Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 23 - Training at school

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

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Chapter 23

With the Christmas party in the process of being organised, and her birthday in just a few months, the summer had fallen upon them and with it, letters from her clubs and school for her 'parent/guardian'. She opened them when she got to her room from a case. Her reflection had done her homework already since it was almost midnight, and the letters had been left on the table.

The one from school told them about a nationwide competition 'Stephanie' had been picked to participate in for the school swim group. A second letter told them about an event herself and two 'parents/guardians' were invited to as a reward her for her learning over the year. It was just a bowling trip though so Valkyrie put it in the bin as no one would be interested except maybe Tanith, and that was a long shot.

The one from dance was about another competition, although this one was in England and the dance studio had been specifically invited after their last young-teen group had won the Irish championship the year previous. She was already a part of that group but she hadn't expected to be selected for any competitions.

She left them until morning but when the June light started filtering through her curtains, she heard her phone vibrating. Sitting up quickly, she wrestled with the covers and picked up the phone. Nadia.

"Hey sweet," she said huskily, grabbing the cup on the bedside and drinking from it.

"Good morning lazy butt. How are you?" Nadia said.

"Grand, grand. Tired. What are you doing? It's only – it's not even seven."

"Mum just got me up for school. Sorry, I was listening to the radio and they were speaking about a dance competition in England and your dance teacher, at least I think it's the same one, did an interview about it."

"Oh, yeah," Valkyrie said, getting out of bed. She found the letters. "It's in a month's time. They invited me."

"Are you going to go?"

Valkyrie thought about it. "I mean, do you really want to see me get dressed up and stretch my legs on stage?" She asked. "I think I might go."

Nadia laughed. "Are you asking me to watch you dance? I'd love to go."

"Let me see what they want me to do first. If it's rubbish, I'm not doing it."

They laughed, and Valkyrie took the phone downstairs, and the letters, and found Crow with his newspaper ready for the day. "Here." She said goodbye to Nadia and she sat down in front of Crow just as he finished reading the second letter.

"This sounds exciting," he said. "Do you want to do it?"

"Yeah, but I'll need to train more," she said, not too sure about that part.

"Valkyrie, we have our whole lives to solve crime, you might as well compete while you can."

And that's how Valkyrie got herself into a dancing and swimming competition. Her schedule was reorganised and because of that, she was out of work. Without work, she had to go to school for the last few weeks too. Between the classes, it was just practice, practice, practice.