Settling Slowly

Chapter 31 - Spooky Houses

"Zoey, what have you done?" Dad asked as soon as I came down for dinner later that evening.

I grinned. "I have made my cast awesome! Look at it!"

I'd covered it with coloured rhinestones in umber and dark green. It was going to look so cool when sunlight caught on it and bounced around. I'd done it in the sort of pattern you'd see lace made in and I loved it. It had taken all afternoon.

"Zoey," he groaned. "You've just made it impossible to x-ray your arm with that on."

"They're the kind without foil backs and I glued them all on by hand. The gamma rays will still go through." I sat down and started eating the pasta that was in the bowl in my place.

"The saw won't be able to cut it off."

Ok, so he had a point there. I had a feeling I had a bit more apologising to do the next time I was in hospital. On the plus side though it was covered in glue. "It's now waterproof against general spills."

Knowing there was nothing he could now do Dad just sighed and ate his dinner. "You're on your own when Mark tells you off."

"But it's awesome, right?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "It is kinda awesome."

* * * *

After that life returned to normal. The next day, Mum went to work a little early to get a head start with her catching up, Dad went to dog training with Archie, Grigory went to work and Dan and I sat around doing homework. It was the same sort of thing for four days, but then Thursday afternoon rolled around and I was getting ready for my date with Grigory. Nervous, but excited butterflies were already flapping around in my stomach, but that was because I still had no idea what sort of outfit to put on. At least, that's what I told myself.

I ranted to Grigory by text about my predicament, but he just stayed silent and was probably chuckling to himself. I looked for sympathy from Lexie, and got some in the from of 'I hate it when they keep it secret :/'. At least someone understood.

In the end I settled on a pretty awesome ankle length skirt I'd got yesterday thinking that if we were eating out somewhere posh it was smart enough, but if we were going outside it was long enough to keep my legs warm. It wasn't a particularly posh skirt, but it had some blowing in a breeze potential, I was able to take strides as long as I liked and it was pretty. It was made with a five different panels of material which were asymmetrical across the body and hitched up a little on the left hand side as I looked in the mirror so that the material kicked out a little on that side. Each panel of material was slightly different, but all were mostly black with umber hues with flashes of red, some gold embroidery and sequins. I pared it with a black, off the shoulder crop top. It was a long one and the skirt was high waisted so I was only showing a little skin between. The jewellery was easy to do - a few thin gold bangles, a chunky black and red one and matching necklace and earrings. I put my feet in sturdy, but not chunky black boots.

My make up was easy - eyeliner to make my eyes more cat shaped, but not too heavy as it was magnified by my glasses anyway. My hair though... It was still short so I couldn't actually do anything to it.

I sent a picture to Lexie and asked her if she thought it was too much.

Someone went from duckling

to swan! You look great.

But you need lipstick!

I didn't own any, but I had cherry flavoured lip stain. I put some on, sent her another picture and met with her approval. Just then Grigory knocked on the door. I guess he thought he might run into Dad. I swapped my green glasses for my black ones, and hurried downstairs grabbing a jacket on the way because although it was warm and sunny right now, we never did know what our British weather was going to throw at us.