She wasn't nervous, of course. She just hated being around humans. That's why the classroom windows displayed a panorama of gathering storm clouds. Nakia had never figured out why her emotions affected the weather, but it was one more reason to avoid humans. She wasn't trying to contribute to climate change. Humans were doing so well on their own.
Three girls walked in. Two of them were twins, with platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. They had matching sets of bruising around their eyes and bandages over their noses. They flanked a taller girl with long, lustrous brown hair and naturally tan skin that indicated non-Caucasian ancestry.
The girl's chest sported a pair of knockers so unnaturally large and round for her thin frame that for a moment, Nakia wondered if the girl had stuffed her bra with softballs. All three girls were too thin, only the need for their sausage casings to house organs and blood made Nakia's waist span slimmer than theirs. Even so, she wondered how they all stood upright without folding over. Corsets, maybe?
The two blondes were dressed in pastel, one in pink, flowy layers, on in a blue dress with a mandarin collar that flared at the waist. The brunette wore a deep purple business suit, complete with vest and a matching briefcase instead of backpack.
Nakia had prepared for her first day of high school by binging (as the kids called it) as many teen movies as she could stomach. The hush that fell over the room as well as the unnatural poise and mouthwateringly perfect outfits identified them as the mean girls.
Just as Nakia thought that, the tall one looked directly at her, her dark brown eyes liquid and assessing. Nakia froze. Something about the girl's gaze reminded Nakia of Ahmose. Lightning flashed outside, followed quickly by a clap of thunder so loud that all of the students in the class jumped. This included the twins, but not the Ahmose-girl, who had been so absorbed in assessing Nakia that she'd barely noticed the thunder. However, her gaze slid over Nakia's sunglasses and around the room before turning to the twins.
In the movies, the mean girls sat in the exact middle of the room. Nerds sat in the front, the problem boys sat in the back, the dreamers sat closest to the window, and the extras filled in the empty spots. Nakia had chosen a seat exactly in the middle of the row closest to the door. The mean girls were some of the last to enter, and there were only a few seats left in the front row.
Nakia expected the Ahmose-girl to direct her mean girl stare at some hapless students in the middle rows who would immediately jump up and give up their seats, but instead, the three girls just took three seats in the front row. They didn't even ask anyone to move so that they could sit together.
It was raining hard outside. Nakia stared out the windows, trying to thin out the atmosphere. The tall girl's stare had unnerved her. She hadn't thought of Ahmose in thousands of years -- that was a lie -- okay, fine. She had been trying to not think about the princess for thousands of years. So to see her gaze peering out through the eyes of a girl who was the same age Ahmose was when she was at her most dangerous --
Thunder made everyone jump again, and Nakia forced the princess out of her thoughts. She tried to picture the Afterlife. After Ahmose had murdered Nakia, Nakia had gotten to spend some time in the Afterlife before being dragged back to Earth and into her rotting mummy body. That wasn't a fair description. Due to the mummifying process, she'd actually been preserved very well -- not the point. The point was that she got to go to the Afterlife. And the Afterlife was wonderful.
Blue skies, puffy white clouds, a gazebo set atop a waterfall, a rain of different kinds of desserts every after noon. Some days, popsicles. Other days, bon bons, macaroons and macarons, chocolate-covered strawberries. Aside from her mother's homemade fig cakes, honey-coated nuts, fruit-and-nut rolls, etcetera, Nakia hadn't known the name of these desserts until relatively recently. Similarly, the games she'd play with The King. Senet, of course, was the first game he'd taught her when they were alive, but there were more, some of which hadn't been invented yet. Monopoly, Scrabble, LIFE.
Remembering the Afterlife always calmed her, and the rain outside slowed, the rolls of thunder quieting. Half of the kids had gotten up and were staring out the window when the teacher walked in. Mid-thirties, short and chubby with shoulder-length curly black hair. She wore a peasant blouse and a long, patterned skirt. She came in carrying an enormous binder and a look of expectant curiosity. A bulging tote bag hung off of the crook of her elbow. She set down a water bottle, set of keyes, and a sweater, before setting down the binder and slinging the tote onto the back of her chair. She wasn't wet so she clearly wasn't running late, but the bell rang just as the bag hit the chair.
"Crazy storm, huh?" she said, cheerfully, as the kids who were standing returned to their seats. "Came out of nowhere. Good morning, everybody. I'm Ms. Bronahan. You can call me Kate -- haha, just kidding, don't do that. My name is Susan." She turned and wrote 'Ms. Brosnahan' on the blackboard.
A kid skidded in, soaking wet, avoided eye contact with the teacher, and made his way to an empty desk, near the window. He sat down with an audible squish and a couple of students giggled. Ms. Brosnahan smiled sympathetically at the kid then walked over to her desk and picked up the huge binder. She flipped it open. "This is Homeroom. This is where you come each morning to catch up on your homework." She rolled her eyes. "Or copy someone else's. If any of you are in my History class, please don't be obvious about it. I'm going to take attendance. If you're here, say 'here' or 'present'. If you're not here, don't say anything."
A couple of kids giggled, a few booed. Nakia liked Ms. Brosnahan. For a human. But most of them seemed okay until you got to know them.
"Adam Abrahams," Ms. Brosnahan called out.
"Present." The chubby extra sitting next to Nakia raised his hand and then went back to staring at his phone.
Ms. Brosnahan looked up, made eye contact, smiled, and called out the next name. She did this for each name she called. Most of them were glued to their phones, a few were talking quietly to the person sitting next to them. They were all paying enough attention to answer when their names were called.
The mean girl twins were Candace and China Romney. The Ahmose-girl was Atairal Martinez. For some reason, she glanced around at Nakia after raising her hand. Nakia, who'd continued working to calm the storm outside had a moment of panic and a flash of lightning hit a tree outside. Once again, a bunch of kids flew to the windows, commenting on the storm. Nakia cursed to herself, stared at her phone, and thought about the Afterlife.
She was focusing on the storm so much that it took a moment for her to register Ms. Brosnahan calling Sunny's name. "Sunshine Sinclair?" she asked, looking around.
"Oh, um. Here," Nakia said, waving her phone halfheartedly.
Ms. Brosnahan looked over at her smiled, and marked something in her notebook. For some reason, the brief glance had the opposite effect of the Ahmose-girl -- Atairal Martinez. It sent a soothing sensation throughout Nakia's psyche. The sky lightened outside.
Ms. Brosnahan finished taking roll. "Alright," she said, checking the last name off in her binder. She closed the binder and glanced at the wall clock. "We have another forty-five minutes until first period, so just hang out here until the bell rings. If you need help with your schedules or anything, come and see me up front."
The volume of the classroom chatter increased as Ms. Brosnahan placed the binder on her desk and looked around. Atairal looked around at Nakia again, and Nakia's bones felt all jangly. The storm increased again.
Nakia didn't want to call attention to herself, she needed to get out of the classroom, and, according to the movies, that wasn't allowed without a magical thing called a Hall Pass. She stood and made her way to the front of the classroom, careful to avoid the gaze of Atairal Martinez. She made her request to Ms. Brosnahan who smiled and told her to go ahead.
"Do you know where the bathroom is?" she asked, her friendly smile calming Nakia even as the gaze she sensed on the back of her head freaked her out.
"I have the map," Nakia mumbled, and wandered out, a little disappointed that the Hall Pass was not a physical thing anymore.
The hallway was empty. She only passed a couple of adults as she made her way to the bathroom. She was confused. She felt claustrophobic. She didn't have lungs, so of course she couldn't breathe, but she never felt like she couldn't breathe.
The bathroom, thankfully, was empty, the fluorescent lights buzzing softly overhead. The air smelled faintly of soap and hand sanitizer, mingled with the lingering perfume of students who’d been here earlier. There was one window, above the furthest stall. It was frosted over and didn't open, but it was better than nothing.
Nakia didn't actually have to see the sky in order to adjust the weather, but it helped. She stood on the toilet seat and pressed her bandaged skull against the window. She tried to think of the Afterlife, tried to think of the atmosphere outside. But she couldn't concentrate.
Why did that girl keep looking at her with Ahmose's eyes? Was she Ahmose? Was reincarnation real? Did she remember Nakia or did just some small part of her psyche recognize her? Nakia had plenty of non-Ahmose-related reasons to avoid humanity, but a big one was the fear that she'd run into the princess again, someday. It was an irrational fear, she knew.
If mummies coming back to life was a normal thing, then there wouldn't be modern day scary movies about it -- and action adventures. So, the thing with her and The King had to be an anomaly, right? But Ahmose was The King's daughter, so who would be a more likely third person to be pulled out of the Afterlife for some unknown reason?
Nakia didn't have a nervous system, but her soul shuddered. She tried, again, to think of the Afterlife -- gazebo, sky, games -- but Ahmose was there, in Nakia's beautiful gazebo with that cruel sneer -- the storm outside increased, and Nakia --
The bathroom door opened and a girl came in. Nakia ducked down. The girl was crying. "The fridge is empty, and they forgot to leave money for food again," she was saying as the door banged shut. "No," she said, after a moment. Her distress was apparent in her voice. "I don't know," she said, after another moment. A stall door slammed open. A moment later, the girl said, "Hold on." she stepped toward the wall of sinks. A huge mirror spanned the sinks, and Nakia saw the girl set down her phone. She blew her nose into a wad of toilet paper. Her movements were jerky as she threw the paper away and washed her hands. She let the blower dry them and then returned to the phone. "Are you still there?" she asked.
She must have pressed speaker phone because a voice came out of the speaker. "I'm here." The voice was calm and reassuring, and it even calmed Nakia down, even though it wasn't directed at her.
"I don't know what to do," the girl said, her voice rising into a wail. She breathed heavily and then took a deep breath, holding her head in her hands.
"I will call your parents," the voice said. "And make sure --"
"They're not answering -- " the girl interrupted.
"That's okay," the voice said. "They may be unavailable, but this isn't the first time this has happened. If I can't reach them, I'll call the electric company and get the power put back on. I can also get you some food --"
"This just keeps happening," the girl said, bursting into tears again. "They're my parents. They're supposed to care."
For a moment, the girl's sobs were the only sound.
"I know," the voice said, quietly. "I'm sorry."
"I hate them," the girl said.
"Me too," the voice said. "I didn't say that, but I do too."
The girl gave a shuddering giggle. "You never say that."
"Well," the voice said, "this has happened too many times. I'm going to petition the courts to set up an account for the utilities so that they get paid automatically and --"
"How can they keep doing this, though?" the girl asked. She asked this in a quiet, small voice, not seeming to have the energy to muster up the hysterics she had just a moment ago. "They have plenty of money. They just don't care. I don't care that they don't take me with them -- I don't want to go -- but how can they ..." she broke off again, sighing.
The voice sighed too. "I don't know, honey. I think they're just selfish. I don't think it's malicious."
"That's worse, though," the girl said. "At least if they hated me, they'd care. It's like I don't even exist." She sighed. "Maybe it's not worse. But it sucks." She rested her head on her knees.
"I know." After a moment of silence, the voice said, "Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to pick you up. We can go to the zoo..."
This made the girl laugh weakly. "No, I'm okay. It's the first day. I should probably stick around. Besides, I haven't seen Jean Marie for three months, so...."
"Alright," the voice said, her tone still kind but moving toward a more professional tone. "I'll get on this. If you don't have power by the time you get home from school, I will arrange a hotel for you."
"Thank you, Jackie," the girl said. Her elbows rested on her knees, hands dangling, phone resting on the sink above her.
"You're welcome, sweetie. Hang in there."
After a moment, Sweetie stood up and retrieved the phone. She poked at its face for a while. Then she washed her face in the sink and left.
Nakia stepped down off of the toilet. The other girl's distress had distracted her from her own, and for the first time in minutes, she noticed that she could still hear the rain outside. She reached out with her mind and tried to lighten the atmosphere, again. This time, it worked, and the rain started to fall more softly.
She exited the stall. She wore a cheap brown wig cut into a shoulder-length bob along with a pair of cat's eye sunglasses and a baggy black sweatsuit. White bandages covered what would be exposed skin on a human. The nice thing about Beverlee Hills was that bandages didn't scream, 'MUMMY!' so much as they murmured, 'plastic surgery'.
