Mutant History X

Henri perched on his crutch, near enough to the doorway of his classroom to keep an eye out for any stragglers. He was still missing a few students to his history lecture, and they were the usual suspects. He glanced at his watch, looking at the last minute tick away. Tardies would merit a scolding, and Henri had no tolerance for that sort of behavior.

He glanced back to the other students, shifting restlessly in their desks. Unfortunately, due to the special needs of his pupils, many often lost sight of the notion that this was still a school, and they were expected to learn. He intended to keep them to task.

The Institute was a house of lies.

Okay, maybe that was stretching things just a little but it was pretty much the attitude that Tess Abrahams had adopted since returning from her latest city jaunt. One very interesting conversation with a very interesting stranger about mutant rights later, and the teenager was barely able to mask her anger at the staff of the so-called school.

English and science and maths were all fine and well. But day after day students went about their business and were never told what was going on at that very second. While they were answering questions about Napoleon and figuring out tangents, mutant profiling projects were whizzing through government computers. It made Tess furious.

The girl had dealt with it the same way most teenagers would; she sulked in her room. Usually a bright student, Tess had spent the last two days faking a headache, when she was in fact stewing and listening to angry Joni Mitchell songs. She hadn't bothered to do any of the work sent up by the professors--what was the point? The only reason she was now clomping down to second period History was that she knhew she could only push her luck so far.

Tess slouched down the hall, hands shoved deep in her pockets and a surly look on her usually open, smiling face. Her dark hair was shoved clumsily under her favourite Save the Planet baseball cap and though the school was kept at a comfortable temperature, she wore a heavy sweatshirt as if to ward off a chill.

"Hey Tess, are you feeling bett--" Clive Bobbin stopped mid-sentence at a look from her. "Nevermind." The boy murmered before pushing away from his disgruntled classmate.

The scowl on Tess' face deepened at the sight of Mr. Bertrand scouting the halls. Something about his dissaproving expression rubbed the girl the wrong way, and she felt her already tense shoulders drawing together even more.

Passing without a word, Tess positively glared at the teacher, before slumping past her usual desk in the second row to sit at one in the furthest corner of the classroom.