“I’m Sean McInney,” said a bulky guy with long hair. He looked pointedly at Jordan. “I don’t like icebreakers.”
Alex grinned along with everyone else and turned to the last person who sat directly opposite her, a short girl with mousy brown hair and owlish eyes. She was so tiny that it looked like the slightest breath of wind would snap her in half.
“I’m Phillipa Squeaker,” the girl said. “I hate my name, so call me ‘Pip’ or ‘Pipsqueak’. Anything else will result in me shaving off one of your eyebrows while you sleep. You’ve been warned.” Pipsqueak glared threateningly around the table until her scowl transformed into a brilliant smile. “Oh, I forgot to mention that I love rainbow cupcakes and fluffy bunnies.”
Alex tried to turn her laughter into a cough but wasn’t very successful. Pipsqueak turned to her and Alex tried harder to steel her expression into something more serious, but it was impossible. Just as she managed to get rid of her smile, the small girl winked at her, and Alex couldn’t help but laugh again. At least Pipsqueak had a sense of humour. No one else at the table seemed to know how to take the diminutive girl.
“What’s the story with you anyway, Alex?” Pipsqueak asked out of the blue. “I mean, you arrive halfway through last year looking like a lost sheep in the middle of a wolf-infested forest, you get potential-tested into some pretty hard-core subjects, you end up in the Med Ward more times than most students do in their entire stay at Akarnae, and then you disappear for the summer without a trace. What’s the deal with all that?”
Alex squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, noticing that many of the others around the table were nodding in agreement at what Pipsqueak had said.
“I didn’t realise my life was so interesting to you all,” Alex said, hoping that if she seemed unconcerned then they would as well. “Would you like a copy of my diary? Perhaps that’ll give you some insight into the boring life of yours truly?”
“Yo, sweet!” Blink said with a fist pump into the air. “Count me in!”
“Blink, man, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t being serious,” Connor said from across the table, with Mel shaking her head beside him.
“Oh,” Blink said, deflating. “No fair. You just killed my vibe.”
Alex watched the interactions of her classmates and turned back to Pipsqueak who was looking at her, waiting for an answer.
“I have nothing to say that you don’t already know,” Alex said vaguely. “I transferred here partway through last year, like you said, and I’m not sure why my potential test came back as it did. Believe me when I say I wish the results had been different. My numerous trips to the Med Ward are because of those ‘hard-core classes’—as you so appropriately named them. And didn’t everyone disappear over the summer when term finished for the year?”
Pipsqueak frowned but the truth of Alex’s answers rang clear, despite being somewhat evasive.
“You’re just mysterious,” the small girl said. “We were in the same classes for a good eight months, but none of us know who you are.”
Heads were nodding all around the table and Alex found herself on the defensive. “Is that entirely my fault?” she said to the group as a whole. “Did any of you make an effort to introduce yourselves to me?”
“Whoa, whoa.” Blink raised his hands in surrender. “What our Squeaking-Pippa is trying to say is that we want to get to know you better. Anyone who gets sliced and diced by a knife is, like, seriously awesome. We salute you.”
Alex was too surprised to react when he actually saluted her. She shifted nervously and repeated, “Sliced and diced?”
“Sure, sure,” Blink said. “Despite the bogus food poisoning rumour that went around, everyone knows you were, like, stabbed or something at the end of last year. That’s epic.”
Alex must have looked panicked because Jordan leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, “It’s okay, they don’t know what actually happened. But news travels fast and there was a lot of commotion that night with half the teaching staff running off and you coming back all bloodied and everything. Word spread quickly, but no one knows anything solid.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to all the curious faces staring at her, but thankfully she didn’t have to worry about a response because at that moment, lollipops appeared on the table in front of all her classmates. Alex picked up her own, knowing exactly what it was but still looking at it with curiosity.
“Why do we have to get potential-tested again?” she asked, copying her classmates and popping hers into her mouth. Just like the first one she’d tasted, it had a fruity flavour, changing from orange to apple to banana, then mango, passionfruit and pineapple. The taste continued to change as she swirled it around her mouth.
“It’s rare, but your potential can change after certain life experiences,” Bear answered.
“Does that happen much?” she asked around the lollipop stick.
“Nope, not often,” Jordan said. “Bear was bumped up from Delta Chemistry to Epsilon two years ago. Actually, most of the people who are currently in any Epsilon classes weren’t there to start with. It’s almost unheard of to start out at the academy and be put straight into Epsilon-level anything. Delta, too, sometimes. That’s why the harder classes tend to have mostly older students in them.”
“Which is why I’m such a freak of nature,” Alex mumbled.
Her friends grinned at her but none of them disagreed with her statement.
“Can potentials be downgraded?” Alex asked.
“Sure,” Bear said. “I started out as a Beta in Equestrian Skills, but in my second year I was dropped back to Alpha. Horses and I don’t mix well.”
“Hmm,” Alex hummed thoughtfully, mentally crossing her fingers.
She was down to the dregs of her lollipop when she absentmindedly crunched down on the candy to get rid of it faster. She then pulled the stick out of her mouth, wondering what she was supposed to do with it. As if reading her mind, a small plastic bag materialised out of nowhere and she dropped her stick into it. After sealing the bag, she placed it on the table where it blinked out of sight.
Within a few minutes everyone in the court had finished their lollipops and there was a hushed silence as they waited in anticipation to find out their results. Seconds later, the tension was broken as little slips of paper appeared on the tables in front of every student. Alex eagerly picked hers up, scanning her new class timetable.