The Rock's of Beauty by Meghan Escott (books for new readers TXT) 📕

and I turned after finishing to see that Cassius had done the same to the right side of the room. “Thanks.” I said quickly and proceeded to take all of the tables off of one another and give them spaces around the room, leaving the middle square blank of all tables and chairs. I sat back at my desk and looked at the effect – giving me space to teach and for the students to experiment. I exhaled a large breath and the bell rang and the names appeared on the desks. “Why don't you sit down Cassius whilst I teach my class?” I said to Cassius after motioning to the seat behind my desk, walking towards the closed door and pushing it open.
The babble of talking and laughter stopped as I stepped out into the corridor. “Come on in and take a seat anywhere.” A brave girl spoke up.
“What about the names? They'll burn us.”
“What names?” I clicked my fingers and the names disappeared from the tables. “There are no designated seats in my class, as you will find out.” I walked back into the classroom allowing the flow of year one's to enter my classroom and find a seat and take it. “I am going to do this teaching thing a little different from the previous occupant of this job.” The same brave girl rose her hand from her seat in the first row on the left. I nodded at her to continue.
“Can we ask how Ma'am?”
“Please, call me Lucy. I do not care for Miss or Ma'am. And you can ask anything in my classroom. How you ask. Well first, the seating plan. Nothing of that. I believe that you learn better when you are in a nice and comfortable environment – sitting next to your friends or sitting on your own, I do not mind as long as you learn something in my class. Second, you are free to write notes to me anonymously or named and give them to me any how whenever you would like and I will do my best to answer the question as best as I can to you personally or to the whole class. Thirdly, you can ask questions in class whenever you would like. I do not mind being interrupted for a good cause. Since you are Year One, you will not know much about vampire culture so I assume you have a lot of questions. Please, fire away!” Practically everyone in the class raised their hand to ask a question of some sort. I laughed softly and smiled to them all. I turned to face Cassius who was still sat on the chair looking at me astonished.
“Would you mind popping into my office and getting this classes files and take notes for me considering I don't know any names yet?” Cassius hopped up and did exactly that all lesson whilst I was stuck answering questions about anything and everything that you should know in Year One. I jumped when the bell rang to signal the end of lesson one and I saw the rest of the class do the same.
“Now remember guys, any time you have a question, slip a note under my office door or come and find me and I'll be happy to answer it for you.” I said to all of them as they hurried out of my room and to their next classrooms.
The second, third and fourth lesson was merely a repeat of the first – explaining what was going on and introducing myself hoping that they would all trust me enough to ask me the vital questions that they must want to know and at break, I was relieved when I saw a note slipped under my door that was named and yeared as I had requested. I also had many more a lunch after I had had the year four lesson which was extremely interesting. I took all of the notes that I had collected and returned to my classroom finding Cassius tidying up my desk of files from my office.
“The year ones are at the top, year twos next and so on in the coloured dividers. I thought you might want some order to your classroom.” He said smiling at me. I walked over to a desk and pushed the one next to it together and sat down, spreading the notes around me. Cassius joined me and took the notes out of my shaking hands and finished spreading them out for me. “Why don't you get something to eat or to drink?”
“I'm not hungry. I'd rather do this. Plus, I have to plan what I'm doing with this extra magic class this evening.” I clicked my fingers and a notepad and pen landed in front of me and I set to work while Cassius sat and watched me. After a while I grew tired of sitting on the hard chair so I moved to my office where I had a nice and comfortable chair and a large desk to accommodate all of my items.
Chapter Twenty Four

For months and months, nothing happened apart from the normal – lessons, magic, dinner, sleep – and nothing significant happened in my lessons either. Questions kept coming through the small space between the floor and my door and I even found a few on my desk and as I had promised on answering as many as I could, the best that I could and my students seemed satisfied.
However, I knew something bad was happening when I started getting a pain in my head after feeding from the same women in the morning of a Wednesday. It started off as a small pain and as the day continued, the pain gradually increased until it was nearly unbearable and for the first time since I had started teaching – I sat down in a lesson.
All of the students in my year 4 class stared at me and dropped their hands from the questions they had wanted to ask. Cassius came over to me and crouched down next to me.
“Are you okay? Why are you sat down?”
“The pain in my head... It's not bearable any more... It's going to kill me Cassius.” I had to breath deeply before getting my words out and Cassius put his fingers on my head and pressed softly.
“You're getting a mental message from someone. Maybe we should get Sam down here and see if he's had a vision or something.” I could only nod to getting Sam and Cassius quickly left my classroom to go and find him. I turned to the white board that I had requested to be removed from my classroom and picked up a pen. I tried to stand up but found that I couldn't. I pocked up another pen and wrote the first piece of homework that I had ever set in this class. I pointed at the closest person in front of me and they came over to my desk. I gave them the piece of paper and the pen.
“Please write this on the board for me.” They nodded their okay and did just that. I watched him write in his lovely neat handwriting while Cassius and Sam came back into the classroom.
“Darling what's wrong?” Sam looked concerned.
“Head... someone's sending... mental message.”
“I've got one too though not as advanced as yours. I don't know -” Sam grimaced in pain the same time as I did and there was a screeching noise in my head that was burning and hurting me. Evidently, Sam had the same screeching noise. We were both breathing heavily and I was trying not to scream. “It's from the Head. The screeching is his signature. We must resist it Lucy. We have to.” Sam said this in a whisper even though the whole of my class was silent and listening intently.
“Okay. How do we make it stop?” Sam took my hands in his and pushed painlessness in towards me and I quickly embraced it, breathing a sigh of relief as the pain died down. I pushed the same back towards Sam and he also embraced it quickly, running out of my classroom and back towards his.
“You can start your homework task now if you would like.” I said quickly to the class who were staring at me in silence. They all jumped into action getting notebooks and pens out of their bags to do the homework that I had set. I slumped backwards in my chair and felt a cold flannel being pressed to my forehead. I opened my eyes to see Cassius' hand pressing on the flannel. I gave him a thumbs up of approval and he smiled at me.
I went to lead extra magic after school and tried to be my normal self although the rumours had already spread and student were giving me weird looks. This was the worst time for me – when students looked at me like I was one of them and not a teacher who should be respected. All of the teachers including Sam and Grace had come out today – normally only a few would come out – which made me want to scream. It didn't help that I lost to a year three after manipulating water too much and collapsing.
Cassius was there a second later helping me up and giving me a bottle of blood to sip to try and get my strength up but it didn't work and he had to carry me back to my room where Sam and Grace had ordered me to stay until the pain was bearable again. My classes were suspended and the magic had been cancelled until I was feeling better.
The next day I stayed in bed where the pain was there again and burning at my brain. I was sat up and leaning up against the headboard when the vision came on. My head dropped to one side as my eyes rolled backwards into my head and my eyelids shut...
What seemed like a moment later but was a whole hour later, I opened my eyes to Cassius' relief and he stopped shaking my shoulders.
“What was that?”
“I have visions now. Are you telepathic?”
“No. Why?”
“I can't remember it. Someone's read my mind during the vision.” Cassius was at my door in a blink of an eye and he opened it to see someone sprinting down the corridor.
“I can not leave you to get him Lucy. So we will find him soon, have him tell us of the vision.” I nodded and closed my eyes as my head slumped against the pillow as the pain accelerated and increased once more.
The next week I started teaching again because the pain was bearable and I went the whole day as I normally would – not letting anyone know that there was something or anything wrong with me but I could feel the imposing danger creeping and creeping, waiting to pounce on me. Getting nearer and nearer until magic training after school.
We were in the front of the school near the front gates which were