Girl on Fire

Chapter 8

"WE'VE FOUND YOUR CHOCOLATE!!! COME DOWN HERE NOW BEFORE WE EAT IT ALL!"

Ali and I practically leapt out of bed and ran downstairs. We ran into River on the way there and he looked just as confused as we were. We all tumbled downstairs and ran into the sight of Jemma brandishing a mini mars bar in our faces.

"Finders keepers!" She said happily. "Plus, there are 4 others so we can have one each!"

"Chocolate?" Ali said, "We have been eating chocolate bars for ages! I want something different."

"What? You've been living off chocolate bars!" Jemma said, "You lucky things. We have had to survive on crackers that we rationed and it was not very nice, I'll tell you that!"

"Well trust me," I said, "chocolate gets boring after a while, as demonstrated by Ali here who would usually do anything for even a chunk of chocolate! Not starving to death is a good incentive to eat it though!"

"Hmm, I guess. Now, lets go and join Jessie at the dinner table!"

We followed Jemma into the dining room and sat down at a scruffy table with Juliet and Jemma.

Juliet grinned sheepishly at us, obviously slightly embarrassed at her state last night.

"Hi, guys," She said quietly, "Do you want to eat now?"

"Please yes!" Jemma said, ripping her chocolate bar open and taking a small bite.

"Mm," the twins said simultaneously, then Jemma, "how did we LIVE without chocolate?"

"Well, it is kind of hard to buy chocolate when you have no-"

"Money." Jemma interrupted her sister

"Wait a minute, " I said, "If you..."

"Stop!" Jemma interrupted, "I know what you are going to say: the reason that we don't use our jewels for money is that, one, they are like acid and they burn to the touch and two, they happen to dissolve after about a minute."

"Ah, that's where they went." River said. "I was wondering at the time, when you attacked the guards I mean. They just seemed to disappear, but I didn't ask because we had more pressing problems at the time."

I snorted. "Good to know how observant I am in battle, I didn't even notice whether they were there or not!"

"Oh, no it's okay! We were slightly distracted at the time." Jemma said before her sister had even opened her mouth.

Juliet opened her mouth to talk but, as usual, her sister got in there first.

"Oh, as Jules was about to say, we need to leave about now."

"Wait, what?" I said, "Isn't that a bit fast?"

"No," Jemma said, "we have, like no food left so we need to find this place before we... run out." She glanced cautiously at Ali but she didn't seem to notice.

We finished the rest of our chocolate bars and, though Ali and I were complaining about the chocolate bars before, we scoffed them down quite fast. By the time we had all finished, there was not one spot left on the packets not licked and not one speck of chocolate left anywhere.

"Okay then!" River said, trying to sound optimistic. "Shall we pack all of our stuff now then?"

"Yes!" Jemma said excitedly, jumping up from the table and running out of the room.

Juliet followed her in the same kind if way that a dog followed its master.

"Jeez," River whispered in my ear. "You can't tell the difference from when Juliet was drugged up to now, her sister barely gives her a chance to talk!"