Okay that alarm is a sign she is important. This girl is not good at this.

"Oh relax," she half-teases, half-reassures. "I don't want money or power or whatever it is you've got."

She doubts the girl has a convenient way to never go back to the Walston home. That's the only thing she's got on her realistic wishlist.

"I'm just bad at not digging into things. If I tried, it'd keep poking at me."

She gives a small smile, "You'll have to tell me what you figure out then." Hopefully she'll stop at the more mundane secrets like her name. Elemi reaches over and fiddles with her braids a little. "What about you? Any secrets I should be trying to figure out?"

"Oh definitely not. Nope."

She's obviously lying. Not remotely trying to hide the fact.

Maybe it's the fact that she's secretly been desperate for an actual friend, or maybe it's the fact that this girl seems weirdly harmless, but she doesn't feel like living a lie with her. At least not fully.

If she turns out to suck, she can just make sure she only knows red herring secrets. And if that doesn't work she was doomed anyway.

"I won't dig if you don't want me to. And if I notice something anyway, I'm not in the habit of sharing people's secrets."

Before Hailey has a chance to respond the bell rings and the teacher stands up from his desk. He gives the students a few seconds to settle down before he speaks. "Hello everyone and welcome to Galileo High. I'm Mr. Franklin."

There's a brief rush of fear at the thought of being outed to the school, and what her aunt and uncle might do about that, but she doesn't let it show on her face.

Instead, she tilts her head ambiguously at Elemi, and pays attention to her homeroom teacher.

The rest of the students settle down quickly enough. "Alright, I'll be taking attendance and passing out your schedules. Please pass the schedules backwards until they reach the right student. Then I'll explain some of the quirks of the school here." He picks up an attendance sheet. "Abbot"

A girl somewhere behind them calls "Here."

Attendance continues from there. Mr. Franklin passes schedules to kids in the first row based on where each student is sitting. There's twenty students here so it takes a while.

Simple enough. She participates in the rituals of homeroom. What classes does she have before lunch, and when's gym?

Her schedule doesn't seem to align with days of the week, but the teacher soon resolves any confusion on that front.

"For today we'll be running a modified Day 2 Schedule with homeroom moved to the start of the day. The schedule will rotate as normal from there with the Day 3 Schedule tomorrow. As a reminder, attendance will be taken at study halls. And you are required to remain on school grounds even during I blocks.

That means her schedule for today is: Composition, Python, Gym, Lunch, History, Stars and Planets.

Interesting. Okay, she can work with that. She takes some notes about her schedule. Does Elemi seem to have any interesting schedule reactions?

If she reads it at all she reads it very quickly. Then she puts it away. She doesn't have much of a reaction. She already knew what classes she was taking so when isn't too important.

Is this the kind of homeroom where they talk, or are they mostly getting a briefing on what school is like?

This time it seems more of the latter.

"I Block is an exercise in trust that the school is placing in you. You're expected to use it either under faculty supervision or working quietly in one of the various common areas. Some school clubs schedule meetings during I Blocks. As long as you use it responsibly you'll continue to have the freedom to use it however you want. If we find that trust is misplaced you will be assigned a study hall during that time.

"For the most part this homeroom will be time that you can use however you want but attendance is again mandatory, and if you get too loud I will have to enforce stricter rules. Also when I do have important announcements I'll need you to pay attention. Does anyone have any questions?"

Hailey does not have questions about any of this. Hailey wants to know if she'll be able to change in the bathroom instead of the locker room for gym, or whether the locker room has stalls, but that is not a question she can just ask. 

She also wants to know if any of the counselors are going to ask her questions that will require answers that lead to more beatings. Again, not a question she can ask.

She'll have to wait and see, she guesses.

Elemi doesn't ask any questions either.

A couple other students have clarifying questions that Mr. Franklin answers. Then after there's no questions for a time.

"Okay, feel free to talk quietly amongst yourselves. Next block will be soon."

She looks over to Elemi. "Wanna compare?"

"Sure." She takes her schedule back out and hands it over.

They have the same blocks for Proofs, Stars And Planets, Exercise and Pre-modern history.

"Looks like we've got some classes together," she remarks when she gets her schedule back. "That's neat."

"It is, and we even have a few of them today."

"We do. If they go well enough, maybe I'll even tell you about how I'm secretly a witch."

She's not a witch. Life would be so much easier if she was. Also why the fuck is she cracking jokes about this, Aunt Eloise would throw a pan at her.

"Somehow I don't believe you."

"Wise," she replies with a laugh.

Elemi giggles.

The bell rings again.

"I'll see you in Exercise class."

"See you then."

Off she goes to Composition. Probably first day classes are all very introductory?