Roaring Heart

TURN OF EVENTS

 Monday morning Elin woke up excited and thrilled. As for the knee, she didn't know if she should feel calm or resigned: it had begun to hurt her again. Her personal trainer had told her to stop trying to train her legs by lifting weights, and instead to increase the stretching exercises. Anyhow, any time she jumped, the pain was worse, but worse still, why did only the left knee hurt? "Well, I suppose I should be relieved that it's only the left one" she thought, to reassure herself. Besides, that afternoon she would meet Ami's grandpa! Maybe it was a hunch, but she could feel something special was about to happen, something she would remember for the rest of her life. Silly? Could be. So why did she feel thrilled as though she had never been so far?

"Come on, he's only an average grandpa like anybody else, and remember kiddo, today you're going for business, not fun" she told herself.

She did everything fast and furious: in fifteen minutes, she had washed, dressed up and finished breakfast. To her sleepy father who was asking her why she was leaving so soon, she answered she'd be back late in the evening cause she'd study at a friend's, and not to worry. She went out and fresh air hit her face. It was a cold April morning, but the sky was clear and blue.

"The weather's gonna be really sunny today" she mused, smiling at the cotton candy clouded sky. She looked at her watch: it was ten to eight. She had another twenty minutes all for herself, before the bus arrived. She made good use of that time by revising some geography. The teacher loaded them with homework, as though he wanted them to get old studying! It was obvious however, that apart from Mary, no one else in her group had studied seriously, busily lost in their thoughts. She was considered the group 'geek', being the one who: studied the hardest; was good in all subjects, etc. Fortunately, she wasn't the usual 'I-know-it-all' girl, who everyone avoided. On the contrary, not only was she brilliant, but really nice too and she was as happy-go-lucky as can be. She wasn't all into rules that much either, an unusual side for a student so brainy, going so far as breaking those she thought were annoying and useless. She worried a lot about her friends and couldn't stand them being wronged. Furthermore, along with Ami, she was considered one of the prettiest girls in school, with her long, wavy black hair and light brown eyes. How could the geography teacher accuse her of not hanging out with the right people? "Oh, I know she'll make him pay! Mary isn't one who doesn't react, and above all, she's true to her word; if she mentioned she was gonna scare the guts out of him, she'd surely do it", she thought, getting on the bus, which meanwhile had arrived, and going to sit next to Ami.

Neither of the girls managed to concentrate on classes for more than twenty minutes that day, because they had other stuff to think about. Ami said she had a surprise for all of them that afternoon, and the others did nothing but bother her with questions in order to make her spill the beans. Unluckily for them, she didn't tattle. On the other hand, the maths teacher snapped:

"Portrait, Smith, Moore, Thompson, Itō - if you don't feel like paying attention, you can get out!"

"Sorry teacher, it's just that I don't feel well and my friends were only giving me advice on how to get rid of my headache - you know - all those hours bending over books, in front of the computer studying!" Mary answered, with an expression of suffering worthy of an Oscar. Even aware of the fact that Mary was very good at lying, her friends would never have believed she could have been so treacherous, when one second earlier they had been chatting about completely different things. From his expression, the teacher had obviously fallen hook, line and sinker for it.

"Oh right! In this case, Smith...why don't you go and get some fresh air?"

"Great idea, Sir!" said Jill, getting up and looking at the teacher like she'd never seen one in her life, "Actually, you know what? We'll keep her company, just in case!"