Chapter 9: 9. Things Are Looking Up

While the boys went to the opposite side of the cafeteria to get their food, I went with my friends to our usual counter and glared at the cat woman. “Let's try this. Give me anything you have.”

“I'm not a mind reader kid, give me something a bit more specific,” she replied.

“Oh for the love of!” I screamed. “Give me a piece of bread!”

“All out.”

Girls watching the show started to laugh. Grabbing Calci, I pulled her up to the counter. “I'll take whatever she is having.”

“I want a mandrake sandwich, with gravy, and a glass of roosters milk, please,” she said.

The cat woman handed Calci a tray with her order, looked straight at me, smiled and said, “All out.”

“I give up!” I cried, walking with Calci to a table.

“Maybe you can talk to your student counselor about this today when you get your classes?” she suggested.

“Yeah, I'm sure they'll be happy to help,” I said, rolling my eyes. I smiled my thanks as my friends gave me a dish from each of their tray so I could eat something. “I haven't even seen any teachers or people in charge since Lady Plague told us about our rooms.”

“We're suppose to handle things on our own. They're watching us if something gets out of hand, but if we mess up we have to deal with it, like we did this morning,” Ella said.

The boys we'd taken the tour with came over, Marcus looked a little scared and sat as far away from Ivy as possible. This didn't bother the werewolf, she was too busy gnawing on some bloody steaks. Garth sat across from me, grinning shyly, his light brown bangs hiding his eyes.

Once more I promised myself that I would kill Micheal for turning me into a girl.

Naomi was smiling quite happily at her white haired 'boyfriend', Antoine. He was cutting a piece of basilisk leg with a large hunting knife. Calci blushed and nervously ran a hand through her beard when Honey Creeper, the elf she'd been paired with gave her a small smile. Clarice and Gold were sitting extremely close together, so close she was almost sitting on his lap. Ugh.

“Gold, do you have any ideas why our friend can't get any food?” Clarice asked, leaning into the very plain looking boys side.

“Have you asked why?” he asked.

I was about to say that of course I had, then I remembered I hadn't specifically asked that. “No I haven't. Give me a minute.” I got up and headed back to the counter the cat woman smiled at me like this was a game. “Why won't you give me any food?”

“We're all out.”

“But you give everyone else stuff. How can you possibly be out for me?” I demanded.

“There's no food with your name on it, kid. I'm not in supply you'll have to talk to them,” she said.

“What does have my name on it?”

She shrugged. “Don't know.”

“How can I talk to someone in supply?”

Another shrug. “I don't know how a student can.”

“Thanks for nothing,” I snapped, spinning around and heading back to my table.

Sitting down, I grabbed my kraken sandwich and ripped off a bite. My friends gave me a bit of space letting me take out my anger on my food as they talked about where they were from and other things. Finally I was ready to talk and found a nice lull in the conversation.

“Who runs supplies?” I asked.

“Vampire, I wouldn't talk to them they don't like complaints,” Ella said.

“Vampires?!” Honey Creeper sputtered.

“Yeah. They have really bad OCD for counting things, so they're great for keeping track of supplies.”

I shuddered a little. “And if someone complains?”

“Than I avoid the mystery meat for a few days,” Ella replied.

“Good to know,” I muttered. “So I'm going to have to stay on your good side if I don't want to starve to death?”

“Pretty much,” Naomi said, patting me on the head. “I expect my feet to be massaged every night, and you can wash my clothes. The blouses need to be hand washed with angel dandruff.”

An imp flew into the cafeteria and headed straight for me. It's ugly, puffy red face glared at me, and I wanted to throw up when it spoke, its breath smelled like rotten meat left out for a few weeks on top of a dead skunk that had been soaked in a trolls cesspit. “Come with me. Time for appointment.”

“Wish me luck,” I said, shoving the last of my sandwich into my mouth.

With pats on the back and words of encouragement I headed down the dark hallway to see my counsellor.

**

“Sit down, sit down,” my counsellor said, the second the imp opened the door.

Nervously I took a seat on the single hard wooden chair, not sure what to expect from the chubby little dwarf who was practically bouncing in his chair, rattling his gold jewellery, while watching me with a slightly mad look in his eye. He only had his right eye, the other one was covered up by an eye patch.

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“Thank you,” I said.

“Petra, you can call me Bob, since most human's can't pronounce my real name. I'm a professor in the subterfuge department and since you're in a general course I'm your counsellor. So let's go over your classes.”

“Well, um, Bob, about that. I'd really like to specialize in subterfuge, I think that would be best. Please,” I said, trying to copy the puppy dog eyes I'd seen my friends doing. I wasn't sure if I was doing it properly, I hadn't had many chances or reasons to practice it as a boy.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. It says in your records that if I change your classes to a more specialized path they'll be looking for a new professor in subterfuge. So no.” He looked over his papers, muttering to himself. “Now you're going to be focusing on magic, subterfuge, fighting and potions. Next term we can expand into things like alchemy, minion control, leadership, seduction, defence against the light arts, contracts, law and other things, but for now let's keep it as simple as possible OK?”

My parents really hated me, I wonder if they were upset that I had gotten them socks for their birthdays. I hadn't wanted to, I just hadn't had any money. “Great!” I said, trying my best to sound enthusiastic.

“For fighting, do you have a weapon?”

“No. Can I get one that let's me stay far away from anyone trying to kill me?”

“Ranged weapons is second term, unless you already know how to use a gun, grenades, bow, javelin, crossbow, darts, or throwing knives. We'll put you in the beginners for that,” he made some notes on his paper. “Now for magic, do you have any specialties, preferences, unusual skills?”

“I'd really like to learn defensive magic. I think that will help me survive.” Hopefully I could learn how to cast a proper shield spell within a week.

“Excellent choice. I do enjoy students who think ahead, so defensive magic class. Now for subterfuge, you'll be in my class. I teach beginners, and you'll learn everything you need about detecting lies, and how to stretch the truth until it breaks, and then how to tie it back together again,” he giggled at that.

For some reason I wasn't really sure I could trust the sanity of my counsellor, but he at least seemed to be helpful, so I just smiled right along with him.

“Your school transcripts say that you haven't gotten around to learning potions yet. That would explain why you're now Petra instead of Peter. We'll put you in beginning class for that as well.” He scratched something onto a dragon bone slate, and hummed to himself. “Magic and subterfuge will be in the morning, Potions right after lunch, and combat last. Now we need two other classes, lets go with math and history, both of those are useful for running an empire and avoiding past mistakes.”

“Sounds good,” I said, honestly pretty pleased with my schedule. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, after all how much could I trust Micheal. He had probably told me a general course was bad, so I'd be too scared to realize his trick. Things were looking up.

Now that classes were taken care of, it was time to deal with one of my current major problems. “I'm hoping you can help me with something,” I said.

“Oh yes, I'm always ready to help,” he said, giggling again.

“I can't get anything to eat from the cafeteria. They say I don't have anything in my name in supplies, so everything is always out. My friends are getting me food, but it's pretty annoying.”

Bob frowned, playing with his braided beard which was tied up in gold thread. “That's a serious problem. Let me look into it, and by tomorrow you'll be eating properly.”

“Oh thank you!”

He hopped out of his chair and walked around his desk. I noticed that like Calci even with me sitting, he only came up to my chest, and he was about as wide as I was tall. “Well Petra, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. I can't wait to see you in my class the day after tomorrow, but for now I'll have to ask you to go and enjoy the rest of the day, as I have so many students to help.”

“Yeah, sure. Thank you again Bob,” I said, letting him walk me to the door.

With a bounce in my step, I tried to remember all the shortcuts to get back to my room.

**

Lying on my bed, I looked over my school schedule, which helpfully had a map showing me where my classes were. The map was covered in my writing, with helpful arrows and lines, showing the various secret tunnels and quickest routes to get around. I didn't like being late for class normally, and I figured being late at Doom Valley would be a particularly bad idea.

The door opened, and Ella popped her head inside. “Come on Petra, time to go shopping.”

“Do we have to?” I asked, not wanting to leave the safety of my room.

“Yes, we need to pick up our books and things,” she said. “Now hurry up, everyone's waiting for us.”

Sighing, I grabbed my backpack, put on my shoes and followed Ella to the common room. There were some things I did need, like notebooks, some more pens, another pair of shoes would be nice, and if I could find them a few weapons and armour.

I saw Naomi first, the tall girl stuck out with her pink hair, especially now that she had it in a pretty braid and she was wearing a matching pink dress. I couldn't really tell, but I was pretty sure she had put on some makeup. Looking down, I saw that Clarice and Calci had also dressed up a little. Clarice was wearing a pair of tight pants and blouse, along with some heels, clearly trying to look taller. Calci was wearing a sleeveless top, and her muscles looked shiny, almost as if they'd been rubbed with oil. Her small beard was definitely oiled and curled.

I sighed in disgust. At least they didn't expect me to dress up.

“You're finally here,” Clarice said. “Come on, we're meeting the boys at the shop. We can talk about what classes we're in when we get there.”

“Oh joy,” I said, trying to sound happy. “Where's Ivy?”

“Asleep,” Calci said. “I didn't want to risk waking her.”

Ella held up a paper. “Don't worry about her. She doesn't like crowds, so I have her class schedule and promised to get anything she needs.”

“That's probably for the best,” Naomi said. “We want to keep her happy, after all what are friends for?”

“Yeah, and I think the boys are scared of her,” Clarice added.

I had to roll my eyes. “We can't have that can we?”

“Nope. We don't want to scare them away,” Naomi said.

Heading off to the school store, I heard my masculinity crying softly in my head.

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