The Stars Said Hello [1]

C H A P T E R - 9

On Monday morning, Meredith headed out to go to Foxfire. Near the entry of Havenfield she found Sophie was still trying to figure out which of the  gadgets from Della were school supplies when the chimes rang. 

She laughed as she let him inside. "And I thought my uniform was bad."

"What's with the capes?" she asked.

"I know, they're stupid, right? But they're a sign of status, so we have to wear them."

"Capes?"

"Yeah, haven't you noticed that only the nobility have them? Foxfire is the only noble school—meaning you have to go there in order to be in the nobility—so we wear half capes to demonstrate that. At least next year we get rid of the wimpy halcyon." He pulled on the blue, jeweled bird that clasped the cape against his neck. "We'll be mastodons."

He laughed when he caught her confused expression. "Each grade level has a mascot. Level Two is a halcyon, these dumb birds that can sense when a storm is coming. But Level Three is a mastodon, so at the opening ceremonies on the first day of school we get to dress in these cool elephant costumes. Be glad you missed wearing the halcyon costume. We looked like idiots."

Sophie noticed Meredith standing there near the entry and smiled at her and waved her to come over. Dex straitened up when he saw her Meredith greeted both of them with a grin. 

To breaking the silence "Hey, you're wearing the Ruewen crest," Dex said, pointing to the triangle patch sewn where her cape hung over her heart: a scarlet eagle soaring with a white rose in its talons. His patch was square and looked like a bunch of chemistry equipment twisted into a tree. "We wear our family's crest on our uniform. If Grady and Edaline are letting you wear theirs, they must be serious. Are they adopting you?"

"I don't know."

"Where are they, anyway?" Dex asked, looking around.

"A gnome ran in during breakfast and yelled something about a manticore stinging a stegosaurus, and they both ran off."

"And people say my parents are weird."

"It's pretty crazy here. But they seem nice enough."

"Grady and Edaline? Oh yeah, they're great. They keep to themselves a lot because of what happened to Jolie. I never knew them before it happened, but my mom said they used to throw these huge parties everyone looked forward to all year. Now they never leave the house. So weird."

Sophie shrugged. "A lot of people are never the same after someone they love dies."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"My mom thinks it'll be good for them having you around," Dex told her. "Maybe they'll get over it."

"Hey, wait a minute," she said, frowning. "How do you know about adoption? I'm guessing you don't get a lot of orphans around here."

"We don't," Dex agreed. "We had a big drama a few years back—some kid named Wylie whose dad was exiled had his mom die too. Something broke her concentration while she was leaping and she faded away, I guess. I don't know much, just that Sir Tiergan adopted him and retired from Foxfire."

"Sir Tiergan—the telepathy Mentor?"

"Yeah. Wait—how do you know about him?"

"Uh, Alden mentioned him," she mumbled, trying to recover. She'd forgotten to pretend she had no connection to Tiergan.

"Oh yeah, he hates Alden. Blames him for the dad being exiled or something. But I might be remembering wrong. Wylie's a few years older than me, so I've never met him or anything. You ready to go?"