The first time Nina visits Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, she's not there as a student, and she's there with both of her parents.
Ever since what happened in the woods, she's been forbidden to leave their sides; now, though, Papa says, "Go play, but stay where I can see you," and when she looks at Mama, she nods, too. Even though Nina wants to know about what's going on, there's something else calling her, so strong there's not a chance she'll stay behind to try to listen to what her parents are saying to Professor Xavier, Papa's friend who is going to help them.
(Hide them, is what he says to Mama when he thinks she's asleep, or when he thinks no one she knows could be listening in. There's a lot Nina doesn't know about what's going on, but she's not a baby and she's not stupid, and so she knows Papa is really the one who needs to hide.)
She runs over to a tree, not the closest one but not the farthest either. There's a squirrel in it, fat and red and fluffy, and even though she's a grownup squirrel she doesn't have the same ear tufts the squirrels back home do. She's not really sure about Nina at first, because none of the other squirrels here know her yet, so word hasn't had the chance to get around.
Nina could make her come down from the tree, but she remembers what happened with the birds in the woods, the ones who stayed floofed-up and panting on low tree branches after the others flew away again. She still doesn't know what happened to them, because Papa said they had to go, and if he'd looked like Papa when he said it she would have argued, but he'd still looked like that other person, the same one who had told those policemen that if they ran he might not kill them.
She hasn't tried to make anyone do anything since then, so she just talks to the squirrel, telling her who she is, and how much she likes squirrels, and how there are some nuts in the front pocket of her shirt, and how she never goes anywhere without lots of treats, so if the squirrel wants these nuts then there will be even more next time.
It's not too long before the squirrel is convinced, and hops onto Nina's shoulder and starts going through her pocket. While she's eating, she tells Nina about the other animals in this area, and the best places to find food, and the weird loud noises that happen all the time around here, and how a tree burned down the other day.
"Is this a bad time?"
Nina looks up, and there's a guy standing next to her, even though a second before there wasn't anyone. He has silvery hair and weird goggles on his face. "...What?"
"For him." He points at Papa.
"Um. I don't know?"
"Oh." The guy sticks out his hand. "I'm Peter. I think I'm your. Uh."
He's holding something. Nina squints at it. "...Is that my birth certificate?"
"Nope!" The guy disappears into thin air, then reappears. This time, his hands are both empty. He sticks his hand out again and says, "Hi, I'm Peter."
"I'm Nina," she says, shaking his hand.
"I know. I mean, that's cool. What's with the rat?"
"She's a squirrel."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's okay, rats are good too." He looks skeptical, so she adds, "Everyone thinks they're dirty, but they're actually really smart! And they only pee on you because they like you, but they'll stop if you ask them to. It's just that most people don't know how to ask, I guess..."
Peter asks her a million questions, mostly about herself and animals and what she likes to do, but also some stuff about her parents and what it was like to grow up in another country ("Uh, it was normal?"). Then he sees Papa glaring at them—not his mad look, but what Mama calls his 'what the hell?' look—and that's when he says, "Hey, I gotta run. It was great meeting you, though."
And then he's gone.
It's not even the weirdest thing that's happened around here this morning, according to the squirrel.
***
By the next day, she's met most of the animals who includes the school grounds as part of their territory—including, unfortunately, the bulldog, Boris. Like most dogs, he falls in love with her right away, but just like most dogs, he's loud and smelly and stupid (way stupider than any of the rats she's already talked to). She has to spend most of her time telling him to shush so she can talk to anyone else, just so he'll forget again two minutes later.
It doesn't matter too much while she's doing her schoolwork, which Mama makes her get back to now that they're not traveling anymore.
"I think I need at least one more day off," Nina says. "I'm traumatized."
She heard Mama and Papa talking about that a few times on the train, but Mama isn't impressed now. "Nice try," she says, and then Nina has to learn some more fractions and decimals, even though there's a perfectly good day going on outside and a perfectly good sparrow perched outside her window, all just waiting for her.
Eventually, Boris sees the sparrow and whines.
"Hush," Nina says.
***
On the third day, she starts noticing the other kids. The kids at her old school always told her she was gross for being more interested in animals than in them—it's why her parents pulled her out so Mama could teach her at home—but the kids here don't seem to care, or even look twice when she's having a conversation with a deer. It's because there's something weird about all of them, too. There's a kid who can shoot lasers out of his eyes, another kid who's blue with a tail, another who can blow things up with sparkles from her hands.
Papa stays in his and Mama's bedroom all day, because he's still hiding, but he seems really interested when Nina tells him about all the kids she saw today.
"It's good that you're making friends," he says.
She isn't, really, because everyone who goes to school here is a few years older than her and the last thing she needs is friends who treat her like she's a cute little kid. But she doesn't say that, because whenever Mama worries about her not having any people friends, Papa is always the one who says, "Who cares if she's palling around with those delinquents or not?" and so it's weird that he's saying something different now. She doesn't want to disappoint him, so instead of asking why, she tells him about the girl she saw who has fins and can hold her breath for twenty minutes.
***
On the fourth day, she learns there's something worse than being teased about shrews in her pockets and birds on top of her head, when some kid she hasn't even noticed before comes up to her and says he's heard all about her dad. Her dad is Magneto, he says, and a murderer, and the FBI is going to come and arrest him any day now, so she'd better get ready to be an orphan.
Everything goes red for a few minutes, and Nina never remembers exactly what happens next, but at the end of it the other kid's on the ground with a bloody nose and red scratches all up and down his arm. Boris worries at his shoe, growling like an idiot, not realizing the fight is over until she calls him off. The squirrel from the first day wasn't here before, but she's on Nina's shoulder now, trembling.
The other kid gets taken to the nurse, and Nina sits on the wooden bench outside of Professor Xavier's office until Papa gets here. It only takes about ten minutes but feels like at least three years. When Papa does get there, he barely glances at her before he barges into the Professor's office and starts shouting about "How dare you try to discipline my kid! She's not one one of your students!" which is pretty much the way he used to shout at her old teacher, too, except then it was "I don't care if she's one of your students!"
Eventually, Papa stops shouting so loudly, and that's when Nina gets a couple of rats to listen in for her and report back. Some of the conversation is about her power and how she needs to learn to control it, and how even though she's not old enough to enroll officially, the Professor would still be happy to tutor her. Then they start talking about the rumor the kid told her. The way they talk about it—"So who's to blame for this getting out?" "I don't know. I promise you, Erik, I haven't breathed a word to anyone. That said, I'm sure your standing around on my lawn for an hour on Thursday didn't exactly help your cover."—makes her remember the way Papa looked like another person in the woods, and her stomach starts hurting even more than it already did when she thinks that what that kid said might actually be true.
She leaves the bench and goes outside before Papa even comes back out, and even though she expects to get in trouble not only for what happened but for not sticking around to hear her punishment, neither Mama nor Papa say a single word to her about it later, even when Papa gives her a bag of frozen peas for her hand.
***
On the fifth day, she decides it's all that kid's fault. She convinces mice to chew holes in his underwear, and bribes a pigeon to poop on his head.
This time, she does get in trouble, and has to stay inside for the rest of the day. It's boring and awful, especially since the school's rats are all sleeping, leaving her with no one to talk to but Boris. He's dumb even for a dog, and only really has three subjects when nothing else is happening, which are, "I need to go out," "dog biscuits are great," and "pizza is even better." All of his subjects make him whiny and drool-y. Nina thinks she might actually be in hell.
***
On the sixth day, Peter comes back. He brings her some candy and a million more questions about her mutation and her life. It really cheers her up to have someone to talk to who doesn't look really worried or mad, and to Nina's surprise, she ends up telling him about everything that's been going on.
He laughs when she tells him about her revenge, but when she asks him about what the kid said—because she hasn't been able to stand the idea of asking Papa or Mama—he looks down at his bare wrist and says "LookatthetimeIhavetogo," and this time he doesn't come back two seconds later.
Now that she's asked someone out loud, Nina can't distract herself from it anymore. She spends all afternoon wondering, until her stomach hurts so bad she thinks she's going to be sick.
By the time Papa comes to tuck her in—before they left home, she had started to think being tucked in was a little too babyish, but ever since then she's been okay with it—she can't stand it anymore.
"Papa?"
"Yes?"
"Are you really Magneto? Did you really ki—hurt people?"
Papa's quiet for a minute. Then he sits down on the side of the bed and begins by saying, "That was a long time ago, Schatz."
It turns out to be true after all, but it also turns out that Papa is still Papa, and by the time she's out of questions, her stomach hurts a whole lot less than it did.
***
On the seventh day, the Professor takes Nina up to the roof. It's a sunny, cloudless day, but he's wearing a yellow raincoat, and his entire wheelchair has a plastic covering on it.
"All right," the Professor says. "How many birds do you think you can get to land up here?"
"I don't know," Nina says, but it's not really how many that she's worried about, but what will happen to them if she calls them too hard. She remembers hawks panting on tree branches, the squirrel shaking on her shoulder, and she's afraid.
"That's why we're here," the Professor says, and the weirdest thing of all is how he answers what she was thinking instead of what she said. "If you stretch your limits and learn what you can do consciously, you've a better chance of controlling it even when you're too angry to think. Which I certainly hope won't translate to having someone's eye clawed out the next time."
The way he says the last part makes Nina giggle.
"I'll be right here with you. I promise I won't let you hurt any of your friends."
"I guess I could try."
"Whenever you're ready," says the Professor, and it's not too long before she is.