My AP Physics teacher was a balding man in his late fifties.  A couple of glances in his direction, and I realized why (he was balding).  Every time he was highly perplexed by something - which happened very frequently, so much so that I began to worry about my Physics grade-, he would tug on the five centimetre by five centimetre square of remaining hair he had on his head.

 

Which... pretty much cleared up the mystery of the silvery-locks-of-hair-littered-floor. And speaking of the floor, this classroom needed some intense spring cleaning.

 

It was really dirty.  I mean, the classroom was undoubtedly new.  I could even see a coat of fresh paint peeking out from beneath the merciless layers of vandalism, or the newly tiled marble floor hidden inconspicuously under the avalanche of rubbish atop it.

 

If someone told me it rained sewage here, I might actually believe them.

 

"Ms Reinhard, would you like to introduce yourself?"  Mr Krinton repeated.  "It is alright if you preferred not to, though."  He rubbed his hands nervously.

 

"Oh, well, no. I mean, I don't mind."  Still refusing to face the class - where Candace had a speech problem, I had a stage fright problem-, I piped out, "Uh, so... Hi.  I'm Sophie.  But you guys can call me Soph."

 

"Are you new here?" A guy with 'The Alpaca Almighty' printed in ink on his upper forearm asked.

 

Alpaca Almighty or not, he sure was stupid.  I rolled my eyes, but since I was facing the floor, it didn't really have its desired effect.  "No," I scoffed.  "I'm introducing myself because I've been here for ten years, and everybody already knows me."

 

Someone snickered.

 

"Really?"

 

Internally, I face palmed myself, hard, giving myself a mental red splat on my mentallic-face.  "No."

 

"Alright," Mr Krinton said.  At least he could detect when a conversation was taking a turn for the worse.  "That's enough.  I don't want any sarcastic snipes, Ms Reinhard."

 

"I'll try, sir." I told him respectfully.

 

"Why don't you tell us something about yourself, then?"  He changed the subject. "What's your favourite animal?"  

 

Don't ask me where he got that from.

 

I thought about replying 'Why do you care?  You're a physics teacher.  Shouldn't you be asking me what speed does light travel at or something?', or maybe, give a stupid reply, like 'My favourite animal''s the plankton.  What?  It's an animal, right?'  But from Mr Krinton's face, I could tell that this question was a genuine one.  Like he truly wanted to know what my favourite animal was.

 

I tried to keep a serious expression on my face; pretend that he was asking me 'how a neutral body can become positively charged' instead,  but it was difficult.  A random question like that coming out from an old man's mouth is pretty funny.

 

"ALPACA!" A couple of people in the crowd chorused.  

 

"NO!  THE BLACK CAT!" Another group hollered.

 

"Black cat?" I asked incredulously, forgetting about my stage fright.  "You gotta be kidding me.  It represents.. bad luck or something right?"

 

I think I sparked off a riot, because the moment 'bad luck' left my lips, a couple of crazy- kids in the third column sprung to their legs, mouths agape in ferocity.  If my self preservation instinct was correct, they were about to kill me.

 

Wow.  Eventful first day of school.  First period, and I already had a group of people who wanted my body in a coffin.

 

One of them picked up their five hundred and sixty-eight paged physics textbook and tossed it in my direction.  It skimmed my shoulder, and smashed head first into the white board.  It caused a pretty massive dent the size of Mount Fuji's crater. 

 

I guess I was relieved that that dent had been made on the white board, and not on its intended target, my head.  If it had, I probably wouldn't have ever found out the reason for this pandemonium.  I would have died, or better still, slipped into a coma I would never awake from.

 

Those people really wanted me dead.

 

And... the physics-textbook tossing scene was merely the beginning.

 

Dramatic as it sounded, the moment the textbook touched the whiteboard with a sickening thud, the entire class was on its feet.  They weren't just on their feet, they were using their feet (and their hands), mostly to kick one another - in the face, in their guts, you name it.  Everyone was fighting bloody.  A petite girl with too much make-up, and a cute black kitty cap on her head, had even hoisted a chair on her shoulder and was attacking a poor Alpaca supporter with it.

 

Someone was even stabbing a black-cat shirt-wearer with his pencil.

 

People are pretty resourceful when it comes to war, it seems. 

 

Still petrified, I joined in with Mr Krinton's wide-eyed staring at the barbaric scene playing out before us, wondering if we had somehow magically teleported to year 2134, right smack in the middle of World War Three, a.k.a, The Alpaca-Cat war.

 

Then the door creaked opened.

 

People stopped hollering vulgarities.  

 

People stopped tossing eraser dust at each other.

 

People stopped fencing with rulers.

 

People stopped moving altogether.

 

"Hello, Mr Krinton."  A cool velvety voice called out from the doorway.  "I swear, your little patch of hair's getting smaller by day."

 

"Mr Wu, you're late." Mr Krinton huffed in reply.  The poor man was clearly shaken, and a sickly shade of white had diffused across his entire face like leprosy.  His legs were trembling so hard that I could hear his knees knocking against each other from where I was standing.

 

The poor elderly was going to get a seizure at this rate.

 

But... I shouldn't comment.  The side effects of the shock I was suffering from probably mirrored his.

 

"Wonderful," The Voice drawled.  "How consistent of me."