Chương 264: MONDAY BLUES

1 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, START! Tada! I'm not sure if you noticed, but I hadn't been dating my diary. Mostly because it didn't occur to me. But I was reading my previous entries... speed reading. Wow, I just drone on and on, don't I? Anyway, it was hard to keep track of the days. So I came up with the ingenious idea of dating my diary, which turned out to be the standard practice. Better late than never. And I'm glad I'm keeping a diary, especially since last month had turned out to be rather eventful.

I hadn't realized how exciting high school life would be. Now I know why there were so many stories and TV shows about high schoolers. Anyway, Monday started pretty blue, which would usually be my favorite color, except that I really wasn't in the mood for bad jokes so early in the morning. Even if I was the one cracking them. By the time I showered and got into my school uniform, I realized that Savy was still in bed and wouldn't be getting up anytime soon because she had no school today.

No one else in our packland had school today due to the memorial service the school was holding in honor of Grandpa Alpha. Let's just say, it only got bluer from there. At breakfast, Mum reminded me about Grandpa Alpha's memorial later in the evening and told me to come straight home after school, and asked if Ki would be able to pick me up from the station. Ki informed Mum that he would be at the Lorents' for a couple of days.

Rebel had stopped dream travelling since Saturday, and there were some urgent meetings and administrative issues that he had to handle personally on our future Luna's behalf. He would try to return as soon as possible. Ki looked pretty blue about the situation too. I already knew this, but Ki didn't really like his old life at the Lorent pack. He never sounded particularly pleased to have to go over. Actually, neither did Mate.

It's nothing like the way I imagined I would feel if I could take a chance to come home when I put myself in their shoes. For Ki and Bell, they talked about having to go home in a monotone, the way someone might have to go back to the store because they forgot to buy milk, but wanted to sound adult about it. The way I would say I had to go to school today—when no one else in my pack and the majority of the Green Packland had to go to school.

The majority of the youth population in the whole Green Packland had an off day from school because almost every pup and youth attended New Leaf Academy. This made Dean's parents' idea to start a boarding house near the school sound like an excellent business proposition... except for the fact that New Leaf Academy had its own boarding house too.

But I heard that Dean's mum planned to offer their boarding house as a second-home type of environment, where they would supervise the kids staying there along with their own. Most of the minor packs sent their children here. The other kids are home-schooled. The Lorents had their own elite schools. And of course, there was me, who had a special visa to travel four hours a day to get to and from school. The more I thought about it, the bluer I felt. Working through homework on the train ride didn't help matters.

There was a lot of math, which I hated. I don't usually like admitting I hated math. It made me feel less intelligent than people who liked or didn't mind math. Anyway, this is my diary, so no one would know if I said it here: I hate math. I actually skipped steps and allowed for a few "mistakes" in the longer questions of my math homework, just so that I could get over it quicker. Like if the problem sum got too long, I simplified it for them.

Of course, the answer would be wrong, but at least the blank was filled out with something that could pass off as a sincere attempt. But by the time I got to school and put down my bag, it was an indigo Monday. I really didn't feel like coming to school today. Elena looked up from where she was sitting in the otherwise empty classroom. I sighed at the typical school day and sat down.

"I heard your grandfather died," Elena said suddenly.

"Yeah," I answered, a little surprised she decided to speak to me today.

"All my grandparents are dead," Elena informed me.

"Sorry to hear that," I said. Why was I the one expressing my condolences? Elena shrugged.

"At least you knew your grandfather. I've never met any of my grandparents. They were all dead before I was born." I suppose Elena did have a point, even though I also felt sure she could've worded that better.

"Yeah, thanks," I said. Elena looked surprised at my thanks. I'm not sure what she was expecting, and then she nodded and turned away, a signal that she was done talking to me and was back to despising me again. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. But Elena was right, at least I had Grandpa Alpha while I did. Left on my own, I took out Savy's recommended manga to read.

I had meant to just quickly speed read through it, but it seemed that despite the many pictures, mangas were not a thing to be rushed through. The manga was pink. A bright pink spot in my otherwise blue Monday. The story within the pink covers was about a tall and sporty girl who was rather tomboyish and freakishly strong. In middle school, she outran and out-arm-wrestled all the guys in her class.

At this point, I began to see why Savy said the female lead in the manga reminded her of me, but all the similarities ended there. For one thing, the girl was human, or at least she thought she was human. I personally suspected that she must have been adopted and was really a wolf because I've never seen a human girl beat all the guys in middle school in running or arm wrestling. Either that, or the guys in her middle school were wimps. But that wasn't the biggest story flaw.

The weirdest, inexplicable part of the story was that she wasn't happy to be known as the fastest and strongest kid in the school. She made sure to get into a high school further away so she could try to be a "normal" cute high school girl. Why would anyone want to do that? So anyway, she had grown out her hair during the holidays, taken great pains (2 full pages) to dress up like a cute high school girl, and even put on lip gloss. Today was the first day of high school!

She had to take a train to school too, but she went on her own, without her dad accompanying her. And then she got lost. (So I was glad I had my dad with me on the first day of school after all.) But, like me, she must have had some lucky sense of direction because she met some guys who turned out to be her new high school seniors. They walked her to school.

But, unlike me, her initial good luck turned out to be bad luck because these guys were the hottest guys in the school, so all the other girls became insanely jealous of her. Like, their faces were shaded in when they saw her, and they were drawn with angry eyes as they watched this "plain" girl being walked into the school by the four hottest guys. Seriously? That was pretty unrealistic. I'm sure in real life, students had better things to do than to care about who else was coming to school.

"Hey, Zammi." Krystal and her usual posse sat down around my desk. I took out my homework for them without looking up from my manga.

"Oh!" Zara pointed at my manga.

"I really like this series too!"

"Which one is it?" Krystal asked.

"You like manga too, Zammi?" Zara asked hopefully.

"I'm just trying it out," I answered.

"This one is good," Zara told me.

"It's really romantic and funny."

"It's dumb," Krystal said.

"I hate that kind of stories."

"You read manga too?" I asked.

"I used to when I was in middle school," Krystal said.

"Yeah, I read that in middle school too," Zara said. Oh, so now I was the childish one?

"I still like it," Zara quickly added. And then Zara said with a small dreamy sigh, "Wouldn't it be nice if high school was like in the manga stories?"

"Please!" Krystal said.

"If high school was like the manga stories, do you think you'd be the female lead? Let me tell you, it won't be any of us."

"Eh?" Zara blinked.

"Then who would we be in the manga?"

"We'd be the spiteful popular girls," Krystal said in a matter-of-fact tone. Oh, the girls with angry eyes. Wait, why were we the angry eyes?

"Even Zammi?" Zara asked.

"Isn't Zammi with Prince Charming?" Krystal rolled her eyes.

"Zammi is the worst of us. She is the one already dating the male lead, and the one who would become the most jealous when the female lead shows up and the male lead falls in love with her." OMO, that's terrible. Then I remembered that Prince Charming was Harvey, not Mate. Whew. That's okay then.

"In that case, the female lead is the marriage breaker!" Zara decided.

"Don't worry, Zammi. When she shows up, I'll trip her and make her fall." Wow, Zara was really getting into character.

"Who's the female lead then?" I asked.

"She's usually the transfer student, who has a difficult backstory," Zara informed me. At this moment, Jasmine came into the classroom with Liam and Henry. Henry was late to school today.

"Henry, you're late!" I pointed. Henry shrugged.

"I'm never late, you're all just early." This made me laugh. Henry was an Alpha with an Alpha ego.

"Is it Jasmine?" Zara asked.

"She just walked in with Liam and Henry." Wait, were Liam and Henry supposed to be hot?

"Is what me?" Jasmine asked. I showed Jasmine the manga.

"We're trying to cast everyone into manga roles."

"I didn't know you were into manga," Jasmine said.

"I'm not," I clarified.

"This is my first book." Jasmine laughed.

"It's really addictive. I remembered reading these overnight when I was in middle school." Oh, so she read these things too? Did everyone read these things in middle school?

"Did you guys read it too?" I asked. Henry snorted. Liam smiled but shook his head.

"Of course not!" Marcus exclaimed loudly in case anyone should misunderstand their macho images.

"Sam, I think guys have other types of manga," Jasmine said. Oh. So these were meant for girls? In hindsight, that explained the pink covers... and the unrealistic reactions of those "hottest guys" in the story—I mean, real guys—and I knew a lot of real guys. They didn't work like that in real life. Or maybe it was because I hadn't met any hot guys before, but the guys I knew would've definitely reacted differently in several places of the book.

"Okay, so who am I in a manga?" Jasmine asked.

"Lead female," I informed her.

"No way," Krystal said flatly.

"But Jasmine is nice," Zara pointed out, "and she's pretty too." Jasmine smiled.

"Awww, thanks, Zara." Krystal shook her head like an expert.

"Jasmine is too pretty and popular. Plus, she's a cheerleader. Tell me what female high school lead is pretty, popular, a cheerleader, and hangs out with the cool girls?"

"Jasmine?" I hazarded. Krystal shook her head harder.

"No, Zammi, it doesn't work that way. The female lead has to be still a little awkward and not aware of her potential to be beautiful. Plus, usually she is an outcast or at least a normal kid who got transferred."

"Oh, a transfer student?" Zara said.

"Then it could only be..." At this moment, Pearl came into the classroom.

"Oh, I'm late!" We all looked at her. Suddenly, I realized, all this while, we were the girls with the angry eyes and Pearl was the new female lead transfer student who hot guys were supposed to fall for.

"What?" Pearl asked us.

"Nothing, mind your own business," Krystal said to her unkindly. I guess Krystal was getting into her role too.

"So who are the hot guys?" I asked. I mean, logically, that should have been the next question, right? But the girls all looked at me like I'd sprouted another head. The guys nearest to our table laughed.

"That's us, Sam," Henry decided to inform me. I laughed, and then I looked around and saw the other girls not laughing.

"Seriously?"

"Why do you have to sound so shocked about it?" Marcus bemoaned. The guys laughed again. Standing around their table, their laughter was male, growly, and confident. I stared hard at Henry, Marcus, and Liam. Seriously?