Ivy walked the school hallways and waved at multiple people. Her friend Francesca, walking beside her gushed at her popularity.
"You should watch your back; someday it might lead to your doom!" she was saying.
Ivy laughed. "It just runs in my family, I guess! My mom was the most popular girl in her high school days!" she shrugged.
Even the teachers were fond of her. She was a straight A student, captain of the cheerleading squad and also dating the captain of the football team. All at the age of 17.
"Never mind that, explain to me what happened last night? Lyvvi told me you went home with Demetrius last night." said Fran, nudging Ivy.
Ivy blushed. Olyvia was her nosy, gossip of a neighbour. "Well, after-" She was cut off by the fire alarm. All the students ran for any door they saw, some even jumped out the windows. They we're on the first floor, anyway. Panicked, Ivy and Fran ran to the fire exit on their right. Outside, while everyone was lining up, Ivy spotted three delinquent-looking people running to the forest. They must've been the ones who started the fire.
Rage boiled inside Ivy. What the hell was wrong with these kids? She had it all thanks to this school. If you took it away from the equation, what would be left of her? Her boyfriend lived on the other end of town; there was no way they'd end up going to the same school again! Her popularity! She was popular with the entire school. Put her in a new school, no matter how many people followed her, she'd be a fish out of water. Angered, she squeezed her fist and shut her eyes tight. They wouldn't get away with this!
"Hey! Look over there!" The next thing she knew was she was hearing this everywhere. She opened her eyes with a gasp and stared at the scene in front of her. The three juveniles were surrounded by trees with some sort of green leaves entwining its way up. The three were surrounded with no escape; they were cornered. One actually had the bright idea of climbing the tree. He fell down and laid there for a good ten minutes. Everyone thought he died or something, but then he started itching really bad. He went so mad he kept trying and failing to climb the same tree over and over and over again.
Ivy felt exhausted. Something wasn't right. She started to feel dizzy. She looked over to Fran and saw three Frans. She felt overheated. Then everything went black.
She woke up a couple of hours later, on the ground. Francesca and Demetrius were hovering above her.
"W-what happened?" she stammered.
"You fainted. What's the last thing you remember?" asked Franny.
"Umm, the three guys and the trees, I think." said Ivy, frowning. She sat up. The trees were still there and there were a couple of police officers and white-lab-coat people surrounding it, but there were no people otherwise. "Where is everybody?"
"Everyone went home. School's cancelled until further notice, too." grinned Demetrius.
"This is definitely not on my list of smiling matters! Don't you realize how grave this situation really is?" Ivy freaked.
"Calm down! Mayor came by and told us all to watch channel-5 news tonight or read the paper tomorrow. Must be something regarding this little… incident…" said Demetrius.
Ivy got on her feet and Fran and Dem rose as well. "Well, where'd those trees come from?"
There was silence. And then Francesca reluctantly spoke up. "Ivy, they're saying it was you."
"What?"
"You're the most popular girl in school, so naturally, everyone turns to you when they don't know how to act. I told you it'd lead to your doom!" Fran said, cryptically. Ivy shot her a "what?" face.
Dem, used to Fran's antics, rolled his eyes. "Several eyewitnesses say they saw you, fists clenched and eyes shut tight like you were concentrating right before they appeared. Then, it didn't help when you fainted. It looked like exhaustion, which raised suspicion."
"What, so everyone thinks I'm some kind of witchcraft master?"
"No, more like a superhero." said Dem, kissing her lightly.
Channel-5 news was by far the most exciting news Ivy had watched in ages. The mayor went up and started talking. First he explained what happened.
"Three juveniles have been caught and identified. However, their identities are being held secret for protection. These delinquents burned down a part of Sir Boggs Greene High School this afternoon. There's not much to say about it, other than it was an interesting and very unfortunate event. However, there have been no deaths or injuries."
Then he gave some lame speech about how you shouldn't do things like this. Then shit got real.
"We'd like to offer a moment to thank our saviour, today. Ivy Thompson somehow manifested trees out of nowhere that trapped the criminals." A picture of her came on screen. "These trees were covered in climbing toxicodendron diversilobum, more commonly, poison oak. This prohibited any chance of escape by climbing for the oil soaked in rapidly, causing a rash. It is inexplicable how she managed to do it, but she's a real hero."
Ivy nearly fainted again. "I couldn't have really done that, could I?" she spoke to herself.
"As for the school, I have plans to donate to the rebuilding of what was lost. This school is historical and losing it would be a great shame. Anythi-"
Ivy shut off the TV and went to bed.
The next morning, Ivy watched a recap of the news with her parents, while reading the paper. The newspaper said basically the exact same things as the mayor himself. Although she caught something she'd missed last night when she shut off too early, was that school was out until renovations were complete. Under normal circumstances, students would've been transferred, but because it was early June already, the mayor decided that this was enough mental trauma for one year.
Not too far away, in a completely different city, a woman turned off the TV and set down her paper. "Finally, it's about time they started waking up."









