The School For Gifted Kids

Chapter 7: Elle

I felt dizzy. The barrel of the bottle stared me down like the barrel of a gun. "Oh, an interesting one." No spoke a word. The place was more quiet than Christmas store on st. Patrick's day.  "So, Elle, will it be your first?" Valarae smirked. "What?" I gawked at her. Who'd be rude enough to ask?! Valarae snorted. "Your first kiss." She waved away her own question. "Why am I
even asking? Obviously it is." The crowd responded with a loud 'oooooooohhh...'. Valarae grabbed the bottle to decide my fate. Time slowed down as the bottle spun. I started breathing heavy, my heart a sledgehammer. I no longer relied on crossing my fingers, that brought me no luck. My only hope was that a mass murder happened, killing everyone. And Valarae spun the bottle.
I felt filled with adrenaline as it spun, once, twice, three times before settling on..."Ben!" I gasped. We met in the middle of the circle, my palms sweaty. We just stood there and stared at each other. For a long, longer, longest time. Finally Valarae intervened. "Fine..." She huffed. "You guys don't ha-" He took me, dipped me, and lastly, kissed me!

I felt dizzy again, but not because the ominous threat of a kiss from a stranger, but because I had just been kissed by my crush. He had saved me from embarrassment, and made my day. Valarae and few of the other girls were staying at her house, but me, Ben and most of the other girls 'n guys were taking the train back to the dorms. I checked my phone. It was way past curfew! I frantically alerted Ben of the late time. He responded in a laugh. "We have much later curfews on Fridays." I let out a relieved breath of air. I relaxed. "I thought we were screwed for a second there." He chuckled again.

I ran into him again in the hall that Saturday, and once again, he helped with my books. We started chatting about school and stuff, But quite suddenly, his mood changed to serious. "Elle, we need to talk. About Willa." There go my palms again. I should get that checked out. I tried for the casual approach. "What about Willa?" It turns out the answer to my question came walking down the hallway. In a right green miniskirt and Lacey crop top. Is was like one of the slow motion montages, as Willa waltzed down the hall. In theoretical slow motion, she stopped to check her makeup in her compact and shook her hair off her shoulders. Then everything zoomed back to normal. "That." Willa walked up to us. In an extremely sassy and rude voice, she poked our noses. "Ellie baby..." poke. "Benny boy..." poke. She continued down the hallway, stopping every so often to fix her eyeliner or to flirt with a member of the foot ball team. Once she had disappeared around a corner, I whipped around to Ben, anger in my eyes. "WHAT THE FREAKIN' HECK WAS THAT?!?" I stared at Ben for a couple more until I realized that everyone was staring at me. I cleared my throat and fixed the wrinkles that upset my shirt. I tried again, in a lower voice. "What, er, who was that?" I uncontrollably started to pace. "I don't understand! What happened to little ms. Perfect who never wore any makeup." I did a spot on impression. "My grades aren't high enough!" I put on a distressed pout. "My aunt will just kill me if I don't get A plus pluses. Apparently, A plus is too low." Even Ben had keep a firm hand over his mouth to hide the giggles. My antics were interrupted two kids  who came bouncing down the hallway. "Tyldy! Nick!" Ben smiled. I stopped my fussing. Whenever I saw new students fitting in I always made me grin. "Getting used to the school?" They both nodded. "I am having a little trouble figuring out this map." Tyldy bit her lip. Me and Ben, in perfectly synchronized time, both stated: "Upside down."

The four of us hung out for awhile, until cerfew kicked in. We all went our separate ways and fell asleep. For a while, at least. I woke up to my roommate Grace violently shaking my shoulders. "Wake up, Ellie!"I groaned and rolled over to look at my alarm which conveniently read 2:19. I grabbed a pillow, threw it at her head and used the other to block out the noise. She pulled it off and once again shook me. "Ellie!... Wake up! Ben's here."  The last comment got me going. I sat up and stared at the door. Ben waved. I put on my glasses, and discreetly ran the brush I kept on my bedSide table through my hair. I pulled on my slippers and walked to the door. "Heyo." He grinned. Those teeth! "What are you doing here at this time?" I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "I thought the door would be open. Most girls leave there's open." Graces voice was muffled under the sheets. "So he decided to knock. Loud!" I blushed and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind me. He smiled. "Come with me." We walked down the halls, into dark tunnels I've never seen before. We finally came to a heavily padlocked door. He squinted through the lock, and started making odd motions with his fingers. "What are you doing?" His fingers relaxed as a satisfying click could be heard. "Opening the door. I use my telekinesis to unlock the bolts and stuff. Quite simple really." He pushed the rusty thing open. I gasped as we entered a magnificent chamber. It was circular, like a castle tower, and had shining ivory stairs with mahogany handles curling towards the top. "Whoa." Ben stepped forwards and explained. It seemed that this was an old stairway from when the building was an actual castle. It was only then that I noticed the backpack he had on. I questioned him but he just smiled and beckoned me to start climbing. I gasped again when we reached the top. We were on the roof, the full moon gleaming bright. Stars twinkled in the distance. "C'mon!"  Ben helped me across the steeper part of the roof and we sat down in a spot where the roof turned. Ben pulled out a red velvety blanket from his backpack and we sat down. "So, what did you want to show me?" Ben pointed up at the sky. "This." The sky suddenly lit up as a meteor shower out in space danced through it. We sat there together, wrapped in the blanket, and sipping hot cocoa stolen from the cafeteria. Just as it was about to end, it was like a timer inside both of us went off. "Elle?" Ben asked. I turned my head to him and he kissed me. Not as some stupid game, but for real! A meteor streaked behind us.