Chương 64: LIKE A HAIR COMMERCIAL

The history teacher couldn't make it to class again, but the weather also got suddenly colder, and everyone was weather-bound in the classroom. This effectively made the classroom chaotic and noisy. Maria stood up and left on her own. I watched Pearl tease Troy from my old seat. I missed it a bit. I mean, my seat, not Troy. The large boy named Terrence was also there, just hovering over Pearl's desk, red-faced and laughing whenever Pearl spoke to him. Krystal called me over to join the cool girls.

I shrugged and went over. Just for a bit. I was curious what they would want from me. The cool girls were giving each other gravity-defying ponytails. I sat on the extra chair they had pulled out for me from somewhere and watched as Krystal styled each girl's hair like her own.

"That new girl is such a flirt," Krystal commented while she brushed out Leila's hair. Leila nodded. The class was noisy, but I was sure our werewolf hearing could pick out the distinct conversations if we concentrated enough. I looked at Pearl. She hadn't heard; she was laughing at something. Krystal picked a hair tie from a small plastic box of assorted hair ties. She put it between her lips and started pulling Leila's hair up tightly.

"Yeah, that's not cool," Zara said. She side-eyed Pearl.

"The only ones falling for her are Troy and Terrence, though. Heeheehaha." I paused at Zara's "heeheehaha" because she wasn't laughing. She said it, like someone might say "lol" even though they weren't laughing.

"With guys, you need to play it cool," Krystal said as she finally secured Leila's hair.

"Like Zammi." Who me? Zammi was me right? Zara's eyes gleamed. It was the talk-about-your-girlfriend's-boyfriend gleam. I shuddered inwardly. I might not have good girl talk abilities, but I had very good instinct like that. Still, I was totally not expecting what Zara said.

"Yeah, are you going to give that Marcus a chance?"

"What? Marcus?" I stalled, trying to figure out how Marcus was related to this conversation.

"Don't need to play dumb. They can't hear us," Krystal cooed. Yes, they can, because they have werewolf hearing. And unlike Pearl, Marcus wasn't laughing at the moment.

"He's always coming to your desk," Zara continued. Oh. I finally figured out what they were thinking. I shook my head.

"He's just helping me hand in homework."

"Yes, but why would he? Did you ever think to ask yourself that?" Krystal pointed out. It's because I'm the alpha. He's the beta. But of course, I couldn't say that. Humans didn't have alpha-beta relationships.

"He obviously likes you," Zara told me.

"Ah, no, you got it all wrong," I said. I tried hard to make up a humanly acceptable excuse for Marcus' helpfulness.

"We are just good friends!" I remembered my dad talking about another Alpha and a Beta sending their sons to this school too.

"I think our dads know each other, so Marcus is just looking out for me." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Oh," Zara said.

"Well, that's convenient for you," Krystal huffed.

"Your dad can get you everything, huh?" What? Where did that come from? Krystal shrugged.

"Must be nice. Some of us need to work for our stuff." She started brushing out Zara's hair. It looked painful, and Zara would make a small yipping sound whenever Krystal pulled too hard. Otherwise, Zara seemed quite content to let the other girl style her hair, happily talking about her hamsters at home. Once Krystal deemed the ponytail was high enough, she secured it tightly.

"If you want, I can bring you home to see them," Zara offered.

"I live close by."

"Please, Zara. No one wants to see your hamsters," Krystal told her.

"You just don't like them because Blackie bit you!" Zara argued back.

"I don't mind—just not today or tomorrow, though," I told Zara. I'd never been into a human's home.

"Do you have enrichment lessons?" Krystal asked me.

"Something like that," I said.

"No wonder you're so smart," Zara said.

"You're lucky you have a rich dad to pay for your extra lessons," Krystal said. The way Krystal said it made me feel a bit bad. I brushed the uncomfortable feeling off.

"Your turn," Krystal said.

"Me?" I eyed the high ponytails on the other three girls warily.

"Come on," Zara nodded.

"It'll be cool." Krystal didn't wait. She got behind me and unclipped my hair. Then she proceeded to comb it.

"Your hair is so smooth, Zammi," she told me as she grabbed it up at the base. Ouch.

"Eh!" Krystal suddenly exclaimed.

"This is so weird, Zammi! Your hair is actually so thin! Look! You have so many bald spaces!" The other two girls came closer to examine my head. That was embarrassing. I didn't think I had bald patches, though. But I couldn't say for sure, since it was the first time someone else was doing my hair. It was just scalp where she had exposed it with her overtight grip, right?

"Hey, look! Wow, Zammi, you look so weird!" Krystal laughed loudly.

"It's so funny! Liam, look at Zammi! She looks like she's balding." Liam started making his way over from the front of the class. He wasn't wearing his usual smile. Pretty much the whole class had turned to look. I couldn't see my own hair, so I didn't know what Krystal had done. I guessed the best thing to do was to fix it myself. I removed the hair tie she had fixed at the base of the ponytail she made. I just gripped it with my fingers and pulled it outward in my usual impatience.

My hair lifted up and then released, falling around my shoulders. I shook it out. As it always did, my hair fell straight, exactly as it should. Then I pulled it back into a ponytail and clipped it together with my trusty favorite clip. I'd had this clip for a whole year and this hair all my life. I didn't need a mirror to know that I nailed it.

"How did you do that?" Zara asked, wide-eyed.

"It's like a shampoo advertisement." Liam smiled too. He changed direction and walked back to the front of the class. I wondered why he was walking over in the first place. Since when did he pay any attention to the cool girls? Krystal tried to argue, "But her hair is so thin!" Zara frowned.

"I don't know. I think it's just very smooth, so you couldn't style it properly."

"What shampoo do you use?" Leila asked me. I wanted to answer her, but I didn't want another comment from Krystal about my dad paying for my expensive shampoo—which he did, actually. Oh wait, today I was on Savy's shampoo. So I just shrugged.

"I don't have a fixed brand. This one is my sister's." Apparently, that was the right answer, because Krystal nodded.

"Yeah, you should change your shampoo every now and then."

"Really? I didn't know that!" Zara said.

"You're so stupid. You better learn from Zammi," Krystal told her.

"What? But I'm older!" Zara protested.

"Zammi should be learning from me!"

"Yeah, okay," I agreed.

"That'll be nice." The boy who was the rightful owner of my chair wanted it back. I shrugged and went back to my seat. Marcus came by to pick up my workbook for the next lesson. He reached out suddenly and grasped a lock of hair. It slipped out from between his long fingers.

"Your hair is really smooth," he said. Quite instinctively, I stood up and smacked my workbook over his head.

"Don't touch me," I growled really low.

"It's just hair," Marcus grumbled, rubbing his head. I swung my workbook at his head again. He caught it with his hand the second time around.

"Okay! I'm sorry! Geez, you're so violent." But he was grinning at me. I let go of the workbook and sat back down. He took it back to his desk.

"Sam, you're going to scare off all the guys!" Pearl laughed.

"It's fine. It didn't hurt," Marcus said.

"It's fine. Marcus liked it," Henry said. Pearl laughed more loudly than necessary at that. The rest of the class looked around to see what was so funny. I looked down at my textbook and pretended I had nothing to do with it. Maria's laugh tinkled next to me. {You hit the wrong person, Alpha.} {Oh yeah? Who should I have hit?} Maria pressed her lips together. {I don't want to tell you. It's more fun this way.} I growled at her. {You're enjoying this, aren't you?} Maria nodded. {Yes. It amuses me.} I shook my head and continued to stare at my textbook. Maria had turned back into her creepy doll mode, and for some reason, that made me calm down. I guess I'd somehow come to realize that this was Maria's default mode when nothing of interest was happening around her. Nothing of interest being everything that did not involve Maria herself, her Dino, or my aggravation—in that order of pertinence. Which made her my new external early warning alarm for anything that might aggravate me.

Which I supposed was the second useful thing about sitting next to a vampire.