When Amber arrived at the auditorium, she was panting, sweat dripping down her forehead from her one mile sprint to wait for the results. She saw Dawn, who was dressed in a formal long, grey, sweeping robe, like the others beside her, standing in a line. They were all the people who had been chosen to look after the orientation students. She knew that Dawn, as head girl, would be presenting the slides, as well as the information about her getting in or not. She also knew that there would be a live stream of the accepted students going out to the entire world, broadcasted onto a popular tv channel known as the Woodlands Channel. She patted her hair, making sure it was neat and her lips glossed.
Time drifted by, going faster and faster as the tall students around Dawn formed a sort of formation, similar to a military one. Dawn didn’t look the least bit intimidated by them, even though they towered over her, as Dawn wasn’t fully grown yet. She was only a short five foot tall. She wasn’t sure whether or not she was happy with her best friend— wow, did she really consider Dawn her best friend already? — knowing her results before her. She must’ve drifted off, because a sharp “Ahem!” Brought her back.
“Ahem,” Dawn repeated again, clearly trying to seem formal. “Welcome, orientation students, to the assembly that will decide your future.”
An almost audible shiver passed throughout the room, of excitement, terror, and a tiny bit of wonder. This was pretty obviously what Dawn was going for, as she seemed so very pleased.
Dawn continued, “Firstly, if it seems you have not passed, please follow that lady over there,” she pointed to a slender, tall woman standing by the exit. “She will escort you to the bus back home. If you have passed, please stay in the auditorium.”
A girl stepped forward. She had long plaits, with platinum blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. She cleared her throat too, “Okay. So, Ms Milly Wittson, you have passed!”
Everybody applauded, but the tension left in the room was obvious. At least thirty minutes, twelve rejects, and five passes, had passed until it was Felicity, the mean girl from before’s turn. Amber secretly hoped she wouldn’t pass, like she had the year before, and she knew that even though the each year group could have up to fifty people, that didn’t mean the school even filled it up halfway. Apparently, the last time they had a full class of fifty students that didn’t fail, quit, or run away for an entire year, it was in the 1970s, when the school standards weren’t that high. That was before it became a award winning, higher-than-Ivy League or even Oxford and Cambridge, University.
Arabella, who Amber had learnt was Felicity’s buddy and could even rival and trump Felicity in terms of meanness, stepped forward. She turned her snooty nose up towards the other prefects, saying, “Unlike some of you, my candidate actually passed. Felicity, welcome to Woodlands!”
Amber groaned. It would be a long year for both Dawn and her if Amber got in. That’s when the gravity of the situation hit her and a large ball of fear rose in her throat, mixed with bile and an extra sprinkle of terror. Would she actually be able to pass?
Dawn stepped up to the podium next, and Amber was filled with fear. She hoped and prayed as Dawn began speaking, “I am very—“
She was cut off by a yawn from Arabella, who groaned, “Get on with it. We all know she only barely scraped through,” She emphasised boredom with each syllable, and Dawn gave her a laser-sharp glare, features hardening, but also seemingly softening into an expression that resembled a sigh, if you didn’t actually say anything, and continued.
“As I was saying, I am very pleased that my candidate, Amber, passed, and will be accepted. Amber, welcome to the Woodlands!” Amber felt a mixture of relief and excitement. Even Arabella’s self-righteous snort and eye-roll couldn’t knock the ecstatic beam off her face. Amber found it really strange that the teachers found Arabella really charismatic, as she found her even more horrible that the sticky gunk she found stuck to the bottom of her shoes in the back-alleys of her home city.
The rest of the assembly went by quickly, and she found herself sitting in the auditorium, surrounded by twenty-five boys, and fourteen other girls. She sat there waiting, as the teacher stepped up, and announced, “And that is all. Welcome, class of 2081!” Everybody cheered. The teacher cleared her throat and spoke again, “Ahem. Yes, so, you will all be on the first floor of the dorm levels, and remember, stick to your own side! So, all of you, old like Felicity, at twenty-three, or young like Amber, our only non-pre-grad school student, at only eighteen. Our committee, from young like Dawn, at only sixteen but a year four, to old like Arabella, as a year five, at twenty eight, we all welcome you with open arms.”
Amber stared, slightly dazed from the long speech at the teacher. She couldn’t help herself but murmur aloud to herself, “Wow, how obsessed with ages is she?” And chuckled incredulously to herself.
Suddenly, a loud, eardrum-bursting, louder-than-a-cacophony-of-earsplitting-noises, gunshot-sounding clang echoed throughout the room. Everyone was startled, shaken to their bones, as they instinctively clasped their hands over their ears. Amber was so terrified, she shifted into a phoenix for a second, and by the startled wolfish yelp she heard from Dawn, she was pretty sure Dawn had shifted for a moment too.
Amber screamed, and the room devolved into catastrophic turmoil and pandemonium. Suddenly, an echoing bang brought everybody back, louder than a thunderclap. A tall, slender, pale white boy stood there, dressed in the finest robes and capes and suits of the blackest black. By his side stood two tall, burly bodyguards, watching the gathered students.
Amber almost instinctively charged the kind of cute boy, and she could hear Dawn growling behind her. Wait, had she said the boy was cute? But what about Ezra?
Then suddenly, the principal walked in, his eyes glazed over, as if he was in a trance, and announced, “He is Prince John, of a foreign land. He is our very first twenty-sixth boy. He is also, our very first boy to be a roommate of the head boy.”
Everybody half-heartedly applauded, a little confused, but just watched as the teacher stood up and announced, “Yeah… So now, everybody dismissed!”
Dawn had taken off as fast as she could, and Amber didn’t have a chance to catch up to her. Where could she be? Dawn’s face had been slightly shocked, and with a strange emotion hidden under it that she didn’t recognise. Amber followed Dawn’s trail, and finally gave up, as she had been sent up to her dorm to meet her roommate.
Amber stared at the three girls standing in the room with her. She wanted to grab her pillow and scream into it. Her roommates were Felicity, and two girls who seemed to be her best friends, Leila and Marlina. The talk of gossip, crushes, secrets and such was all too overwhelming for Amber, and she finally left to go find some peace and quiet in the library. She had never used to be like this, normally always the Queen of gossip and stuff like that, but now, she was just a… sort of introvert. As she exited the dorm, the students had laughed and jeered and talked about setting up a party, even taking out red polo cups. They only wanted to do it without Amber there. Who had she turned into? She had practically lost her Queen of the school title in less than a day. It was what she told people she was when they asked about her. It was like her identity had changed.
As she contemplated her musings, she suddenly heard a soft whimpering and a very conspicuous fluffy tail hidden behind a restricted library shelf. She crept closer, wondering if it was Dawn or Luna. She reached over, and lightly brushed the tail. A startled yap rang through the silent library as a slender wolf jumped a metre in the air.
Amber quickly shushed the morphing Dawn, handing her the pile of clothes and hiding her as the librarian came over, looking Amber over through her wizened old eyes and round spectacles. “Hmph.” She huffed, walking away from them.
Dawn whispered, “That was close! Wow, warn me first please!”
Amber had never seen Dawn like this before. She was smiling nervously, shuffling her feet around, as well as acting like Amber hadn’t just caught her crying. She just smiled up at her, her eyes bloodshot and tears dried around them.
Amber sat her down on one of the beanbags nearby, and told her, “No. Dawn, please tell me what’s wrong. Have I done something that’s wrong?”
Dawn snorted, “As if! You’re perfect, kind, nice, better than any fireos I ever heard of. The world won’t be cruel to you! You wouldn’t understand!”
Amber had a sweet, patronising look in her eye, trying to appease Dawn, saying, “Come on Dawn. I’m all ears! No matter what you have to say, I promise I’ll understand!”
Dawn scoffed, her red eyes puffy, “Has the world ever been cruel to you? No. You wouldn’t understand at all! I’m only sixteen! But I’ve still had to bear more than the loneliest person on earth. I bet you never were almost drowned underwater in a sewer and trapped by dozens of werewolf hunters, all at the age ten!” She growled angrily. “It all started with Veronica, an evil and manipulative mistress extreme, who took me under her wing, twisted me into her ideal image, then tossed me away like a useless toy that had outlived its purpose. Literally! She tossed me away, down into the sewers to drown and die, then sent battalions of men for an innocent little girl who didn’t even know she was a werewolf.”
Her expression faltered, and she looked vulnerable. Amber never realised exactly how much she had to bear, “People always turn to me for everything. EVERYTHING! People always turn to me, asking for help, turning over tasks, making me lead. I don’t want to! But do people listen? No. Not then, not now, not ever. That manipulative girl, Veronica, only increased that by tenfold!”
Her anger was dying down, and she sank to her knees. “You know… All they do is just whine, and whine, and whine! B-but… I just feel so a-alone… All I’ll ever want, all I ever wanted, was to just… have someone who really, truly, understands… To just… have a friend…” She relapsed into huge, trembling sobs. Then, she seemed to calm down a little, and she trailed off and ducked her head between her arms, somehow a broken shell of the strong, impeccable, perfect Dawn she had been before. Amber helped her and soothed her, reading her some esoteric philosophy books, as those seemed to be her favourites. After the fifth book and at lest thirty dozen repetitions of rocking back and forth on her beanbag and toes, she finally settled. A look came into her eyes, determined, and ready. Dawn cleared her throat, and started speaking, “Thanks so much Amber. I really needed that. I’ll still pretend to be perfect and elite among others, but I know I can still open up to you and Luna.”
Amber really wanted to roll her eyes, wishing she could have Dawn all to herself, not sharing Dawn with Luna. But alas, she had to share. She comforted Dawn a little longer, then told her she’d like to go meet her classmates, with Dawn as company, if she could.
Dawn agreed, smiling happily, obviously pretending to be back to normal. But now that Amber had seen what Dawn was hiding from her and her own self, she understood why Dawn was always so closed off. She would try her best to be there for Dawn, who was two years younger than her, even though she seemed so much older in spirit.
A day or two had passed by, and Amber was settling into her routine. There were many teachers, and only one lesson a day. Unlike most school, the lectures are given one to two at a time. Only special subjects, including veterinary science and marine biology, were supposed to have more than two working together at once. It was at a maximum of five still.
There were three lessons a day. The wake-up calls rang at seven in the morning, and they were expected to be at the cafeteria by eight. They quickly wolfed down their meals, and headed to the auditorium for daily orientation. Then they dispersed at nine-thirty for their first sessions. Amber had found her schedule hard to stick too, but that was nothing compared to Dawn’s. She stared down at her new timetable, and found herself completely bamboozled. Dawn also had special lessons that were listed as ‘free time’ in the normal schedules, but there were side notes written in Moonologicy, saying “Hunting” or “Extra Psi training” or “Magic training”.
Dawn was surprisingly relaxed, even though she was taking her masters degree. Her literal doctorate! Well, Amber was excited to help the veterinary students with their surgery, and even though she was a year 1, she got to try to do surgery on a jellyfish. Even though it was barely able to be saved, she guessed they thought it would be simpler to let her give it a go. And, with the help of Dawn, she succeeded, with the jellyfish now living happily in the lake, by the Lakeshore Pondind Cabin.
There was a special device called Randy2044010 which apparently measured students potential. They were sorted into groups due to this. Unsurprisingly, Dawn got the highest rank without even trying. Actually, it was more like she scored higher than the highest score, so she downgraded to the highest score. The measuring device literally broke, with the meter reading 200%, and, once again, unsurprisingly, Dawn fixed it with ease. Actually surprisingly, Amber scored in the highest level too. Well, she got a 91% when the base for that level was 90.5%. It was good enough, as they got resorted each year.
Life was good, apart from the occasional thought of the boy in the suit, Prince John, who stayed in the shadows, just chilling. She had noticed Dawn giving Johnny side eyes, and, when confronted, Dawn said that “He was suspicious”. Ugh. So untrue. He was just a misunderstood, easily-sunburned, cute boy.
Well, that was it for her new school life. Surprisingly less eventful than she had suspected, but still, pretty activity-filled. A gonging chime rang through the school, and the principal called everyone in for an assembly. She wondered what that was about as she strolled down the halls.
