winners, Shelbie was among those because she once took the third place in one of her tests.

"The third place goes to…" Madam Yvette coughed as the students were drowned in suspense. "The third place goes to…Desha Sinclaire…" The students were utterly surprised when Desha's name was declared and even Desha's lips were parted open in shock. She had never gotten third place in Madam Yvette's tests, she always took the first or second place.

"The Third place?! That's not true!" Bitsy and Alyse scoffed. "Lady Desha has never gotten third place before and she will never ever take that position. Something is certainly wrong somewhere."

"Jeepers!"

"OMG!"

"Something is definitely off."

"That has never happened before…!"

"Are y'all sure that's her real position…or there may be a mistake somewhere."

"Madam Yvette never lies!"

"What the heck is happening?" Oozed the voices of surprised students as Desha shamefully trailed towards Madam Yvette. She was knocked for six and she could not hide it any longer. All eyes were fixed on her as she was walking to the cruel despot.