Monday:
Katrina couldn't believe that she already had math homework just a week into the new
school year. Math was not her strongest subject; she preferred music or horseback riding,
not that horseback riding was a school subject. It should be, she thought, but apparently
schools thought math would be more useful later in life than riding horses. Katrina
sighed and pulled her math notebook out of her backpack. She might as well finish it
quickly so she could spend the rest of the
evening the way she wanted: playing oboe and visiting Galahad out in his pasture. Katrina
set up her math things in the study and looked at the first problem. It seemed easy
enough, but that might mean she wasn't doing it right. You could never trust math.

...

Half way through her math problems the phone rang. Her mother smiled at her as she glided
into the study and answered the phone. "Dumonde residence, this is Claire speaking."
Katrina recognized the voice on the other end of the line; it was her father and he
sounded excited about something. "Darling, guess what? It passed! The bill passed!" Was
it Katrina's imagination or did her mother roll her eyes at that? Her father continued,
"I've invited a few people over tonight to celebrate, they will be there at eight. Will
you inform Hans? I believe we may be running low on champagne." "Of course, Jean," her
mother responded. Her father continued, "Oh, and have Katrina put on something nice, too.
She should greet some of the guests, of course she won't be able too stay up too late,
since it is a school night." Katrina grimaced at her mother. "Well, I have to go, but
I'll be home by 7:00 or so. Don't wait for me for supper, I'll grab something up here in
D.C. to eat on the way home. Love you, give Katrina a kiss for me." Her father hung up.

"Mom" Katrina drew out the word so it had many more syllables than it normally would, in
a perfect imitation of a teenager groan. She was getting good at it even though she
wouldn't officially become a teenager for another 10 months. "Do I have to go?" Her
mother smiled and winked, "If I have to get all dressed up to meet these people, then so
do you. At least you'll be able to ditch as soon as everyone arrives." Katrina sighed,
"Fine."

...

The rest of the evening flew by. Katrina practiced oboe before supper, but only had a few
minutes after supper to say hi to Galahad. She brought him a carrot stick to make up for
the short visit and he crunched it happily as she rushed back into the house to get
dressed for the party. Almost as soon as she had finished dressing the guests started
arriving. She sighed and headed down the stairs. Everyone seemed to be in remarkably good
spirits. Some important bill
had passed; Katrina didn't pay very close attention to politics. Hans came around with
hors d'oeuvres and winked at Katrina. Finally after what seemed like eternity it was
9:00. Katrina couldn't remember having ever been so glad for bedtime. She hugged her
mother goodnight and kissed her father on the cheek then went up to bed. She was
surprisingly tired and her stomach felt a little weird. She blamed the math homework.

...

Back downstairs Claire was wishing she could go up to bed too. She'd had a busy day
organizing a fund raiser for the library. Also, she didn't drink and everyone here was
getting rather tipsy; they were celebrating and she didn't really have any reason to
celebrate. That and drinking gave her a terrible headache. Maybe they wouldn't notice if
she slipped away. This lot looked like they wouldn't notice if miniature purple elephants
were flying around the room waving calculators and wearing angry expressions. Wait a
minute. Claire did a
double take. There were miniature purple elephants flying around the room! That could
only mean...

Claire slipped into the kitchen and split herself in two. She felt her mind start to flit
back and forth between the two selves. She wasn't really in two places at once, but she
flitted back and forth so fast that both seemed solid and she could consciously be in
both places as well. She went back out to the party and smiled as if nothing had
happened. And she rushed upstairs to check on Katrina. Sure enough, she was asleep, but
her room seemed to be the source of the flying purple elephants. The elephants waved
their calculators menacingly and Katrina moaned. Claire gently woke her up. Instantly the
elephants vanished from the bedroom and from the party. No one remarked on their
disappearance. Katrina sleepily gazed up at her. "I had a bad dream, I think." "Shh,
honey, just go to the bathroom and go back to sleep."

Having overseen this task, Claire went back to the kitchen and sat in one of the chairs,
rubbing her temples. A senator from Maryland was recounting the blow by blow of the
voting earlier that day that had made law a bill that required mutants to be registered.
Mutants like her. And now Katrina. Hans came through the door carrying an empty champagne
bottle and raised his eyebrow at her, but said nothing. "Hans, do you have a newspaper?"
"It's in the recycling, Ma'am."
"Thanks."

Ten minutes later, the Senator from Maryland was interrupted in the middle of a slightly
less than tasteful joke by a brick wrapped in paper flying through the front window.
Claire stopped flitting back and forth and her outdoor self disappeared. Chaos ensued.
Politicians darted back and forth, someone yelled, and several people stumbled outside to
find that no one was there. Senator Jean Dumonde inspected up the brick that had flown
through his window. "Claire, I
thing youshould shee this," his speech was slightly slurred. In his hand he held a
message made from letters cut out from a newspaper. It read, "MeN with fAmiliEs to
pRotect ShoUldn't vote fOR billS tHat piSS oFf powerFUl people... OR PeOple wITh poWerS."
Claire's eyes widened, and she hastily shoved the note back toward her husband. "The
party is over, y'all better head home," she announced.

Tuesday:
Katrina woke up late the next morning. Something seemed out of place, then she realized
that it was after nine in the morning and no one had woken her up for school. She rubbed
her eyes and opened the door to her bedroom. Her parents were discussing something
downstairs in loud tones. Still puzzled about not being in pajamas instead of math
class, Katrina decided to interrupt them. She followed the voices to the study and heard
her mother say, "We need to protect her at all costs." Her father responded "Isn't it a
little hasty to go rushing
into..." Katrina pushed open the door and her father trailed off. Both her parents
looked like they hadn't slept.

"What's going on?" Katrina asked, certain that the answer had something to do with her
and that she wouldn't like it much. "Honey," her father began, "last
night someone threw a brick through our window and left a threatening note. Your
mother..."

"Thinks you might be in danger. Your father apparently has made some enemies by
supporting the Mutant Registration Act and now someone is threatening our family."

Katrina had been right, she didn't like it, "What about it? Can't the police do
something?"

"We've called them, they think it was some prankster," her father responded.

"I don't want to take any chances," her mother interrupted. She turned back to her
husband, "We can't trust the school to protect her, they'll let anyone in there. She
should be at a school with others like her, somewhere selective and safe."

"Sounds like a prison," Katrina broke in. She didn't like being ignored, especially when
she was the subject in question.

Her mother ignored her any way, "I stayed up doing research and I think I've found a
place. New York, private boarding school, selective, and when things settle down, she
can come home for weekends. It's called Xavier's Sister School for Talented Youth, and
they have an excellent reputation."

Katrina could feel her anger rising, "Don't I get to have a say in his? It's my life!"

"You are our daughter and we will decide what is best for you." It was a classic father
line, as was his next. "If it's a boarding school, do they at least have separate
dormitories for boys and girls?"

"They do," her mother responded.

...

And that was how Katrina ended up in the back of a limousine heading toward the big apple
sitting next to the big jerk formerly known as mother. Katrina hadn't spoken to anyone
since that morning when her parents, or rather the big jerk and the bigger jerk, had
decided to wrench her out of her nice normal life like a dandelion out of a garden and
throw her into the compost heap that was New York City. She had never been to New York
before, and under other circumstances,
would have been excited to visit. As it was, she wanted nothing to do with the city that
was ruining her life, just as she had wanted nothing to do with packing her suitcases or
eating breakfast or getting dressed or anything that had to do with leaving her home and
her friends and her life. In fact, she would have still been in her pajamas had Hans not
offered to dress her if she didn't want to dress herself. After that she hastily dressed
herself. And she packed her own suitcase when her father offered to let her go without
packing
anything. And she ate breakfast when her stomach started rumbling. But she hadn't been
happy about it.

"Umm." Her mother spoke, breaking the uncomfortable silence. She must be worried that
I'll never speak to her again, Katrina thought, or she'd never say anything as
un-eloquent as "umm". Katrina continued staring out the window. "I need to explain
something to you. I couldn't tell you in front of your father. You don't have to say
anything, just listen. I hope you can forgive me for... for not telling you sooner. I
never should have kept it a secret for so long
and I never imagined telling you this way. I... umm... you and I are both... mutants."

"WHAT?!" Katrina forgot her vow of silence in her shock. "I'm not... you're not... how
can I be? It's not possible. What about Dad? I thought he hated mutants. Will he hate
me now? How can you tell? Are you sure?" Katrina's voice was shaking.

"I know because last night at the party I saw your dream. Only a mutant could have made
me see purple elephants fly around." Katrina's eyes widened and filled with tears. Her
mother continued. "Most mutants' powers don't manifest themselves until puberty, and
you've reached that age. You're growing up."

Katrina couldn't hold back her tears any longer. "I don't want to grow up," she sobbed
as she threw her arms around her mother.

...

Katrina sniffed as she lay with her head in her mothers lap. She felt much better now
after having vented all of her frustrations about the previous day, everything from
leaving behind her friends to time wasted on math homework that would never be turned in.
For now she was comfortable just lying there with her mother stroking her hair. "Mom?
Tell me a story about when you were my age? How did you find out you were a mutant?"
Her mother smiled and began the story.

They two spent the next several hours exchanging stories, imagining things they could do
with their powers, and generally chatting away like girlfriends so that one could hardly
believe they had started the car ride with one of the two not speaking to the other one.

...

Around supper time, as Katrina's stomach informed her, they arrived in New York City.
She couldn't help but paste her self to the window, trying to see everything. It was
much bigger than she had thought it would be. "Now, New York is a very big city, so I
want you to be extra careful," her mother was saying. "Don't leave the school grounds by
yourself. Don't carry a lot of money with you. And Katrina, this is serious," Katrina
turned away from the skyscrapers and looked at her, "I want you to practice using your
powers. This is a dangerous time not to have absolute control over what you can do.
That new registration law... I don't think you want to be registered, so don't use your
powers outside of the school. And if anyone comes after you... remember that if you can
make people see things that aren't there, you might be able to make them not see
something that is there." Katrina's mother pulled her into a tight hug just as the
limousine was pulling to a stop. Hans opened the door for them and Katrina stepped out
into a whole new world from the one she had woken up in that morning.

An old black Jeep CJ-5 Pulled around the corner heading torwards the mansion, inside James sat calmly in the drivers seat, a cigarette in his mouth. He had just finished his latest meeting with his contact, he was not happy about the information he was told, but there was nothing he could do but wait for the inevitable.

He was surprised to see someone parked outside the mansion, let alone a limousine, they must have heard the news about the bill, and if they could afford a limousine they must have had a better way to protect whoever it was that had the power. James pulled behind the limo and came to a stop, setting the parking brake he stepped out and closed his door, as he approached them he flicked the cigarette to the ground and gave an inviting smile "Hello there" he said as got closer, holding his hand out for a handshake.

“Hello there,” said a tall, official looking man. Katrina’s mother, Claire accepted his handshake. Katrina peered up at him shyly and wondered if he was a mutant. She had never really thought about it when she talked to people before. Realizing she was staring, she turned her gaze to her feet.

Her mother spoke, “Are you from the school? I’m here to register my daughter.”

James nodded "Yes, I am one of the teachers." he said to the woman. He looked down at the girl that was with her "so that must be the mutant." he thought. James looked to see if Neena was near, normally she knew everything about the new people, "Well the normal welcome party isn't here, but I think I can help, have you sent any information to the school regarding her?" he asked.

A teacher! Katrina wondered what he taught. What kind of subjects do they have at a mutant school? Maybe mutants didn’t have to learn math. She could only hope.

“No, there wasn’t time,” her mother responded. “I hope we haven’t caused anyone an inconvenience by arriving unannounced. I am Claire Dumonde, by the way, and my daughter is Katrina.” And with that she gently pushed Katrina to the fore, forcing her daughter out of the safety of her shadow.

"Oh no not at all, I'm sure we can figure something out, my name is James Quinn." He said motioning towards the front gate, after what he had seen so far of the school, them coming unannounced was normal. "We have other people that could probably be a little more helpful then me." he said jokingly. "So what is your power Katrina?"

“Umm,” Katrina answered as they all headed toward the front gate, “I was asleep at the time, so I didn’t see it, but I was dreaming and somehow my mom could see them too, the elephants I mean, from my dream.” Katrina realized she was babbling. She was still a little nervous about talking to a mutant other than her mother, even though he didn’t look any different than normal people. “In any case, I've only done it once.”

"Well with help from the school you could learn more about it, even how to control it." James said encouragingly, "We have some really good teachers, I'm sure you will like them. As the group walked through the front of the building many mutants could be seen outside, practicing their powers, one was levitating a ball of water, while another was spazing out possibly a power but who knew with these kids. As they approached the front door James realized he hadn't met the head of the school either, but he had met some other important people, and one of them were sure to help.

Quinn’s words were comforting. He seemed like the kind of teacher you could confide in, one that wouldn’t stab you in the back or anything like that. But you could never be too sure… he might be a math teacher. You could never trust a math teacher.

Katrina couldn’t resist asking, “What subject do you teach?”

As they passed through the gate Katrina looked around curiously. People were actually using their powers! Some of them even seemed to be her age, or a little older, perhaps. And the boy levitating the water was kind of cute. Katrina felt a little self-conscious walking past them. She was suddenly very aware that she was still holding her mother’s hand.

"Psychology." James said opening the door, "Though I myself am fairly new here, my classes haven't even started yet, so I guess for now I am just another resident." He said jokingly. As the group moved into the mansion James was wondering where to go next "I don't know any of the offices, so where to go?" he thought "Well this is a school, might as well head to the library." He had mostly memorized the map he had, enough to know where the main rooms were.

“Psychology. Cool,” Katrina’s stomach growled as they walked through the front door.

Katrina’s mother spoke up. “Maybe we could drop Katrina off somewhere she could have dinner and you and I could take care of all the paperwork for her enrollment.” Claire squeezed her daughter’s hand. “After we get everything sorted out, I’ll come say goodbye, okay?”

Katrina nodded, she and her stomach were both fine with this plan.

OOC: sorry, was handling some other things

James led the group tor wards the kitchen "good idea" he said as they turned down a separate hall. After a few seconds of walking the group entered the kitchen, some other kids were already there, preparing some food, "Here we go, add one student." he said to the oldest, the kid nodded and James turned back to her parents, "the offices are right down here, we should have things set up quickly." He said walking tor wards another hall.

Awkward. Katrina didn’t know what to do. She looked over her shoulder at her mother and the teacher were turning the corner and out of sight. What does one say to mutants one’s own age?

Luckily, the oldest student spoke first, a tall boy with red hair who looked to be about seventeen. “We’re having a mini cooking lesson. Tonight’s menu: lasagna. Would you like to join us?”

Katrina nodded.

“You can set your bags down by the door. The lasagna is already in the oven, but you can help us make the salad if you like.”

...

By the time her mother returned, Katrina was both comfortable and full. The other students chatted in a friendly manner, but didn’t force her to talk by bombarding her with questions. They also seemed like perfectly normal people, except for when one of the girls Katrina’s age sneezed and make all the napkins in the napkin holder explode into a snow shower of napkin confetti. Even that was okay though, because someone made a joke about it and they all laughed together.

She waved goodbye to her dinner mates and followed her mother upstairs. Now they were in front of her new bedroom door. This was the hard part. Saying goodbye.

Katrina threw her arms around her mother and tried to absorb her embrace, to take in enough to last her until the next time. Katrina’s mother kissed her and promised to call the next day on the school phone to see how her classes were going.

Katrina couldn’t help responding with, “if I had a cell phone…”

Her mother just laughed and ruffled her hair. Then, with one final kiss and a wave, she left Katrina on her own; replanted in a new place with plenty of room grow.

(Continued in Katrina's Room)