Nix went to the front of the class, running his hands through his tumbled red hair in nervousness. He took a deep breath and smiled, making those Fae green eyes twinkle mischievously and the female classmates sigh. He seemed to take everything that was new to him in stride and with enthusiasm. He had never been to school before and didn’t quite understand the logistics of homework, or the need for it, but his personality and contagious enthusiasm helped him get out of loads of trouble. That or there could have been a little of the Nixie charm still in his blood.
“Ahem,” Nix cleared his throat, looked over at Mina, and winked. “Dr. Seuss was a man passionate about animals and clothes. He put hats on cats and socks on foxes. He was always losing his Things so he took to numbering them. I think he may at one point have lived on a mountain as a hermit who didn’t have a heart. And the people in the village didn’t know Who they were…uh…the end!” Nix said with enthusiasm.
The students had giggled throughout his presentation, but as soon as he was done, the room erupted. T.J. and Steven started hooting loudly and gave him a standing ovation. Nix’s face turned red, but he bowed and jogged through a gauntlet of high fives, receiving numerous pats on the back as well.
The teacher just stared after Nix with a look of utter confusion on his face. Luckily, Ever and Mina were able to convince the school that Nix, or Nick—his new human name—was a foreign exchange student from some far off land. Ever had to pick a country so small no one would even know about in the hopes that it would explain his lack of knowledge in modern culture. Up to this point it had worked, because the teachers had been extremely helpful and lenient toward him.
Nix’s survival of the trip to the human plane had been a godsend, because it was the one thing that brought Ever and Mina back together. Ever had been five shades of furious over Mina’s error in being tricked with the Grimoire and losing Jared to Teague. She had actually still refused to talk to her until she learned Charlie and Mina saved Nix’s life by bringing him over. Ever had a few choice words about how dangerous and stupid it was, but she understood. And as Mina was trying to explain the school bus to Nix—how it wasn’t a giant yellow beast devouring a sacrifice of young children—Ever finally took pity on her.
T.J. returned to his seat amid laughter and a few claps. Mina had missed the entire thing, remembering. She’d need to pay better attention.
“Nan Taylor?” Mr. Morris called from his desk.
Mina craned her neck, surprised when her best friend popped up from the back corner of the classroom. She had thought, since the desk next to her was empty, that Nan hadn’t come to school today. Quite possibly though, she wouldn’t have recognized Nan with her bottleneck glasses, crazy ratted hair, and dark robe even if she were beside her.
It was apparent from her dress, Nan was trying to make a grand entrance. Her normally beautiful blonde hair was disguised beneath a very large witch hat. Her mischievous blue eyes were hidden behind thick glasses, which Mina could only assume were impossible to see out of. Mina’s assumption was proven correct when Nan banged her knee against a desk.
Once she reached the whiteboard, Nan turned up her iPhone, and familiar mystical music floated through the air. She always did prefer the dramatic approach to… well, everything. Nan decided to take a simple oral presentation and dress up as a character from the Harry Potter series.
Nan’s presentation was highly entertaining and informative, and she received bonus points from their teacher for taking the presentation one step forward with such creativity.
Mina’s heart sank when her name was called to do her presentation. Her hands clutched her paper, which was only slightly wrinkled from being folded and unfolded a hundred or more times in the last thirty minutes.
She desperately wished she had her best friend’s confidence in front of a crowd. Mina’s feet felt like they were encased in cement, and her heart pounded so loud and fast, she could hear it in her head. Why did she have to be so nervous? She happened to look out the window and saw that the clear sky had turned a dismal gray—which mirrored her feelings of distress.
She trudged up to the front of the room, desperately wishing for a giant crater to open up in the ground in front of her and swallow her whole. Or a meteor to come crashing into the school’s football field and cause a big huge distracting thing, so she could duck out the back of the room. But luck wasn’t on her side. Luck was never on her side. In fact she was pretty sure it avoided her at all costs.
She was standing in front of the class and she was now out of time. A small cylindrical object weighed heavily in Mina’s pocket, and she felt her hand gently brush against the seam ripper, its magic powerful enough to rip through the physical plane to the Fae plane by creating a door between the worlds. Oh, how she wanted to use it.