Today was the first day of school for the public schools, and Mai had risen early to polish her coin. She had been very cautious about using it since her conversation with Anya. Her random stats were never the same, and sometimes they helped her while other times they were a curse.

"Coin called it the Coin of Destiny. Is it you I talked to back then?" Mai muttered, scrutinizing the coin carefully. Its shiny sides reflected a beautiful sheen, and the waves on it truly resembled sun rays, but she knew it was just text.

She had tried looking at the coin herself with a magnifying glass but couldn't see anything at all.

"Does such a sharp magnifying glass really exist?" She suddenly remembered the large telescopes that an observatory had.

Mai put on her screaming purple fabric school bag with orange koi fish on it, a separate bag for her pencil case.

"That was my favorite school bag back then, and I stuffed it with everything."

As she caught her reflection, her eyes fell on her blue homemade dress by Asta. It was square-shaped with large orange daffodils that didn't match the season.

"It's August now," she murmured. It had been her favorite dress back then, and she had cried because she didn't get to wear it on the first day of school. But now, as she looked at it closely, it wasn't very pretty. Her mother's homemade clothes always had square shapes, and in this dress, Mai felt like a milk carton with arms and legs.

She tasted something sour and whispered, "I don't want to look like her in a child's version."

She rummaged through the long wooden shelf and found the dark blue sailor dress she had inherited from Felice, whom she loved, and changed into it.

At the breakfast table, Asta's gaze fell on the dress, and she asked, "I've washed and ironed the other dress so you could wear it today and look nice. Why did you put that one on? It smells, and you haven't worn it in a long time."

Mai suddenly felt a pain in her heart, and her heart beat quickly.

"I don't want to wear the other one. Why can't I wear this one?" she asked, gritting her teeth.

"It's dirty. Off with it!" shouted Asta, tossing her spoon into the cereal bowl, which clanged loudly.

She grabbed Mai's arm forcefully and pulled her into the room, trying to pull the dress off, but Mai resisted and pushed her away with her arms.

"I don't want to. I want to wear this one. It's not dirty," she shouted.

"Off with it. Clothes smell bad when they're unused even if they've been washed," Asta said loudly, and Mai suddenly felt her crooked fingers on her stomach and kicked out at her.

"What's going on? You're waking up the whole house," Prentice suddenly asked, poking his head into Mai’s and Anya’s room where Asta had managed to pull off one of Mai's tights.

"The dress is dirty, and she won't take it off," Asta replied, trying again to pull the dress off.

"There are no stains on it," Mai shouted, refusing to let go of it.

"They'll be late on the first day of school if we don't leave now. It's just a dress, and it's dark," said Prentice.

Fredwick Freeschool was a private school despite its name, and the queen had attended it once. One had to be on a long waiting list to get in, and many actors and famous people had their children there. It was located in the heart of Fredwick at a crossroads, and on one of them was the coin shop where Mai had met coin collector John. They didn't require uniforms on the first day of school because they believed that first-year students should feel relaxed.

On the way to Queen’s Street, Mai spotted a big man whom she chose as her target and quickly flipped her coin in her pocket.

"Compassionate. Shit. What the hell does that mean?" Mai exclaimed.

"What did you say?" Prentice asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

"I miss seeing a sheep." Mai replied immediately.

"You must really like sheep. You talk about them all the time." commented Prentice, chuckling.

Halfway down Queen’s Street, Prentice suddenly stopped the little Morris, and Asta took Mai and Anya to the school as Prentice had to go to work. At the entrance to the school, a chubby woman walked towards them with the same short hairstyle as Asta. In her hand, she held a little dark brown girl with thick short hair to her ears.

Mai furrowed her brows when she saw the girl. That's Mina, but her hair was long back then. What on earth happened to her?

Mina’s mother, Marie, looked at Asta and said, "It's good you found it. The two girls look lovely."

She bent down and looked at Mai, saying, "So you must be Mai. This is Mina, and you're the same age and will be in the same class. I'm Marie, and I'm your school nurse."

Back then, Mai didn't know what it meant, but Marie was really a sweet and funny woman despite her stern face that looked like she hated her job.

Mai looked at Mina and smiled. "Hi, I'm Mai."

She held out her hand, and Mina took it and smiled back. Mai took Anya's hand in her other hand, and they entered the school where children were streaming in with their parents.

The main hall was where they sang morning hymns every morning before classes began. It was done with hymn books, and the Lord's Prayer was recited with a changing pianist, but all pianists played like a grasshopper. Inga was the leader who ran everything with an iron hand, and the boys who had challenged her position had gotten several hymn books slammed hard on their heads. Not something Mai wished to experience.

The school was incredibly Christian with Nordic mythology, and if one knew their history, especially about the royal family, they would become best friends with the older teachers. The school was also very musical, so all children had to choose at least two instruments to play, which was considered the norm. Mai had played the piano, violin, and recorder back then and had tried drums and all sorts of instruments because everyone had to learn whether they wanted to or not.

After a short introduction, they were led to their classroom where Mai sat at the ugly horseshoe-shaped light square wooden tables, which she had bad memories of. She spotted a girl with long blond hair and bright blue eyes with a pale complexion wearing a white short-sleeved dress with a matching white fabric headband. Mai clasped her hands and felt them tremble. Hello Sophie.

To her left sat Mie, and to her right sat Christie C.

It was nostalgic to see all her old classmates again and surreal to see them as children. But this time, things wouldn't repeat themselves because Mai was prepared—with a magic coin.

They learned the alphabet, and because Mai already knew it, she was bored, as their teacher Kirsty noticed.

"Can you spell milk cartons for me, Mai?" she suddenly asked.

Mai immediately spelled it out for the class, and Kirsty praised her and clapped, but Mai didn't like it and hoped it would save her from saying more.

But Kirsty persisted and asked her to spell more 'complicated' words.

After a while, Sophie interrupted, trying to spell enthusiasm and jealousy but failing miserably, which Mai had to correct. More praise was sent her way while Sophie stared at Mai, biting her lip.

In response, Mai shrugged. It's sink or swim here. That's what you taught me, even back then.

After the lesson, they had a break, and when Mai went to the bathroom by the main hall, she was greeted by an unpleasantly thick smell.

She covered her nose and said, "I had forgotten. It always stank here. Odd that it's located by the main entrance to the main hall."

There were only two toilets, but they didn't segregate them by gender in this building, which irritated Mai.

When she was finished and came out, a boy with chestnut-colored hair and dark eyes was staring at her. He wore a white shirt with a black tie. It's Alex.

"Do you want to be girlfriends?" he suddenly asked.

Mai bit her lip and felt like swearing loudly. Damn.

She had completely forgotten about this episode. Because she had rejected him, he had turned into a stalker type.

Mai still hadn't forgotten the naked episode with the sleeping bag at the school camp. She suddenly felt sorry for him and exhaled slowly.

"Fine, but it has to be a secret. You mustn't tell anyone, or I'll come after you," she replied.

"Okay. Can you give me a kiss?" Alex suddenly asked.

Mai's jaw dropped, and she was speechless.

She covered her forehead and muttered, "Shit."

"Shit means poop in English," said Alex, winking.

"You're pretty smart. Why act so dumb?" Mai asked, surprised by his words.

"My parents say you don't gain anything by showing off. But you did when you spelled for the whole class. Be careful it doesn't go wrong," Alex replied, bidding her farewell and running outside.

"At least I got out of kissing him. Seriously. On the first day of school. He must be desperate," Mai mumbled as she walked to the entrance and ran out to Fredwick Street.

"We have a 30-minute break, so I can go see coin collector John," she said, picking up the pace.

At the end, as she was about to turn right, she suddenly ran into someone and hit her nose. She massaged it and looked ahead, seeing a boy in a dark blue suit with a logo on his left chest. He wore a white shirt and a black tie. His thick obsidian-colored hair matched his tourmaline-colored eyes, resembling a galaxy.

Mai was completely captivated and pursed her lips.

"Sorry for bumping into you," she said immediately.

The boy quickly massaged his nose and looked at her. He didn't say anything, so she thought he might be confused.

To break the ice, she asked, "Are you from The Hendrick Private School?"

He nodded and replied, "It's my first day."

"But it has already started. Your school is many hours away from here. Why are you here?" Mai asked, curious.

"My father was supposed to meet me here, but he didn't have time after all, so I ditched my bodyguards," the boy replied.

Bodyguards?

"Are you a prince or something? It's not good that you run away. What if someone kidnaps you?" Mai said, becoming worried.

She took his hand and led him to a bench, and they sat down.

"I'll wait here with you. There are bad people who steal children and sell them to bad places. So always trust your instincts," she said, giving him a sweet smile.

"No one has ever been so kind to me in my entire life," the boy suddenly said, squeezing her hand.

They waited for a long time without saying anything until the boy suddenly saw five men approaching them in suits and sunglasses.

He stood up, looked at Mai, and asked, "What's your name?"

"I'm Mai, I go to the school over there," Mai replied, pointing to the Fredwick Freeschool building.

"I'm Lin. It was nice to meet you, Mai," the boy said, bowing to her and running to his bodyguards, who had only reached halfway to them.

Mai checked her orange plastic watch on her wrist and saw that the break was already over, so she hurried back into the school.

>>> <<< 

Mai's school days went smoothly, and she hadn't flipped her coin since the first day of school, afraid of getting a stat she couldn't use. She became good friends with Matt and Kristjan, who had also been her good friends back then.

Matt was the popular blonde boy that all the girls were crazy about and all the boys wanted to talk to, and Kristjan was the chubby dyslexic with freckles that all the boys discreetly bullied and all the girls avoided. Only Mai and Matthias hung out with him, which Mai was fine with.

No one had discovered yet that she was dating Alex, but every time Mai went to school, she felt the nerves tremble in her hands.

Sophie hadn't come after her or talked behind her back. yet.

Mai had excelled in all her classes, and all the teachers were always happy to see her, especially Kirsty, who was their Danish and English teacher. All her classmates came to her during breaks to get help with their homework, which they hadn't had time to do themselves, except Sophie. Mai didn't reject anyone and was fine with being exploited in this way, and it was nostalgic because the boys had always copied her homework before class back then.

They had all kinds of 'artistic subjects' back then, from Chinese silk painting to building birdhouses out of milk cartons, but the only thing they didn't have was cooking, where you learned to cook.

But Mai didn't need that because her parents had given her and Anya cooking days, which were 7 times a week. They just got a cookbook slapped in their faces and had to figure out how to make the food themselves. Sometimes it went well, and other times it was a disaster. The only thing Prentice and Asta helped with was shopping.

Mai chose the piano as the only musical instrument and joined the church choir and school choir, just as she had done back then.

Before she was to meet her music teacher, she had spotted a random teacher in the schoolyard and flipped her coin. But when she saw her old teacher in the schoolyard, she didn't get to see the text "Sick" over the coin.

When she knocked on the door for her first lesson, she suddenly felt sick and had a heavy headache and fainted.

The next day, Mai had Etna as her piano teacher, whom she had tried to avoid. She had so many wrinkles all over her face that Mai thought she couldn't see out of her eyes.

"Maybe that's why she's always so grumpy."

Her duet partner in piano was still Matt, but she hated playing duets.

One day, on her way to school, Mai hoped to avoid the duet session after her piano lesson, but when she flipped her coin and saw Sophie walking on the other side of the road, she didn't see the text "Slow" over the coin.

"How does this song start?" Etna asked.

"An eighth note," Mai replied, seeing the notes as tadpoles, or else she couldn't get through all the Mozart songs that Etna was a huge fan of, so much so that Mai was forced to play only them.

She would rather play Vivaldi.

After the lesson, there was a knock on the door, and Sophie stood there with her music book, making eye contact with Mai, who swallowed a lump and coughed dryly. Damn!

"I thought Matt was supposed to be here. That's what you said last time, Etna," Sophie said in a disappointed tone and sat down to the right of Mai, who furrowed her brows.

Why do I have to play the bass? I only do that with Matt. Now she regretted flipping her coin today.

Etna chuckled loudly and said, "You must have misheard. Mai and Matt sound almost the same."

"You can play from Mai's book since Sophie doesn't have one," she added.

Those words made Mai smile, who didn't need to warm up and looked at Sophie, asking, "Are you ready?"

They started playing, but Sophie played so fast that Mai couldn't keep up. What the hell? I usually play much better than Sophie.

"Stop. Start over," Etna said in a loud tone.

They started the song over, and Sophie sped ahead like a grasshopper while Mai struggled to keep up.

"Stop. Stop. Mai, why are you so slow? You can't already be tired after your 2-hour lesson," Etna said in a loud and clear tone that cut into Mai's ears.

"My fingers are warm and sweaty. I haven't had a break," Mai immediately defended herself and bit her lip.

"You used to be able to play for 3 hours without any problems. If you're nervous because Matt isn't here, overcome it now. He's just a practice partner for you," Etna said.

Mai felt a tingling sensation on her forehead and knew it was the signal.

"I can't do it anymore today, Etna. Can I go home?" she asked, looking at Etna, who stood with her arms crossed and a tight smile on her lips.

"Your duet lasts at most 2 minutes. If you can't even handle 2 minutes, you won't be able to perform at the culture night," she said in a loud voice that echoed in the small room.

Mai had never been interested in performing for a damn culture night and said, "Fine, I'll skip it."

"It's fine with you, but what about your parents who have worked hard to get you in here? My lessons are not for slacking off. Am I right, Sophie?" said Etna, not letting go of Mai.

But Mai had had enough.

She closed her book, quickly packed it away, and said, "Have a good day." She hurried out the door and dared not look back.

Asta didn't trust that the children were getting enough swimming lessons at school, so she had enrolled Mai and Anya in a swim club that focused on competitive swimming, which Mai hated. The water was always ice-cold when she jumped in, and it took her the whole swimming lesson to warm up. But Asta always rewarded them with a hotdog with ketchup and fried onions, so it was all worth it.