Stellar

Chapter Three: One Stellar School Day

 Things were already bad enough after last night. Orion, Lucine had nearly gotten arrested. Only the vouching of the neighbor boy, who claimed to have invited her over, got her off the hook.

Not off the hook with her parents, though. No, she was grounded.

And a Callisto didn't get grounded--they only got famous.

Sometimes Lucine wished she wasn't a Callisto. Actually, she wished that all of the time.

The grounding wasn't bad, though. Since her father naturally assumed she liked astronomy as much as he did, she was just banned from the observatory and restricted from television and computer privileges. The computer part sucked, though, since that was her only outlet toward studying biology besides a public place like the library. And the whole 'public' part had the tendency to repel her from such places.

One step into her science classroom punched her nostrils with the odor of a thousand swirling chemicals. Her exhausted mind reeled; the bags under her eyes grew ever-so heavier.

Just get to your assigned desk and sleep. It's the first day. Teachers don't make you do stuff on the first day.

So she raised her eyes to the smartboard framed at the center of the room, gaze limping over names. Lucine found her own positioned at the back corner of the classroom. She didn't take time considering the names surrounding her desk; she slipped into her seat and buried her head in her hands.

Between the near-arrest and the disappointment of her parents, she had hardly slept a wink the night before. Not to mention that any passing moment in her bedroom was spent trying to tear this stupid watch off her wrist. The more she tugged at the mysterious thing, though, the tighter it clung to her, like an electric leech. No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't let go.

Rustling and chattering filled the air around her; Lucine didn't bother lifting her head to eye her shuffling classmates. If anything, she dug her forehead deeper into her palms.

And that was when all the bad things already clogging her life got worse.

The seat beside her scraped across the tile as someone settled into their conjoined desk. The sliver of light peeking through her fingers revealed the edge of a leather-strapped backpack being set on the floor. The hand wrapped around the backpack's handle was oddly familiar, the skin a rich copper tone, the muscles snaked with white tattoo lines. The tattoos spooled onto the person's knuckle, forming into a compass at the back of their hand.

Lucine's heartbeat sputtered. Suddenly, she knew exactly who was her deskmate.

Getting arrested would've been so much better than anything this day was about to deal her.

A shy tap on her shoulder. A scratchy clearing of a throat. "Um, excuse me? I hate to bother you, but could you..." His voice trailed off. "Wait a minute...I know you..."

Warning lights blared in her head. Abort abort ABORT--

Just as she considered throwing her hood over the treacherous telltale of her silver-sheened hair, his gasp split the air between them. "You're the girl who broke into my house last night!"

Lucine's fingers fell from her eyes in time to see about every student in the classroom turn to gawk at her. The room cut to completely, utter silence. The color drained from her face.

At the front of the classroom stood a woman with a slicked ponytail yanking at the edges of her steel-sharpened face. Her glare swept over Lucine, as though predetermining the girl a criminal.