Tigers of the wild

  This story is based on a roleplay Simba and I made and roleplay together, and I'm calling it bluewater because our roleplay is based on a roleplay that Simba made here called Bluewater High. 
 
    Chapter One
  It was the first day of school. Perfect, Bella thought sarcastically. She was nearly sixteen, and in tenth grade. She hated school and trying to fit in, to be human, something she wasn't.  Bella Moore was really a cat. Not the type of housecat, but more like a lion in her true form.  When she wasn't a full lion-like creature, she looked partially human. Her skin was really very short fur, which is why humans thought it looked odd.  She had hair, which helped cover her ears, as long as she kept them down. Still, she wore a hoody, because if not, she felt nervous, like anyone would know her secret.  Her hands were wore paw-like, and luckily she could retract her claws.  Everyone allready thought of her as odd, though, so that wasn't that bad.  Luckily her tail went away in her human-like form.  
    She drove to school, Bluewater High.  She parked her yellow mini cooper, which had a white roof, as well as two white stripes down the front and back.  Locking her car, she took her schedule out of her pocket and walked to her first class.  There were other people there, but they were all standing around in different cliques.  There was a bench near the door of the class, and only one person sat there. Bella couldn't see the person's face, because he had an oversized hoodie on, and his head was bent down. From the features she could make out, she thought he was male.  She sat down beside him awkwardly and studied her schedule, bored.
    "Andoti?" the boy said, then, and Bella was confused. 
    "Do you have Andoti for first period?" the boy clarified. 
    "Oh," Bella said, understanding.  She grew suspicious that the boy was reading her schedule, but she turned to him, and his face was still down. Why was he trying to hide? She was a cat, and she didn't even try to hide as much as him.  "Yeah, you?"
    "Yeah, that's why I'm here," he replied, without lifting his face from the floor.  "I don't want to walk all the way to my first class in the rain from anywhere else."
     Bella felt guilty now, for almost accusing him of reading her schedule. Of course this boy would know this was her first class, she was sitting right in front of it.  This day would be worse than she thought.  
     "I'm Melvin, by the way," the boy said after a while. His voice held an odd emotion, and then he looked up at Bella at last. Bella could tell he felt some sort of confusion. Did he expect Bella to be scared of him, or to think he was odd and walk away? 
     "I'm Bella," Bella stammered awkwardly. 
     "Can I see you're schedule?" Melvin asked.
     Bella nodded and handed him her schedule. She almost thought his skin looked like hers, short fur, but then he turned away to look at her schedule, and she figured she was only imagining things. Then she saw his hands. They didn't look like hands at all. They looked like...paws. No, she was surely going crazy, hallucinating probably. She just wished there was someone else like her nearby, especially at the same school, with the same homeroom or class. 
    "We have the same classes," he said, the blankness from his voice replaced by shock as he handed Bella her schedule back.
    Bella was going to reply, but then, as she took the schedule, she saw his hands again, near hers and she reached out.  They looked the same, and she looked up at him in shock as he looked down.
    "You're one of them," she whispered.
    "Are you scared, or do you think I'm a freak?" Melvin said, and there was a hard, harsh edge to his voice. Bella realized he hadn't seen her paws, didn't know she was like him.  She let her jacket slide farther back over her paws and touched his hand. He looked up in shock, and she saw his face clearly. He was blushing, but then he looked down and understood. He looked up at her strangely. He seemed to be struggling for words. Then the bell rang.
    "I hate the creature I am," he whispered with a very harsh edge, echoing Bella's own thoughts. Then his voice softened and became gentle, "But I never thought I'd meet anyone else like me." 
    He quickly grasped my paw tightly, with an odd protectiveness, and he ran to his class, pulling me along after him.