No Good Witches | ONC √

Unlawful Dismissal

I was no stranger to detention.

I'd earned myself a bit of a reputation in the short time I've been here as an unabashed magic user. There'd been my first day, when I'd tripped and fell in the cafeteria and used a teenie tiny telekinetic spell to keep my food in my tray and off of my uniform, hoping no one would notice. Everyone did, and that was how I'd earned my first of many detentions for unlicensed magic use. I was yet to be arrested though, so that was something.

"This sucks!" Mallory exclaimed for what could have easily been the sixth time as we waited for the arrival of Dr. Alvarado outside of the ethics classroom, where detention was usually served.

I ignored her as best as I could. As a relatively new kid, I had the ability to do so. There was no telling when my grace period would be up, however.

It looked like we would be the only two people this evening, which wasn't surprising. It may have been a school filled with assholes, but they were well behaved assholes at least. I texted my Mom to tell her I would be staying after late and hoped she wouldn't ask me why. I'd been really getting on her nerves lately, and I was beginning to feel a bit guilty.

"My mom is going to kill me...this is the first time I've ever gotten detention, you know." Mallory continued. "Hello? Cass? Could you at least pretend to be paying attention to me?"

I looked up from my phone and raised an eyebrow at her. "You know my name?"

She gave me a classic Mallory scrunched–up–face–yet–I–still–manage–to–look twice–as–hot–as–you once over and tucked a strand of her thick brown hair behind one of her light brown ears. "Of course I know your name. Aren't you the girl who like, started the fire in the gym?"

I tensed and shifted away from her. "It wasn't a fire."

She smiled cruelly and crossed her arms at me. "Reilly said it was a fire."

I opened my mouth to respond when her phone rang. When she saw who it was her face dropped. She turned away from it to answer it. "Listen, mâae, it wasn't my fault–" I watched her walk down the hall as she spoke hurriedly into her phone in Thai, feeling strangely empathic for whatever reaming she was receiving from her parents.

"Oh. Cass. Hi."

I turned to see Rebecca approaching me in all of her blondeness. I adjusted the strap of my backpack as I took her in. "You have detention?"

Her jaw tensed. "Looks like it. And you come here often, I'm going to assume?"

I scoffed and shook my head. "No thanks to you."

She drew her eyebrows together. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't play dumb, Rebecca." I sighed the words. All the energy that I'd had earlier that day had long dissipated from my bones. "You heard exactly what Josh said, and yet you didn't do anything."

She sighed. "I was trying to...deescalate the situation. If you didn't get so worked up over it..."

I shook my head once more, looking away from her.

"I don't know why you couldn't just let it go." She punctuated her sentence by running a hand through her strawberry blonde hair. Her fingertips displaced the flower she had behind her ear. An actual flower.

"Holy shit." Mallory had finished her phone call, it seemed. She approached us as she turned off her phone and stowed it away in her back pocket. "What are you in for, Rebecca?"

Rebecca frowned, her face quickly filling with color. "I...don't want to talk about it."

Mallory sighed. "Figures. I guess neither of you two are going to be much fun this evening?"