Chapter Five

Friday came and the results for the test were passed out. I closed my eyes, not prepared to see the Fail mark on my paper, but when I finally mustered the courage to open them, I dropped it in surprise. Every question on the test was right. I checked to see that this was really my paper, and only until saw my name printed at the top did I look at the teacher. He was smiling at me, but I noticed that when he gave Cleyra her test back, he frowned. Suddenly, I knew who had been in the English classroom on Tuesday.

Cleyra, being top of English, didn’t have to go back down to middle school level. As an honors student, she was given a harder test, which she passed with flying colors. She seemed undisturbed by this whole concept, and now gave me a small smile when I passed her in corridors.
On Monday, I found a small note in my Math book that I knew I hadn’t put in there. It only read you’re welcome in neat handwriting. That day at lunch, as I walked by Cleyra’s place, I whispered “thanks”, and when she gave a slight nod, I knew she had heard.
After the English disaster, I resolved to study harder, and after a while I began to see results. By November, my status as the worst of nearly every class was removed altogether. I no longer heard snide remarks saying that I was stupid because I’d lived on the streets. But the occasional whisper of thief was still pointed at me.
Once when I was studying in the library, Cleyra came and sat next to me, but instead of talking, she pointed out the mistakes in my essay and showed me the correct way to write it. I was grateful for her help and company, and it suddenly made me long for some friends.
I still roamed the corridors alone, however, and whenever I saw Marella and Travis walking by, it made me feel lonelier still. With Cleyra’s help however, I was now much more improved in class, and it did raise my spirits somewhat.
In the last week of November, our science teacher announced the annual Talent Show was being hosted on the 12th of December. Most of us, me included, groaned at this news, but Marella and Cleyra perked up at it. I saw them exchange looks of loathing during lunch, and I suspected that they always competed fiercely in this event.
I wondered what Cleyra would do at the talent show. She never struck me as the singing type, nor the dancing type, and I couldn’t think of anything else she might do. I knew what Marella was going to do. According to what I heard around school, she always sang a complicated love song, and she was actually good at it.
The tension between Cleyra and Marella continued as we entered into December. One day I found them surrounded by a crowd, both of them looking as though they were about to kill each other.
“You’re not fit to attend a boarding school like this,” Marella was snarling. “You should be going to a public school like all the other poor kids.”
Cleyra gave a wicked smile.
“At least I’m here because my mother cares about my education. Yours only wanted to get rid of you, and I can see why,” she retorted coldly.
Marella glared at her.
“You’re only here because of a scholarship!”
“But since I didn’t buy my way in, that proves I’m smarter than you.”
Cleyra gave another smirk and walked of with her friends. Marella was furious for the rest of the day.

The next day, Marella decided to take her anger out on me. I had been standing at the edge of the fountain on the grounds thinking when she came up to me and roughly pushed me in. There was a large splash, and Marella pretended to help me out.
“Let go of me!” I shouted angrily.
“But I was only helping you,” she said with a false frown.
“Like hell you were!” I snarled. I’d had enough of Marella. I pulled myself out, and I trudged up to the school, soaking wet, my temper at a newfound high.
After I had changed, I headed down to the dining hall for lunch, but I found my way blocked by Cleyra and Aquamarine.
“Hi,” they said brightly.
“Hi,” I answered angrily.
“We saw what Marella did to you,” Aquamarine said.
All my built up fury suddenly poured out.
“Well, go ahead! Laugh! Let’s all have a good laugh at Lily’s expense!” I roared. They said nothing. My breathing was heavy with anger, I was aware that I had crossed the line, but I made no attempt to calm myself down.
“We’re not here to laugh at you,” Cleyra said.
“Oh, like I haven’t heard that one before!”
“We aren’t. We want you to sit with us,” said Aquamarine, a little disturbed at my anger.
“Oh,” I could feel my temper dropping, and suddenly I felt embarrassed at having shouted so loudly. “Ok.”
“Great,” Cleyra said brightly. They led me down the stairs and into the dining hall, where they sat down together. I uneasily followed and took my place next to Cleyra.
Throughout the meal, Cleyra and Aquamarine bombarded me with questions, and answered mine. I learned that Cleyra was indeed a scholarship student, and she was proud of it, and that she wore slacks because she couldn’t bear to wear what every other girl did (“They’re damn uncomfortable those skirts,” she said). Aquamarine told me that she had a huge crush on Adrian Versel, but she couldn’t stand talking to him (“I’m afraid he’ll ignore me,” she blushed). They also told me about their friends from their other grades, like how Ayden was madly in love with Damian, but he never noticed, or how Brendan was eldest but hated it, and how all of them wished Marella would fall down an elevator shaft (“But you can’t have everything in life,” Cleyra said wistfully).
I winced when they began making fun of Travis, saying that he was “the most arrogant, most obnoxious idiot in the bloody school,” as Cleyra put it. By the time lunch was over, Aqua and Cleyra were treating me like an old friend. I counted myself lucky to be on speaking terms with either of them, and even more so when they introduced me to their friends during free period.
The rest of the group usually hung around an empty classroom on the second floor corridor. During free periods and weekends, they would come here to talk and spend time ridiculing Marella and her group. I had occasionally passed the room on my way to the library, always hearing roars of laughter erupting from inside.
Only three people were there when we arrived. They had been talking amongst each other when they looked up to say hi.
“Hey, Clair, hey Aqua,” Ayden said. She was pretty, with long, shining, brown hair and large brown eyes. “Saph and I were just wondering where you’d gone.”
Sapphire spotted me and smiled kindly. She had dark brown hair and warm, black eyes.
“Who’s the new girl, Clair?”
“This is Lily Edwards; she’s the one I switched my test with,” Cleyra said impassively.
“We saw Marella push her in the fountain, so we thought she’d like to come here,” Aquamarine added.
“Hey Lily,” the handsome boy in the back said. He had short, light brown hair, and green eyes, though not as stunning as Cleyra’s. I had only seen him a few times, and I supposed this was Brendan.
“Careful, Lily,” Ayden giggled. “Bren can be a real flirt sometimes.”
Brendan grinned and winked in Cleyra’s direction.
“Only with cute girls.”
“Oh, give it up Brendan,” she said as she pushed him playfully.
I caught her face going faint pink, but at that moment two other people walked in. One was a seventh grader, with blond hair till her waist, and crystal blue eyes. The other was a tall boy, good looking, with very short black hair.
“Hi!” Elizabeth said cheerily and sat down next to Ayden. The boy leaned by the doorway, grinning.
“Aren’t you that Edwards girl?” he asked me.
“My name is Lily,” I said a little forcefully.
“Lily, huh. My name’s Damian,” he held out his hand. I grudgingly shook it.
“Did anyone see Adrian today?” Elizabeth asked.
“What happened?” Aquamarine asked quickly.
“Let’s just say that he won’t be coming to class for a while.”
“It worked?” Ayden said, her eyes shining.
“Yeah, his face is green!”
Everyone laughed.
“What’d you do, Ayde?” Cleyra asked, interestedly.
“We put dye in his shaving cream!” Ayden giggled. “He’ll be trying to get it off for a week!”
“He looks like a goblin!” Elizabeth said. “And that’s not even the best part! Guess who he blamed!”
“Who?” said about four different voices.
“Travis Deasena!”
“What?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, he said that it was Travis’s revenge for getting Marella mad at him!”
“Marella’s mad at Travis?” I asked in what I hoped was an impassive voice. I didn’t want anyone to know how I felt.
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Brendan shrugged. “Something about paying more attention to other girls than to his own girlfriend.”
“Who cares about that though,” Aqua said waving her hand impatiently. “What happened to Adrian?”
“Well, he was running down to the nurse, covering his face, but I tripped him,” Elizabeth said smiling. “Everyone saw his face and he turned all red. I guess he went to get some rubbing alcohol to get the color off, but I made sure it doesn’t work. It only comes off on its own.”
“Brilliant, Lizzie!” Sapphire beamed.
“Can’t wait to see him in class on Monday,” Cleyra said. “Bet you two bucks that he’ll be wearing a scarf, Aqua.”

Adrian did indeed cover the bottom half of his face with a scarf on Monday. At first, everyone thought he was just sick, but then it spread, the story of how someone put semi-permanent dye in his shaving cream, leaving half of his handsome face tinged bright green. I caught him glaring at Travis in Math, and I couldn’t help noticing that Travis was no longer spending every waking moment with Marella. It got my hopes up, but I knew that they were still together. What had happened was that Travis had been looking at another girl while Marella was talking, and she had noticed, which made her very angry. No one knew who he was looking at, but we guessed it was probably Cleyra because she was so angry about it.
Cleyra was furious whenever someone said this.

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