Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 (7 page)

The hall was full of students and teachers,
and one by one they started to clap. The clapping got louder, and
Nan’s hands went to her mouth in shock. She looked at what she had
done, and her face grew red.

She turned and threw her arms around Mina,
and spoke quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That was wrong of me.
I’m probably going to get in a lot of trouble for this, but it was
worth it. No one insults our Charlie.” She pulled herself away and
walked toward the principal’s office, her head held high. Savannah,
during the commotion, started screaming and crying, and was
sniveling about Nan being a “bully, brat, and jealous of her good
looks.”

Mr. Ames was trying to hide the smile on his
face as he helped up Savannah and led her to the principal’s office
right behind Nan. The second bell rang, and no one was heading to
the next class. They were all right where they’d stopped, talking
and texting about the altercation.

It was Mrs. Colbert, with her short hair and
blue wing-tipped glasses, who put her fingers to her mouth and
whistled loudly, causing those nearest her to cover their ears.

“
That’s enough chitter
chatter. Get to class, or you’ll
all
have detention!” she yelled
loudly.

Brody took off, heading to his next period.
Jared looked a little scared at the sight of Mrs. Colbert, and
ducked behind a group of students and disappeared. Mina was left
alone and out of sorts, but she was able to make it to her next
class. She was a zombie the entire time and was pretty sure the
teacher called on her a few times, but she was useless until
lunchtime. Jared met her after fourth period and walked the lunch
line with her. When Mina went to grab her tray of pizza, cut
carrots, and chocolate milk, Jared swiped it up and carried it out
the main lunchroom and down the hall.

“
Hey!” she called after
him, while trying to catch up with his longer legs. He didn’t stop,
but turned and headed out a side door that led outside. Finding a
comfortable spot under a tree, he finally placed her tray down and
waited for her to sit.

She should have been upset by his actions,
but after looking around outside at the lack of students, and the
quiet calm shade the tree provided, she actually felt grateful. It
was still incredibly hot out, but she could put up with that in
exchange for solitude. Or almost solitude.

Mina took a bite of her pizza, which tasted
like paper covered in cheese. She forced it down and then took to
breaking her carrot sticks into miniscule pieces.

“
What did those carrots
ever do to you?” Jared joked.

“
Charlie hated carrots, so
he used to do this to them to make it look like he’d eaten them, or
make them small enough to hide under the mashed
potatoes.”

“
Smart kid.”

“
Yeah, he is…or was.” An
awkward silence rose between them, and Jared looked like he had
something bothering him.

“
Look, Mina, you can’t let
his death affect you like this. You need to move on. Prepare
yourself for whatever crazy scheme the Fates will send your
way.”

“
I know. I’m just not sure
that I have the heart for it anymore.”

Jared’s cheek ticked in anger. “I know you
lost your brother, but you can’t give up so easily.”

“
Why do you even
care?”

“
I care! I thought for
sure since you figured out the tie between the Grimoire and me that
you would at least summon me or talk to me. But you ignored me the
whole summer. I was angry with you!”

“
And I was confused and
hurt. I’d lost my boyfriend…again.”

“
Get over the human. It’s
obvious that you two aren’t meant to be together.”

“
Well, maybe we could have
a chance if the Fae stopped interfering with my life.”

“
We just saved him the
trouble of dumping you after he realized how close he came to being
saddled with you and your emotional baggage,” Jared
fumed.

“
I don’t have emotional
baggage,” Mina whispered, choking on the pain his words
caused.

“
Yes, you do. You’ve got
enough emotional baggage that you could open up your own airline.”
He began to tick the items off his fingers. “Let’s see: abandonment
issues, low self-esteem, jealousy issues…and you’re
obsessive.”

Mina was stunned and shocked at his
assessment of her. Whether he was right or wrong, it didn’t matter.
What mattered was the fact that he was talking down to her.

“
I don’t have to take this
from you. Maybe I was right all along to not talk to you. It’s
obvious you have no compassion or understanding of a human’s
feelings. Which are completely normal for a teenager who was
unjustly saddled with a curse that’s destroyed her whole family.
I’m sorry if I have the emotional stability of a teeter-totter
right now, but that’s better than you, who has the emotional
maturity of a rock.”

She squeezed her carton of chocolate milk so
hard that a chocolate fountain spewed out the top to run down her
hand onto her jeans. Mina’s eyes opened wide in shock, and she
dropped the carton on Jared’s lap. He jumped up faster than
lightning and began to dance.

Mina looked at Jared’s shocked face and her
messy lap, and began to laugh and couldn’t stop. She laughed so
hard she snorted, and then laughed some more because of it. Jared
looked at her strangely and started to chuckle as well. He knelt
down with napkins and dabbed at her jeans in the most awkward way.
Mina swatted his hands away and grabbed the napkins from him. It
wouldn’t matter; she would once again have an embarrassing
chocolate milk incident to write in her notebook of
Unaccomplishments and Epic Disasters—if she still had it. Maybe she
needed to start a new one.

“
I’m sorry,” he mumbled,
not looking her in the eyes.

“
I’m the one who spilled
milk on you. I’m the one who should be sorry.” She still couldn’t
catch her breath.

Jared had sobered up pretty quick. “No, you
know what I mean. I didn’t really mean any of those things.”

“
Then why would you say
them?”

“
You were burying yourself
so deep in your misery that you were becoming numb to your
surroundings, which leaves you vulnerable to an attack. I was
trying to break you out of it, and was aiming to make you feel a
different emotion. I figured anger would have been the easiest one
to get you to feel, but I completely disregarded joy. I forgot how
easy it is to make you humans laugh.” He stood back up; a large
chocolate stain ran down his pants. His face kept shifting from
utter disgust at the milk on his clothes to remorse for hurting
her.

She couldn’t help it—she started laughing
again. Even though his reasoning behind being rude to her was
terrible, the laughter did help her the rest of the day. She was
even able to raise her hand in class and answer two questions. She
didn’t believe it, but Jared’s attempt at caring by pretending not
to…worked.

Sara even noticed a slight change in her
when she picked her up from school.

“
Did you have a good day,
honey?” she asked while frowning at the brown stain on Mina’s
pants.

“
No, it was awful. The
worst first day of school ever,” Mina answered with a huge grin on
her face.

Chapter 8

Nan was rightfully suspended from school for
a week. Which left Mina completely defenseless against Ever’s
constant French-fry thieving. The pixie had a serious thing for
French fries. But it also put her right between Brody and
Jared.

Lunch period was painful and awkward.
Whenever Brody tried to ask Mina a question, Jared would interject
and turn the subject back to Nan. Ever, frustrated by Jared’s lack
of attention, turned to tossing food in the air and catching it in
her mouth. It wasn’t until Ever almost choked on one of the French
fries that the boys calmed down their feud and turned to helping
the girl not choke to death.

For once in her life, Mina was thankful for
the pixie’s interference. Now, if she could only interfere and find
a way for Mina to get out of her Tuesday/Thursday P.E. class.

Mina was terrified of gym class, and tried
hard to stay out of the way of the more athletic students. She also
hated gym because she was forced to change into stupid gym shorts,
and she always thought her legs were too skinny, like a chicken or
duck. The other girls wore their gym clothes like they walked
straight off the runway. Mina’s gym clothes, no matter how she
folded them, always looked like they came out of a hamper. She was
hoping today was a running day instead of something like baseball
or basketball. She actually liked running the mile on the school’s
track. There was less chance of her injuring herself or others.

But today was not going her way at all. It
wasn’t a track and field day. It was worse. They were playing flag
football. It used to terrify her to have the football and have the
more aggressive boys shoot right toward her, intent on ripping her
flags off.

A few times last year she was bowled over in
the process, and once she even ripped off her own flag and threw it
on the ground in front of T.J. when he was about to tackle her.
This made her a very unpopular teammate. So her goal for this year
was to stay out of the way.

Mina was late because somehow her shoelaces
were in incredible knots. She threw her shoes over her shoulder and
ran out to the field in her socks. Once there, she plopped on the
ground behind the girls and desperately tried to untangle the knots
in the laces to get her shoes on. The team captains were chosen,
but she didn’t even notice.

Briefly she stopped and tried to get a head
count to see if there would be too many players and she could sit
out. Or better yet, next time she should try to get a doctor’s note
that read, “Mina Grime is unable to participate in any sports due
to the hazard to other students’ health.” The teams began their
draft; Mina knew her name wouldn’t be called anytime soon, so she
continued attacking her laces. She was wrong.

“
Mina!”

It wasn’t hard to miss his golden voice
calling her name over the crowd of students, loud and clear, and
she froze in her spot on the grass. When she didn’t immediately
come forward, he called her name a second time. Mina attacked her
laces with a vengeance and finally stuffed her foot into the last
shoe. The girls around her parted, and everyone saw her scramble up
from the ground and wipe furiously at the grass clinging to the
back of her shorts. She took a deep breath, carefully tucked her
ponytail over her shoulder, and walked toward the voice that had
called her name.

Her face turned bright red again when she
walked over to Brody. He smiled widely; she frowned at him and took
her place on his team. She could see the glares she was getting
from half of the girls and the incredulous looks from all the
boys.

What was the most popular boy in school
doing, picking the slowest girl to be on his team? Once again, the
whispers followed, and she could make out some mean-spirited
name-calling. But she didn’t care. She raised her chin proudly and
swore to herself she would try hard, and not let Brody down. As
long as she didn’t get the ball, she would try to pretend she knew
what she was doing.

The infamous flag football draft continued
with the rest of the boys being picked, followed by the girls. Mina
watched as Tiffany was placed on the red team, followed by Pricilla
Rose on the yellow team. One by one the girls were divided.
Wide-eyed with disbelief, Mina was flabbergasted that Brody
purposely avoided picking Savannah White for his team. As
mathematical fate would have it, she ended up on the opposing team
as the last girl standing, a spot that was usually reserved for
Mina.

It was an awkward moment,
but not for long, as Savannah threw Mina her renowned mean-girl
glare, which meant
stay out of my
way
. After the kick-off, the yellow team
received the ball and made it to the forty-five-yard line before
losing a flag. When they lined up for the second down, Savannah
placed herself opposite Mina.

She couldn’t help but compare herself to the
extremely fit cheerleader and knew that Savannah was out to
embarrass her. This only fueled Mina’s fire, and she was going to
take her down and not humiliate herself in the process. Well, easy
enough—as long as Brody didn’t pass her the ball.

But that wasn’t what the hot, sweet,
sensitive guy did. He added fuel to the flame by placing the ball
in Mina’s hands.

“
Are you crazy?” she
hissed.

“
Run!” He laughed and
slapped her on the back.

Mina stared at the ball in her hands and
looked up at Savannah’s face, which turned downright ugly as she
ran straight for Mina’s waist and came away with two yellow flags
only seconds into the play.

Mina was humiliated, and she had to go
retrieve the flags from the place where Savannah snottily threw
them to the ground. She reattached them and decided it was going to
stop here and now. The bullying, the name-calling. She couldn’t let
Nan fight her school battles for her. She was a Grimm, wasn’t she?
She’d fought bears, dragons, Reapers, but she couldn’t handle a
single mean-spirited girl?

Mina gritted her teeth, dug her heels into
the ground, and reached deep within herself to a hidden place that
she didn’t know existed. She was only just learning the
capabilities that came to all Grimms when they repeatedly dipped
into the Fae power.