"Melody, you'll be fine," Mom reassures.

"Go, or you'll be late," Dad sighs.

I groan. "You know I hate doing new things! Jeez, I'm so nervous! Look my hands are shaking!"

Dylan laughs. "Mel, come on!"

"Ugh!" I huff as I grab my car keys. "Let's go!"

Dylan and I leave the house, waving behind us to our parents. We enter the elevator.

"Hey, Mel?"

"Yeah?"

"What if we told our parents that we are mutants?"

"And you know why we can't," I respond, gaze downcast. "They'll throw us away like garbage."

"You don't know that!"

"Dylan, you've heard what they think about superheroes," I respond, getting in my car. "You see how upset they get when I get anything related to superheroes."

"I know, but we're their children," he counters, getting in the car. "They love us."

"We... can tell them when we can handle ourselves financially," I respond. "You can't trust anyone."

The rest of the ride is silent as we pull up to the school. I park the car in the designated spot I was told in my papers the school sent me.

"Do you know where the office is?" Dylan asks as he leaves the car, shutting the door behind him.

"Yeah, no clue," I admit, slinging my bag over my shoulder and grabbing my phone. I shut the door behind me, locking the car. "I would expect it to be in the front once we enter."

We move to the front of the school, avoiding people as we walk. We enter the school, seeing if we can see MJ nearby. Five minutes pass.

"I guess she forgot," Dylan mutters.

"Maybe," I nod. "Let's get our schedules from the office."

We manage to get our correct schedules, seeing that we have lunch together.

"It's cool that we have lunch together," Dylan says with a shrug. "I was hoping we had at least two classes together but whatever."

The door behind us opens and in comes MJ who's out of breath. "I'm sorry I'm late! I got held up. Anyway, did you get your schedules already?" We wave the paper at her. "Great! Let's get going. I'll take you to the AP that handles the textbooks, so we can get you those. Then I'll show you your lockers that way you'll have a place to put all your books, so you won't have to carry them all day. They weigh a ton."

My brother and I manage to give each other an amused glance before MJ leads the way out the office into the crowded hallway. We move through the crowd of students, following her the best we can. She takes us to the AP that brings us to a room full of extra text books.

"Are you sure you two can carry all those books?" the AP asks us.

"Yeah, light as a feather for the two of us," Dylan responds. "We work out whenever we have spare time."

I nod at his statement. "We can lift a lot."

MJ gives us a lopsided smile as she leads us to our lockers. She leads the way and I follow behind Dylan who's behind her and end up losing the two in the sea of students. I try to listen to the sounds around me to find their footsteps but end up knocking into someone, causing all our books to go everywhere.

"Oh, sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going," I admit, bending down to pick up all my books.

We both gather our belongings and look at each other. The boy standing in front of me has soft brown curls and dark chocolate brown eyes.

He gives me a soft awed smile. "No, it's my fault. I was lost in thought."

I chuckle. "I'm new and have no clue where I'm going. I lost my tour guide while going to my new locker."

"Well, welcome to Midtown," he says. "The school of science nerds."

"Thanks," I nod. "Well, I'm gonna see if my tour guide is a little further. See ya!" I give him a casual salute before walking off not noticing the stare he gives behind me. I eventually find my brother's voice and follow it to find him and MJ off to the side, looking for me.

"Ah, there you are," Dylan huffs. "You sure know how to get lost."

"That's funny coming from you, Sir Always Lost," I roll my eyes.

"Hey!"

MJ snickers at our banter. "These are your lockers. Lucky, right next to each other and top ones. I have a bottom locker and get crushed almost all the time."

"Yeah, I had one at my old school. I agree, seems like whenever I'm at my locker the person has to be there too as well as the person beside me and the one above them. Completely annoying."

"Oh my GOD, I know!" MJ agrees, handing us our locker combinations. "Anyway, what's your first class?"

I hand her my schedule before opening my locker and dumping all my books inside. "I think it was AP chemistry."

"Yeah, I have that class first too," she says, checking through the list. "We have 3 classes and lunch together."

"Cool," I admit, shutting my locker.

"What about me?" Dylan asks, giving her his schedule.

"Looks like it's just lunch for us," MJ says, handing us back our schedules.

"Anyone we know in our other classes?" Dylan asks.

"I think I have friends in like every class you two have," she admits. "I'll tell them to help you."

"That'd be great, thanks," I say.

"So, class should start in about 5 minutes," she says, looking at the digital clock on the walls of the hall. "I can take you to your first teacher, Dylan. I had her freshman year. Then we'll head to our first class."

We nod and follow along behind her to Dylan's first class. Once we get there, MJ heads inside to find someone.

"You'll be okay?"

"Yes, mom, I'll be fine," he huffs out with an eye roll.

"Be careful. We don't need another accident."

"I know, I know," he waves off.

"Be extra gentle with handling things," I warn.

"I know," he huffs. "I think I'm capable enough now to handle it."

"Alright, I trust you."

"Dylan!" MJ calls out, walking up with a boy following behind her. "This is my friend from journalism, Chiaki you can call him Chi though. He's from Japan. He's here as an exchange student till graduation."

"Cool," I say.

"No, you can't call me that," he mumbles in embarrassment. "Just call me Chiaki. Only MJ calls me that though I'd wish she'd stop."

"Never, Chi-chan!" MJ mocks. "Anyway, he's a big flirt, polite, and devilish. You gotta be careful around this one with girls. He's a lady killer and they love him."

"I can see why," I admit. "You are attractive. Just like my wittle bowther!" I coo, pinching his cheek.

"Mel! Quit!" he fusses embarrassed, smacking my hand away.

I laugh. "You two will definitely be the lady killers of the freshman that's for sure."

"Okay! You should leave now!" Dylan says, pushing me away with red tipped ears.

I laugh. "Alright, alright. Come on, MJ, let's go to our first class."

She laughs. "Alright, let's head over."

We give the boys a wave before heading to our first class. "Be good," I call out behind me.

"No promises!" he responds back.

We walk to the opposite hallway from them and enter a science lab. "Here let me introduce you to some of my friends."

"Uh, alright."

We walk up to a table in the back that has two boys, chatting with one another. One I recognize from before. The other is wearing rich designer clothes, though you can't tell unless you know about them. He has spiked reddish brown hair, light blue eyes, and devilishly handsome.

"Melody, these are my friends, Peter Parker and Harry Osborn," MJ introduces us.

I smile at Peter. "Seems we meet again."

"Seems so," he responds.

"Ah, so this is who you were talking about," Harry smirks. "Nice to meet you, Melody."

"You two know each other?" MJ asks, looking between the two of us.

"We kinda bumped into each other when I lost you two," I admit.

The bell rings and our teacher shuts the door. "I see we have a new student, could you introduce yourself?"

MJ gets in her seat, letting me take the seat beside her. I set my things down on the table before turning to everyone.

"Hi, I'm Melody Tamber. Nice to meet you. I just moved here from Colorado with my little brother, Dylan, and my parents. My mom is a surgeon and dad works as an architect and sometimes a broadway music director. Uh, I'm a pretty open person, so if you have any questions you'd like to know about me I'd probably answer." I smile with a shrug before sitting down.

"Well, nice to meet you, Melody," the teacher says. "I'm Mrs. Rottands."