Lionel made a face as Ed sat near him in History, but Ed didn't seem to notice. Lionel actually found her repulsive. She was too loud, too prideful and too much. Her brother, he could tolerate. Duncan, he found annoying. But Ed made him itch with the desire to slap her when she ranted on and on.

Besides, she was a mess of a girl, and a delinquent. He straightened his tie and looked away from her. If he was her brother, he would have tried to remedy her already. How embarrassed must Callum be of her? Everyone knew that Callum had been mortified the first day she turned up. She'd just gotten worse, in his opinion.

Ed was already scribbling her weird card suit shapes in a notebook alongside some frankly weird looking people with horns, and kicking her legs like a kid. He turned away from her. Why the hell did she keep sitting next to him? She didn't even pay proper attention in lessons.

Their teacher, Miss Hamilton, walked through the door and smiled at them.

"Today, we are going to be learning about medieval towns, and how they operated. We'll be looking at this book - Walter Dragun's Town - and paying particular attention to the Flemish merchants, and also supply and demand." She handed out copies of the book, smiling down at a few of her favourite students. Lionel and Ed both got smiles, and Lionel felt his teeth clench. Ed wasn't one of the good students.

Miss Hamilton was a lovely teacher, for the most part, but could be tough as nails when she wanted to. Ed had not fallen foul of her yet, but Lionel was sure it was simply a matter of time.

He was one of the best students at Warwick, but he was constantly criticised for his lack of participation in class. Ed, however, was told off for how she acted, but never for not participating. It just wasn't fair. Surely behaving was better than participating? Honestly.

He hadn't realised he was glaring at her until she grinned at him.

"Ooh, that is one hell of a smoulder you got going on there..." She winked at him and he made a face, pretending to stick a finger down his throat. It made his skin crawl with the insinuation.

"Yuck!"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, now you're just being a prick."

There was a small outbreak of sniggering behind them, mostly from the delinquents who were in this class - Harry, March, and a few of their friends.

The teacher turned. "Miss McKenzie, what did you just call Mr Clemens?" she asked slowly, snapping the cap onto her marker pen and stepping away from the whiteboard.

"...A prick."

Miss Glenister sighed, looking quite angry, and those closest to the pair subtly moved their chairs away. "Miss McKenzie, go stand outside for five minutes, please. Mr Clemens, I'm sure Miss McKenzie was not unprovoked, so please try to keep a civil tongue in your head when she comes back."

Lionel fumed. Stupid Ed! Miss Hamilton was treating him like he started any of it!

Ed looked actually angry, but stormed out, slinging herself back to rest against the wall. She didn't even wince at the impact. Stupid Lionel! He had a problem with her, and she got sent out for calling him out on it. She kicked her foot and a snigger made her look up to see Walter sarcastically waving as he passed by. She bared her teeth after his retreating back, but he was already on his way.

She felt a sort of mutinous feeling rising up, and growled a little. If she had been Nikolai or Lucas, she probably would have reduced something to ice or crystal by now, as those two sometimes did when angry (well, Lucas did, Nikolai couldn't manage to turn big things into crystal yet) but her magic had been slowly seeping away since she last visited the court, and last night had been a drain on it. And even if it had only lasted an hour, the spell had made her tired. Still, it meant her magic would be unpredictable for a while - she really didn't need the stress at the moment.

She kicked at the wall again. She'd been sent out like a child throwing a tantrum!

In class, Callum was anxiously looking out of the door. Ed was continuing to kick the wall with the back of her foot, looking mutinous in a way that reminded him very much of the time she'd been told not to pull a girl's ringlets in primary school and had proceeded to pull the girl's chair instead. This would not go well. He was sure of that.

The teacher went out to talk to her, and he could see that Ed wasn't talking at all. The teacher pointed into the class and she shrugged deliberately slowly, looking off the the side. Miss Hamilton

"I bet she's mouthing off at the teacher now..." Lionel muttered, and March threw a bit of paper at the back of his head. He yelped in surprise and half the class sniggered, while March looked carefully innocent. Lionel glared at him, opening his mouth to say something before the teacher shouted something loudly.

Ed now seemed to be walking off, while the teacher yelled at her retreating back.

"COME BACK HERE!"

Ed didn't. Callum worried at his lip. This would end badly. Their mother had already told Ed off about leaving class! He just hoped she had the sense not to skip school as well. The detention had already got her into hot water, after all.

March threw another paper ball at the the back of Lionel's head. "Isn't it funny, boys? Eddy was being fine until someone started being a prick."

The lazy glance over at Lionel was all it took for a sudden wave of glares to go his way. March was a bit of a leader among the delinquents, and unfortunately for Lionel, he'd made rather an enemy of himself for them. Callum gulped as the teacher walked in.

"I have to go and inform the Headmaster of Miss McKenzie's...unexpected absence. Unfortunately, our email system is down due to bugs again, so I will be five minutes. Please continue your revision, and don't act stupid while I'm gone - I'll hear about it, and everyone can get detention." She was obviously in a bad mood as she headed out of the door, and everyone looked at Lionel as the door closed.

"Excuse me!"

Callum found himself standing up and went red as he tried to look down instead of meeting anyone's eyes. "Ed...She really does go into moods by herself...It wasn't really Lionel's fault that she went off..."

He felt guilty for saying such a thing about his sister, but honestly, he didn't want Lionel to get himself in trouble with the group. March looked at him for a few minutes and shrugged, while at the back of the class Trina looked up from her book and blinked before sighing and tapping at her phone a little. Unknown to her, she was in turn being watched by Paul, who was wondering if she'd make a good girlfriend for Sean. She had three books stacked under the desk, all history related, but one on her lap that she was now openly reading, entitled 'The Call of Cthulhu'. He knew he'd heard of it before, but didn't know where. The point was, it looked creepy, and he was still wondering about what she was like.

Surely not all girls were so creepy?

Ed was swearing to herself as she sat in the courtyard, and scoffed as she received a text from Callum. Yeah, right. She already knew the course backwards and forwards! She was not going back to a class where someone was being a dick to her!

Lionel was always doing this thing where he glared and huffed at her and it just grated so much on her nerves. Callum doing that, she could deal with and understand. Her mother, she had to tolerate. But Lionel just made her want to punch a tooth out of his mouth with every single little annoying sound! If he'd just tell her what the problem was, she'd know what the fuck to actually do!

Flicking through her phone, she lingered on Hilde's name. No, Hilde wouldn't give good advice in this situation. She'd just tell her to kick Lionel in the crotch, probably. It wasn't fair. She didn't know what to do and it was just too much to deal with.

But who said she had to deal with it now?

She walked casually towards the bushes lining the grounds of Tamworth, and then headed for the gates at the side of the school, watching and waiting for half an hour until she saw a car heading out, the gates parting. A few of the staff left now and then, and as the car left she sprinted alongside it, out of the gates and along the road. She'd picked up her bag from the locker, and with it the keys to her motorbike. She stopped halfway along the road and sighed, texting David. She wouldn't get him coffee today, as she had somewhere she needed to be. As in, away from angry parents.

She wriggled into her leathers and slung herself over the bike. Honestly, today was going to suck! Her mother would be mad when she got home, the school would want to talk to her and everything would be sucky and horrible. She groaned and started the Ducati up. While she didn't always manage to stay out of trouble, and she didn't try to be the perfect good little student, she didn't like getting into trouble. She usually got a small sick feeling in her stomach when she knew she would be shouted at later on, and right now it was there. She sped off, heading towards the one place she probably wouldn't be expected to go voluntarily.

The Wolf's Glen cafe was quite empty when she parked her bike outside of it, avoiding Jasper's younger brother as he sloped out, before walking in and slumping at the counter. Honestly. A gasp caught her attention and someone poked her head nervously. Looking up, she smiled in a tired way as Kate stared at her.

"Elisa? What are you doing here? It's still school time!" The young witch hurried forward and around the counter.

She sighed. "I got kicked out of class and ditched. I don't want to go to school anymore anyway, not today. I'll deal with the incoming trouble tomorrow." She looked up at the board. "Do you have anything like a milkshake that would serve me well?"

Kate smiled. "One vanilla milkshake coming right up! Would you like anything with it?"

Ed counted the cash in her purse and bit her lip. "Can I have some Funtom lollipops? The caramel and milk ones..."

Kate gestured to the jar. "We're all out of the milk ones, I'm afraid! You know how these go, they just fly off as soon as they're in."

In the Wolf's Glen, there were children - not many vampire children, of course - but still, there were supernatural children. And like all children, they had a sweet tooth. Funtom candy sold as well as it always had, and milk lollipops were popular among the younger children especially - it was hard to get the flavours you wanted easily. The candy was actually one of the perks of attending the support group.

Ed sighed. "Do you have any honey ones behind the counter?"

"No, sorry! Only the ones in the jar."

"Fine...Three caramel, one toffee and three strawberry." All Funtom candy was generally nice, but Ed did like honey ones especially, and milk ones just a little more. "I won't have any cake this time, please, Kate." She wished she could, but she knew she wouldn't be able to finish it. Anyway, who knew if they were using Betty Crocker cake mix?

She paid Kate and took her lollipops, putting six in her backpack and sticking the toffee one in her mouth, sulking slightly as she sat down. A slight seaweed smell drew her attention to a kid sat next to her, a girl with damp hair and a waterproof bag under her arm. She looked around seven, and had a little juice box, which she was slurping noisily and grinning a little at Ed around it, showing sharp little teeth, serrated like those of a shark.

Ed bared her own teeth.

"Yeah. Yeah, Sharkface. I came back to here. Stop gloating. How did your vacation go?" Ed narrowed her eyes at the girl, gnawing slightly at her lollipop.

The girl shrugged, patting the bag.

"So I guess that means you at least didn't lose your skin. Not that good, then." Ed sighed. "How's your sister?"

Another shrug, but the child frowned and held out a hand, beckoning. A strawberry lollipop was dropped into the (grubby) hand and the juice box straw was pulled out of the mouth of the little girl, shredded to strips at the end by the sharp teeth.

"Harley's fine. You're meant to be in school, ain't ya?"

"Yes, I am. But school sucks." Ed rolled her eyes and picked the straw out of the juice box. "Look at this! It's awful. How are you going to hide that in society, Sharkteeth?"

"My name's not Sharkteeth! And I manage!" The girl huffed at her, kicking at Ed's leg. Ed hissed between her teeth. Shit. That would bruise.

"I'm not getting you another straw, now! Honestly. You're all brats here." She turned away and the little girl scoffed.

"Well, you're stupid. Morris thinks so too." She snorted. "And it's funny what with your being in that school of yours, playing rich girl. It is stupid, and you know it. Like a whale near plankton. So many, and easy to exploit. But you can't do that, can you?"

Ed glared at the little selkie girl and looked away. "Wouldn't want to. It would deplete my magic, for one thing. Morris's home is here, so he's alright. My home's a way away, so my magic doesn't return. You and he know that, and he's just prejudiced because he thinks I'm a 'posh freak'."

There was a muttered sentence from the little girl which sounded suspiciously like 'you are'.

Before Ed could do much about it, Kate carried the vanilla milkshake over, and stood shaking her head at them.

"Oh, stop squabbling, you two. You know what it's like when you tease her, Maddie! We don't get to see Ed being here willingly too often!" She smiled at Ed, and Maddie made a face at both of them.

Ed took the milkshake sulkily. "That's because you all tell me I'm gonna go mad when I mature. It's only because of Grandma after all, she's mad as all-"

"It's because your father ran with those giant white dogs of his for three days after he matured, actually." Kate smiled apologetically. "Everyone knows your dad."

This certainly was true. Ciar de Chasse had a reputation.

"Especially women." Ed commented, and rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to go galloping off with Sophie. It's bad enough Callum being convinced. I mean, it could happen to him!"

Maddie cackled. "Oh, yeah, Callum's the one who drives like a bloody maniac." She flicked her fingers back and forth. "Selkies don't have to deal with this. We can survive years without wearing our skin, we can!" She looked proud.

"Yeah, and you can't go into supermarkets without diving onto the fish display, Maddie. So stow it." Ed sipped at the milkshake, glaring at the girl, who flushed.

"That ain't fair! I'm good at that now! I pay afterwards!"

Kate sighed. "You're not allowed back into Tesco now, Maddie. I wouldn't call that good at it." She headed back to the counter.

"Huh! I wouldn't call her good at surviving here!" Maddie stood up, picking her bag up and pointedly moving to another table. Ed stuck her tongue out behind the young girl's back, going back to the milkshake.

A while later, a young girl ran through, her hair covering half her face and a pink backpack on her back as she skidded a little. Ed smiled at her. At least this one was nice.

"Hey Robin! How're you doing?" She offered the new girl a choice of caramel or strawberry lollipop, and the caramel one was hesitantly tugged from her grip and Robin sat down, still huffing.

"Uh, I'm fine..." She lowered her head, turning away as she unwrapped the sweet carefully. Ed hummed.

"Shouldn't you be in school, Robin?" she said finally, and a small shudder made her focus on the girl, who was beginning to cry. Crap.

"Oh, no. Don't cry! Don't cry, Robin!" She dug some tissues out of her bag and pressed them into her hand. "Let me guess, the glamour ran out again?"

Robin nodded, sweeping her fringe back to reveal one eye in the centre where there should have, on a human, been two. She wiped at her tears and made a snuffling noise, sticking the lollipop in her mouth carefully.

"Sugar is best for a shock. Oh, well. That is why you kept the fringe there, after all. It isn't that bad!" Ed smiled at Robin, patting her shoulder gently. "And a new batch isn't that long to make!" Personally she didn't think it needed hiding, but like many in this area, Robin was determined to make it in the human schooling system without revealing themselves, in order to get as good a job as possible. While Ed didn't get on too well with many of the young people in the Wolf's Glen (the water and flour and Morris incident was not spoken of in her presence), Robin was a sweetheart, and to see her crying because she wanted to go to school made Ed feel guilty.

She sighed, opening her mouth to say something before a hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump

"Robin, Kate has more of the glamour potion ready for you in the back." The man leant around to smile as Robin scurried off. "Hello, Elisa. You're here early."

She scoffed. "Oh, please. We both know it, so don't act all innocent!"

"Now. Please don't take that tone with me. I wasn't even going to mention it. But, I am curious. What happened?"

She looked up at Jasper, opening her mouth to say something before looking down. It wasn't fair!

"A guy in my class was going on at me and I got sent outside. And then I got fed up so I snuck out and I don't want to have to deal with Lionel anymore! It's too much!" She stamped her foot and there was a small crack as a potted plant shattered its confines to spread over the table. Jasper seized her arms.

"Elisa. Elisa, stop and reel it in. Your magic will wear out." He motioned to a waitress to take the plant away as Ed continued.

"I didn't do anything! And you're all telling me that I'm going to end up like my father, and I'm not! I'm not!" Another plant cracked the pot it was in, but didn't escape. Another waitress grabbed that one.

"I understand, Ed. I understand you don't want to lose yourself. But you have to tell people. Bottling it up will lead to making rash decisions - not because of your maturation. You're a teenager, you're meant to do dumb things." He guided her to sit gently down.

"I won't send you back to school like this, alright?" Jasper smiled and crouched to look her in the eyes. "But you need to talk to someone more instead of bottling it up. It's more dangerous for you than for other people. You really can't." He patted her shoulder, and she felt herself relax slightly.

"I...I get it." She sighed and rested her head on the table. "It isn't fair! It isn't!" Nothing, thankfully, smashed this time. Jasper sighed with relief. Thankfully there weren't too many noble-born elves in London.

"Very little seems to be." Jasper stood up, heading into the back. Ed sighed, looking down.

If only he wasn't right.

Sean was waiting for Paul near the geography block at lunchtime, surprised not to see Ed with him. Usually the two would head down after history and they'd be able to get themselves some lunch, before hanging out by some old building or other. It depended which teachers were patrolling where.

Paul sighed. "Ed's gone. Lionel kicked off in class and she then kind of..." He sighed. "Elvis has left the building," March announced, strolling towards them, with Sophie running alongside him. Paul held his hand out and she immediately went to him, looking unhappy as she clung to his arm.

"What's up with her?" Sean asked.

Paul sighed. "Don't know...Hey, Sean, do you think Trina's creepy?"

Sean snapped his head up. "What? No!"

Paul held his free hand up, while March lounged on the wall, seemingly undisturbed by the conversation. "I only meant seeing as she was a little weird. With what she reads..."

Sean glared at him. "She's not creepy!"

March rolled his eyes. "Whatever, man. I swear, if it weren't for Callum, I'd smack the shit out of Lionel. What's up with him?" He clenched his fists.

The other boys turned to him, Sophie still looking off into the distance with her head hanging low.

"Well. See..." Paul scuffed his foot a bit. "He used to be alright, he really did. I don't know what happened, but about...what, four years ago? He left school, I think." He tapped at his chin. "What was it, again?"

"Grief." Sean frowned. "Someone in their family died and he went away, didn't come back till a year later. He came back a sullen dickhead." Leaning over, he patted Sophie's arm. "Callum can take you home, you know. It isn't all bad!"

March scoffed. "Like that gives him any excuse to act like that. Everyone dies someday, you just have to accept it!" He started to walk off, and Sophie snuffled a little before letting go of Paul and running after him.

Paul and Sean looked at each other, before jogging to catch up.

So, I thought I should just add that March is wrong, but ...yeah, this is okay, I think!

please review