Mount Asteria

Chapter Thirteen

Friday evening brought a chance to laze in thecommon room.

"Wonder why Mr Daly was is Venice?" Theasaid, flicking through the TV channels. "He hates opera."

"Maybe some Italian princess was in danger ofbeing assassinated," Bláth suggested, smiling.

"Hmmm."

"Worried he was off with another woman?" She laughed.

"Never! Mr Daly wouldn't do that to me!" Thea grinned.

"Who's Mr Daly?" Alexandra asked.

"Our field ops teacher," Thea told her. "I'm sure you've seen him in the corridors."

Alexandra shrugged. "How would I know if I had?"

"Can't miss him, Alexandra," Bláth said. "He's about thirty, always wears a crisp white shirt with the first two buttons undone and grey slacks."

"And he's beautiful." Thea put a hand to her head, feigning fainting.

Alexandra raised her eyebrows at Bláth, who said, "It's true. He's the reason half the girls here do field ops."

"Well, I'll keep an eye out for him... So, what sort of stuff do you guys do at theweekend?" Alexandra asked the question that had been playing on her mind. How did girls at a spy school spend their free time? After school hours seemed to be spent at additional classes in languages, music, art, drama or sports, but surely they did something else at the weekend.

Bláth shrugged. "I'm going home, but I think some of the others might go intotown tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, we will," Thea confirmed. "Want to come?"

"I'd love to. But, uh, how do we get there?Is there a - "

"We'll ask to be driven in."

"We can do that?" Alexandra wassurprised.

"Yep."

"So you go home at the weekends, Bláth?"

Bláth nodded. "Yeah, I mean, I only live half an hour away. And Ebony lives in near town. It's just more convenient to board and more fun too... You know who should really be in thisfilm?" she said out of the blue, pointing at the TV screenwith the remote control where it appeared as though a large explosionwas just in the process of burning a big old building to a crisp."Liam Neeson! Wouldn't he be great in this?"

"You ready, guys?" Claire came into thecommon room, wearing her sports uniform.

"Just coming now." Thea joined Claire at the door as Bláth began to get up.

"Where are you guys off to?" Alexandraasked.

"Field training. Claire, don't you think LiamNeeson would be perfect in G.I. - "

"Come on, Bláth! We're running late."

"Coming, coming," she grumbled, heavingherself off the sofa and following Thea and Claire out the door, leaving only Alexandra.

She sighed and stared at the television, not entirely understanding what was happening on the screen. Her thoughts wandered, slow and sluggish. She was tired. She might only have arrived in the school four days ago, but the sudden wave of new information and new surroundings had overwhelmed her. Deciding her best option would be to have a cup of tea and get some rest, she got up and did just that. Tomorrow she would feel better.

***

Author's Note

I'm sorry about missing last week's update and for only updating once this week, but life can throw some unexpected stuff at us sometimes so that everything else has to be put on hold. So a week of my life went like that. Then this week was spent catching up on everything I missed, which was not fun, to say the least. I know the story is wandering a bit at the moment, but I'm promising THREE updates for next week (now I've said it, I will keep to it) and I promise too that things will get a lot more juicy in the next few chapters;)