“Nicholas! George! Wake up, it’s time for school!”

Mr. Page’s booming voice came from downstairs. Nicholas opened his eyes to see that it was morning. 

“C-Coming down!”

Nicholas quickly got out of bed and hurried over to George who was sound asleep.

“George! Wake up!”

George groaned.

“Five more minutes…”

“Come on you dummy!”

“Argh! Fine!”

While grumbling George finally got off the bed and went to his drawer.

“You can use the bathroom first,” George said lazily. 

“Okay, thank you!”

Just as Nicholas was about to leave, George called out to him.

“Huh? Nicholas, what’s that?”

Nicholas stopped in his tracks and turned to George with a confused look on his face.

“Huh? What’s what?”

“That…thing on your face.”

Nicholas was still confused until he looked at the mirror that was leaning on the bedroom wall. There was a light blue lipstick mark on his cheek.

The overweight boy touched his cheek which felt as cold as ice.

“W-what the…?”

“George~! Nicholas~!”

The loud and energetic voice of Aunt Maria alerted the attention of the two boys.

“You better finish up or else there won’t be enough buttermilk pancakes for the both of you!”

“Coming Mom!” George replied back. “Okay…just forget about that—woah! Where did it go?”

“Huh?”

“That thing on your cheek is gone now!”

Nicholas quickly glanced in George’s mirror to see that his cousin was right. The blue kiss mark had disappeared as if it never existed, to begin with.

“What is going on…?”

***

A few minutes later Nicholas and George hurried downstairs and said good morning to all the adults. Everybody then sat at the table and ate the delicious pancake breakfast. Both Nicholas and George were scarfing down their meal like madmen.

“These pancakes taste really good Mrs. Pellington!”

Nicholas said with his mouth completely full. Maria smiled brightly while giggling.

“Thank you so much, dear! You know your father would always beg me to make him breakfast during our college days!”

Uncle Kevin chuckled as he drank some OJ.

“He would act like a whiny baby when he didn’t get anything.”

“Okay, okay, don’t make me sound like a fool in front of my son…”

Mr. Page said with a flushed face. Kevin could not help but laugh at the sight of how embarrassed his friend looked.

“Haha! I’m just playing!”

Kevin proceeded to cackle while slapping Mr. Page’s back.

“I heard really good things about this school Nicholas, so I hope you have fun,” Mrs. Page stated with a smile. “And remember to stay close to George okay?”

“Y-yes Mom, I promise I’ll be safe.”

After saying those words to his mother, Nicholas felt his gut do three summersaults in his stomach. He stopped eating and held onto his stomach for dear life. The only one who noticed this was George who sitting next to him.

George leaned in and whispered to Nicholas.

“Are you okay, Nick?”

“Y-yeah…my stomach was just acting up for a second…”

“Are you not feeling good?”

“No, I’m fine I promise. My stomach just likes to give me trouble from time to time.”

George looked at Nicholas with a grave expression.

“Dude, if you feel sick–”

“I said I’m fine! Don’t say anything promise me!”

“Alright alright! Geez, I promise!”

George continued to eat his breakfast while Nicholas made an excuse saying that he was not hungry anymore.

Just a few minutes after Nicholas and George finished eating, the school bus arrived. The two kids said goodbye to their parents, grabbed their school bags, and hurried to the bus. As they went into it they saw that it was in complete chaos. The vehicle was packed, and very loud, and so many items and school supplies were being thrown around. And a lot of the students were not sitting still and moving about.

“Man…it is really packed,” Nicholas whistled as he walked into the bus.

“Dammit! The back is full,” George cursed. “We’re gonna have to sit in the front.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You’ve never ridden a bus before? If you and your buddy manage to snag a seat in the very back it would be like your own personal room! No one can bother you and the bus driver won’t be able to yell at you because he can’t see what you're doing! Me and Daniel always took the back whenever we could, but now his parents don’t allow him to take the bus anymore. His dad just drives him to school.”

“So your friend’s not here? Then why did we take the bus?”

“Whenever my Dad drops me off he ends up being late for his job, so he had to stop doing it. Plus, your parents are looking into getting new jobs in town today.”

“What about Aunt Maria?”

George held his head down and sighed.

“She’s a god-awful driver. One time while going to the supermarket she slammed right into a stop sign.”

“Yikes.”

“You two! Take a seat!”

The mean-looking bus driver yelled at Nicholas and George to get a move on. The two boys quickly sat down on the free seat that was right behind the driver’s seat. Once they had their seatbelts on, they continued their conversation.

“And remember what I said yesterday, you need to show Daniel your powers.”

Nicholas shook his head.

“George, I’m not doing that.”

“Yeah, you are! I don’t want to be called a liar anymore!”

“I can’t even control it! What if I lose myself and then–”

“Oh crap!”

George puts his hand over Nicholas’s mouth.

“Dude, shut up!”

At that moment, Nicholas realized two things—the bus had stopped moving and almost everyone was quiet. As the doors opened a group of five kids who looked around the same age as Nicholas and George entered the bus. One of them was an extremely tall boy with a monstrous face, another was a meek girl with short dark brown hair and classes, then there was another girl wearing too much makeup and blonde hair, and a very handsome guy with tanned skin. In front of them was a pretty pale girl, with diamond-blue eyes, freckles on her cheeks, and hair as red as blood that was tied in a twin-tail style.

“Who…?”

“I’m sorry, I should have told you about her yesterday. Never mind for now just keep quiet!”

The five kids walked past Nicholas and George’s seats without even acknowledging their existence. This caused George to let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh thank God she didn’t notice us!”

“W-wait! Please stop, Jennifer!”

Nicholas and George look behind their seats to see the five kids in the back surrounding the one student there. He was shaking in fright as they hovered him imposingly.

The girl with the red hair was the one who spoke. She was the one who everyone called Jennifer.

“I don’t know why you thought you would just get away with it. Even though this is a new school year the rules have not changed. This is my seat.”

“T-there weren’t any other seats available in the front or middle! I’m sorry!”

Jennifer snapped her fingers.

“Andrew!”

The gigantic boy, who was Andrew, picked up the kid as if he were light laundry and threw him off the seat. Jennifer and the rest of her friends quickly took his place.

“You can enjoy the ride on the floor, loser~!”

The student started whimpering as he held onto his right arm which was bruised when he was thrown down. Jennifer and her gang laugh at his pain. Nicholas stared in complete shock and turned to the bus driver to see if he would do anything. But the adult man did nothing but start the engine and continue driving.

“Wha…what was that all about?”

“Remember when I told you that there is one student in Golden Feathers you need to watch out for? That’s her, Jennifer Weiss.”

“She’s a bully?”

“Worse, she’s a whole dictator! That crazy girl basically runs the school!”

“But why?”

“Might have to do with the fact that her dad’s the freakin’ mayor of the town!”

“S-seriously!?”

“Calvin Weiss, he’s been mayor of Gringerfield for years. He wins all the elections and is so rich he can basically live in a mansion made of gold. I heard a lot of bad rumors about him but none of that matters to how horrible his daughter is! Any moment she pleases, Jennifer flexes her power and money in everyone’s faces. Not even the teachers can do anything because just one word to her father and Golden Feathers could potentially be shut down!”

“That’s terrible…”

“Believe it, and let me tell you what that psycho did to me last year! It was a science fair and I worked so hard on my Mount Vesuvius replica, but I swear to you she ordered that gorilla of a human being— Andrew to break it! I complained to the teachers but they did nothing! And Jennifer ended up winning first place with her poorly done board of the multiple different color eyes of humans!!”

“That sucks…I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah man, word of advice, avoid her at all costs. You don’t want to be on her list of enemies.”