03x02: Sophomore Jumpstart

The first week of school continues as Austin meets a few new teachers, new friends, and old ones as well.

SOPHOMORE JUMPSTART

 

     The recess, Austin went over to the DDN room once again. They were dismissed and they all went downstairs.

     “Hey, Austin, how was the first two hours of second year?”Ernst asked.

     “Nothing special really. You?”

     “Well…”

     Austin diverted his attention to Janella near the canteen end of the catwalk.

     “Austin?”

     He paid no attention to the here and the now.

     “DUDE!”

     “What?”

     “Why don’t you talk to her?” Bianca said.

     “That would be… a good idea. I shall return.”

     Austin stood up and went to the Patola Area, which was said end of the catwalk.

     “Hey guys!”

     “Hey Austin,” Nica said, nudging Janella simultaneously.

     “Hi…” she said.

     “Is something wrong?”

     “No. I’m just glad to see you again.”

     “Did you and Berna catch anything in Woodridge?”

     “Not really. There wasn’t any action.”

     Janella and Berna were also on an undercover operation in Woodridge.

     “Oh. Well, I’ll be checking on that. Bye.”

     “WELL THAT WAS BORING!” Nica said.

     Austin walked away back towards the mango tree on the other side of the catwalk.

     “So how did it go?” Bianca asked.

     “Good. Really…”

 

When the bell rang, Austin went back to CV and the next teacher wasn’t there yet. Sr. Jojo soon came in.

     “CV, I have your schedule and your list of teachers. For Science, it’s me. For CCF, it’s Ms. Mac, for English, Ms. Sharon; Math, Sr. Geraldo; Filipino, Ms. Becky; Computer, Ms. Laurice; TLE, Ms. Joan; Araling Panlipunan (that’s Social Studies in Filipino), Sr. Leo…”

     “Sr. Leo?! He wasn’t supposed to be here this year. He’s a year early,” Austin thought. Sr. Leo was one of their advisers last year and he completely terrorized the batch during the Intrams when he was team manager. He did have to leave in the middle of the fourth quarter due to problems in the third year level so he promised he’d be teaching their batch specifically for third year. Like Austin thought, it was one year too early.

     “…Music, Ms. Naj; Art, Sr. Chris; and finally P.E. Girls, Ms. Ivy; P.E. Boys, Sr. Anton. I’ll post your schedule on the board, just copy it later on.”

     Sr. Jojo put the schedule up on the board like he said and left the room.

     Their next teacher, Ms. Joan, entered the room. Yes, it was TLE class.

     She introduced herself and pointed out that she won’t be here for the next few weeks. After her class, it was Computer Time.

     The Next Teacher entered the room.

     “Good morning, CV.”

     “Good morning Ms. Laurice!”

     “Okay, take your seat.”

     It was a double period but Ms. Laurice spent the first half of the first period for orientation. She finally told everyone to put their bags outside and line up so they could finally go to the computer lab. She stressed about the chairs being pushed back in.

     Unfortunately, Austin’s mind was in the Base, thinking about his secret project.

     “Whose chair is this?” Ms. Laurice angrily asked.

     Austin looked; hey it wasn’t his chair, good.

     “And this one?!”

     Austin looked, still he was safe.

     “And this one. CV, didn’t I just tell you to push your chairs in?!”

     Oops, looks like third time’s the charm. He went in and pushed in his chair and went back in line. First day and he’s already been indirectly yelled at.

     They reached the Computer Lab at the third floor of the Mindanao Building. They sat in the chairs facing the computers.

     “Okay, sweethearts, when it is discussion time, you will turn your chair facing this way.”

     Everyone turned their chair facing the front but some just twisted themselves. Ms. Laurice’s power, however, was space perception and manipulation and she could quickly tell which chairs were not properly positioned.

     “Sweetheart! Sit properly!”

     He was yelling at the stuck up kid earlier. He fixed his chair.

     “Okay sweethearts, we will introduce each other like this: Write two to five facts about you and then we will guess. If you’re identity is guessed, you will have to introduce yourself. Okay?”

     Everyone nodded and they took out a piece of paper and wrote their two characteristics.

     “Austin, what’s yours?” A guy asked. His name was Jib.

     “Number one: My favorite movie is Fight Club…”

     “Hey, that’s a good idea! My favorite movie is…”

     “Number two: My favorite director is Quentin Tarantino…”

     “Yes, this is a great idea.”

     “Number three: I am obsessed with movies.”

     “Ditto. Same here.”

     “Number four, I play the guitar.”

     “No s**t, man?”

     “Well, I can’t think of a number five.”

     “Eh, this is fine.”

     “Is everybody done? Pass your papers.”

     So they passed the papers and Ms. Laurice gathered them.

     She read the characteristics one by one per paper and people were able to guess. Eventually, it came that stuck up guy. They were finally going hear him talk.

     “Yes, sweetheart, what is your name?”

     “Micherenz, miss.”

     “Stand up!”

     They must have not promoted standing up whilst reciting in his school.

     “My name is Micherenz but you can call me Renz.”

     “Anything you want to say about yourself?”

     “Yeah. I�"“

     “Anything you don’t like in particular?”

     “Umm… uh… I don’t like it when um… people make a big deal out of small things.”

     “Oh, okay class, you heard that. Next paper…”

     Austin was obviously seeing this guy for Power Placement tomorrow.

 

When the class was finally over, Austin went down to the DDN room to wait for the guys. Soon, Ernst, Johan, and Bianca came out. Jericho was with Austin in CV. Ivan was in DOR. They all went down to the canteen to eat.

     “Well, Ernst, anything interesting happen?”

     “Yes, I found my new favorite subject, Biology.”

     “Why, Ms. Tess?” Bianca asked.

     “Yes.”

      “Is she funny?” Austin asked.

     “Hell, yes!” Ernst replied.

     “Okay. Here we are. Which table shall we baptize first?”

     “That one,” Ernst pointed at a table on the right side. Austin wanted to sit somewhere nearer to the left side since that’s where Janella and her friends were sitting. Oh well…

     After eating, Austin wanted to go over to her table but just can’t. “Why was this so awkward?!” he thought to himself.

     After lunch, they all went back their classrooms. Austin quickly copied the schedule in a piece of paper. He sat back down. He was now very excited since it was his favorite subject, Mathematics.

     Their new teacher placed his stuff on the table and entered the room with a smile on his face. It was a sort of intimidating yet reassuring kind of smile. On first impression, this was the kind of guy that knew what he was doing.

     “Good afternoon, CV.”

     “Good afternoon, Sir…”

     It slipped their minds to look at the schedule for Math. Austin thought, “It was Sr. Rommel all over again. First day disease never dies down.”

     “Isn’t your schedule already posted?” the teacher said, looking at the schedule. “I’m Sr. Geraldo but call me Sr. Gerald.”

     “Good afternoon Sr. Gerald.”

     “Take your seat.”

     He did the usual routine on the first day of a certain subject and laid down his house rules. He also introduced his subtle intentions, like teaching them respect.

     Eventually he asked them to write on a piece of paper their name, nickname, and stuff like that.

     They passed the papers and Sr. Gerald read them all.

     “How do you pronounce this? Miche… what?”

     “Sir, Micherenz.”

     “I’ll just call you Renz. Next, Um. Sebastian, AKA Bas. What’s this? Bas… B*****d? Is your name b*****d?”

     Some people laughed at this but jeez, first day and he’s already offended someone.

     “Sir, it’s Basti.”

     “Oh, I just had a hard time reading your handwriting. Next, Jef�" what is this?”

     He could read the previous entries just fine, was it luck of the draw to get three of these in a row?

     “Jeffrey, sir.”

     “Oh. AKA Jeff.”

     “Next, Austin AKA… Austin. Wait, you’re the student who won in all those Math competitions right?”

     “Yes sir.”

     “Along with…” Sr. Gerald said looking through the papers. “Marie Antoinette AKA Maan.”

     “Yes,” she said.

     “Who was the other guy?”

     “Lui, sir, he’s in SC” she said.

     “Oh, South Cotabato, also my student.

     He continued on until all the names were called.

     Next, he explained that he was not biased but might help some students more than others near the end of the year since they might ask for his help.

     He also pointed out that if someone didn’t feel comfortable in class, they could always feel free to ask.

     The next part stood out though.

    “Okay, sino dito ang maarte?”

     He was asking who in the class had a lot of complaints about simple things. It was a pretty “Filipino-exclusive” word.

     No-one dared raise their hands.

     “Okay, sino ngayon ang maangas.”

     He was now asking who had a tendency to “defy authority” and “feel powerful”. Once again, no one dared raise their hands.

     “Good because those are the two traits I do not want in students.”

     He had now set down his two rules and everybody had been informed of the current playing field.

     Eventually, the class was over and it was Filipino time, one of Austin’s weakest subjects.

     Their new teacher entered, a relatively old woman. She was Ms. Becky.

     “Magandang hapon, CV.” (Good afternoon, CV)

     “Magandang hapon po, Binibining Becky,’ they said while standing up. Owen fell back in his seat and Austin, Ad, Jasvir, Queennie, and the other witnesses, Owen included, tried hard not to laugh.

     It was the same old routine but leaps and bounds less interesting than what happened back in Math time.

     After the class was over, it was supposedly AP time but it turns out they had an early dismissal that day so their “reunion” with Sr. Leo had to be postponed. “Thank Goodness,” thought Austin.

 

Austin waited in front of DDN and went with Ernst, who just happened to be going the same route as Janella. She was heading towards the same old bus are but the front was now undergoing construction and their old waiting area had been reduced to half of the waiting area it used to be.

    Austin and Ernst took an alternative route behind the canteen. They arrived at the inner part of the waiting area which was larger.

     “Is Janella here?”

     “No, I think she went home already.”

     “Well that was too quick.”

     Austin went in the bus area and looked for her. He really couldn’t find her.

     “Oh well,’ Austin sighed. “I guess I’ll just talk to her tomorrow.”

     “Why not later in the hotel?”

     “She’s undercover, remember?”

     “Oh, well see ya.”

     Austin teleported the Base to meet up with Kyle.

     “Dude, I’ve been waiting for�"“

     “Ten Minutes and twenty-vive point nine seconds?”

     “Never mind. Let’s go.”

     Austin led Kyle to the inside and into the elevator.

     “So you know of the training room right?”

     “Yes.”

     “I’ve expanded the training room during the summer, that’s one of my secret projects but that is nothing compared to what I have in store for you today. I got extremely bored and I actually created another floor below the training room that is the Tech Garage.”

     Austin pushed the “TG” button on the console and the elevator went down. When they arrived, Austin stepped out followed by Kyle. He clapped his hands twice and the light turned on, revealing the black room with white gridlines.

     “Like it?” Austin asked.

     “Yeah, it’s neat but there’s nothing here.”

     “Yes there is. This…” Austin said as he pointed to the center of the garage. “…is my masterpiece.”

     An opening in the center appeared and something was raised up. It was a car.

     “You built a car?”

     “It is not just a car. It is the car.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I took the best of the best and made it better. I spiffed up the design which can be changed at will whether color only or more than that and the main feature of this baby can only be fully experienced if you ride shotgun.”

     “Right now?”

     “No, no, let’s wait a few more minutes,” Austin said sarcastically.

     “Fine, fine, sorry,” Kyle said as he entered the car.

     “So what does it do?”

     “Well to use it, all you need is an executive ID or an authorized ID. Unlike the transport cars, I can authorize your ID without having to insert it into the slot.”

     “So it works like a key?”

     “Exactly. Now, let’s try that but first, do the walls look familiar, Kyle?”

     “They look a lot like the training room walls.”

     “And this is a garage so do you know what those walls are for?”

     “No… umm… not really.”

     “TEST DRIVES!”

     “Oh…”

     “Strap in your seatbelt, we’re going to a simulation of the island.”

     They put on their seatbelts. Austin put his ID into the slot where the ignition is supposed to be. Suddenly, a circular opening revealed itself right beside the radio and the air conditioner controls. He changed the garage from the standard mode into the simulation mode. The black walls faded into what appears to be the exterior of the island.

     “Well, look at that. You might be wondering what’s so special about the car. Well, this little opening is all that matters, all you have to do is put your hand in there, grab onto that little horizontal bar, and activate your power. It’ll resonate throughout the entire vehicle, turning this into a badass machine.”

     “So you’re saying this can be a flying car.”

     “Yup.”

     “A swimming car, essentially a submarine?”

     “Yes.”

     “It can go underground?”

     “As I said, it can absorb any power.”

     “It can go through time?”

     “Yes. Speaking of, I did watch Back to the Future yesterday while finishing this up.”

     “It can teleport?”

     “Are we gonna do this all day? Don’t you want to try it out?”

     “Sorry”

     “SUPER SPEED!”

     “Wait, Austin, NO!”

     Austin turned his band to Super Speed and grabbed onto the bar. He hit the gas and they were cruising through the island at super speeds.

     “SLOW DOWN!”

     “Sure.”

     Austin let go of the bar and the car decelerated to 80 miles per hour.

     “Please don’t do that again.”

     “Wanna try submarine mode?”

     “Sure.”

     Austin switched the band to hydrokinesis and grabbed the bar. The entire car turned into water and Austin and Kyle also started to turn into water.

     “What’s happening?”

     “Well, I thought ‘what’s the use of a car that can turn into water or fire if the passengers burn to bits?’ so I installed an intrinsic field around the car and directly into the seats, affecting us with the power as well. I made a few exceptions but it works. Watch.”

     Austin headed straight for the water and instead of the car filling up with water, they just propelled through the water.

     “Same concept with hydrokinesis, we’re just moving through the water, I don’t even have to hit the gas.”

     Austin took the car up to sea level.

     “Man, I wish Janella was here to see this.”

     “And what, I’ll be riding shotgun while she’s beside you in the driver’s seat.”

     “No, man, she’ll be riding shotgun and you’ll be riding at the back, b***h even.”

     “You traitor!”

     “I try to make decisions that will benefit everyone. Hey, at least the trunks transparent in this mode, you can lie down there.”

     “Hahaha… very funny,” Kyle said sarcastically.

     “Wanna drive?” Austin said as he parked the car back on the island and let go of the bar.

     “Sure, is it automatic or manual?”

     “Do you see a gear shift? Control it like you would your powers. And you’re psychic anyway so that’s a lot easier.”

     Austin and Kyle switched places. They looked at each other with the same idea. Austin smiled teasingly.

     “Don’t worry, if Berna walks in here, not only will I let her ride shotgun but I’ll also step out of the car.”

     “Aw come on!”

     “Hey, at least I let you ride at the back b�" you know what? Never mind. Shut up and drive.”

      Kyle grabbed onto the bar and he lifted the car upward.

     “Now you can try the weapons system. Same concept as your normal powers. Try it.”

     Kyle imagined shooting a psychic orb at the ocean. Lo and behold, a psychic orb shot out of the front part of the car and hit the water.

     “Can you do that with the other powers?”

     “Yeah. Well, depending on the powers. For example, Ernst will be a groovin’ cruisin’ laughing gas machine.”

     Kyle broke into laughter.

     “I can’t wait to see that.”

     “Just park this by the base.”

     Kyle flew the car down to the base.

     Austin returned the garage to its original setting and they stepped out of the vehicle.

     “Well what do you think?”

     “It’s great but when will we be able to use it?”

     “Aside from getting around, it’s good for combat.”

     “Well, I gotta go. See ya some other time?” Kyle said.

     “Sure. Adios. Con de dios.”

     “What is that supposed to mean?”

     “I do not know.”

 

The next day was pretty interesting.

     In the morning, Austin tried talking to the other people in CV. After a few attempts, he was talking to Jib and Sean.

     Sean was not very fond of Sr. Gerald and heavily disagreed with his “non-biased” justifications. He was also slightly offended by the “b*****d joke”.

     After that, they had the morning assembly and they met a new teacher.

     The first subject was English and here they met Ms. Sharon. Everyone was pretty bored during the class but it was the first day, it was always boring.

     Being the English teacher, she was very fluent in English, but spoke in a significant monotone.

     When that was over, it was Math time again. They just continued what was not finished yesterday.

     Recess followed and Music followed after that where they finally met their Music teacher, Ms. Naj Vargas.

     She grouped them into five groups and let them fix some scrambled letters revealing names of countries. Turns out they were going to deal with Asian music.

     “JAI HO!” somebody yelled.

     “No, we’re not going to tackle Jai Ho,” Ms. Naj responded with a smile on her face.

     She asked what countries they got. Austin’s group got Korea. The others were Japan, Thailand, and China. When she got to the group who got India, someone yelled, “JAI HO!” again.

     Science time followed that and they were going to experience their first hour with Sr. Jojo.

     Sr. Jojo did the usual routine with the names and the introduction. For some reason, when it was Austin’s turn, he couldn’t help but speak in a thick English accent.

     “My name is Ryan Austin Fernandez, you can call me Austin. And I love movies.”

     “You watch movies a lot?”

    “Yes, sir,” Austin said, trying stop it with the accent.

     “Like every day?”

     “Yes, sir.”

     “Okay, take your seat. Thank you.”

     Austin sat down and tried talking to AD. The accent was gone.

     “I know you’re gonna ask me about the accent. I do not know why? First impression impulse I guess.”

     After this was ZL. Last year, ZL was just sort of like a club time but oddly, they didn’t even go to an orientation.

     Ms. Rose, their moderator for the first period, entered the room.

     “Good afternoon, CV.”

     “Good afternoon, Ms. Rose.”

     She was also the Subject Area Coordinator for the Science Department so everyone knew her.

     “Which one of you is Austin?”

     Austin raised his hand.

     “The new students are waiting for you near the ramp. Please go there immediately.”

     Austin stood up and ran to the ramp in between the DOR and DDN classrooms. There was a bunch of students there. He was only handling second years though since the Power Regulation Deputies already handled the other levels.

     “Okay guys, let’s go to the base.”

     Austin switched the band to space-manipulation and put them in the Loop. He pushed the surroundings back and they ended up in front of the base.

    “Looks like we’re the first ones here. Everyone inside.”

     Austin opened the doors and led everybody inside.

     “Form one line, any order.”

     First in line was Micherenz Guioguio.

     “Hello, Renz. What power would you like today?”

     “What are available?”

     “Well we have�"“

     “Wait, sorry, never mind. I want power over ground.”

     “What like earthquakes?”

     “Yes.”

     “Okay, step in and try to resist the pain.”

     Renz stepped in the Dome and Austin set the Dome Terrakinesis. After he was done, Austin directed him the male ward to rest.

     Up next was Karl Dimapilis, from CV as well. He was the intimidating guy from yesterday.

     “Which one do you want, Karl?”

     “What can I have?”

     “We have plant control, light control, fire control, water control…”

     “Do you have electricity control?”

     “Of course, want that one?”

     Karl nodded and Austin put him in.

     This pretty much continued throughout all the newcomers. There were a lot fewer this year than last year.

     Austin headed back to the classroom and they were already in groups.

     “Austin, jut find a group and decide what output to produce,” Ms. Rose said.

     “Yes, miss.”

     Austin went to Sean’s group which had Owen, Jericho, Jib, Ibarra, and Jasvir.

     “Have you guys decided? What’s available?”

     “Well, this is career ZL so…” Sean said. “Here are the choices.”

     Sean handed Austin a piece of paper and Austin looked through the choices.

     “There! Scriptwriting. That’ll be fun.”

     “Okay then, scriptwriting. What’s it gonna be about?”

     “JEJEMONS!” Owen said.

     Jejemons was a term for people who spoke “LyK tHis~”.

     “Great! It’s a story with Jejemons, fine, but what is the plot? Who are the characters? Is this story worth telling?” Austin said.

     “You’re looking too deep into this.”

     “I’m just looking deep enough, Sean. Come on, what’s it gonna be?”

     They started pitching ideas until they settled for “a team of exterminators are dispatched to exterminate humans who were corrupted by the jejemon virus. These creatures are known as jemons, they’re like demons, only jeje.”

     Austin couldn’t believe they were serious but they submitted the pitched idea anyway.

     Lunch followed after that and nothing special happened. Austin tried awkwardly talking to Janella again but once again, he failed. He eventually got to talk to her but the bell rang before the conversation went anywhere.

     After lunch was the creative ZL2 period. Their moderator here was Ms. Anne. Austin knew this because she was DDN’s co-adviser.

     “Good morning, CV!”

     “Good morning, Ms. Anne.”

     “Okay, take your seat.”

     Ms. Anne started to talk about herself and told us that she wished to impart her knowledge to us for the school year. She then asked if we had any questions. This was followed by deafening silence.

     “Are you guys okay? Do you have any questions?”

     No one spoke.

     “Are you still hungry? Can you talk? Hello?”

     Still no response.

      “Anyway, let’s do our groupings; first let’s see the possible activities for this ZL period.”

     She wrote a bunch of stuff on the board like Graphic Designing, Culinary Arts, Photography, and Crafts.

     “Now just group yourselves according to your interests. Who wants to lead for Designing?”

     Austin raised his hand.

     “You would like to lead, mister…”

     “Austin. “

     “Yes, Austin…”

     “I have a question. Can there be a music group?”

     “Umm. No I think that belongs in the kinesthetic.”

     “But we’re creating music. I think it should belong here.”

     “I still have to ask Ms. Nanette about that. But for now, let’s settle for this.”

     She continued looking for leaders and did this for the remaining groups but since way too many people wanted to go for crafts, mainly boys, she made two groups in crafts.

     Austin’s group, which had Justine, Micherenz, Clutch, Sean, Jericho, Jib, and Sang Woo. The rest of the boys were called the Doghouse group because they were going to build a doghouse. Austin’s was the origami group because they were going to build an origami diorama.

     The period after this was the Kinesthetic ZL time. Instead of the freedom the other periods had, they only had one thing to prepare for in this hour, the Field Demo.

     Since this was essentially Seton’s 35^th year, they were having lots of activities this year and one of which is the Field Demo during the Linggo ng Wika, the week where Filipino’s celebrate their language.

     The second years’ presentation was the Sinulog Festival. They were tasked to research on this.

     They were left to Ms. Mac who was their moderator for this ZL period. She talked about the project and what was going to happen. Eventually, the hour was over and it was time for the Club orientation.

     The ZL last year with three hours for three clubs was now reduced to one hour for one club. This was inevitably going to be Exceptionality for Austin since it was a contract since first year.

     Exceptionality was the math training for off-campus contests but they were going add science this year.

     Austin thought since there was only one slot, he had very little choice and if there was a film club, he wouldn’t be able to join.

     While the moderators were showcasing their clubs, Austin saw Sr. Alan, the Exceptionality moderator, talking to Ms, Nanette. He could see his freedom going away as Sr. Alan pointed to Austin, Maan, and Lui in the audience. It was a vague pointing but a pointing nonetheless.

     Sr. Alan soon called them.

     “Okay, I already talked to Ms. Nanette, you are in Exceptionality II.”

     “Sir, do we have a choice?” Austin asked.

     “Well, if you leave now, you will not be trained anymore in the future years.”

     “Okay, I’m staying,” Maan said.

     “Okay, Maan, you can go.”

     “But sir, it’s just for this year.”

     “That’s the protocol, Austin.”

     “Fine, I guess I’m staying,” Austin said as all the clubs went by and there was, in fact, to film club.

     “I’m staying too,” Lui said.

     “Okay, good, see you next Wednesday.”

     Austin sat back down.

 

After this boring hour, it was finally dismissal time, Austin teleported straight to the waiting are and waited. Soon enough, Janella came out from the campus.

     “Hey, Janella.”

     “Austin, hi.”

     “How was your day?”

     “Fine. Nothing special happened.”

     “You going straight home?”

     “Yeah, I guess. Bye.”

     Austin felt that she was slipping away. This can’t be!

     “Okay then. See you around. Bye.”

     Austin picked up his bag and rode the transport cars back to the hotel.

 

The next day was pretty uninteresting despite being only the third day of the year. Austin was still longing for Bukidnon or DDN since he was still not accustomed in here.

     After Ms. Becky’s interesting insight on Jejemons in Filipino (albeit completely unrelated), it was finally AP time. This time, Sr. Leo was back.

     “Okay, Good Morning, CV,” Sr. Leo said with his trademark “emphasis-on-a-word-while-raising-his-eyebrows” mannerism.

     “Good morning Sr. Leo.”

     “Sit down.”

     Sr. Leo seemed a lot nicer than last year but he seemed nice in the first days of last year as well.

     He still teased Maan, Ymara, and Alecz like last year and he did exhibit the “Sr. Leo-isms” of last year a lot in this single hour but he was still confined by the required routine.

     He laid down his house rules. He laid down what they needed to know and stuff like that. He didn’t bother with a “getting to know you” phase because Sr. Leo had ways on how to discover these things.

     After being somewhat disappointed that one hour of hell wasn’t as bad as expected, it was CCF time.

     Ms. Mac laid down her rules during this one hour and told them things that really piss her off.

     These included funny looks, talk backs, and general disrespect. She was imposing an intimidating presence but it wasn’t too bad.

     Lunch followed this and Art followed that.

     They were introduced to their Art teacher, Sr. Chris Aguda, who looked funny to be honest. He had a subtle underbite and spoke a bit funny. He did the usual routine and ended with a free time.

     Science followed where Sr. Jojo let CV play the guessing game with pictures like the word “sand” inside a box means “sandbox” or the word “man” above the word “board” meant “man overboard.”

     It was a very active discussion and Sr. Jojo revealed the reason for this.

     “If we have a discussion this active, I will give you all additional points.”

    Sadly, this was followed by a rather dull Guidance class with Ms. Kit, who was also their guidance counselor last year.

      The guidance classes this year were a lot different. This year they even required a journal.

     When they finished with that, it was dismissal time.

     Austin approached Micherenz.

     “Hey Renz, if you need a copy of the schedule, ask me for one tomorrow okay?”

     “Sure, thanks.”

     Austin went down and ran towards the waiting area. He waited for Janella this time but she never appeared. Eventually, all his friends have long gone and he had no reason to be there anymore.

     It hit Austin now, so far this year had been sucking, hard.