Another Broken Smile

38- Midsummer's Night Dream

"Oh my god! I am freaking out" Adeline remarks as she walks in and dumps her bag on the empty chair opposite to mine.

"You will do just fine" I reassure her as I look up from the paper that I basically scribbled all the mathematical formulae in.

"No, I can't recollect anything" she tells me while still rummaging her bag in search for some papers.

"It will all come back to you when you start writing the paper" I tell her knowingly. Today is our first semester exam. I have Arithmetic while Adeline has a biology paper due in just two hours. We came early to school just to catch up on some revision before the exam. I always feel it helps to focus in your studies when you are surrounded with more people of the same energy. Some people prefer to revise at home before appearing for the exam while Adeline and I are firm believers of revising with each other as we can focus better. As far as I know, most of my friends have turned up to school early for some last minute revision.

I spent most of the next hour skimming through the sums that I have got wrong while practicing at home. It is a quiet study session until Willow comes bouncing in with energy towards our table in the study hall. Her ginger hair is tied in a loose braid and the dark circles under her eyes pronounce her worry for the exam but she smiles effortlessly as she walks up to us. Sometimes I am extremely jealous of her.

"I just arrived by the bus, an hour before the exam and guess what I saw outside?" she asks excitedly jumping up and down. But god! She can be so annoying sometimes!

I try to concentrate on the sum that I have been solving for the past five minutes but can't really come to a proper conclusion as my focus is entirely distracted by the girl jumping here and there trying to get Adeline to listen to her.

"Willow, shut up" I tell her in urgency to get back my focus but I think I do offend her because her smile flickers for a second before it is back and she finally takes a seat beside Adeline. Adeline who was paying no heed to Willow's tactics now is looking at me strangely.

"So, what did you see?" Adeline asks Willow politely after a while. She puts her pencil in her book before shutting it to mark her place.

"You should come and see for yourself" Willow says with bubbling excitement. "It's really amazing Ellie, you should come along too" Willow tells me and I look up from my book disbelievingly at her. I think she only includes me in the conversation for Adeline's sake but trying to practice as much I can by the last minute I decide to refuse. "It's okay guys you go ahead without me, I have a lot to revise"

"We can see whatever you want Willow, after the exam" Adeline explains to her slowly but Willow's excitement has no bounds and somehow she convinces to drag Adeline along with me to the hallways. There are no students in this section of the school today. Everyone in our grade is either at home or packed in study halls and libraries.

There are a bunch of juniors trying to pin up some posters around the hallways. I don't find anything interesting until Willow drags Adeline and me both by our hands towards one of the posters and beckons us to read it.

The poster is beautifully printed in shades of dark blue and purple. The writing on it is written in a silver mist and the poster is beautiful. It announces the winter dance held every year right after our exams. Our school holds the winter dance right after exams and just before the holidays begin. The dance is a wonderful event that I look up to every year. Technically, Meghan doesn't want me to be there but I think I have been pretty acclimatized to sneaking out under Meghan's nose. Last year the theme was Broadway and the school had taken it to a whole new level.

The hallway entrance was adorned with a red carpet and a welcoming arch that said 'night out'. The invitation cards were like premiere tickets to a Broadway show. There were spiraling movie reels used as decorations and everybody was seated in classic black round tables. The seniors were made to walk the red carpet as they entered and a bunch of volunteering juniors stood by the red carpet and excessively clicked photos giving them the treatment of an A-Class celebrity being photographed by paparazzi. As per tradition every year, we have the juniors plan a winter dance for the seniors as it will be their last. We do not have any dance committees in school. The whole of junior year actively takes part in organizing the prom and the winter dance for seniors as a farewell present. The winter dance was organized by our batch last year and it was a blast. I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in organizing the event and the elation of completing the work is a true joy in itself. So I wonder in anticipation what the theme of the dance would be this year. It would be heart breaking if they resort to overused themes like black and white or masquerade or something stupid along those lines.