Historia drove the truck to school on Monday. The windscreen wipers were going the whole time, and Historia regretted not bringing a rain jacket to school with her. She had an umbrella, which would have to do. She parked her truck in the school carpark, and got out. The truck dwarfed the smaller cars beside it, and Historia felt slightly conscious of how it stood out. Historia wasn't about standing out. She had mastered the art of simply being the kind sibling who didn't overshadow the legitimate Reisses but didn't bring any shame to the family's name.
But that didn't really matter here in Paradis, did it? She was at a new school where nobody would associate her with her father. She could be whoever she wanted here.
"Hey, you're the new girl, right?"
Historia spun around. A lanky girl in a flannel shirt stood behind her, a sandwich in her hand.
"Uh, yeah."
"Cool. I'm Sasha, I'm supposed to show you around."
The morning involved Sasha showing Historia around the school and going off on tangents about various things, often with a mouthfull of sandwich. Sasha was in most of Historia's classes, barring Biology.
"So if you didn't have me, you'd probably be sitting over there by the water cooler, or worse, in the toilet," Sasha explained as they entered the cafeteria. "But luckily, I have friends and we sit at a table. Hey, that's them. CONNIE, HEY!"
A boy with a buzzcut looked up and waved them over. "New student?"
"Yeah, this is Historia. She's from Maria."
"Aren't people from Maria supposed to be, like, supermodels?"
"Hey, that's not nice," Sasha said.
"Hey, that's not what I meant, you're not ugly, you're cute as, you're just..." he gestured with his hands, indicating height. "Short."
Historia laughed nervously. "Yeah, I know. It runs in the family."
"You think your life is hard? I'm a highschool junior in size 4 nikes," Sasha said as she sat down at the table.
"Actually, I'm size 5," Historia corrected, but she appreciated the joke.
Over the lunch break Historia was introduced to the other people who sat with them; Marco Bott was friendly and had freckles, while Jean Kirstein was unfriendly and had an ugly haircut.
"Oh my god, it's them," Marco said. Historia looked up to see a group of four students enter the cafeteria. Two were boys, two were girls, and there was something about them that stopped Historia from looking away.
"Who are they?" Historia asked. Her gaze lingered on one girl who was sitting on the cafeteria chair in a relaxed manner.
"They're the Fritz kids," Sasha answered. "They're adopted siblings, which is why they don't look like each other or share last names. They moved here a couple of years ago."
"They're super weird too," Jean continued. "They barely talk to anyone that's not in their cult-family."
"Except Reiner. He's cool. He brings beer to parties and he never gets a hangover," Connie said. "One time Sasha slapped him in the face."
"Yeah, but we're friends now. Anyway, the other three are kinda quiet and yeah, super weird. They live out in the forest in this massive house. Their mom is basically like Batman, because she's rich and has a whole heap of kids. Except she's not that rich. She's just like, regular rich. And nothing like Batman. She takes the kids out hiking whenever the weather's nice."
"Wouldn't that affect their attendance?" Historia asked.
"The weather isn't nice very often," Marco said. "It rains like, 90 percent of the time."
Sasha continued. "Reiner's the blond, he's friendly enough. The tall guy next to him? That's Bertholt. He sweats a lot and doesn't leave Reiner's side. I think they're a couple but I don't really know."
Historia must not have been very good at hiding her shock, because Jean jumped in with an answer.
"I know, it's gross. They're not actually related but we don't talk about it."
"The blonde girl, not much taller than you? That's Annie," Marco said.
"She's terrifying," Connie said. "I heard she's been to juvie."
"That's just a rumour," Marco said. "But she's still... cold."
"Whatever. That last girl? The one with the brown hair? She's definitely been to juvie. Ymir's rude and a delinquent and every other word you could use to describe her."
Nobody rushed to defend Ymir.
"Is she really that bad?" Historia asked. She earned a chorus of "yep"s and a couple of "yes"s and one "yeah" - that was from a random passerby.
"Hey, pass me your schedule. I wanna see if we have classes together," Connie said. She passed it to him so he could look.
"Ymir was held back a year, so she's in our grade," Marco said. "Earlier this year, she got into a fight and was suspended for a week."
"Poor Daz. He was never the same."
A silence followed. They'd told her all she needed to know about the Fritz family.
"So anyway, Historia." Jean put his iced coffee aside. "Why did you move here? Paradis is like, the worst town."
"Oh." Historia hadn't expected to be put on the spot like that. "I moved here to live with my uncle. Because my dad got a new job that means he has to move around a lot, and I didn't want that. I wanted stability."
"That makes sense, I guess," Marco said. "Although Paradis isn't the worst town."
"Yeah, the worst town is Stromberg over the river," Sasha said. Historia recognised the name as Paradis High's rival school.
"Oh, no," Connie said. "You have Biology with Mrs Rolfe?"
"Yeah, why? Is something wrong with her?" Historia's heart hammered. Was she stuck with a bad teacher? She'd had a few before, and those classes were hell.
"No, she's fine, it's just..." Everyone around the table shared a glance. "You'll see."
Historia didn't like the sound of that.