As I walked down the hall to chemistry, I felt as if everyone was shooting me dirty looks behind my back. Apparently your measure of beauty falls when your magic mirror twin escapes and stomps all over your life you worked so hard to build up. Wow, I don't think I've ever thought that sentence before. My footsteps seemed to echo, despite the very loud hallways. Chemistry was, at last, a few yards a head of me. The cheery "Ge-Ni-U-S" sign (spelled with the element symbols for Germanium, Nickle, Uranium and Sulfur) greeted me as I stepped into the classroom and scanned the area to see who was present. I was the last one there of course. My lab partner was turning the knobs on the Bunsen burner with extreme concentration. 

"Ow!" She yelped, inspecting her nail, all attention turned away from the burner. If you haven't guessed it already, my partner is Emiline. Great, just great. It's been a bad enough year with her crying over every singed hair (her face got too close to the fire) or broken nail (she wasn't very careful when grabbing the glass beakers). 

Rolling my eyes, I strolled over to my seat and plunked down, just as Mr. Richtig started calling roll. Of couse, mine was always the first on the second page, meaning an awkward pause as Mr. Richtig fumbled with the papers until he got to my name. Usually, I liked the attention drawn to me, but quite frankly today it wasn't worth anything. 

"Schneewittchen." Mr. Richtig finally called my name.

"Here." I mumbled, pretending to be extremely focused on picking at my nail polish. And yes, I know. Ariel Schneewittchen. What a name. Thanks, mom. 

After Mr. Richtig finished his enlongated roll call- in which he would have to pull his glasses down his nose to see over them, look at the student who just spoke, nod and push his glasses back up... for each student -we began the experiment for today. Of course, the Bunsen burners were being used. I couldn't trust Emiline with a nail file, much less fire. The spark in her eyes when she saw the lab equipment for the experiment on our hand out frightened me on a whole other level.

I reached for the knob on the Bunsen burner, but Emiline grabbed my hand to stop me. "I'll do it!" She smiled, a bit over eager for someone who had just stolen my ex.

"Uh..." I hesitated. "Sure?" 

"Yay!" Emiline squealed. Then her face turned sour as she looked at the burner. 

"What?" I turned my attention to the burner's grill. 

"Why is that there?" She asked, and I leaned in to the burner to see if there was something stuck in the grill. As gross as it sounds, there were often frog parts stuck in the hole where the flame comes out, and then if you turned on the flame the whole room would smell like burnt frog. Blech. "See anything?" Emiline asked.

"No, I don't think-" I was cut off by Emiline 'accidentally' turning the knob on the burner to full force, catching the ends of my hair on fire. As any normal teen with their head on fire would do, I promptly started screaming my head off, causing chaos all throughout the room.

"I've got you!" Parker cried, coming at me with a bucket of water. Without giving me time to react, he tossed the water on me and on the bright side doused the flames, but also soaked me.

"Parker..." I growled. He scurried back over to his seat and sat down.

I looked at the room around me, which had fallen dead silent. In my panicked run across the room, I had sort of knocked over several beakers, which were shattered into a million tiny pieces on the floor. Lab trays with tweezers were all over the place, strewn across the room. My jet black hair- which matched Josiah's -went from being halfway down my back to resting on my shoulders, singed at the ends. 

Mr. Richtig broke the silence with a cough. "Um, Ariel, detention."

"What?" My face twisted into a confused countenance, angry at both myself and Mr. Richtig.

"You heard me, Schneewittchen. I don't have time for your antics. I have," Mr. Richtig paused here, straightening his tie with a smirk.

"Please, Mr. Richtig. We all know about your thing with Mrs. Neidisch." I grumbled and straightened my skirt. His face reddened just as the bell rang. 

Parker was the last to leave. "Sure you don't need any help?" He asked, nudging some of the glass with his toe." 

"No, I'm fine, thanks." I sighed and pushed my hair out of my face, frowning at the burnt ends

"Alright..." Parker's sentence trailed off as if he didn't even know where it was going, and wandered over to the door. It slammed behind him, and soon was thrust open, a familiar face staring back at me. All too familiar, of course.

"Hello." Leira was smiling down at me, as I was on my knees, picking up glass. The way she probably saw it, I was begging for forgiveness.

"Just cleaning up glass." I grumbled, flicking one of the pieces at her.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Leirasat down on one of the high top stools, crossing her legs. 

"Get what?" I sat back on my haunches and looked up at her. 

"What I'm doing here. What the whole point of all this," She waved at the air around her. "is. I'm here to be, not to be cliché, the fairest one of all." Leira smiled and shook her hair out. I looked with envy at her still lengthy locks. 

"What do you mean?"

"Are you kidding me? I was trapped in that mirror for so many years, watching you get everything. The boys, the clothes, the friends. Now, I finally get to not only experience that, but take it away from you." Leira turned and walked out the door. I could see a lighter in her hand and my hands flew up to my singed locks. She cackled and walked out the door, letting it slam in her wake.

When I finally put together the puzzle pieces of what was going on, my face turned as white as snow.