Sorry! I haven’t been posting much, have I?
Previously…
Yelling, the girl tried to pull away from the hand. It let her go abruptly, and she fell into the snow at an awkward angle.
When she looked up, the strangers were gone. Even the boy.
All that was left was pure white snow all around her.
Now for chapter 10!
Chapter 10 – Cheese it.
-
It’s weird. Hell, everything’s weird lately.
Let’s start with yesterday. Mr Takeda was acting all jumpy during Karate, a really bizarre occurrence. I’ve never seen him being even remotely uneasy before. I swear he was nervous when he asked where Katherine was. Though of course he didn’t stutter at all. And he kept looking towards the doors throughout the whole session with that weird expression on his face. It’s as if he were expecting someone formidable to come through them.
And school was pure madness today. It is spirit week, yes, but I never expected… Katherine was so pissed that she missed school when I told her what the teachers did. The theme was stars, I think. Predictably, almost everybody was in silver or gold. Erica came to school with a ridiculously large pair of sunglasses. At this point Katherine closed her eyes really tight. I think she was trying really hard not to roll her eyes. When I told her that Mr Chancery was sporting an Elvis Presley-esque hairstyle while chatting about cell division, and that he even sang a song or two (he changed the lyrics to fit whatever he was teaching) in that mellow tenor voice of his, her reaction was really peculiar. She sort of blinked, then said, “Okay.” in an accent that’s almost American. Well, almost. It’s been two months since the start of school after all.
And the highlight of the day? Ms Ross bedecked in a weird shiny star-shaped costume, glittering for all she was worth all through assembly. She was practically sequined from head to toe. It was a refreshing change from her usual monotonous grey apparel. And she sang. Sang. Her voice was so beautiful! I never knew she could sing. Neither did Katherine, apparently. Her expression was so comical. And the way she said “Are you serious?” was even more so.
Later in the day, both her parents came to visit Katherine. Unfortunately, she was asleep then, so they hung around and asked me some questions. They seem to be friendly folk. And I realise that her mannerisms are almost exactly like her father’s. Though she’s less forthcoming. Definitely more reserved.
*
“It’s so not fair. Why aren’t you going to the dance?”
I leaned back on my chair, grinning idiotically at my mathematics assignment. Oh, life was so wonderful. “Because,” I stressed, ” I have a lot of work to catch up on, and the doctor specifically told me to rest.” I looked up just in time to see him frowning as he straightened his collar. He turned back to glance at me, scowling. When he turned back, he tweaked his collar again.
“Blasted thing,” he cursed, glaring at the collar. “It’s still not fair. I don’t get to see you dance.” He smirked at me in the mirror.
I started attempting the first question. Ooh. Differentiation. Fantastic. “Look at the bright side. I won’t get to see you dance either.”
“There’s no bright side to this at all. I won’t get to see you in a dress.” He grinned evilly at me in the mirror.
Gritting my teeth, I retorted, “What makes you think that I’d have worn a dress?” Then I threw three pens at him in rapid succession.
He dodged the first two easily enough. The third one hit the back of his head and bounced off harmlessly; he must have put a considerable amount of gel in his hair.
“Hey! You’re going to mess up my hair.”
“That was my original intention.” Time to change the topic. “You’re going with Sharron, aren’t you?”
“Who told you that?” Bro’s expression was guarded.
“Oh, that’s easy to figure out. Being in hospital for five days hasn’t muddled my mind that badly.”
“Right. I was there one day when you weren’t awake, and you were talking absolutely crap in your sleep.”
I froze. “Oh? And what did I say?”
“You kept talking about this grey man. And you kept saying sorry. It was utter rubbish.”
I frowned. “Ah. Must have been a bad dream.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Chris told me that he couldn’t sleep one day because you kept muttering about him. Who is he, anyway?”
“I don’t know.” I frowned.
Bro seemed slightly disappointed at my words. Then his eyes gleamed. “In any case, how’re you and Chris getting along?”
Cursing my stupidity, I feigned disinterest. “He’s a good friend.” I shrugged.
Bro raised his eyebrows. “A very caring friend indeed. Do you know that he tried to stay overnight at the hospital every day? I heard him argue with his father on Sunday.”
I frowned. “No, I was asleep.”
Bro rolled his eyes. “In any case, I expect he’ll be quite dejected, seeing as you’re not going to the dance.”
“I don’t think so. He’ll just go with someone else.” I reached for a pen and started flipping through the worksheet.
“Aha. So he did ask you to the dance.” He smiled at me triumphantly.
“No, he didn’t.” Somehow, I managed to keep my voice devoid of emotion.
My brother frowned. “He was intending to ask you, though.”
I merely raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
He sighed, exasperated. “Look, sis, you…”
“Kevin! We’re leaving in five minutes!” Ma hollered up the stairs. He paled instantly.
I smiled. Now I was beginning to enjoy this. “Oh, you’ll be fine. Sharron won’t mind too much about your appearance. Just be yourself and everything will be all right.”
“What if…”
“Oh, forget what-ifs. Sharron’s probably worrying about the same things. No sense for both of you to worry, is there?” I ushered him out of my room, following him downstairs. Feathers met me at the ground floor, wagging his tail madly.
“Finally!” Ma exclaimed, wiping her hands on a rag. “What took you so long?” Father was standing beside her, appraising his son’s appearance. His eyebrows rose slightly as his eyes fell upon Bro’s hair.
“Nerves.” Bro grimaced. “Butterflies too.”
“Don’t worry so much, it’ll turn out just the way you want it to.” Casually, she threw the rag behind her. It landed perfectly on a side table. Must be years of practice.
“Thanks, Ma.”
They headed towards the garage.
“Good luck.” I grinned evilly as Bro looked back at me.
“I can’t wait for prom night,” he threw over his shoulder as they disappeared through the door.
“Ugh.” I grimaced as the door clicked shut. Feathers whimpered by my side.
Then the door opened again. Father stuck his head in. “I know the doctor told you to rest, but take Feathers for a long walk, will you? He insisted on staying home when you were in hospital. I couldn’t drag him out of the house.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Probably more. Can’t wait to see Sharron. I bet your mother’s none too happy about this.” He grinned, green eyes glinting in mischief. I could almost imagine him strutting to a dance in his teenage years. He’d look a lot like Bro, I realised. Except for the eyes. “She’s so conservative. Traditional Chinese values and all that.”
I smiled as he shook his head, closing the door behind him.
-
It’s unedited, so there’ll probably be typos. >.<
Anyway, from 10.2,
Feathers strained on his leash, barking merrily as a hodgepodge of witches, aliens and bizarre monsters headed towards him. And was that a hunk of cheese? I blinked.
oh my. you are deviating from the main storyline again!
hmph! anyway woah. kat’s bro XD hahaha!
and feathers is so cute! and i tell you i wont do that, if i were him/her! anyway is feathers female or male o__0
and so weird. chris and kat are talking abt diff stuff o__o
like completely diff o__o
I am NOT. (Oh, fine, I am. But I’m not going into the… um.. Halloween dance at all. Okay? Did you think I would, anyway?)
Hah. I bet you would. Or maybe not. Well, we won’t ever know, will we? *Sighs* It would be fascinating if you could turn into Feathers. (And jump around like the Tigger-maniac you are.)
What do you mean by different?
in my opinion feathers gives off the aura of being male. because…BECAUSE.
i swear you learned the ‘-esque’ from me (: good girl.
i think you should describe the hair to some extent. it makes people think it is either really botched, or like the gatsby mohawk, or like elvis, or just plain nice and stylish.
as for the stars…i think you could elaborate a bit more /: like i don’t really get spirit week. and themes. and such. their school sounds fun D:<
and this is random but a song just came out and the title is brush and ballpoint pen. (or calligraphy pen to be exact.) makes me want to get you to describe the pens more. like ink colour? or the general aesthetics. not that it would change the storyline. but seeing as kat is an artist she sould have an assortment of pens and should pay attention to them.
Feathers is male, yep. (Felix, however, is female. In case you’ve forgotten, Felix is Erica’s cat… Hmm, I forgot if she’s in this version.)
No, I didn’t learn that from you. I actually learnt that from some vocab book last year. But you probably influenced me to use it.
heeeeeh. I’ve never seen Elvis up close, and NO ONE I’ve ever seen sports that kind of hairstyle, so I don’t really know how to describe it in detail. Meh. I shall edit this chapter when I have time. (MEH. Now I’m influenced by you, phearsa.)
I shall describe the pens too… though Phearsa will probably accuse me of deviating from the storyline.
Well, I didn’t get spirit week at first either. Anyway, the school that I researched on has spirit week almost every other week. It’s really alien. They wear themed attire to school during that week (in the case of the school I researched on, most of the time they wear red and gold during that week to reflect their school’s colours.)
Yeah. It’s really fun. And it’s customary that the Homecoming dance falls during Spirit week.
Meh. I’m really envious of the people in the school. They get to do all the fun stuff.
WHOOHOO! HIGH FIVE YONGIE!
we are both great influences on xinhui!
and NOOO why would you want to know what pens those are that kat threw at her bro? o__0
and yeah you should describe spirit week more
and what’s homecoming dance? as in homecoming? o__0
ha! you are envious of the people in the school?
I BET you wont want to go to a DANCE right? XDDDD
hahaha! i wonder how prom’s like o__o
not that i want to attend, that is. i’ll just embarrass myself XD
yo.
am reminded by the *huge* and *pleasant* surprise when xinboon turned out in a dress for formal dinner. Let’s hope Kat doesn’t miss the next event that involves dressing up…i wanna see what xinboon churns out
oh, are all wearing traditional costumes on Fri?
I’m not. Well, I think my whole class is sort of boycotting the event.
Huge and pleasant, huh? *narrows eyes* The only reason that kept me from doing otherwise was the image of demerit points hovering over my neck and well… never mind.
CHIAIA.
Well, you can hope. but…
well. my whole class is wearing. sad. so look foward to seeing me have a hard time because the malay skirt half is ELASTIC and TIGHT and clamps down unforgivingly on you.
and by hair i meant kat’s bro’s hair. not elvis.
imagine if you become a famous writer and then people will be made to study you! like what were the main influences in her work? then the model answer would include me and phearsa! [and i use meh too. MEH.]
the pens are interesting to note, in case one did hit him and left a streak of ink in his hair or whatnot.
is that true??
I’m sorry, indiple, I didn’t quite get your question.
Is what true?