When the news of where I’d be placed was broken at the dinner table that night, it received less of a response than I thought it would. I had been fairly certain that Sammi would vehemently object to me intruding further into her life. So I had to ask.

“You don’t mind? I thought you might not like it since you seemed to dislike me.”

She gave her head a little tilt.

“You saved me. Why wouldn’t I like you?”

“I don’t know, you just seemed like you were avoiding me.”

“I was. You made me mad. That doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”

“Really?”

I looked at her with a hopeful expression. She slid off her chair and came over to give me a hug.

“You got in trouble to help me. Of course I like you, silly. Plus you’re my new sister, and I know you’ll need my help too.”

Dinner continued, though Sammi ended up sharing a chair with me, chatting with me as we ate. Well, more her chatting at me than with me. I’m not a big talker, but that was fine with her. She could talk enough for the both of us.

After dinner, I was going to go up to my room and read, but got dragged by Sammi to the theater room. Her favorite show was on tonight, and she was determined to share it with me. I didn’t resist.

The show was interesting, but not to my liking. I might be a little girl, but I still had standa… oh that’s really cute!

Since it was a school night, we only got to watch TV for an hour before being sent to bed. It was earlier than I usually did so, but I wasn’t going to argue with mommy… I’d just go back to the initial plan and do some reading until it was time to sleep.

Though I’m fairly certain mommy and daddy knew I was doing so. Well, they’d stop me if they decided I needed to.

---

The next morning after breakfast we picked up the lunches mommy had made for us and headed off to school. It was a little farther than the orphanage was, but not terribly so. During the walk I listened as my siblings talked, answering questions when asked, but otherwise just walking and listening.

The thing was, I wasn’t just listening to my siblings, but my surroundings as well. Physically, since I hate turning off my senses, but more mentally.

We were being followed.

By who, I wasn’t certain, but the presence didn’t seem to bear any negative feelings for us. Then again, you don’t have to dislike someone in order to do something the target wouldn’t like, like stalking them.

I kept my psychic senses scanning the area, but nothing ended up happening by the time we reached the schools. Patrick left us first, since the high school was on this side of the elementary school. When we reached our school, Henry reminded us to wait for him before heading home, then took off towards the middle school.

I’d ended up learning this morning that the brothers usually escorted Sammi to and from school, unless they had something going on. And now that I was there, I’d gotten added to the group, and was not to walk home by myself. It had gotten more important to be escorted due to current conditions, so we’d always have someone else with us in transit.

I also think the situation had something to do with our observer. I couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t someone mommy or daddy set to watch over us rather than someone else. I’d ask her when we got home.

Unless thinking that raised a flag.

I’ll be very careful today, just in case.

Since my class assignment should be settled, I went somewhere besides the office when I got into the school building. Or rather, I was dragged elsewhere. I took note of the location of the classroom, already having memorized the map of the place.

During a time I’d been unable to pull out a book, I’d been bored and noticed the fire drill plan on the wall of the room I’d been in. It’s always best to know where you are, and where you can go from there. Knowing the map let me make plans in case something went wrong. Though there was always the worst case scenario and I’d ‘port out. I didn’t want to do that though, since I’d never heard of humans being able to teleport.

Asides aside, my sister had taken us to my new classroom, and up to the woman who’d be my teacher, at least for the next few months.

“Good morning, Miss Ashley!”

“Good morning, Sammi. And this must be your sister, Telarynn, right?”

“Yep! But she likes to be called Rynn. C’mon, say hello.”

Sammi poked me in the arm.

“Hello, I’m Rynn. It’s nice to meet you. Sorry if my being here is a problem.”

She gave me a bit of a troubled smile, so I knew my presence was a problem. Well, we’d work something out.

“I know you’re quite intelligent, I’ve seen your scores, so I honestly don’t know how well you’ll fit in here. I’ll try to help you, so if you have a problem, please let me know.”

As she talked, she guided me to a desk at the back corner of the room. There were some boxes next to it along the wall.

“Since you’re beyond most of what I’ll be teaching, I’ve decided to put you out of the way so you’ll be less of a distraction to the others. Sammi’s going to be next to you to help you fit in, but that won’t be until class is started and I have everyone change seats. Please try to keep quiet if you have to ask her something.”

“Okay.”

She headed back to getting stuff ready for class. We were early since I didn’t want to get in the way when I arrived. Sammi had run off to the playground after introducing me to the teacher.

I pulled some stuff out of my backpack, I organized my new desk, then dug into the boxes. They were the textbooks and workbooks for the elementary classes. All of them, including the ones I’d have been able to skip. I might be higher level already, but I meant what I’d said about being on the same page. I’d be greatly embarrassed if I didn’t know something that everyone else did since they’d started school.

The books were organized by grade. Seven grades, three boxes. The boxes were not full, since at this level, the books weren’t very thick. I moved all of the kindergarten and first grade books to my desk. I may as well start at the beginning, as well as have the materials for the class ready to follow along should it be a topic I’m needing to study up on.

A bell rang and a trickle of students began to fill the room. I knew one of them, outside of my sister, since she’d been at Auntie’s orphanage with me. She frowned when she saw me, not understanding why I’d be in her class, since I was a year younger than her.

Only a couple of kids came to say hello to me and ask questions, to which I gave short, simple answers. Everyone else didn’t care enough, was too shy, or had some other reason I couldn’t think of.

The bell rang again and class started. Though a couple of people flew through the door a minute or so after the bell had rang, earning them the attention of the class for a brief moment, and the loss of their first break for being tardy.

Then it was introduction time…

“Class, I’m sure you’ve noticed her already, but we have a new student joining us. This is Rynn Oak. She’s the adopted sister of Sammi. Her situation is… complicated. She knows a lot, but isn’t used to being around other people, so she was put here where you kids can help her. Nicely. I don’t want anyone being a bully or mean. Alright?”

She looked around the room at the sea of nodding heads. Her last words had contained a note of warning, and most picked up on it. The rest just nodded since it was what everyone else was doing.

“She will not always be following along with what the rest of you are doing, since she is better is some subjects and worse in others. So don’t worry if she’s looking at or doing something else. I’ll take care of it if there’s a problem.”

And with that, class began.

Telerean

I’m bad at writing down to younger ages. How do you really explain something like this to them so they’d understand it?