❝ maybe that's why i read fairytales. maybe that's why i continue fantasizing, because i want to find a happy ending even if it isn't mine. ❞ —f.l.

A peculiar silence had settled over the place like an invisible blanket. It was a stillness so heavenly, yet so untypical to what sort of rowdiness usually dominated the classroom, that I couldn't help but glance around in curiosity. I wondered what had caused my boisterous classmates to keep their big mouths shut for a while, hoping that this unnatural noiselessness would hover in the air for at least another ten minutes.

Since miracles didn't happen everyday — and to me the least of all possible people, I decided to benefit from this given opportunity. Before a single sound would pierce my ears, I slowly picked up my pencil from my desk full of scribbles and random doodles on it and raised it to my eye level.

I looked at the pencil fixedly for a few minutes at full concentration, thinking about nothing but the long wooden object placed between my fingers.

In less than five seconds, an inner tickling sensation exploded like a firework within my brain, flowing freely inside my skull and expanding throughout my entire body. I tried to focus on the energy and direct it towards the pencil.

The sensation turned to an almost electrical one as it winded up the length of my forearm. I directed the energy from my arm to my fingertips and then to the pencil resting between them. Then, trying not to tear my gaze from the pencil, I removed my fingers from it, hoping the energy I had transmitted to it was powerful enough to levitate it in mid air.

Everything that followed afterwards happened in an earth-spinning flurry that I couldn't help but wonder whether what I had seen was real or just a trick of my mind.

For a fleeting moment, the pencil seemed like it was floating in the air just in front of my eyes, but I couldn't put my finger to it. Maybe it was nothing but an illusion, maybe—

Before I could give it more though, Mrs Brown stood up from her desk and clanged a ruler against the blackboard to get everyone's attention. Just like that, the much appreciated silence broke.

The pencil fell on the desk with a soft thud. I groaned.

As Mrs Brown cleared her throat and carried on with the lesson on Greek literature, I rested my head on the desk. It had been less than five minutes when the sound of snickering behind me reached my ears.

I closed my eyes. God, please not again. Before I could as much as lift my head, something hit me on the back of the neck. The snickers soon turned into guffaws. My eyes shot open and flickered to the floor where the object that hit me had landed, a ball of crumpled paper.

"Trying to use your black magic on the poor pen, Kin?"

The sound of laughter grew louder. When I made the mistake of looking around, everyone was looking at me and pointing fingers. A guy was holding a pen in front of his face, his gaze focused mockingly on the tip of his nose, his eyes wide as saucers, while his friends laughed around him.

"Hilarious indeed," I muttered to myself, turning back to my discarded English textbook.

"Silence, kids!" Mrs Brown called, clanging her ruler against the blackboard again.

"Are you planning to hex us, freak?"

"Witch!"

"Hey loser, go home!"

Ignore them, Polly.
They aren't worth your time.
They're just a bunch of morons.

"Why is she even here? To teach us witchcraft?"

"Yo, Kin! How about you set fire to yourself one day? We'd all love to watch that."

"Some sort of freaky shit must be wrong with her DNA."

It was this comment that made the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end. I bared my teeth, my hands curling to fists under the desk.

Ignore them, Polly.
Not worth your time.
Ignore them, Polly.

"Well, what else do you expect, Sam?" The guy behind me responded. "With no father and a floozy for a mother—"

Ignore them, Polly.
Ignore them, Polly.
IGNORE TH—

"You know what?" I whirled around without thinking twice, looking at him and his buddy dead in the eye. My blood was boiling. "How about you all leave me alone for once?"

My voice wasn't loud; my words themselves weren't hostile. Yet for some reason, they fell silent and the blood drained from their faces as if they'd just seen a ghost. They seemed . . . intimidated. Good.

Just as I turned back around, the guy screamed.

"Mr Matthews, what on earth is going on over there?" Mrs Brown asked.

With knitted eyebrows, she rose from her desk and made her way in quick steps towards Sam Matthews. He was the one that had made the comment about my DNA.

"G-Good Lord!"

My neck snapped swiftly backwards at the sound of Mrs Brown's shrill scream. That's when my eyes landed on the object that had made both her and Sam lose their marbles. A red spider, the size of my palm and with extremely hairy legs was clinging onto Sam's arm. The boy's already ashen face had paled to a point where it seemed like he was about to pass out. Tears ran down his cheeks.

His friend—the guy who'd said those nasty words about my parents—had shrunk into his seat and was trembling vigorously.

"Get it off me, get it off me, get it off me!" Sam Matthews kept whining. His voice was so desperate there seemed to be a hint of insanity behind it.

Meanwhile, the classroom had become worse than a zoo and I started wondering whether those ten minutes of silence had even happened in the first place. The students had left their seats and were running around the place, screaming in panic.

A girl left the classroom in a hurry with her friend. A guy called Galileo—someone as nerdy as the name he'd been given—was peeking at the spider over mrs Brown's shoulder with curious eyes, his phone on his hand, ready to take a picture.

My heart was racing against my ribcage and I rose from my seat.

"Mr Matthews, please calm down," Mrs Brown said in a shaky voice to Sam, but he wouldn't stop writhing and crying in hysteria. She turned to his friend, who was staring out of the window as though seriously considering jumping out. "Where did this spider come from?"

His gaze travelled from the window to Mrs Brown, to his terrified friend. And then to me. As soon as his horror-filled eyes met mine, they narrowed in contempt. He stood up and pointed at me.

"It was her!" he hollered. "It was Kin. She did some other freakish thing."

Stillness settled over the classroom for a few seconds. Gasps and yelps left the students' mouths and Mrs Brown turned to me with accusing eyes.

What the hell?

"T-That's ridiculous!" I sneered, my voice higher than I had intended. My heart was hammering in my chest.

"Yes, I am not lying, mrs Brown," the guy persisted indignantly. "She cussed us out a moment ago that I thought— I knew she would do something!"

"You liar!" I yelled, feeling the tips of my ears growing hot in embarrassment. It was the first time I had dared used that tone on anybody.

God, when did things get this messed up? If only they'd left me alone—

But I didn't make the spider appear on Sam Matthew's arm. Of course I didn't.

Did I?

"Ms Kin, wait for me outside the classroom," said mrs Brown flatly, still trying to calm Sam down. "You're coming with me to the principal's office."

"But Mrs Brown, I didn't—"

"Enough!" she snapped. "Outside. I'll deal with you later."

With a heavy heart and a pounding on my head, I fought back the tears that started welling in my eyes and made my way limply out of the classroom. I didn't have to look around to know everybody was staring at me as I left—I could feel their eyes burning on my back.

As I exited the classroom, I sunk to the floor with a tired sigh. I knew I would receive way more than just taunting comments from the students after this. I might get expelled.

Maybe that would be better, after all—this place brought me nothing but daily misery. What was even the point of staying?

I replayed in my head the moment I turned around and shot the boys behind me a death glare. I saw them stir, gulp, saw their eyes goggle. I felt their fear. Fear of me. I remembered how my stomach churned at the sense of satisfaction I got from their intimidated looks.

At that moment, I chose to be happy because I had made them shut up without using a threat or any type of profanity—neither reaction being part of my normal behavior. But now, sitting on the cold floor outside the classroom after being accused of making a gigantic red spider appear on my classmate's arm, their fear of me gave me another feeling.

The same feeling I got whenever they mocked and insulted me. The reason I never talked back but always ignored them and walked away. The reason Mrs Brown was so quick to believe my classmate's words. The reason I was so quick to do so myself.

Because I knew that what they said about me was the truth. I couldn't deny it, as much as I wanted to. Everything they called me that I hated to hear was everything I actually was.

A loser.
A freak.

   And perhaps . . . a witch?