The Secret of Ruby

Mild sunlight shot through the windows under the Tyndall effect and poured into the midday classroom. Coral, pillowed in the sunlight, looked at the blackboard covered in chalk marks. In front of the blackboard, Emmonson Getty was clutching a stack of test papers. Grandma Getty was an elderly teacher with a slightly arched back, gray hair, and light-colored pupils that were kind and gracious. Today, as usual, Grandma Getty was announcing the results of the previous day's quiz in the setting sun. This was Coral's most hated part of class. Every time it happened, the short flaxen-haired girl would fiddle with her fingers impatiently while lowering her head to avoid Grandma Getty's gaze. Grandma Getty, meanwhile, paced between the rows of desks, her mouth slowly mumbling the grades, “Peliana Glendale, 9 points.” Coral continued snapping her fingers. “Tania Cardenas, a 10, the only one in our class with a perfect score.” There were gasps and applause from the classroom. “Liam Walston, 8 points.” Grandma Getty had read off most of her classmates, but not Coral yet. “And finally...Ronne Owen, 8 points.” Coral didn't end up hearing her name. She took a breath and slowly brought her head up, a helpless look in her placid tan eyes. “Yesterday was our fourth practical magic quiz, and for the subject of elemental magic, practice is more important than theory, and the practical exercises are difficult.” Grandma Getty continued to speak amiably and slowly, and “For those who didn't read their scores just now, and for Cardenas, come see me after school.” At the end of his speech, Coral probably understood Grandma Getty's intention, the corner of his mouth turned away, and his whole body was spread out in his seat breathlessly, waiting for the school bell to ring, only then did he detach himself from the half-dead state, stood up and drooped his head like a zombie and walked towards the outside of the classroom. Outside the door, Lyrakko Fitzroy was waiting for her friend Coral. The dark purple haired girl was already tall and stood straight, making her even taller. Her soft demeanor carried a hint of nobility, and her mannerisms were so elegant that she didn't show a hint of anxiety despite waiting for Coral for a long time. It wasn't until the tan, mushroom-headed girl shuffled out of the classroom that the long-haired girl's round, pinkish-purple eyes reflected a bit of light. Unlike Lyraco, Coral was honestly not that short, and whether it was because the school uniform she wore was obviously a size too big, or whether it was a matter of her soft personal demeanor, she always gave off the impression that she was a small person. In addition, Coral's face is round, soft features, quadrilateral eyes at a gentle angle, from the face, is also a weak and well-behaved look. Unfortunately, the words that came out of the girl's mouth in the next second had nothing to do with either “soft” or “nice”. “Goddammit, what bad luck!” Coral cursed. “What's wrong?” “We can't go together after school today,” the short-haired girl tsked, ”I have to go to Getty's office.” “Did something happen?” Lyraco asked again. The Coral she remembered had trouble even initiating social interaction with other students, let alone initiating a teacher. So presumably something had happened to force Koral to make this visit. “That annoying old woman told me to go to her, supposedly because I failed the elemental magic quiz again.” Lyrakko froze in a dumbfounded “Oh” for a few moments before remembering to reassure, “I get the feeling that the elemental magic you guys are learning is supposed to be pretty hard.” Coral raised an eyebrow and smiled instead, “No, it's very easy, it's just that I'm a dumbass who can't learn it well.” After saying that, she paused, her expression lightening down: “You go ahead today, just don't wait for me.” With those words, Coral walked quickly towards the way of the teacher's office. Leleko seemed to have something left to say, she somewhat hesitantly stretched out her arm as if to pull Coral, but touched nothing, so she could only watch in a daze as Coral's backtracking figure gradually left her line of sight. * The sky outside the corridor has quietly darkened, but the lights inside the corridor are not lit up. Day and night were the dimmest times of the day in the school. Coral groped his way through the darkened corridors. If he wasn't mistaken, he was probably the only one in the class who hadn't had his grades read to him. Coral sweated. Soon her thoughts were confirmed; the only people in Grandma Getty's office were Getty herself and Tania. Grandma Getty's office was located in the school's top attic, where there was only one book-sized window, the light was incredibly dim, and the flames of the fireplace were bared, baking the entire office dry and stuffy. Inevitably, such an atmosphere made Coral feel uncomfortable, and only clutched the locket on her chest as if that would ease her nerves. Luckily, Grandma Getty remained mild-mannered, greeting Coral and Tania as she rubbed her old glasses, and Tania had a friendly and patient look on her face, so Coral was much more at ease. “Coral Lusentiman,” Getty pronounced her name slowly, ”I called you here today for no particular reason, just to talk to you about a recent problem in your studies.” “Uh-huh.” Coral was a different person at this moment than she was in front of Leleco, the previous disdainful look was gone for a bit, instead, she nodded her head obediently and softly like an innocent white rabbit. “Miniature Cloud, in the last classroom test, you were the only person in the entire class who failed to even generate water vapor.” Grandma Getty's tone didn't carry a hint of reproach, just lightly spitting out a fact. Noticing Coral's pitiful expression, Grandma Getty added comfortingly, “Don't be discouraged, mushroom-headed child, I didn't call you here today to speak harshly, just to tell you that perhaps it's time for you to spend more time on Elemental Magick.” “Okay.” Koral's voice was still as tiny as a mosquito as well. “I'm getting older myself and don't quite know how to get along with you guys anymore, so I called Cárdenas over here thinking I'd get her to help you with some tutoring.” Grandma Getty said as she patted Tania Cardenas on the shoulder. “Cardenas, what do you think?” “I'd love to be able to help my classmates.” Tania was an enthusiastic person, the long black-haired teenager's fighting spirit in her bright, blue eyes. In this magical study school where humans and vampires mixed, the race of humans had no advantage in terms of overall grades because of the difference in magical talent. Tania, on the other hand, broke most people's stereotypical impression of humans, and she was able to flawlessly master both basic and magical subjects. As the study committee member of the class, Tania was also the only one with a perfect score on this quiz, and her academic performance was unrivaled among the human students of the same grade, and thus trusted by the teachers. “And you?” Grandma Getty's deep eyes gazed at Coral, “Would you like to take tutoring?” Coral held her breath as she looked at Getty. Unwilling. That was Coral's first thought. To be honest the most basic classroom was already considered t*****e for Coral, after all, this body of hers seemed to be inherently at odds with magic, unable to learn all magic related subjects. Under these conditions, going to school also brought far more pain than pleasure, making her spend one more second a day at school was like adding to her sentence. But when Coral thought about it, not being able to learn magic for a long time wasn't a problem. Maybe a little focused tutoring would get her started. So she agreed. * The moment Tania walked out of Grandma Getty's office with her, she began to talk excitedly about her long-winded tutoring program: “First, I need you to set aside an hour and a half after school to talk to me beforehand, do you have any clubs or part-time jobs during the week?” “I don't have any of those.” Coral put on a pristine innocent smile watering down her face as she looked at Tania. “That's great, the time after school Monday through Friday can be used for tutoring.” As soon as Tania said this, Coral regretted her earlier answer. Might as well compile a few fake club activities for a few days off, Coral hated it in her heart, cramming five days a week in a row was a bit too tiring, it just wasn't in her realm of acceptance. But with Tania's motivated look, it was hard for Coral to say no outright. “My house is a bit far from the school, so if I tutor for an hour and a half, I might not be able to catch the magic power train home.” Coral scratched his head and smiled bitterly. It was a lie - Coral currently lived only a kilometer closer to the school, and she had never taken the magic power train to school. “Would it be okay to change it to an hour, then?” Tania asked. “Well ......,” Coral gulped, even an hour was a long time. But now that he'd agreed to tutoring, it was a bit too much of a wimpy thing to go around finding excuses to avoid it. So in the end, Koral again chose to compromise. “An hour is fine.” She still had her harmless smile on. “Good,” Tania said, ”then I'll talk about my specific arrangements, first of all, implementing the theoretical foundation.” “I feel like I'm learning my theory just fine.” Coral said. “It can be implemented a bit more,” Tania replied briefly, and resumed to start rattling off her ideas, ”Then follow the syllabus and practice the basic forms from each element. ” Even after only a month of school, Coral had almost figured out her classmate's personality, and realized that Tania was a stubborn person, so it was not good to grind things out with her, so she simply responded perfunctorily with the attitude that she obeyed the other party in all matters now, “Uh-huh.” “I'll show you everything.” “Uh-huh.” “Then I'll let you do it again, and I'll look for problems by observing your posture in summoning elemental magic.” “Hmm.” “So from now on, the first element we're learning about is water, can you please tell us the exact definitions of free water and bonded water?” Coral froze. This process was moving too fast, wasn't it? Cramming now? And what kind of question was this? A quiz on biology? “...... I'll think about it.” Coral hadn't slowed down yet. “It seems you're still having trouble with basic theory,” Tania commented, ”This is the kind of concept that needs to be memorized and answered quickly when asked.” Not required at all, where does this have anything to do with elemental magic? You're totally here to spite me, aren't you? Coral cursed in her own head. However, she knew that she couldn't say anything to Tania, and in the end, she could only shut up and obediently listen to Tania's various teachings. In this way, time quietly flowed away like water, the snail-like slow-moving hour hand turned 360 degrees, and the bright orange light outside the house also moved down with the rotation of the hand, gradually falling below the horizon. Coral walked out of the school when it was already completely dark, originally the end of school was relief for her, but because the cramming was so exhausting, she was even losing the strength to relax, dragging her body like a zombie, arching her back as she walked forward. It was hard to walk a few steps, Coral almost tripped over a stone on the road again, she was so angry that she kicked hard at the stone, which was kicked far away, but the landing point was still in Coral's course of action. So Coral simply kicked the stone continuously as she walked along the night road, and kicked it all the way to her doorstep.