Tiffany glowered at the teacher, who began methodically patting the loose bits from the wall back to place, tamping them in until they were firmly seated, then licking her thumb and moistening the bits to seal them, and finally...touching them with her forehead!? The tension that had filled the air slowly diffused as she did so.
Not that Tiffany herself was less tense. This teacher, there was something about her...she wanted to bolt while the woman was occupied, but she couldn't make herself do it for some reason.
When she seemed finished with whatever crazy handyman thing it was that she was doing, the teacher turned to face her. "Tiffany," she said, "would you come with me, please?" Tiffany didn't want to, but she couldn't seem to work up the willpower to refuse. She followed the teacher to a disused classroom, where she gently shut the door behind them.
When she turned back towards Tiffany, it was as if some kind of mask had fallen away, and Tiffany caught vague hints of things that made her understand why this woman made her so uneasy. She couldn't help but squirm - yet she knew that even this was only a glimpse!
"Miss Sanders," she said, "I am not a woman prone to rash action, but I will advise you: Do not do that again." Every word was spoken with perfect grace and politeness, the tone was calm and pleasant, the volume normal - but her words shook Tiffany like an earthquake. She looked around for someone or something to cling to, but found only the crappy little desk-chairs.
She sighed. "Goodness knows there's enough trouble with reality around here, without people like you tearing at it just because they've had a bad morning. This might all seem like a way to let off steam to you, but even a creature such as you would have reason to be afraid of some of the things you might let in."
Tiffany was trembling now, all thoughts of saving face, staying at the top, or getting revenge having (for the moment) given way to thoughts about merely getting out of here alive. "Y-you're not going to...?" It wasn't even a question - it was a plea.
The teacher shook her head. "That would hardly be merited even if you knew what you were doing. Besides, this school is for all transformed students. But if you don't get your temper under control, I might have no choice but to take action." She didn't say what that would entail, but Tiffany thought that even the mildest "action" from this thing might obliterate her, intentionally or not.
Finding that she was now free to go, Tiffany nearly bolted right into the door before she caught herself. Flinging it open, she headed down the hallway at a dead sprint.
Harry was feeling a little shaky herself. For one thing, that teacher still overwhelmed her even with just brief flashes of insight, but right now she was more worried about Tiffany.
She didn't really know what Tiffany was, and she didn't think any of terms that sprang to mind were well-defined enough to be useful labels, but...Tiffany scared her, she knew that. What had she been doing?
Scratching at the walls, obviously, but what was with the holes? Harry had already seen into the school walls in her trance with Brittany and seen nothing like whatever it was that was peeking through Tiffany's claw-marks. Had Tiffany torn something else entirely?
In a way, Harry thought this was what bothered her most. The individual visions were unnerving, but if she were just able to dismiss them as an illness in need of treatment, it might not be so bad. Instead, she couldn't shake the feeling that this was as real as it seemed to be, and she'd just been dragged against her will into a new and larger world...
Trying to shift her focus, she thought about lunch. She'd sat with Zoe and Athena; they'd been nice enough, but she got the feeling that the slime-girl still kind of resented Harry's dumping her emotional baggage on her the other day...she did feel kind of bad about that.
She had noticed Ken looking at her from the corner of the room. She wondered what that meant; hopefully she'd find out this afternoon.
