MAGE ; benny weir [1]

thirteen

"Miss Prince...? Miss Prince!" 

Lost in her chemistry book, Ellie snapped her head up to the sound of her math teacher's booming voice calling her name.
"Don't you know that this is algebra? Not chemistry!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I was just—!"
"No excuses!" the teacher exclaimed. "If you start paying attention, then maybe you would pass this class!"

Ellie squinted at the teacher, confused by what she was saying.
"Uh... I am passing this class."
"Yes, you are one of my finest students!" the teacher prefaced. "But, that can change, Miss Prince... that can change."

Ellie's face wouldn't budge from its confusion until she heard Ethan snickering from the desk behind her. Rolling her eyes, she spun around and fired a tiny magic spark onto Ethan's hand.

"OW! What the—?!"
"—NO WHINING IN MY CLASS!"

------

Turning the corner into the locker wing of the hallway, Ellie found her two vampire besties arguing about god-knows in front of the cheerleading tryout table.

"Are you two good, or am I gonna have to get the vervain out of my locker?" Ellie asked, half-joking to Sarah and Erica as they welcomed her into the conversation.
"Why don't you ask Miss Goody-Two-Shoes over here?" Erica complained, giving Sarah an annoyed glance. "Sarah, I thought you wanted us to be normal."

"This is totally not what I meant," Sarah argued, turning to Ellie to explain. "Erica wants to join the cheerleading squad and—!"
"CHEERLEADING?!" Ellie cried, eyeing Erica like she was crazy. "Those girls are evil! They're probably bigger monsters than you two, and you're both vampires!"

Even glancing towards the cheerleaders' direction made Ellie's stomach churn. She hated them for what they did to her; the nonstop tormenting and the constant bullying was too much to bear. 

"Uh- hey, Bellatrix," Erica sneered, getting close to Ellie's face. "You're a witch with a power-hungry bracelet; you're the most dangerous thing here."
"...Did you just make a Harry Potter reference?"
"Shut. Up."

"Erica, back off and chill out," Sarah told, pushing Erica back from Ellie. 
"Sarah, those girls have been telling me to bite them for years," Erica countered, peaking her fangs out from her mouth. 
"Not sure if that's what they meant."
"Oh, come on!" the vampire pouted. "Who's gonna miss just one...?"

"I will!"
As Erica walked away from her friends and up to the tryout table, Ethan and Benny appeared behind Ellie and Sarah. 

"Isn't this kind of like letting Magneto join the X-Men?" Ethan asked, looking at Ellie.
"Or like sorting Malfoy into Gryffindor?" she added. Sarah just stared at the geeks in confusion.

"I'll just assume that's 'geek-speak' for a fox in the henhouse thing."
The other three looked at each other and shrugged, since she was practically right.
"If you all have any ideas on how to stop Erica, I'm all ears," Sarah announced.

Ethan and Benny peered behind the two girls, watching the cheerleaders shake their pompoms and giggle with one another. Ellie and Sarah followed their line of sight, but when they realized what the geeks were going to say, they shut it down.

"NO! No, no, no, no, no!" 
"Absolutely not; those girls will kill me!"

Ethan and Benny said nothing, but only danced to the sound of the cheerleaders shouting through the halls. 
Ellie and Sarah had realized their fate... today was going to suck.

------

"I am so going to kill them for this."

Ellie was lacing up the pure white cheer shoes on the washroom floor as Sarah was trying to squeeze into the tight uniform. "The fact that they would even suggest this is low."