St Angelas

Chapter Two

October 15th 2013

October 15th. The Tuesday after I had my first and last encounter with Mr. Emerald eyes.  And let me tell you one thing, I have been seeing emerald everywhere.

Marcy and I share a room at the boarding house, and this results in me being woken up at 5am, because it takes her over 2 hours to get ready for the school day. “Beauty is about making sacrifices” she says. Apparently her sacrifice is sleep. But this morning, I wasn’t woken by her banging and thumping in the bathroom, more like a bright light bursting through our window. And for once, I was the one waking Marcy.

“What do you want?” she groans as she rolls and uses her blanket to cover her face and ears, probably trying to block me out. I pulled back the curtains and saw a bright orange blob a few metres from our window. 

“Marcy! Get up! Look outside!” I whisper nudging her with my arm while still staring out the window. I quickly rummage around my bedside table trying to try find my contacts. By the time I have found them, Marcy is by my side and is also staring out the window. Once I focus my eyes outside once again, I find that the orange blob is a fire.

“Oh shit.” Marcy gasps, as we stare out at the tree located outside our window, in the front garden of the boarding house. Our room is on the second floor and is right at the corner of the building, the tree which is now on fire, is the tree we often use to sneak out, or to just hang out on when we’re bored as it’s right outside our window and is a quick jump away.

“Get the Matrons!” I scream as I run out of the room and run down the hall to Miss Hooves room. Matrons have rooms by every entrance/exit to any floor and any door that leads to the outside. I quickly knock on the door and after a minute of knocking, Miss Hooves comes to the door. I alert her about the situation our tree has and soon she is downstairs alerting the other matrons. 

Even though only a tree is on fire, the Matrons must follow procedure, and soon we have one hundred and fifty girls shivering outside on the concrete entrance to the school, awaiting the fire fighters. An incident like this happened in my first year at St Angela’s and as far as I know, the student who was responsible for the fire was expelled. The staff at St Angela’s take fires very seriously. But I guess when a student lights the kitchen on fire while making baked beans while they’re high, they should probably be expelled. Especially when they go to a prestigious school like St Angelas. 

After what feels like hours, the fire department finally show up, and put out the tree. We are then all instructed to go back inside, once the fire fighters declare the coast clear, and head into the kitchen to grab an early breakfast. While the fire fighters find the cause of fire. 

By the time 7:45am comes, we are all instructed to head to school, and it looks like we won’t know the cause of the fire until the end of school. 

During first period History, Marcy seems very on edge. She has hardly talked and since it’s coming from Marcy, we know that something is definitely wrong. Ana and Keela notice this also as during lunch they bring it up.

“What’s wrong with Marcy?” Ana asks me as we head to the picnic benches in the court yard.  

“Yeah, she’s acting weird.” Keela adds, as she plonks her bag on the table.

“Why do you think I would know?” I ask. If there is ever a problem with Marcy, they always come to me, expecting me to know the answer.

“Come on Ardi.” Ardi is Ana and Keelas nickname for me. They have called me that since forever. I can’t even them giving it to me. I’ve just always had it. “We all know, You and Marcy are, like, best friends. Just like you and Marcy know, me and Keela are like best friends.” Ana adds, nudging Keela in the arm playfully. I know what she is saying is true. If I ever wanted to know anything about Ana, all I had to do was ask Keela. And I guess the same goes for me and Marcy. 

Just as Ana says that, I see the principal step out from the shadows of the classrooms, and slowly walk over towards us. Her eyes set on one person. Me.

“Miss DeLuca.” She says as she reaches the table. 

“Yes, Ms. Julio.” I say standing up to talk to her. She doesn’t say anything but just swiftly turns around and walks back into the school. If I knew what was good for me I would follow. And I definitely knew.

Following a few steps behind her, we walk down the corridors and as I do, I see the pitiful looks from my classmates, they know what was to come. Ms Julio was the kind of person who you could joke around with but you didn’t want to get on her bad side and make her angry. And unfortunately, once you were on her bad side, there was no going back. I had managed to stay away from the dark side of her for all these years, and I was finally beginning to think that I’d make it to the end of my senior year without feeling her wrath. But once we came to the end of the hall and she clutched the door knob to her office, I knew  I wasn’t going to escape that easily. 

As she opens the door, I see Marcy sitting in one of the wooden lecture chairs in front of her desk. Ms Julio then approaches  her arge chair that was literally fit for the queen and sits down.

“Take a seat, Miss DeLuca.” She says, gracefully gesturing to the empty seat beside Marcy. 

“I gather you know why I have brought you both here.” I glace over to Marcy who quickly nods while I on the other hand am quite unsure of what I have done wrong. Ms Julio acknowledges Marcys answer with a brief nod before turning towards me. The best thing for me to do at this point is to also nod. But I know I would never find out the real reason I was here, if I do. So I shook my head quickly after a few moments of thinking it through. Ms Julio acknowledges my answer with a judgemental frown before carrying on with whatever she has to say.

“Well Miss DeLuca.” She says bringing all of her attention towards me. “You are aware that there was an incident this morning at the boarding house.” I nod slowly, still clueless as to why I am here. “Well, it took the fire fighters quicker than expected to find the cause of the fire. And it seems, a cigarette butt and a pack of matches were what caused the fire, early this morning.” I gasped and looked over to Marcy who was staring t the ground. “After further analysis of the tree and its surrounding, the fire fighters did happen to find a lighter below the tree.” My eyes widened as I came to the realization to why we were here. “Now, not only is it against school polices to light any fires around school grounds but it is also against the law to smoke underage.” And after another half an hour of lecturing about laws and school policies, I finally realised why it was terrible to be on Ms Julios dark side. It wasn’t because she yelled and screamed. It was because she stayed calm and collected. And the worst thing about her being calm and collected was that you could see the disappointment in her eyes.

“Now, there is no official evidence that you two are the culprits of the crime, but there is evidence that if it isn’t you, then you will know who it is.” She says calmly as she stands from her seat. “Your families are going to be contacted later today and if neither of you have confessed nor told me who the real culprits are by 10am tomorrow morning. You both face expulsion.” She opens the door and gestures for both of us to leave. “You are both dismissed from school and any school related activities until further notice.” She says before closing the door.

Expulsion. That is it. If I get expelled, it’s good bye Yale. There’s no way I’ll get accepted. And worse, I may as well get expelled from life, because it’s not like I’ll have one anyway. My parents will ship me back to Italy before disowning me and pretending I never existed.