Tiffany's Story- Day 5

Snow drifts down to the ground, fat and fluffy and picturesque, but Tiffany takes no joy in the sight. She simply runs, trying to outrun all the thoughts in her head, running until her legs start to quiver, not even hearing the birds singing. She makes it to school an hour early, and is able to use the locker room's showers unmolested. Since she has the time to kill, she eats breakfast: a banana, a bowl of cheerios, scrambled eggs, milk and orange juice. Whilst eating, she doodles- three jackals tear at the corpse of an old lion, tufts of his mane floating away in the wind and his blood flecked everywhere.

History. A subject classically hated by high school students across the country for sheer mind-numbing boredom and tedious memorization of dates.Mrs. Cooper made no effort to dispel this stereotype within her classroom, but spends her days giving ignorant lectures on the ways history's various victors were more virtuous than the people they defeated. Of course, she frequently peppers her lectures with questions, to ensure she has the students' attention, but Tiffany only needs to give half an ear to fend them off; the rest of her attention she spends on the textbook, which at least pretends to offer interesting information. What she doesn't notice is Justin sitting behind her, doing the exact same.

Her mind is drained of creativity for once, and she completed her assignments during classes, so she grabs a random book from a library shelf. To her disgust, it is a book on the paranormal: focusing on psychic abilities in particular. She reads it anyway, mentally disproving all the proof the book speaks of in favor of psychic abilities existing. The hour comes and goes, but as soon as the final bell rings, the librarian comes along and claims a seat across from Tiffany.

"May I talk to you, just for a couple minutes?"

Those few simple words are enough to start Tiffany's heart racing. She really does not like being noticed, at all, and would have fled the scene but for her mind tightly gripping her emotions, telling herself it would be safer to ride out whatever conversation Miss Shaw wanted to have. "Sure."

"I'm just curious as to why you attend this study hall every afternoon. You maintain a constant B average in all your classes, and the few times you're actually working on an assignment in here, it's clear that you don't need help and are only doing it in here because you ran out of class time, so..." She leaves the sentence open tentatively, letting Tiffany fill in what she felt comfortable with to answer the question rather than directly inquiring after the suspicion in her mind.

Tiffany herself calms down a little, gratefully seizing the opportunity to make the impression she felt would draw the least attention in the future. "Well, ma'am, on Tuesdays and Thursdays it's a good way to pass the time until chess practice; no sense in walking all the way home only to turn around and come back, right? And the rest of the days, well, it gives me time to work on homework or doodles without having a cat demanding attention every five minutes. Besides, my aunt and uncle like me to be predictable, so I'd best be on my way now."

Having delivered her innocent little speech, Tiffany curtsies and twirls out of the room. Little does she know that Miss Shaw can certainly see that Tiffany was putting on the cute act for reasons of deception. Unfortunately, she really doesn't have enough proof to act upon, but she resolves to keep a closer eye on Tiffany...