Mundahlia (The Mundahlian Era, #1) (6 page)

The bell had just rung when I’d received my schedule and headed to my first class. I waited outside of the English class for the teacher who replaced my cousin to show up. It was a surprise to find Celeste’s name attached to my schedule. Thank goodness she left. It would have been weird not being able to sass her sarcasm freely, and then end up “mysteriously” failing.

A few minutes passed until a man who I presumed to be in his late thirties, or possibly even forties, waltzed from the other end of one of the elongated hallways that made up the majority of this school. It was literally two long hallways with a bunch of doors and lockers lining each one. The cafeteria, although, was in a separate building across the courtyard.

The man’s dark, shiny shoes scuffled across the linoleum floor. He had dark short cut hair and a clean shaven face that made him look like he was fresh off the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. He was fit for his age, and well-groomed.

He paused for a second as he noticed me, the unfamiliar girl, standing by his classroom door. Several students had let themselves in and sat at their desks—chatting amongst each other.

“Oh. Hello there,
you
are?” he questioned. A small puff of steam rose from the slit in his covered plastic coffee cup.

“Hi,” I greeted. “My name is Sarina Cardoña, and I’m a new student here.” I sounded as if I were presenting myself to the whole class, which I hoped I wasn’t going to have to do. I hated that.

“I assume you have your schedule with you?” he inquired, this time taking a sip of coffee but still keeping his gaze on me. As I struggled to get the paper out of the plastic binder cover, an average height, lanky guy wearing a blue button up shirt stopped—probably trying not to disrupt the conversation.

The teacher nodded at the student to enter the classroom, and took the schedule, but still stared at me. Two awkward gazes in one day, how welcoming. “So, where are you from, Miss Cardoña.” He finally lowered his eyes to skim the schedule for a few seconds, then returned his gaze to me for a third time—waiting for a reply.

“Oh, I’m from a town named Del Rio,” I began. “Everyone pretty much knows each other there, and all the main sources of entertainment are on one really long street.”

“Ah, yes. So I assume moving from such a small town to a very big city must be quite a shocking experience for you,” he tapped on the top of my binder, motioning for me to lower it, then set the paper on it.

“It’ll take a while, but I’m sure I’ll adjust just fine.”

From his pant pocket, he drew a pen and initialed next to the class. “Come on in. Take any seat that’s free.” He said, then introduced himself. “I’m Mr. Luna, your permanent substitute teacher,” he motioned me in and closed the door behind him.

I stood in the front of the class for a few seconds trying to peer over students heads to find an open desk. Mostly all of them stared at me as if I was foreign to them. Which I was. I didn’t know any of these people in the mad circus of paper balls flying around and loud chit-chatter.

“Hey!” a slightly familiar voice called from within the shroud of various conversations. It was muffled by a burst of laughter, and I lost the source. “Over here!” the voice called again, louder than before. I saw a girl in a purple sweater and thick black framed glasses toward the back of the room wave her hand in the air. She arched her arm over her head and pointed to an empty desk next to her. I had to squint to recognize the waitress from the café.
What’s her name again?
I thought to myself as I made my way over.

“Recognize me?” she said as I stood beside her—placing my stuff on the empty desk to claim it. “Here. Maybe this will help,” She grabbed her long hair and pulled it up in a pony tail. “Sweet or un-sweet?” she mimicked her waitress voice. She laughed and let her razor-cut hair fall gracefully back to her shoulders.

“Sarah, right? I’m Sarina, but you can call me Rini.”

She nodded and shook my hand. “I’m Sarah, but you can call me Sarah.” She leaned in and put her hand by her mouth and whispered, “But don’t tell anyone, it’s an
exclusive
nickname. Only the cool kids can call me that.” She winked. Sarah reached into her tattered checkered purse and pulled out a pack of gummy candy in the shape of fruit. “Want some?” she offered, already holding the packet out to pour.

“Uh, sure.”

When the teacher finally shushed the class and began, we both opened our notebooks and began writing the information the substitute scribbled on the novel the class had finished reading the week before. The familiar title was written in large lettering on the dry erase board up front:

Frankenstein

“Now,” Mr. Luna turned and capped the marker he was using. “Who can tell me about this classic tale by the imaginative, Mary Shelley?”

“He was a green-skinned freak!” a voice from the center of the crowd called. I veered my eyes toward the speaker. It was the guy in the blue shirt—his crazy untamed hair, tucked under a mossy green beanie.

“That is where you are wrong, Davis. And please remove that hat, it goes against the student dress code.” Mr. Luna sat on the edge of the desk and clasped his hands together. “Frankenstein was not the name of the creature. It was the name of Victor Frankenstein—the creator. Now,” the substitute went on, “why did Frankenstein’s creation go searching for Victor after he had cowardly fled?”

No one seemed to know the answer. Not even Sarah, who was too busy drawing some doodles on a blank sheet of paper to notice anything around her. As much as I hated to further prove the whole
new-girl-is-a-shy-nerd-who-knows-the-answer-all-of-a-sudden
stereotype, I couldn’t leave a question of classic literature unanswered. I heard Mr. Luna call my name faster than I could get my hand all the way up. As if he’d been waiting for me to do so.

“He was seeking vengeance against Victor, and told him of all the misery he had imposed onto him by being lonely and deemed ugly by all the other villagers. He’s just wanted someone to accept him for what he is, so he wouldn’t be lonely anymore.” I surprised myself and smiled, but it faded when the stares from the other students turned toward me.

“Ah, so you’ve read it before?” Mr. Luna sounded interested. He asked another question, not giving me time to answer that I’d read it two summers ago when I was going through a major classic faze. “What did he do upon finding Victor in the fields?”

“He told Victor he would leave and never return as long as he would create someone like him to love and love him in return,” I answered. “He also said that Victor, as his creator, had the obligation to do so since it was his fault that he was even made.”

“Very good.” Mr. Luna said, his tone—very enthusiastic. “I can tell you are going to do very well in this class. Well, what’s left of it anyway.”

The bell rung after Mr. Luna had gone further into detail on the story, writing some keynotes to study for the exam that was planned at the end of the week. Some students bolted for the door as if there were a fire burning a few feet away. Sarah, however, stayed behind and waited for me. “Listen, since you’re new here and all, you should eat lunch with me. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I’d be super cool if you did. Especially since my best friend in the whole wide world left me and moved to Oregon three weeks ago.” She sighed, “Seriously, who moves to Oregon?” A lot of people, it’s the twenty-seventh most populated state in the United States. Given that Texas is the second, and California—the first. For now anyway.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, swinging the purse around my shoulder. “I’d love to.”

“Your fifth class is right across from my Economics class, so I’ll wait for you in the hall for lunch.” Sarah shuffled the notebook in her hands from one arm to the other, “Now I have to run, because my photojournalism class is in the other wing!”

I headed down the main hall to my next class that was a few doors down. The door was decorated with elaborate decorations of bells and a wreath and was easy to spot. I checked my schedule.
Design and Sew?
I questioned myself.
Is that even a real class?
I heard the bell ring just as I ducked into the classroom and crashed into a girl that was
standing in the doorway. My things went flying to the floor.

“Idiot!” the girl stammered, whipping her head around to face me. She kicked my phone a few feet away, just as I had reached out to grab it. Her hair, a wild combination of dark brown and blonde highlights, rattled as I looked up to her as she continued blabbering on. “Watch where you’re going,
Fatness
!
Geez!
Someone tell those
Mexican
construction workers outside that their bulldozer ball rolled away.” She was dressed as if she were a model. A racist, bitchy model with a minuscule frame and a bad dye job. She could have just said
construction workers
, she didn’t have to throw in the race card. And for the fat comment, I don’t even know what the hell her problem is. I’m just curvy. Not really overweight, but not thin either. I guess she figures everyone that’s not a size double nothing like her is fat. Little Miss Pink-sweater-dress-and-designer-black-boots-that-I-secretly-coveted. A matching black corset over her dress was constricted around her frail looking torso, making her look scary thin. Like skin and bones. I’d read stories of extreme models who get their bottom two ribs removed and wondered if she’d done the same.

“Or, how about next time you watch where you’re standing,” I told her nonchalantly after I had picked up my things, then headed for the teacher typing rapidly at her desk as the group of students around the model-looking girl
Ooo’ed
at my reply.

“Hello class, it seems as though we have a new student joining us for the rest of the school year,” Mrs. Hatcher, the teacher, introduced once everything was settled and I found a seat in the back. “Her name is Sarina, now let’s all make her feel welcome.”

I blushed as Mrs. Hatcher and the students began clapping as I waved from my seat shyly. All the students seemed friendly—except one, who refrained from clapping and instead gave me an icy stare. The
stick
that I’d crashed into earlier. You know, I usually give people a chance, but I could already tell I was going to hate this girl. As for the term
stick
, that I dubbed her, it wasn’t because she was thin—insulting people on their weight, overweight
or
underweight, is not funny—it was because she acts like those people who seem like they have a
stick
up their butt as they go about their days. Insulting someone who insulted you first based on the way they are as a person? Well, that’s a different story. Believe it or not, it’s not that hard to wake up in the morning and decide not to be a bitch or an asshole for the day—that’s a personal choice that can be solved in about a fifth of a second. I shook it off and pulled out my binder as I watched Mrs. Hatcher critique celebrity outfit choices for a recent awards show.

Mrs. Hatcher looked as if she had returned from sashaying down a runway. Her short dark bob-styled hair, bounced when she uttered words like
Repulsive!
or
Glamorous!
to describe the outfits donned by Hollywood’s elite.

“Vera, you’re next,”she announced like a host off a TV show.

“Pardon, Madam Hatcher, but why don’t we let the new student
Sabrina
critique it instead,”
the stick
spoke from the front of the room. She flipped her wavy two-toned hair over her shoulder and flashed me a soulless smile. “She looks like she knows
everything
.”

“It’s
Sarina
,” I corrected. “Or Rini,” I added, panning around the class as if making an important announcement.

“Whatever,” she turned away, uninterested.
Bitch,
I had to keep myself from saying aloud and getting detention on my first day.

“Miss
Rini
?” The teacher called from over the computer screen at her desk. “Would you like to give it a try?”

“Oh great,”
I whispered under my breath. The celebrity I critiqued was a fairly new actress. Not too mainstream, but not too indie either. She wore a gorgeous black dress but had childish colorful bands around her wrist. Something that shouldn’t be there and took away from the appearance. “Overall,” I began sounding too much like a critic, or a judge. “The ensemble is alluring, although the wristbands could have been skipped and replaced with something like a very small bracelet. Perhaps gold or silver?” There it was, over and done with.

“Very good!” the teacher exclaimed, “Exquisite!”

And just because I felt like it, I glanced back at the girl and gave her my victorious smile. I didn’t hesitate to include a hint of sassiness to it. She must have thought I was the pushover type, because a look of slight confusion flashed across her face. Big mistake. I’m not that kind of girl—at least not when it comes to defending myself or the ones I care about.

At the end of class, Mrs. Hatcher stood in the doorway and handed me a copy of the newest issues of Vogue, Elle, and InStyle magazine. Apparently this class—as she explained to me while the students worked on their sketches toward the middle of class—was a class where you literally
design
clothes and
sew
them. Simple as that. Not just any clothes though—fashionable cloths. High-end looking, but with a low-end cost. It seemed like one of the best extracurricular courses ever. The sewing studio—which was really a hollowed out classroom that had been closed off from the main hallway and was now hidden behind a door at the front of the class room—had a dozen sewing machines sitting on top of long tables. Rolls and rolls of different colored fabrics were stationed in the back, and in the center of the room, a small but still intricate looking runway sat. The final exam in this class was designing and sewing both a male and female outfit—and she made sure to stress that I had to find my own models, but also gave me the hint that the boys in the wood shop class down the hall would be glad to help—and would have to be based on a theme. This year’s theme was A Trip Around the World. Meaning we had to create outfits based on famous landmarks or cities
around the world
. I decided my choices then and there. New York and London.