Stellar

Chapter Ten: Mysteries, Melancholy, and Everything Else Melania

 "Alright, my junior astronomers!" said Mr. Jacobs to the five of them--now including Melania, who had finally decided to show up to class on the first Thursday back to school. "Don't wanna shake your worlds too early--I know the semester's only started, afterall. I do wanna warn you, though. There will be a massive project due by the end of this semester, and I usually advise students to start it early on. It's quite a load of work."

Lucine sagged into her Venus beanbag, huffing a sigh of relief. At least he hadn't said group project. She would rather tackle a tower of homework by herself than finish one page with a bunch of strangers.

"It will be a group project, however, and since there's only five of you in the class, all of you will work together."

You just had to jinx it, didn't you?

On his Jupiter beanbag beside her, Astro seemed to warp into another universe. He clutched the beanbag fabric into fistfuls, stiffening, face going rigid. Lucine's fears about the group project went out the window so she could stare at him.

"You okay there, Chewie?"

'Chewie' didn't reply; his eyes instead whipped backward to narrow on someone else. Lucine followed his gaze to Syrus Dorado, who sat with his hands folded and his back straighter than a board. She sighed. Was Astro seriously gonna do this again? Because the whole 'Syrus isn't who you think he is and that's why you should hate him' routine was starting to get on her nerves.

Astro apparently wasn't the only one with bitter feelings about the group project, though. Looking back at Syrus, Lucine caught him glaring right back at Astro. Since when did Syrus dislike Astro? Maybe it was the whole jail incident; the way Astro had treated him had been pretty rude.

The girl beside Syrus--Halley Hawkins, with those terrifyingly long acrylic nails--was glaring at Lucine. Unease tore through her system. Something about the girl sparked immediate distrust in her. The way her eyes seemed to glow crimson was a little too fishy.

Across the room, Melania caught her eye. The pale girl mimed hanging herself. Lucine stifled a laugh.

"Like I said," Mr. Jacobs continued, oblivious to the obvious distaste swirling about the room, "the project won't be due until the end of the semester. That gives y'all a good few months to finish it. I'd say meet up soon, though, and pick a research topic. I'll give you guys more information soon enough."

The bell rang. Mr. Jacobs opened his mouth as though to wish them a good day--he had barely gotten a syllable out before all five kids were shoving toward the doorway, eager to leave.

Astro appeared beside her, his satchel slung over his shoulder. "Is that man serious? How are the five of us gonna possibly work together?"

"Maybe if you didn't hate Syrus so much for absolutely no reason, we wouldn't have this problem," Lucine shot back.

"Oh, please. Don't act like you haven't been glaring at that one pigtail girl. Why do you hate her for no reason?"

Halley's face flashed through her mind. At the reminder of those creepy crimson eyes, an involuntary shudder crawled down Lucine's spine. "I don't hate her. I just...think she's evil."

Astro snorted. "And I think Syrus is evil. Scratch that--I know Syrus is evil. And then there's that one girl in the class who just sits there and sulks. I think she's the same girl who stole my phone last week."

Amidst the crowd of shuffling teenage bodies in the hallway, Lucine glimpsed a blur of black darting between everyone, causing chaos. That was Melania, alright. They hadn't talked since the whole locker room incident. In fact, nobody at the school had talked about it. It was as though no one knew it had happened. Surely they found the boy, right? And yet everything continued as normal while Lucine and Melania held their breath.