My Golden Life

Chapter 51

The rest of my sophomore year at Worcestershire went well. Quite a bit went on, so I guess I'll tell you some of the highlights that you may find interesting. For starters, I won Best Actress of the term in my drama class, which was quite a surprise. I was given a little trophy for it and everything. That was pretty cool. What else happened? I helped out in the school's annual play. I was part of the team in charge of making all the costumes and boy was that a lot of work. I'm glad my mum showed me a thing or two about sewing because that definitely came in handy. 

I was asked out on a date, not by Artie, but by a guy from my alchemy class. However, that didn't happen. One, because Artie was the only guy that was still on my mind and two, the guy who had asked me out was one of Lancelot's friends. So that was a big fat no. Oh, I have to tell you about Mr. Merlin. He no longer taught at the school because he had a massive nervous breakdown during one of my magic lessons, and when I say massive... I mean MASSIVE.

He got soo stressed out that he started to yell and scream at everyone. He then began throwing potions at the walls, flipping chairs; it was all wild and pretty scary. The guy was nuts! He locked the classroom door and kept us more or less hostage for an hour. It then took another hour for security, and three other teachers to burst in, restrain him and escort him out the room. A huge crowd had gathered outside to see what was going on. It was the talk of the school for weeks. 

Other than that, not much else took place. It all went by quite quickly now that I think about it, and it wasn't long before September came around once again, and I found myself being in my Junior year. 

Where did the time go? I honestly didn't know. I had only been at Worcestershire Academy for one year, but it felt like longer. The girls and I were still the best of friends, always on hand to help and comfort one another whenever one of us was down. They kept nagging me about talking to Artie, but I was too chicken to open my mouth and say anything. Plus, I kept arguing that I didn't want our friendship to be affected should he not feel the same way.

Speaking of Artie, our friendship continued to flourish with no trouble at all. You would think that I would have confessed my feelings to Artie at this point, but sadly no. My anxiety kept getting the best of me any time I wanted to tell him. To make matters worse, Artie's crush for Gwen was growing by the day, much to my dismay. I would catch him gazing at her whenever we saw her walk past.

I wouldn't call it an obsession at all. Artie was just going through a weird phase in his life which most boys go through during their teen years. I was beginning to doubt that anything would ever happen between us. All that started to change one afternoon while I was sitting with the girls in the courtyard.

"What time is the mascot contest again?" Merida asked. "It's being held in the gym, right?"

"Yep, and it starts in about twenty minutes," Isabel replied. "I did see a couple of people start to make their way there."

"I want to finish my biscuits first, though," Lucy said. "I've wanted to eat some of them all day."

"Fine," Isabel chuckled. "But don't take too long eating-"

"Err guys," Merida interrupted. "Look over there, is that an ogre?"

We all turned our heads around and saw an ogre walking down the path. A donkey and a cat wearing a hat were also with him. It was from the ogre's clothing that I instantly knew who it was. I quickly got up, grabbed my bag, and ran after them.

"Katie, what are you doing?" Isabel yelled.

"It's ok, I know them. I'll catch you guys later." I called back.

I hurried down the path and managed to catch up to them. I couldn't believe it, what were the three of them doing here?

"Shrek? Donkey? Puss?" I said.

They all turned around, they were just as startled as I was, but then huge grins appeared on their faces.

"Katie?" Shrek said. "Is that you?"

"Katie!" Donkey cried, running over to me. I kneeled down and gave him a massive hug. Oh, I missed them all so much.

"Long time no see, huh," I laughed.

"Indeed," Puss chucked. "Its been so long."

"It really has," I added, scratching behind Puss's ear. I could tell he missed me doing that as he kept nudging closer to me.

"What are you doing here?" Shrek asked, patting me on the shoulder.

"I should be asking you guys the same thing,"

"Wow, Katie, your hair," Puss gasped. "It's different. It was gold like the sun, but now it's..."

"Blonde yea, but you can see that there's still some gold strands."

"It's gorgeous," he said in his charming tone. "Most exquisite."

"Thanks, Puss." I smiled

"So you go to this school? I thought you were back home with your family." Donkey questioned.

"It's a long story," I stuttered. "But I'll explain later. What are you guys doing at a high school of all places?" I asked.

"We're looking for someone," Shrek explained. "Do you know an Arthur Pendragon?"

"Arthur?" I questioned. "Yea, I know him, he's one of my best friends. Why are you looking for him?"

"He's going to be the new king of Far Far Away," Puss said.

My mouth hung open, I looked at the three of them in disbelief. I did hear that King Harold had passed away, but I didn't know that Artie was any way related to him. Neither did I know that he would be next in line.

"Wait, what? No way, are you serious?" I exclaimed.

"Ha-ha yea," Shrek laughed nervously. "Totally serious. So, do you know where he is?"

"No, I haven't seen him all day. We could ask around if anyone knows where he could be."

"Good idea," Donkey said. "Will you come with us?"

"Of course, there's no way I'm going to miss this."

With that, we continued walking down the path, chatting away with each other and catching up on all that we had missed in each other's lives. I didn't tell them about what happened to me or how I had ended up at the school. I wouldn't know where to start, but that wasn't important. We had to find Artie, and I knew that it was going to be quite a task.