The Wild Side

9. Touching the Sky

It was all I could do not to stab my sister in the eye with my fork. A fork would be first, and then my knife if she still isn’t being quiet. Which, knowing Sequin, would be the most logical course of action she would take. I tightened my hand around the silver handle, in case some eye-stabbing was needed.

“Just, oh my God, I mean a Winter Ball, a Winter Ball! It’s going to be so romantic! There’ll be ice sculptures, and beautiful dresses and sexy guys and, just oh my God!”

There she goes again, blabbering senselessly on about the Winter Ball. It’s all anyone ever talks about, nothing else. Frankly, I am amazed that all the girls in the grade can focus their attention on anything else but how many guys they have managed to snog. I suppose I should be relieved that I am no longer over hearing unnecessary details about people’s sex lives, but come on! Enough about the Winter Ball.

“I know,” Responded Sabbedoria, “Tonks just sent me the most amazing dress; I can’t wait to wear it.”

Sabbedoria surprised me. I hadn’t pinned her as the type of superficial girl who would get excited about something as pathetically clichéd as a ball. Or a dress.

“I hope Cyonin asks me. He better. I mean, if I’ve been attempting flirtatious conversation for nothing, someone is going to get strangled via a pillow.”

And Maxi too. It was something I could not escape, not even with my friends. Maybe if she wasn’t so caught up in whatever-the-hell she saw in Cyanide, I could talk to someone who hadn’t caught ball-fever.

What will I do with my friends? They are almost impossible to tolerate when they are fantasising about the Winter Ball. Who will I sit with at lunch? Myself? No way is that going to happen.

 Actually, I like that idea.

“Ugh, I’ll probably have to go stag,” Said Electra, “That will not be fun.”

“Oh, poor you,” I interjected, finally losing the tolerance I had for my friend’s conversation, “You might not have a date for this prestigious Winter Ball, the world may end. Woe is your life.”

Electra clunked her cereal spoon into the bowl and looked at me with steady eyes. “I was just saying.” She muttered.

With a superior grin, Maxi winked across the table at Sequin, who was frowning at me as if she couldn’t understand my words. I shrugged at her, trying to communicate to her that I wasn’t any type of fond of the Winter Ball. She rolled her bright blue eyes at me, demonstrating to me that she got my message. Sabbedoria, who seemed to be watching this with a type of curiosity, her dark eyes flicking between Sequin and I’s silent talking.  I felt squeamish under her stare, her intelligent eyes were like a physiologist, reading and judging.

I knew she could figure me out, get inside my head, and maybe that’s what made me uncomfortable. The fact that she could maybe, just maybe, she could read me.

I shook myself mentally. I wasn’t sure where those thoughts were coming from. Maybe from Professor Umbridge’s classes? Am I getting paranoid?

“I’m going with Josh; it’s going to be so quixotic.” Audrey exclaimed, breaking the awkward silence.

“Quixotic? Wow, breaking out the big words.”

Audrey scowled at me, her green eyes showing absolutely no mercy. “Well, it is quixotic, it’s a fitting word.”

“A fitting word that is horribly clichéd.”

Audrey stood up with a flourish that sent her urban hair flying. Her eyes, which were normally a calm green colour, were suddenly brighter, as if someone was pointing a torch through her eye sockets. I knew this look well. It was the ‘oh-my-god-you-did-not-just-say-that-I-am-going-to-muder-you-violently’ look. I’d seen it many times before, but never directed at me.