Melissa Oakham; Mayview Elementary's top kid detective. [Paranatural/Pale]

[TreeFrogSoup]

AN: We'll make an assumption that Melissa's like, one year younger, ish?

"Hey, Melissa Oakham, right?"

Melissa made an exaggerated effort at turning around from her new locker to glare at the girl who called her out. Sadly, a full half second pause of her staring at the younger blonde did not perturb her, nor did it even motivate the shorter boy aside her to pull her away.

So she sighed heavily as a backup strategy, exhaling the aura of being both tired and uninterested, as if she was asked to mop the floor of the entirety of Mayview Elementary.

"What is it now?"

The blonde girl in pink clothes and shades was undeterred. "Hi! My name's Suzy, It's absolutely great to see the second new kid here!"

"She doesn't feel that way about us," the boy aside her mumbled, at least having the social grace to understand deliberately weaponized awkwardness when it was used.

Suzy however, was immune. "Do you want me to show you around?"

Melissa looked the girl up and down once, then shrugged. "If you think I'm dragging my bummed leg-" she said, tapping her bad leg, which still had a brace on it ever since the not-quite an accidental fall in Kennet "-up some stairs, I have bad news for you."

Suzy looked at Melissa's foot, and only then noticed it. "Ouch, That looks painful. How'd it happen? Parkour? Skating accident? Soccer practice with a lawnmower on defence?"

The boy snapped. "Suzy, You can't just ask things like that!" He yelled. "It's probably a personal issue and she's obviously trying to tell us both to leave her al-"

"Dancing incident," Melissa supplied, mostly to annoy the boy. "I was meant to do a jump, landed funny, whole foot came off."

He winced. "Ouch, that sounds painful."

She took glee in his cringing, and leaned in for the emphasis, a not-friendly smile on her face. "They said that my foot was only connected to the rest of my body by a small flap of skin."

"Sweet!" Suzy cheered with absolutely misplaced enjoyment. She had a notepad and pencil out, already scribbling down on it as she talked. "We should totally add that to the school newspaper, right, Collin?"

"No! That's a terrible story to add!"

A slight frown formed on Melissa's face. "It's my story, ya jerk. I think it's perfectly fine to tell others," she lied shamelessly.

The younger, blonde girl beamed with excitement. "Exactly! It's thrilling, it's dark, it's tragic! It's what the world needs to hear!" Suzy draped herself against the wall of lockers, acting out a fainting fit for emphasis before immediately springing back to her own two feet, clapping her hands together. "Oh! Do you want to join the journalism club? We have like, four members already, but if we get five we'll absolutely outnumber the Activity Club!"

"We don't have four members!" Collin spat back. "You probably scared off Max by being a goddamn creepy maniac!"

"Maniac, schmaniac! He'll totally join!"

Melissa thought about rejecting Suzy's proposal, but she thought about Kennet, ad the advice she kept ignoring from Lucy and Avery. They told her to at least open up again, and stop rejecting people. The two witches weren't wrong; she just wanted to be bitter about everything that happened at that time.

Fuck it, she thought. I'll take the plunge. Let's see what kind of mess this'll be like.

"Okay, You're looking for new members for your journalism club, right? Hit me with the pitch."

"You poor fool," groaned Collin, in both equal parts cringe and dread.

Unwilling to let the boy suffer without reason, Suzy beamed brightly that the opportunity to gloat about her disaster of a club. "I'm soo glad you asked! Mayview Journalism Club are the writers and editors of the premier-"

Collin interrupted. "-only-"

"-newspaper of mayview elementary!" Unfazed, the nearly all-pink dressed girl had pulled out a roll of sellotape and had started wrestling Collin in an attempt to stop his constant heckling via brute force. Melissa had almost admired the tenacity. "Where we uncover the truth about Mayview, as well as cover recent events!"

"I see."

"Also, I wanted to do an interview with someone new, getting a fresh perspective on the school. We have this other kid, Max-"

"I see," Finally putting her books into her schoolbag, Melissa closed her locker. "I have my next class with Mr Spender. I gotta hurry."

Suzy repressed some kin of a reaction at Spender's mention. "Okay, see you around!"

"I guess I will," Melissa said as Suzy and Collin, who was fighting his way out of partial sellotape mummification with a pair of safety scissors both left.

She immediately turned to the red haired kid in her class who was watching her from across the hallway.

"Okay, what's up with the staring, creepo?"

The boy froze. "You uh- saw me?"

"Of course I did, you're not that good at hiding," Melissa smirked.

At least, she thought, you can't hide from me.

Finding things was her thing. She could figure out stuff easier than others. It's what she learned, after Hailey stole a bag from Verona Hayward. She found things in there, and eventually, though she wasn't friends with any of them, she stubbornly worked her way into a world of more. And from that, she settled into the skill of finding out things that others wouldn't be able to. Hidden objects, hiding people, answers to mysteries and questions.

"Oh. Okay. I was just curious. You're new, and Suzy... she can be intense?" the boy hedged.

Melissa frowned. "Don't care, let's just go to class."

They made it down the hallway, and the redheaded boy led the way into the classroom.

"Isaac O'Connor," Mr Spender said. "Why are- ah, you must be Melissa Oakham. Great to see you. Find a free seat, I think there's one next to Serge."

Melissa took a look in the classroom as Isaac, who was the red haired boy who was spying on her, sat down, and her eyes started dragging across the room away from him, taking everyone in. It was normal, just like Kennet. But this time, she hadn't poisoned her relationships with everyone. There wasn't a relationship to poison.

She almost missed how Isaac's eyes changed slightly in the light, exactly how Avery, Verona, and Lucy's did when they thought she wasn't looking. Almost.

They made eye contact, and Isaac looked hurriedly away as Melissa lowly limped to her seat, next to Serge, a kid wearing an attempt at a suit with a black t-shirt with a white collared shirt underneath.

Hopefully, this summer wouldn't suck as badly as the last one.