Other Worlds - The Wilds

Chapter 2

  One whole hour of math at 8 o'clock in the morning was not something Toni enjoyed. She would argue that the human brain was not intended to crunch numbers at the this time of the morning had her teacher not been so damn excited about the lesson. He must have been the only person on earth that enjoyed algebra at the ass crack of dawn.

  Had this lesson been at any other time of the day she might have been able to pay attention. She liked math actually. And she was good at it. At school in general really. Of course, only her teachers and friends knew that. Most people assumed that she slacked off a lot. That was probably due to the number of days that she is absent due to her home situation, the ill-advised decisions she made, and the amount of fights she got into. In short, she had a reputation that didn't imply high levels of intelligence.

  That was all fine by Toni, she didn't really need another reason for people to piss her off and being universally labelled as a teachers pet would almost certainly lead to some bloodied knuckles.

  The abrasive ring of the bell was a borderline heavenly sound when it finally sounded, indicating the end of class. The sound following it, however, was decidedly the opposite.

  There was actually not a soul of earth that elicited as much annoyance in Toni as Shelby Goodkind.

  Whenever Shelby did the morning announcements they were riddled with metaphors from the bible and inspirational quotes from whatever self-help book the girl was obviously reading at the time. Today was no exception.

  "Remember, happiness can not come from the world around you; it has to come from within!" Her thick Texan accent gleefully declared through the speakers. Toni stood with her bag, glanced over at Martha and rolled her eyes once she met her gaze. Martha cracked a smile but continued to listen to the tail end of Shelby's cringeworthy self love tangent.

  Toni couldn't afford to be late to another class so she waved goodbye to Martha and made her way to her next class. Until lunch Toni didn't have any classes with friends other than some of the girls from basketball. This at least allowed her to pay attention and get some work done.

  Her classes went without a hitch until science class just before lunch. She climbed onto the stool next to a girl she had never seen before. She knew immediately that science was going to simultaneously be amazing and awful for the next month or so. It was going to be good because the new girl was extremely beautiful but sitting on the high stools with no back support made her wheeze in pain as she was hunched over her bruises. She tried to straighten up which was worse so she slunk back down again.

  The girl sitting beside her noticed her obvious discomfort. "Hey are you alright?"

  Toni tried to wipe any evidence of pain from her face and forced a smile. "Training killed me yesterday," She gave a small laugh.

  "Training? Let me guess..." the girl paused to think. "Swimming?"

  "Basketball actually. I'm out of shape though from-"

  "Ms Shalifoe! Would you please stop disrupting the class. Am I going have to move you to a different table?" Toni was interrupted by the science teacher who stopped scribbling on the blackboard to reprimand her.

  "No sir, I'm sorry." He grunted at her response and turned around to continue writing his notes.

  "I'm Regan," The girl beside me whispered.

  "Toni," she replied, waving her hand awkwardly.

  "Enough!" A voice boomed through the room and everyone fell silent, even the scratch of pens stopped. Toni cringed, please don't send me home, she thought. "Everyone stand up, from now on you will have allocated seating."