Strike one? No biggie. Just a bit of reprimanding is in order, and all's said and done.

Strike two? The ice was much too thin for Addie's liking.

She was well aware of her weak point in the pool room - those damn bleachers soaked up every sound before they reached her ears. So of course she goes to check out what's going on down there every now and then. Aside from the occasional desperate lovebirds, she didn't usually find anyone down there.

Until today, of course.

Addie would think that Claire had learned her lesson about speaking of the outside world by now. Apparently not. If she did, Addie wouldn't be walking down the hall away from the pool room doors and towards Miss Circle's classroom.

She walked calmly down the stretch of corridor, her feet never once picking up into a quick speed walk or a jog (running in the halls, of course, was against the rules) as she approached the classroom. She knocked thrice on the door, peeking partially into the room through the thin glass window on the left side over the knob.

Circle was standing in front of her desk, leaning on the wooden workspace with her hand. Her compass needle was retracted, but every now and then the needle would slip out with a metallic shink before retracting again. She had paused her grading and was talking calmly with two other teachers - Miss Bloomie and Miss Thavel, to be precise. Bloomie was sitting quietly, as usual, in one of the student desks. She didn't talk much, Circle always seemed to notice. She did talk about 27.763% of the time (she's done the math, multiple times in fact), but other than that, nothing much. It was unlike how she was in a room of students, where she seemed completely fine with talking about her subject Thavel, however, was definitely the more social of the two, typically the one to start conversations and most definitely the best at keeping them going.

At the sound of the knock on the door, Thavel stopped whatever she was saying to turn to look at the door. Bloomie glanced over as well.

Circle sighed in annoyance. "Come in."

Addie stepped through, closing the door behind her.

Thavel, knowing Addie as well for being the class snitch that she was, smiled as her interest piqued.

"Ah, we have a troublemaker, I see? Do tell."

Bloomie said nothing. Circle rolled her eyes at Thavel and addressed Addie.

"Make it quick, we're in the middle of a meeting here."

While by definition they were "meeting," the statement was a lie. Circle really just didn't feel like dealing with some dimwit messing around where they shouldn't be.

"Well, I'm sure you remember Claire and her difficulties conforming to the rules," Addie began.

Circle's absent sheathing and unsheathing of her compass needle halted, the point out and touching the floor with its razor-sharp tip.

"I'm sure you'll want to know then that she's gone a step further from that," Addie explained. "She wants to leave. She was talking about it to Engel during free period."

Thavel laughed, seemingly thrilled at the accusation.

"Finally, a reason to kill that piece of shit!"

"Thavel," Circle snapped at her. Thavel had started to stand up, but caught Circle's stern gaze. Slowly she sat back down, scoffing and muttering something to herself. She had her violent tendencies, but she wouldn't try against Circle.

"Must you always jump the gun even before we at least talk about it?" Bloomie, who had not spoken up until this point, hissed at Thavel.

Thavel shot her a venomous glare. Bloomie didn't react.

Circle sighed, then shooed Addie out of the room. Only once the student was far down the hallway did she speak.

"That girl Claire is going to be the downfall of this school if something isn't done about her behavior."

"Exactly!" Thavel exclaimed with a slam of her black palm against the desk. "Which is why we should kill her immediately!"

"And where does that get us, Thavel?" Circle snapped. Her compass needle was unsheathed, the deadly spike gleaming in the lights of the classroom. "You know Grace is through with our 'violent methods of punishment.' If she catches any of us killing another student, we are through. It doesn't matter if she can't replace us fully. She'll throw us to the streets."

"Then we make sure she doesn't catch us!" Thavel argued.

"We can't take a risk like that, Thavel!"

A loud crash resounded through the room as Circle brought her compass down on the desk inches from Thavel's chair. Her arms jolted back to get out of the way, shock in her wide eyes as she glanced between the furious Circle and the now broken desk. The wooden surface lay in a splintered mess of two chunks, the metal legs splayed out like a dog's while running.

Circle breathed a frustrated exhale, bringing her compass back to her side and running her clawed fingers through her long black hair.

"No one's making a move until I say so. Got it?"

"So we're just... doing nothing?" While Thavel had lost the ferocity in her voice from a few seconds ago, she still argued against the suggestion.

"I didn't say that," Circle snarled with impatience.

"I'll take it that you have a plan, then?" Bloomie asked, far calmer than Thavel was. She occasionally glanced at the broken desk, her gaze unreadable.

"That... that I do."

Circle's previous scowl formed into a sinister smile as she shared her thoughts with the other two teachers. They'd done it in the past, yes... just not collectively. And collectively, it'd be foolproof.

"Seems to be a steadfast, successful plan," Bloomie remarked. "What do you think, Thavel?"

Thavel shot her a glare, as if offended that Bloomie would even dare talk to her at all, but did also comment,

"Sounds good. And you promise we'll get to kill the kid in the process?"

"Believe me," Circle assured. "I haven't wanted to rid this place of a parasite like Claire this much in a long time. She's gonna regret coming here in the first place."

"You're sure this is... absolutely necessary?" Bloomie queried.

Circle raised an eyebrow. "Elaborate, please?"

"Couldn't we just... get her expelled?" Bloomie suggested. "I mean, if she doesn't wanna be here, why keep her here at all?"

"Because if we expel her, that shows that we'll give her what she wants," Circle stepped towards Bloomie, a scowl covering her face as she glowered down menacingly at the shorter teacher. "And with her seeds of anarchy she's planted, everyone else will want what she has - freedom. And we. Cannot. Have. That. Understand?"

Bloomie looked like she was about to argue before seeming to give up, and she nodded.

"Right, that makes sense. Sorry."

Circle growled a little and walked back to her desk. She had an Oreo sitting on one of the paper stacks. She picked it up, holding the cookie in her fingers as she stared down at the grade on the paper. F. Seems like Claire won't be the only failure she'll have to deal with.

"Where do you even get those?" Thavel asked. "Sweets are impossible to come across, yet you always have at least one cookie on your desk."

Circle shrugged, and popped the chocolate snack in her mouth. She wasn't about to give up how she got her favorite food, after all. Sharing was not something she liked to do.

Bloomie had fallen silent again, and she brushed her fingers absently down the razorlike blade on her hand. Her eyes drifted across the surface, tracing out the geometric boxes created by the simple square design near where her wrist would be. Circle figured she wouldn't be talking much again today.

"Go ahead back to your rooms," Circle instructed her two fellow teachers after swallowing the Oreo.

She smiled slyly "I have some grading to do."

-

The rest of free period passed without trouble, and Claire managed to get through about half of her science homework with Engel and Bubble before the bell rang. Satisfied and hopeful for what the day would bring, Claire packed up her work and walked with Bubble to Miss Emily's class. The class was rather slow to Claire, but eventually the bell rang once again and now brought her to Miss Thavel's class.

Miss Thavel seemed almost unusually cruel today. She still spoke full Spanish the whole class, but even when no one seemed to understand she didn't even speak a word of English to them.

While trying to decipher the language Claire knew nothing about, she felt something light hit the back of her head. She blinked, then turned to look at what had hit her. Not a paper airplane, like she may have thought, but a crumpled up ball of lined notebook paper.

She immediately knew who had thrown it. Not able to ignore them, she slid an irritated side glare towards two boys in the back row - none other than Oliver and Edward. Explained why the usual paper airplane wasn't present - the master crafter of the airplanes herself was in a different class.

Oliver and Edward silently snickered, fist bumping each other. Claire rolled her eyes and turned back to Miss Thavel.

But the boys were relentless. Every minute or so a different paper form was tossed at her head until finally a lopsided airplane drifted through the air and slid onto her desk in a crashing motion. Obviously neither of them were very good at crafting airplanes, unlike their friend Zip, but it got the evident job done. On one crumpled, uneven wing, "open me!" was written sloppily in pencil.

Hesitant, Claire put the paper airplane under her desk in her lap and unfolded it. Inside was a piece of a hand, very poorly drawn, pointing at the reader, which happened to be Claire. The words "Congratulations! You're dead!" were written in a slightly neater handwriting above and below the crappy hand.

Claire sighed in annoyance, balling up the paper and tossing it back at Oliver.

Of course, Miss Thavel happened to pick that time in particular to turn around and face the class. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the crumpled paper ball sail through the air and land near Oliver's desk. For the first time the entire class, Miss Thavel said something in English.

"Claire? What was that?"

The color drained from Claire's face.

"I... uh... a piece of paper?"

She tried a smile, but it was quite forced and definitely looked very nervous.

"You are being a disruption in class, and you should know not to throw things in the classroom! What is this, kindergarten? I have to teach you languages, not manners!"

Afraid of the outburst, Claire sunk into her seat. She could hear Oliver and Edward holding back bursts of uncontrollable laughter behind her.

"I'll be seeing you in detention after school," Miss Thavel snarled to Claire's dismay. She then turned back around and kept teaching Spanish as she wrote on the board with a slightly more irritated tone than before.

Claire stared at her desk, heart now thumping loudly in her chest. Detention? She had barely done anything! It was Oliver and Edward who were being distracting! It was only her second day, how did she have detention already?!

Claire just sighed, vaguely listening to Miss Thavel's indecipherable teachings as she glued her eyes to the desktop the rest of class.

-

1916 words

Everyone: Yay Addie's not here to screw up the plans! Yay!

Me: *pulls out chapter seven* Actually-