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It was, all in all, pretty sick to go from being a small child (barely ever at the nursery, adored and coddled apple of Lindy Naaktgeboren's eye, not so adored and coddled apple of Mia Naaktgeboren's but still pretty much in the money, two ready-made twins who lived next door whose applesauce he could eat and whose presence he only had to endure at night when they were tired and easily pushable-overable) to growing up to being a larger child.

Larger child brought larger responsibilities. Casca was rethinking having grown at all.

The first hurdle, of course, had been the fact that as a fully-blooded gargoyle he was stone every day. His mother had put her foot down. "I am not sending you to night classes," she said, "there's got to be something we can do about that. It's glandular, am I right." ("So's his face," said Mia.) So they looked around and found a small but thriving gargoyle community -- and after painstaking effort, his bitching, and general pissed-offedness, eventually relented to the unobtrusive bracelet around his wrist. It was silver and engraved. It kept him awake during the day. Awake was a relative term, though; the first Monday that his mother brought him into school, he was looking around with the blank stare of a boy who had been up way too long past his bedtime and wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.

"Here it is, your Place of Education," she said. "Don't you think you'll enjoy this much more than having to be homeschooled by Mimi?"

"Mmf," said Casca.

"Don't you think you look cute as hell?"

"Mmf," said Casca.

"Don't you think I love embarrassing you?"

"I'd like to go back to be with Mia, mum," he said, "I find her intriguing and delightful and stuff."

She ruffled his wealth of grey-and-blue curls -- barely contained back in a hairtie, a shortish ponytail -- and the health teacher brightened as she spotted a boy coming down the hall. "I love your vocabulary. You are the sunshine of my life. Hey, bubba, I need to get to my office. Don't worry, I'll see you in your homeroom too -- Antony! Antony, could you come here half a tick?"

She was gesturing towards a tall, blue-haired teenager with impeccably neat clothing. Casca privately gave him plus five points for general appearance, but was guardedly worried about the fabulous hair. A vaguely friendly smile crept across his face, marred by general tiredness, which made him look a little like he'd been hitting the tylenol. It also revealed a couple sharp teeth.

Smile couldn't be too big. Antony could be lame, after all. And he was a teenager to boot.

"Cascati Naborn," said the younger boy, all politeness, and he held out his clawed hand. He was a total change to his effervescent mother: he was poised, even. "Well now, nice to meet you, Antony."

"You couldn't just show him to the junior classroom and the cloakroom?" said Ms. Lindy. "And quit it with the 'Naaktgeboren', it gives me hives. Even if you do say it beautifully. -- It's just his first day, and I have to go and open up my office. I'm sorry to throw you into the soup. You have a million friends, don't you? Give him to Nacho if the world starts to get too much with you -- see you soon, sweetie!"

She hurried off, multicoloured, down the passage. Casca shrugged one shoulder artfully as though to say, Mothers.

The new girl was dark, redheaded, and feathery. It looked as though school was going to be exactly the type of mixing pot he dreaded. Casca hid his enormous yawn behind one clawed hand, sleepily trying to take in the newcomer as well.

"Morning to you too, little lady," he said. The little lady part was said after a slight pause, as though Polly was the furthest thing from a little lady you could ever get. Polly was out of the friendship stakes, he decided.

Casca's own tail flicked, a little in annoyance. Antony obviously hardly wanted to be bothered with two juniors so below his lofty station, and Polly looked like a scrabbledy urchin. Life was not looking fantastic. "So you're not," he said, sounding amused about it, "sorry."

He shrugged his hands up in front of him, as though to say, lead the way. "Sooner you show me the cloakroom, sooner we're out of your life, cher ami."

"'Along came Polly'," said the gargoyle boy easily. "I'm Casca. Are we going to go and find the cloakroom or are we going to stand out here in the corridor for ever? Not that I mind, but I do recall my mother asking you to, and it just breaks my heart in two pieces that she's obviously not the kind of teacher you respect. Kidding, kidding."

(He didn't sound like he was really kidding.)

The classroom was the usual quiet abuzz with activity -- Casca had never seen so many kids in his life, all doing their own little private thing. He went out to the cloakroom by himself to find a hook to put his bag on, and came back in to try to see if there was anyone who looked like he should immediately want to be friends with them: he did not look anxious, more considering.

"Thank you kindly, Antony," said Casca. "You can head on back to the Hall of God or wherever it is you older kids get to go." He smiled again. There were the teeth, but he was a gargoyle, it wasn't necessarily threatening. "Thank you from my mother and me."

His eyes slid over to Chris. Casca was a little bigger than the other kids, but Chris was seriously larger than Casca.

Casca immediately decided to join in with Chris: even if he wasn't sure of the other, enormous demon-boy yet, it was a case of I am against my cousin, but my cousin and I are against the stranger. "I bet we can handle ourselves," he agreed affably, edging over to stand by the tall dark boy and Polly clinging on. "Thanks for everything, Antony. Arrivederci."

"You're a f**, Antony!" came Jace's voice from the back of the room, and this was followed by bizarre smooching noises that were obviously meant to be his sweet homosexual kisses. (Jace's swearing had become worse of late. The signs all pointed to Akili Dexter.)

"Shut the hell up, Antony, you want me so long and so hard," came the girl's voice from the back, "and I heard you laugh, Chris, your a** is grass!"

Considering the girl looked an incredibly rough'n'ready tomboy -- yet another redhead, with her metal feet up on the desk -- Casca could not really see the incipient wanting that she was accusing Antony of. He turned his attention to Chris. "Casca Naborn," he said, running his claws through his mop of curls. "Hi."