Ghostly Friends

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

News about the fight travelled around school fast and since Liana had no injuries to show, everybody believed that she had dominated. This brought about an interesting change to the school’s social circles. Half of the school remained loyal to Lisa while the other half were starting to approach Liana.

“Did you really beat Lisa up? That’s so bad ass,” A girl with red curly locks said to her in Ancient Studies class.

“Do you want to hang out with us tomorrow?” A boy with black dreads asked and although Liana politely declined, she was beaming. Acario was watching all these interactions with amusement clearly written all over his face,

“What?” She asked, finally turning to Acario who was smirking,

“Nothing. I am just enjoying your new found popularity. Are you enjoying it as much as I am?”

Liana grinned, “Actually, yes I am. Who knows? Perhaps by tomorrow I will be even more popular than Lisa.”

Acario raised his eyebrows at her, “Just this morning you were the one saying that you don’t care about popularity,”

“I lied,” She laughed, “Anyway, you’re just jealous,” The bell rang,

“Liana, may I please see you for a moment,” The whole class stared at her, wondering what she had done and her cheeks turned bright red,

“See you in maths,” She mumbled to Acario before going up to Mr. Potter’s desk.

Mr. Potter waited for the last straggler to leave, “Is it true that you beat up Lisa and sustained no injuries at all?” He looked like he knew,

“Well…”

“I knew it. You have to be more careful, Liana!”

“But I didn’t do anything! It just healed  by itself!”

Mr. Potter ran his hand through his hair, “Did anybody see the injuries?”

Liana thought for a moment, “Lisa definitely did but I think my hair was blocking the view from Brett so I think it was only Lisa,”

“Ok, that should be alright then. We’re just lucky your strength didn’t decide to show. Just try to be more careful from now on, ok?” Liana nodded, “You may go.” So with that she left the room, her previous happiness evaporating. She really did have to be careful from now on if she didn’t want her secret to get out.

It was Thursday lunchtime, one day after the fight had occurred,

“Man, Liana, I’ve never had to fight for your attention before, it’s exhausting!” Marcus exclaimed as he sat down next to her under the tree.

“Me either. It’s quite sad, I want to be the centre of your attention,” Acario stated before biting into his ham sandwich.

“Ah the woes of being popular,” She joked.

“Liana!” Liana looked up to see Brett and half of Lisa’s group, “Is it ok if we sit with you?” She raised her eyebrows,

“You want to sit with us?” She questioned, pointing to Acario and herself,

“Yeah, if it’s alright with you,” Liana looked between Marcus and Acario,

“We can talk at home,” Marcus spoke before disappearing. Flora was up in the tree watching the events unfold,

“Never thought I’d see the day where you would become popular,” She teased, “I’m staying but don’t let that stop you,”

Acario squeezed her hand and smiled, “I’m fine too,” Liana turned back to Brett and his friends,

“Sure. Go ahead,” And with that Liana’s spot had now become a popular spot to hang out at.

Brett pulled out a box which contained a homemade pasta, “So , Liana, we know pretty much nothing about you but we want to know! So let’s start with the simple stuff, favourite colour?”

“Red,”

“Favourite sport to play?” This question was asked by the girl with the red curly locks, who Liana found out was named Kayla,

“Hockey,” (A/N: In NZ Ice Hockey is extremely rare so when we say hockey it means field hockey)

“Favourite sport to watch?” This was asked by Adam, a boy with messy brown hair and brown eyes,

“Rugby,” The rugby players high fived each other which made Liana smile. The questions went on like this for a while until finally Brett asked her,

“When’s your birthday?”

“Next Saturday,” Instantly his eyes lit up,

“Next Saturday? So you’re going to have a party?” He questioned, excitedly.

“Well, I was just planning on having a couple of drinks at home with Mum and Acario,” She replied. Her Mum had questioned her about this the previous week.

“But it’s your eighteenth!” Brett exclaimed, as if turning eighteen was the biggest thing in the world.

“Hence why I’m going to be drinking!” (A/N: In NZ the drinking age is 18)

“No, that won’t do! So far nobody has booked the community hall for next week so I’ll get Dad to hire it out to you, for free!” Liana wasn’t entirely sure what Brett’s Dad was to the community but she did know that he was quite important and most probably could hire out the hall to her for free,

“I can’t ask you to do that. I don’t really need a big party,”

“Don’t be silly. We all want to go, right?”

“Right!” Everyone chorused back, surprising her. All of these people wanted to come to her party?

“All of us except Adam and George are 18 so we can all drink with you,” He grinned, “Come on, please! We love to party so give us an excuse to,” Liana was sure he was trying to convince her using puppy dog eyes but he just looked dumb enough to make her laugh,

“Ok, ok, fine, I’ll have a party,” Everyone cheered, “But only a small one, ok?”

“Sure. Let’s get real drunk!” With that, the conversation was over but Liana felt content. She never realised how nice it was to have friends.