Westridge Academy, Part One (The Teaching Assistant, Arc Two)

Author's Note: Upon skimming the first arc for a couple details relevant to this one, I realized that Amelia was initially supposed to audit classes on a Monday, yet most of the arc ended up happening on a Friday/Saturday combo. I'll be editing Arc One soon; in the meantime, I'll be committing to the Friday/Saturday concept, in terms of consistency.Monday morning.

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Monday morning.

The alarm on Amelia’s digital clock was unexpectedly harsh. Since her phone was still hidden away somewhere, either in the administrative building or in Ashley’s dorm room, she had to rely on a more old fashioned way to wake up on time. The clock had been a gift from the very girl who started all of this; Ashley stopped by her room on Sunday evening and gave her the simple device. Ever the thoughtful ‘cousin,’ she wanted to make sure Amelia didn’t miss breakfast or her first class of the day.

This was going to be Amelia’s first full school day at Westridge Academy. She had arrived on Friday for what she had been told was going to be a day of auditing classes. In retrospect, what was actually happening was so obvious. Changing into a student uniform, taking an aptitude test, meeting with an advisor, and eventually being sent off to class.

Amelia had always looked younger than she actually was. Aside from feeling a bit self conscious about her size and youthful features, the only real problem she had before all this was having her ID scrutinized by pretty much every bartender. Never in a million years did she expect to be mistaken for a thirteen year old girl, which is exactly what happened when she was registered as a student and dressed for the part.

Putting aside the personal humiliation of students and teachers alike perceiving her as ten years younger than she actually was, there was also the frustration of having no way to prove her actual identity. Amelia had no phone, no wallet, and her file said that she was a transfer student who had a number of troublesome qualities. Without concrete proof of who she really was, no one would believe her. She was still oblivious to the fact that ‘compulsive liar’ was on that list.

Her first day had ended with Ashley and Claire laying out that she was to be a student until she proved that she was mature enough to return to her adult life. Her second day had involved a couple of attempts to access technology for the sake of finding herself online, which she would then be able to show someone in authority to put an end to this mess. By Saturday evening, all she had succeeded in was getting herself written up more times than she could count, which made her look exactly like the difficult teenager she was originally described as.

Sunday further demonstrated how a boarding school like Westridge was dramatically different from the public school experience Amelia had growing up. Rather than getting to sleep in at home, much like she would do on Saturday, students were required to attend worship in the chapel. As her advisor Ms. Song had said, religion was something that the academy put an emphasis on. While it wasn’t as weighted as the core subjects, it was apparently important enough to put on the aptitude test, not to mention the fact that most other schools wouldn’t go near religion due to separation of church and state and all that. However, a more traditional private school could play by its own rules in that regard.

At 7:00 AM on Sunday morning, Claire gave a few loud knocks to Amelia’s door, then simply let herself in with the master dorm room key that prefects were given. Usually for emergencies, but Amelia was a special case. After informing her that chapel was at 8:30 AM sharp, Claire stuck around long enough to put Amelia’s blonde locks in the simple braid that was quickly becoming her student look. As usual, taking away her last physically mature feature. With no make-up, no heels, and nothing but a camisole for her chest, Amelia looked painfully young compared to how she normally presented herself.

Not only was the service almost an hour and a half long, but Amelia had to sit in a pew with her ‘classmates,’ knowing full well that she looked just like everyone else around her while in uniform. While she was tempted to sit with Summer, as being part of her clique could still potentially lead to having access to a phone, Amelia had been humiliated enough the previous day. That had been bad enough in front of a small group of girls; the last thing she needed was for Summer to do something that would lead to the whole chapel seeing her naked, for example.

Piper would have been a nice girl to sit next to, but Amelia hadn’t spotted her before the service started. She just took a random seat, and followed along to the best of her ability, mirroring the sitting, standing, praying, etc. of the girls to her left and right.

Afterwards, there was Bible Study for an hour. Amelia might have been a straight A student throughout her life, but this was a new subject for her; while she went to church intermittently growing up, her family hadn’t committed to going every Sunday. While she knew Westridge was a religious institution, Amelia hadn’t anticipated that being part of her experience as a teaching assistant, as she had only planned on being there between Monday and Friday each week.

Similar to her afternoon classes on Friday, the instructor gave Amelia material that she would be expected to learn on top of the other catch-up she was on the hook for, some of which would be on her retake of the aptitude test.

Amelia’s Sunday afternoon was entirely dedicated to studying. Between the rigorous nature of Westridge courses and the fact that what she had recently learned in college was a far cry from what she was taught throughout her adolescent years, Amelia had to re-teach herself a lot of Science and History. It was one thing to memorize names, dates, facts, terms, etc. at a normal pace; she found it a lot more difficult to cram all that information back into her head over the course of a single weekend, even if she had known most of it at some point in her life. She also had to complete the assignments for the classes she took on Friday, and re-read sections of the student handbook to make sure she wouldn’t get any infractions moving forward. Religion would have to wait.

The only time Amelia left her room was to grab a quick bite at the dining hall. She did plan on seeing where things were at with Summer after all the hazing; unfortunately, the clique of girls wasn’t around at dinner, so Amelia just sat alone for as long as it took to finish her meal, then retreated back to her room. Making friends was probably a good strategy in terms of borrowing technology from someone, but she just didn’t have the energy for it after such a long weekend.

While Claire visited her in the morning, Ashley swung by in the evening. Aside from giving her the digital clock, Ashley also wanted to remind Amelia what she was on the hook for–a whole week of classes, rounded out by the aptitude test that she needed to pass. Otherwise, it would be another week until the next one.

Amelia had showered last night, as she wanted to give herself plenty of time in the morning to get dressed and have breakfast before her first class at 8:30 AM. At this point, she had somewhat resigned herself to her fate; putting her mind towards her classes was a safer way to prove her intellectual maturity to Ashley. There also wasn’t a lot of time to dedicate towards brainstorming escape concepts when she had so much schoolwork and studying to do.

Five more days. Surely she could pass the aptitude test the second time around, when she was actually prepared for it.