🔆 OTHER HALF OF THE SUN 🔆

Chapter 02: I accidentally vaprize my Maths teacher

6 years later

My name is Dehlia Potter.
And I'm 12 Years Old. Until few months I was a boarding student at Diamond high in New York.
Am I a troubled kid?
Yeah. You could say that.
I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things started going really bad last May, when our thirteenth grade class took a trip to Manhattan, twenty eight teenagers and two teachers on a yellow bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff which I already knew.
This is going to be torture. Well, most Diamond high trips were.
But Mr.Brunner, our Latin class, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.
All the way up to the city, I put up with Nathan Bobofit, the freckly     red-headed kleptomaniac boy, hitting my muggle best friend, Grover, back of his head with chunks of Peanut Butter and ketchup sandwich.
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only thirteenth grader with acne and
the start of wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you.
You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
Anyway, Nathan Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown head, and he knew I could not do anything back to him because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death-by-in-school-suspension if anything bad or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.
" I'm going to kill her"  I mumbled.
Grover tried to calm me down.  ' it's okay. I like peanut butter.'
He dodged another piece of Nathan's lunch.
' That's it ' I started to get up and Grover pulled me back to my seat.
' you're already on probation, ' he reminded me. ' you know who'll get blamed if anything happens. '  Besides, he's trying to anger you and try to flirt with you. '
Looking back on it, I'd wished I'd decked Nathan Bobofit right then and there. In school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get my self into.
Mr. Brunner led  the museum tour.
He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through then big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old pottery.
It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.
He gathered us around a four meter-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs.Dodds, would give me the evil eye.
Mrs.Dodds was this little Maths teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harly right into your locker. She had come to Diamond halfway through the year, when our last maths teacher had a nervous breakdown.
From her first day, Mrs.Dodds loved Nathan Bobofit and figured I was devil's spawn. She would point her crooked finger and me and say, ' Now, honey, ' real sweet, and I knew  I was going to get after-school detention for a month. One time, after she made me erase answers out of my old maths workbooks until midnight, I told Grover that I didn't think Mrs.Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious and said ' You're absolutely right. '
Mr.Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral Art.
Finally, Nathan Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, ' will you shut up ? '
It came out louder than I went to.
The whole group laughed. Mr.Brunner stooped his story.
' Miss.Potter, ' he said, ' did you have a comment? '
My face was totally red. I said, ' No, sir '
Mr.Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele ' perhaps you'll tell us what picture represents? '
I looked at the carving and started to explain it. ' it's Kronos, who was the youngest son of Gaee and Ouranus. He was the king of Titans after he defeated his father. And when he became the king, he married Rhea and had six children with her. There was a prophecy that said his children would rule over the titans. So ate them except Zeus, who Rhea saved. Rhea gave Kronos a rock instead of baby Zeus, either Zeus was a rock head or Kronos was really dumb. Later when Zeus grew up he tricked him to eat a mixture of mustard and wine. Which made Kronos disgorge his other five children, who of cause being immortal gods, who had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods then defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in the taturus, the darkest part of the Underworld. '
Mr.Brunner looked impressed and said, ' Very good, Miss potter'
Behind me Nathan Bobofit mumbled to a friend, ' Like we are going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on job our job applications, " please, explain why Kronos are his kids ".'
Some Snickers from the group.
' And why, Miss Potter, ' Mr.Brunner said, ' to paraphrase Mr.Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life? '
' Busted ' Grover mumbled.
' shut up' Nathan hissed, his face brighter than his face.
At least, Nathan got in trouble, too. Mr.Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.
I thought about his question and said, ' it would matter if you want to be a professor about Greek mythology or if you are a demigod, the knowledge would help us to survive. It could be possible that they exist. It's better to know about it and besides, it's very fascinating. '
' Good, Miss Potter. You get the full credit. ' said Mr.Brunner.
I nodded at him and saw him looking at the girl on the stele sadly, like he'd been at the girl's funeral. He then told me to go outside and eat my lunch.
The class gathered on the first steps on the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along the fifth Avenue. I hated being outside cause the sun is like always glaring in my way. When I'm outside the sun never forget to give me it's rays.  I then overheard
huge storm was brewing, no a surprise there, the weather since Christmas was messed up till now. I miss home and my grandparents. I can't wait to go home.
I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nathan Bobofit appeared in front of me with his ugly friends.  I guess he'd gotten tired stealing from the tourists. And dumped his half eaten lunch in Grover's lap.
' Oops. ' He grinned at me with his crooked teeth. His freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray- painted her face with liquid Cheetos. I tried to stay calm.
The school counsellor had told me a million times, ' count to 10 and get control of your temper. ' But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.
Then he fell in the fountain with his butt screaming.
Then Mrs. Dodds came and he accused me for pushing him on the fountain. Grover tried to take the blame for himself but Mrs.Dodds scared him to death. I then went to the museum entrance and saw her standing there. How could she get there so fast? . She was like next to me a while ago. I then tried to apologize to her and she started to talk nonsense.  I hated when she called me honey. She then turned into a hideous winged monster and Mr.Brunner suddenly came in the wheelchair holding a pen on his hand.
' What ho, Dehlia! ' he shouted and tossed the pen through the air.
Mrs.Dodds lunged at me.
With a yelp, I doged and felt talons slash air next to my ear. I snatched ball point pen out of the air and when it hit my hand it wasn't a pen anymore it was a sword.
Mrs. Dodds spuned towards me with a murderous look in her eyes.
She snarled, ' die, honey '
And she flew straight at me.
I did the only thing that came naturally, I swung he sword and the metal hit her shoulder and she disappeared into golden dust.
I was alone. There was nobody there. Had I imagined it. Had I ate some illusion candy mistakenly.
I went outside.
It had started to rain.
I went to Grover and asked him about her. But he acted like he didn't know her weirdly.
When I asked Mr. Brunner,  he didn't even know her and asked me if I was feeling well. Also, there was a different teacher there.