In the Skin of Dragon

Chapter 1: School

“If you don’t wake up now, you will be late for school.” I heard my mom calling. I looked at the clock beside my bed lazily and jumped out of the bed immediately. It was already seven thirty which meant I had only thirty minutes to get to school not to mention the fact that I needed to put on clothes, do my hair, and get something to eat. Crap. I don’t know why I love sleeping so much.

“I am coming mom. Why didn't you wake me up earlier?” I shouted back to her but I didn’t know if she could hear me. Sure, she was preparing breakfast so maybe there was noise in the kitchen. “I did try. Three times sweetheart.” She shouted back and I could hear the amusement in her voice.

I quickly took jeans from my wardrobe with a shirt and hoodie. I looked in the mirror and almost got a heart attack seeing my hair sticking up in all directions “I don’t have time for this.” I sighed while I tried to tame it into a quick messy bun. To my surprise, it looked better than I thought. In less than ten minutes I was ready to run and as I assumed, mom was ready with breakfast.

“It looks delicious,” I told her when I reached the kitchen which was situated downstairs. Our house wasn’t big but for something meant for humans, it was still big. We had two floors. Downstairs we had a small hall with a reception area and a kitchen with a small bathroom right under the stairs. The upper floor had two bedrooms and one big bathroom. It was not really a big house but for the two of us, it was home.

I sat down taking a piece of bread, tomato and some cheese and meanwhile mom placed scrambled eggs in front of me kissing my forehead on the way. “You are an amazing mom,” I told her and she smiled at me. “Thank you, sweetheart. Now eat your breakfast or you are really gonna be late.” Mom told me with a scolding face but I knew her well. She was just worried about me. Having a problem with the teachers in my school was not something you should take lightly especially since most of the teachers were elves and physical classes are taught by dwarfs.

“Roger that,” I told her as I took a big bite of my food. Mom packed me a lunch since we could not afford to buy lunch at school. Living as a human in my world was already hard but living as a single mother with a child was much harder so I never complained about the things I could not have. I knew my mom always tried to give me everything I wanted even before I realized that I wanted it but sometimes I wished there could be something I could do for her.

“Ten minutes sweety.” My mom reminded me about the time and I turned to see the clock realizing in shock that I would have to run all the way to school to be there in time since I had already missed the bus. “See you later mom. I love you.” I called from the door taking my bag right after I put on the pair of sneakers and ran to school. I am sure my mom was standing at the entrance watching until I disappeared from her view before she went back inside. During the days I didn’t have to run and had time to turn and look at her and wave to her I always found her standing at the porch watching me. She has been doing it since I started the school eleven years ago.

I was almost at school when I noticed Kendra. She was standing right in front of the entrance to the school and waving at me madly. “You are late Ell.” She scolded me. “So why are you waiting outside you dumbass,” I replied to her poking her shoulder. I placed my hand around her shoulder after turning her around and pulling her into school with me. Kendra had been my best friend from the first day of school. She had red hair, amazing blue eyes and most of her life I saw her wearing black. I think maybe a few times in the first grade I saw her with some other colors but it’s been so long that those memories have faded. She was the typical rebellious child not accepting anything in our world and always causing problems not only for herself but for her family too yet her family never blamed for anything. They supported her as much as they could. To be fair I loved her mom as much as I loved mine.

“I didn’t want you to be late alone.” She answered me and I had to smile at her thinking. My real best friend. Our first class was History with Mr. Callamny. Another boring hour of listening to how humans were greedy and aggressive and how amazing the world is since the dragons took over and started to rule. To be honest everything from before the dragons ascending is f*******n for humans to know. Like we are seriously not allowed to learn about our destructive past, well if it was that destructive. But I didn’t care. The school was only a charade to make it look like they were teaching us something but most important for them was our manual lessons where we as girls learned to cook, sew, clean, color, knit, print, and some other easy things. Boys had it harder. They needed to know how to work with wood or how to build houses and so on. As you probably guessed we were mostly allowed to work as manual laborer with low salaries. We were only workers.

“Miss White. Could you please be so generous as to start paying attention in the class?” The voice of Mr. Callamny brought me back from my thoughts. I stood up from my chair abruptly upon hearing my name and was looking around to see who had called me. I noticed the angry face of our history teacher locked onto my face. “Yes. I am sorry Mr. Callamny.” I replied to him taking back my seat with my cheeks completely red.

“Thank you, Miss White.” Mr. Callamny replied, turning his back to the class and walking back to the front. I looked at the board and noticed what he was writing. I was right. We have another boring class about the History of amazing dragon rule. I hated history.

A paper landed on my table and I quickly read the note. “Want to skip school?” I didn’t need to read to know who this was from. Only Kendra had the guts of the dwarf army to skip school. “Sure not. My mom would have a problem and we couldn’t afford to lose more money this month.” I replied to her on the same note throwing it back at her. It was not fair that parents were paying for the problems and mistakes their children made, especially since we were not working yet, at least not fully. Half of our school year was practical studies and the other half theoretical. Next year as we will be graduating, we will be attending only practical lessons and one we will need to choose for graduation. This will be our job for the rest of our lives. Until now I still didn’t figure out what I wanted to do but I was still hoping for some miracle or something that would save us from this boring and miserable life. I was not born for this sort of work. I simply know this.

The paper came back to me. “Is it that bad?” Kendra asked about our situation. I still didn’t tell her about the problem I had a few days ago which cost my mom half of her salary so this month we are really on a short budget since she needed to save the money for next month. “I will tell you after school,” I replied to her, taking out another paper since this one was already full and threw it back to her. I looked at her and she nodded. The amazingly boring class of Mr. Callamny was finally finished and we were saved from his lecturing about how responsible we should be while choosing our future properly and how responsible we should be in our community because our lives are not only ours but affecting the whole society. But somehow, he forgot to mention that the society he is actually talking about is everyone else except humans.

“I thought his class would never finish,” I told Kendra once I reached her on our way out. “Miss White. Please one moment.” I heard the voice of the teacher again and this time it worried me because when a teacher called at the end of a class it was never anything good.

“Yes, Mr. Callamny?” I replied to him politely, walking right up to his desk. “You should be more careful and pay attention to class. Next year will be your last and if you do not improve your attitude it will affect your family very badly.” He informed me. Of the teachers, Mr. Callamny was the only one who sort of showed some compassion to humans and deeply believed that he was doing something good for us.

“I am sorry Mr. Callamny. I will be more careful. Please forgive me.” I used the already perfectly learned phrase I learned over the past few years with our teachers. We always had to show them that we understood our place, which was very low and way below them just to avoid punishment. It has saved me many times but sadly it doesn’t work with everyone. The guards outside are way stricter and harder to please. So, once you got caught doing something illegal for humans by them it usually meant a serious problem for the whole family. I remember a long time ago we had neighbors with a boy almost the same age as me. They did something and the whole family was deported. We never heard about them again.

“Good. I am glad you understand your situation. Now go and please try to be more productive and pay attention.” He told me before dismissing me. “What did he want?” Kendra asked me outside leading me to our next class. Just as she asked me, I saw her brother, Andrew, in the hall. He was amazing. Andrew was one year ahead of us but to my dismay, he did not have a good relationship with his sister which I blamed on Kendra. Their father was a carpenter working with the wood all day long and because of that Andrew was working on his strength. As humans, we were already weaker than others so they let us use the gym and other equipment to build our muscles and Andrew used this privilege. I guess because of his famous work and unique designs his father was able to make their whole family have a little better position in the eyes of guards and maybe that was the reason Kendra’s rebellions were usually overlooked by the guards and teachers. They simply hoped she would become like her mother since they already knew Andrew is a lot like his father. I wanted to be there when they finally realized that Kendra is nothing like her mom.

As usual, Andrew passed us without even saying hi to his sister and I could not help but turn around to him from behind. His scent was light as fresh air in the forest after the rain. It was an amazing scent of freedom and the promise of a full life but every single time he passed us like this it also left a deep sadness and pain inside my heart from the disregard and not even recognizing that I am here. “Can you stop drooling over my brother? It’s disgusting firstly and secondly he is a sheep.” I heard Kendra’s voice as she was pulling me back to face her.

“But he is a good-looking sheep,” I replied to her dreamily. “Is the only thing you care about what he looks like? Believe me, if his personality was at least half as good as his looks he would be an amazing brother.” I could hear the disapproval in her voice as she was talking and describing her brother.

“Why can't you stand him? Or at least talk to him like normal siblings. I could get closer to him.” I started whining and complaining as Kendra ignored me and pulled me towards our next class. “Stop dreaming about someone like him. He is just a perfect sheep in this broken world and always will be. We are meant for something bigger.” I heard her say before we slipped into the class and took our places. I could not argue with her about this nor did I want to. Deep inside I had the same feeling, believing that there must be something more. Something more meaningful in this life than just serving those arrogant dragons.