The Last Dance

Chapter Five

Five Years Later
(Chapter Five)

Elara walked to the teacher, looking at the several kids that had their head down. School was almost out, and Elara didn't want to stay in the classroom anymore.

"Mrs. London," she said, looking at the desk to the young teacher. She looked up, smiling at Elara, who was, again, looking at the several sick kids.

"Yes, Elara?" The teacher asked, trying to get her attention back on her.

Elara looked back at her, a look of almost fear in her eyes. "Can I go to my dad's classroom?" She asked, suddenly not feeling well.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. London asked, reaching her hand over the desk and feeling of Elara's forehead and cheeks.

"I don't feel good," she mumbled. Elara had heard her dad tell her aunt that her immune system wasn't the best, but all she knew was that she could get sick easily and it scared her that so many kids were sick in the same room as her.

"Come on," Mrs. London said, standing and walking around her desk to Elara, who seemed to be turning pale.

Elara didn't fight when the teacher began leading her out of the classroom, telling the aid to watch the kids. Elara's teacher knew about her immune system, but didn't know that Elara knew. Nobody did.

Elara's color came back almost immediately as they left the classroom, but Mrs. London still guided her down the hall and up the stairs. They turned and walked up the few steps to the highschool portion of the school.

Elara's teacher guided her down the hall and to the door of her father's math class, which she knocked on.

Ember got up from his desk, upon seeing that it was Elara's teacher, and opened it, not bothering to fight Elara as she walked past them. He expected that she was going to his desk.

"She said that she didn't feel good, and we have so many sick kids today and I didn't want to risk it," Mrs. London explained, and Ember nodded, looking behind him to see Elara standing at Ariel's desk, watching what she was doing.

Ariel had become Elara's babysitter when Emerald couldn't watch her, and Elara had grown very attached to her, to the point that she only called her either Sissy or Ari, and she didn't let Ember call her anything else either, so he called her Ari, except for in class.

"That's fine, school ends in half an hour," Ember said, thanking Mrs. London as she left and shut the door.

Some of the kids were looking up from their work and watching Ariel and Elara.

"What's this?" Elara asked, pointing to the x on Ariel's paper.

"A variable," Ariel told her, making her nose scrunch up in confusion.

"There's letters in math?" She asked, ignoring when she heard her dad tell everyone to get back to work. Ariel nodded, writing down the answers to the problem after a moment.

"That's dumb, math's already hard enough," Elara claimed, looking up when Ember came to her. He crouched down, whispering in her ear to let Ari work, which she did, after she was bribed with juice and games on the computer.

She sat in the desk chair, glancing every once in a while at her dad as he stood on the other side of the desk, leaned against it and watching the students as they worked, expecting one to need help, but no hands had went up, yet.

Elara sat on her knees, terribly typing out best places in the world to visit.

She scrolled through the pictures, finding oceans, mountains, forests, trails and rivers. She wanted to explore them all. That was one thing she loved to do, to discover extraordinary places.

She didn't even notice when Ariel turned in her work and asked Ember if she could sit with Elara.

"Ari, look," Elara said after she noticed, clicking on a picture of a mysterious looking cave. "I'm going to go to a place like that."

"Really?" Ariel asked, looking at it. She was part of Elara's wonder, having told her about some of the vacations her parents had taken her on, like one to Paris. She had brought Elara back a T-shirt and bracelet, that she still wore.

Elara nodded. "And I'm going to build a house in the cave," she stated, looking up when she saw Ember leaning over, looking at the picture of the cave.

Ariel looked at the cave, seeing a picture of where she would be going during the summer. She pointed to it, looking at Elara. "Do you know what this is?"

Elara clicked on the picture, turning her head this way and that at the signs. "What's on the signs?" She asked, not answering Ariel's question.

"It's Japanese, it's in Tokyo," she said, glancing up at Ember, who was still watching the screen with Elara and her. "You know the animes we watch?"

Elara nodded, looking at Ariel. "What about them?"

"A lot of them are made in Japan," she said, laughing when Elara's eyes widened. "I'm going there this summer," she said, looking back at the screen.

Most of the class had stopped working and were now listening to Elara and Ariel's conversation, not really wanting to do their work anyways.

"So you know how to read this?!" Elara asked, pointing at the signs again. Ariel shook her head.

"Not really, but my mom does," she said, looking at Elara as she smiled.

"I'm going to learn it and teach it to you," Elara said, tapping on Ariel's wrist, where her own bracelet from Paris was. Ariel raised her eyebrows at her, a smile on her face.

"Oh, really?" Ariel asked, and Elara nodded, looking at Ember. Ariel laughed as the bell rung, standing up and walking to her desk to get her bag, turning to Elara as everyone else began leaving. "I expect to learn from you Elara."

Elara smiled, jumping off of the seat and running to give Ariel a hug. "Have a good weekend, Sissy,"she said, and Ariel hugged her back, waving bye to Ember as she walked out of the classroom.

"You're going to learn Japanese?" Ember asked, exiting out of the site Elara was on.

Elara nodded, walking back around the desks to him. "Watch me," she said, smiling as she grabbed her backpack from under his desk and following him out.

Ember pulled into the apartment complex, getting out of the car before opening the backdoor and carrying the sleeping Elara into the building. He rode the elevator to the third floor and carried her to the door, knocking on it, and Emerald opened it, moving out of the way to let him take her to her room.

Dragon was right behind him, and jumped on the bed, snuggling under the covers when Ember covered her up.

He walked out, meeting Emerald in the kitchen, where she had two plates of spaghetti made. She picked up one, putting it in the microwave before turning back around to Ember.

"I didn't expect her to be asleep," she said before handing Ember a fork, which he gladly took and began eating. "Have you given Ariel's parents an answer yet?"

Ember shook his head, swallowing his food before speaking. "It's only December, Christmas break starts next week, and I'll have plenty of time to think about it," he said, before going back to eating.

"I still say that she should be able to," Emerald said, taking his fork and getting a bite when he put it down. He made a face of disgust and made her laugh. "She wants to adventure, I say let her."

"But it's across the ocean," he said, shaking his head. He had told Ariel that he wouldn't immediately say no. He knew she just wanted to give Elara a little sense of what adventure was like. "She wants to learn Japanese," he randomly said.

"Really?" Emerald asked, and Ember nodded, leaning back against the counter.

"She said that she was going to teach Ari," he said, and Emerald smiled. "She was really interested in the characters on signs in a picture."

"If she really wants to, get Ariel's mom to teach her," Emerald said, pushing Ember's plate to him again so that he could finish it. "That woman knows so many languages."

Ember laughed but nodded, before taking his plate and leaving the kitchen before Emerald could get into one of her boy stories that everyone dreaded.