Part 1:

I had never seen Grampa more angry. He was always the calm one, asking my Gramma to calm down and not to let her feelings get in the way of thinking. Of course, they were rarely ever angry at me, but because my Grampa never yelled, it never crossed my mind that he could. I thought the one yelling would be Gramma, but she was so mad that she was crying, which happened frequently enough.

"Look, sir, I can't give the go-ahead on your granddaughter's enrollment. It could make the other children uncomfortable, make other parents worry for their children's safety, and that's not even getting into the reality that... non-humans age differently than the rest of us. By the time her peers are fully matured adults, she's still going to have the body of someone who's eleven or twelve."

"My granddaughter's mind - which is all you need to be worried about - is as sharp as any other eight year old's, and it's about damn time she meets some people her age," my Grampa yelled, spittle flying into the principal's face. "She's been lonely her entire life because all she's had are us two old geezers to teach her and keep her company. She needs friends, god damnit!"

I had never heard Grampa swear before.

"Sir, with all due respect, your granddaughter is half Lamia. And, if the registry is correct, the mother's subspecies was coral snake. Is your granddaughter venomous?"

"She's bit me plenty, and I'm perfectly alive," Grampa retorted. "Everything of hers from the waist up is just like you and me. Safety isn't the problem here, it's you and your small-minded nonsense!"

The principal looked as though his face was about to crack like a glass dropped onto the floor. "That does not change the fact that she's only half-human. This is a school established by humans, for humans."

"Does it look like I care if she's half human?" Grampa was shrieking now. I think his words were echoing down the hallway. I wanted to curl up into a ball, and, given the length of my tail, I absolutely could have. "After her parents passed, my wife and I have been doing everything in our power to keep her safe. Keep her fed. Keep her educated. Keep her happy, loved, and, for Christ's sake, more tolerant than the likes of you human-supremacist shitstains. She's different from us, but look at her!"

I started to get scared as the principal's eyes flicked to me. It was a gaze full of confusion, fear, and other things I couldn't understand. My heartbeat got faster. I felt an odd sensation in my teeth. I started to cry. My mouth gaped open, and a yellow fluid dripped out of my slightly-tipped canine teeth and started to leak out of my mouth. It was as though both halves of my body were crying in perfect unison, the Lamia half mourning its rejection and the human half broadcasting its worry.

My Grampa turned to me and scooped me up, holding my upper half in one arm and using his other arm to gently guide my tail around his arm and shoulder. I leaned into him, still crying and oozing venom and getting them both all over his dress shirt. "It's okay, Milana. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

My Grampa turned to the principal. "We're leaving, but this isn't over. My granddaughter is a citizen of this country, and she will be enrolled here, whether you want her to or not."

At the time, I didn't realize what he meant was, "We're suing your ass into Hell and back."

And that's what my grandparents did. At first, they worried that they wouldn't be able to afford the fight, but with a number of sizable donations - the largest one being from my mother's Lamia sisterhood - and two years' worth of court dates and suffering, we won. Grimm v. Penelope County Board of Education.

I was enrolled into the 5th grade when I was ten years old. I was at least three inches shorter than most of my classmates, even though my body was technically longer than two of them put together. A lot of the other students (mostly boys, strangely) thought it was cool that I had a snake tail, but I got in trouble when I showed them that I could produce venom (it turns out Lamia fangs don't really come in until eight or nine years of age, which my grandparents couldn't possibly have known). Even my Grampa was on their side. He said I could really hurt someone if I wasn't careful.

At fourteen, in eighth grade, I had my first boyfriend. I wound up towering over him, but that was just because he was short. He had his flaws (we were middle schoolers, after all), but he taught me that I can find people who really, truly love me. I gave him my first kiss (and he gave me his), but we broke up after about nine months.

At sixteen, I got a driver's license. I didn't crash any cars, but my Gramma had to stop using manual transmission vehicles because I don't have two feet and I can't reach the clutch and the brake at the same time. The first place I drove to after getting my license was the grocery store (predictably).

At eighteen, I graduated high school. My grandparents were the proudest people in the universe, I think. My grades weren't stellar, but I made it. I can still remember how Grampa went around to all of his friends after with a photo of me in his wallet telling them, "This is my granddaughter. Look at her!"

At twenty, I realized I wanted to be a teacher. Elementary school in particular. In college, I majored in education and managed to get good grades this time. I graduated, at twenty-two, with flying colors.

At twenty-three, I got my first job teaching. My first class was a little scared of me at first, but once they got past the snake body they warmed up to me. Maybe a little too much, even. Agreeing to let them all sit in my lap at once was a bad idea...

At twenty-four, I got married. Honestly, he isn't anything super special. But watching him sucker punch a woman who was belittling me was great. I'm certain if someone played the footage back, they would be able to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with him.

At twenty-five, a series of studies between Lamia and human scientists came out that revealed that, genetically, reproduction between Lamias and humans quite literally restructures the human DNA to introduce genetic diversity while keeping every Lamia female and snake-y. As it turns out, I was never half-human after all, but I was still half of my father.

At twenty-eight, I laid eggs. Super uncomfortable, but it beats childbirth any day. I laid two. I had to stay at home for five months to keep track of them (not to mention the financial burden of getting an incubator), but once my daughters arrived I couldn't have been happier. My husband wanted boys, but if he felt that strongly about it he wouldn't have married a woman who can only produce girls.

Gramma never got to see the girls. She died one week before they hatched. All it took was one untied shoelace and bam. Her head smacked on the counter and she would never get up again. Never get emotional again. Never make me laugh or smile again. Never beat cancer through sheer willpower and absurd chemotherapy doses ever again.

At her funeral, my husband and I had one girl each tucked away in our arms, using the same hold Grampa always used for me when I was little. One hand supported the body, the other held the tail. It always helped the girls stay calm when there was something to coil up around.