I made it through all of my classes and lunch. I kept seeing Emily, Meaghan, and Shannon between classes. They always gave me a smile and encouraging word when I saw them. That definitely helped me make it through the day. During classes, I kept my head down and tried not to draw attention to myself. I figured the less attention I drew, the better I would fit in. If I threw myself into my schoolwork, I would win the respect of the adult vampires. I needed the adult vampires to like me more than the kids in my class.

I had lunch with Emily, Meaghan, and Shannon. They were making a game of pointing out the best looking boys in each of the classes. It was a fun game and the arguments over which boys were more attractive and why were amusing. It took all of our minds off of classes and was great for a few laughs.

"Are you going to Japanese club or karate today?" Shannon asked me before lunch ended.

"Japanese," I replied. I hadn't been to that club yet and I needed to show up there too.

Shannon nodded and grinned. Her smile was infectious. "I'll see you there. You'll enjoy Japanese club!" she promised. All too soon, the bell rang and we had to go to class. I at least had things to look forward to now, so that made it easier.

Shannon walked with me all the way to the Apprentice class, insisting it was on her way to her Journeyman class. I didn't believe her, but I appreciated the company all the same.

Unfortunately, Professor McCullen was teaching the Apprentice class today. I didn't realize how horrible of a class it would be. He took forever setting up the PowerPoint presentation, and then just read the slides word for word. He was also glittery, like he was covered in body glitter, or had gotten attacked by a fairy. It was very distracting. I wrote down all of the information from the slides, planning on asking Professor Rhodes about it later. The entire class became even more annoyed when he handed out stacks of worksheets for us to complete before the next time he taught the Apprentice class next week. He then made us spend the rest of the class working on them in silence. To our annoyance, none of the questions on the worksheets were remotely related to anything he had 'taught'. The entire class started whispering with their neighbors to get help with the horrible assignment.

Professor McCullen stood and glared at us all. "Since you have time to talk, you obviously have the capability to take on more work," he insisted and gave us about 20 more pages of worksheets to complete. Everyone groaned. One of the boys tried to protest, and got a detention for his efforts.

Luckily, class finally ended and everyone ran out of the classroom as fast as we could, grumbling loudly about how horrible it was. I wanted to join their conversations and grumblings, now that I finally had something in common to discuss with them. I tentatively made my way over to Mary.

"Rough class, huh?" I asked her, nervous and sounding on-so-intelligent. She gave me a tentative, but guarded smile. It seemed from her expression that she wasn't trusting me for some reason.

"I guess..." she hedged. She separated from me when I got to my Japanese class. I wondered why she wasn't coming to class. I saw her enter the Spanish class down the hall. I had a feeling she had switched classes because of me. I tried to hide my sadness and the hurt I felt, especially when I hadn't done anything to earn her disdain. All I had done was try to befriend her.

Professor Kinoshita saw through my facade. "Is everything ok, Apprentice Lykos?" she asked with true concern. I nodded and tried to smile.

"It was just a little surprising that Apprentice Vida has decided to drop this class," I explained. The other students were staring at me and I realized that I was speaking too formally for them. They thought I was weird again. It was only polite, though, to address my professor formally, especially a foreign professor from a culture that much more highly valued manners.

"That is very understandable. Apprentice Vida has also decided that karate is not the appropriate sport for her," the professor warned me. I thanked her for her consideration. I appreciated the warning that Mary wasn't going to be in my next class either.

"They think you're getting too friendly with the professors," one of my classmates hissed at me. I recognized him from karate class. "Especially since you live with one now. They think anything they say to you will get back to the professors." I looked over at him. He seemed like a typical jock, pretty boy.

"That seems ridiculous of them," I replied. I was a bit wary of talking to my classmates. They hadn't been kind yet, but he had started the conversation. "I think 'they'," I made the air quotes with my fingers "are just looking for reasons not to like me. I hope everyone here isn't so gullible..." I told him. He gave me a real smile.

"I'm sure you can find some people here who aren't so gullible. I know I surely aspire not to be one of the gullible masses." His smile was infectious. He held out his hand to me. "I'm Lucas."

"Sam," I replied, shaking his hand and laughed at how absurdly formal he was being and how absurd it was to introduce myself when everyone knew who I laughed until class started and we had to turn our attention to Japanese for the next hour.