Mystik Realm: Celestinia Academy

Two: Not-so-pleasant Birthday Surprises

The school is a cream coloured brick building that is in sections, each section being for a different subject; English, Maths, Science, Art and etc. There are groups of people surrounding the front doors, people waiting for friends, or just chatting in large groups, mild laughter comes from a group closer to the door, the rich popular people group.

Where I'm standing the parking lot is large, bare and filled with cars, the small trees that sometimes are in shop parking lots and other businesses are non-existent here.

I walk across the parking lot while scanning for Demina and eventually spot her with a group of guys, flirting no less. Normal behaviour for Demina really, very flirtatious. She is an outgoing and undeniably a hot girl with long blond hair that fades to a lilac colour at the bottom, deep, riveting dark blue eyes with long dark eyelashes framing them with a seductive curve, she's 5”7 whereas I'm an inch taller. She complains about it sometimes, saying that she can’t reach stuff it’s not even that much difference, she can occasionally be a bit of a drama queen so I guess it’s fine.

I see Mike and Jay giving her that 'I would do her' kind of look from over by the front entrance, I cringe inwardly at their open display of s****l desire.

It takes a few seconds for her to see me from where she’s standing but when she does she abandons the boys and runs toward me saying, “Happy birthday, Ally! You’re sixteen now!” then practically or, well, literally leaping into my arms and knocking the breath from my lungs.

“Let go,” I choke out, struggling to free myself from her attack, she loosens her grip grinning apologetically then letting me go entirely so I can actually move again.

“And, well, technically, I'm not sixteen til it's one minute to four…” I say pedantically, just to annoy her a little bit.

“You’re so predictable, of course, and you have to be so specific.” rolling her eyes in annoyance, then she continues strongly, "You're coming to my house this afternoon." She has this way of saying stuff like it's fact instead of a question, it can be really annoying.

“You’ve got good fashion sense, cool outfit,” she tugs at my shirt then starts walking to the entrance as though she’d get rid of the topic that quickly. I re-adjust my shirt and shake my head to both get the hair out of my face and to outwardly express my distaste, not that she sees it her back is turned to me, I doubt she has eyes in the back of her head.

I jog after her and raise my eyebrows at her pathetic attempt at changing the subject from my ‘party’, “Mara says that I…”

“Blah, blah, blah. You will be coming to my house after school today, no buts,” she glares at me for a second keeping me quiet, “and I mean, after all, it is your sweet, sweet sixteen.” she interrupts my attempt to tell her of Mara’s practical if not literal orders for me to be home, She rolls her eyes and sighs heavily, barely pausing in her stride, I hurry after her, contemplating if there really is a way to make her listen, I decide there isn’t but I try my luck anyway, not that I’ve ever been particularly lucky in any retrospect.

“Come on,” I whine feeble, “I prom...”

“Na-uh-uh,” she says wagging her right index finger at me sternly as she interrupts my plea. “And plus I invited Jack, Kaiden and Willow,” she continues strategically. Jack, Kaiden and Willow are sort of friends of ours, we’ve always been a bit separate from them, we’re like a duo and they’re a trio; we just hang out together when we want to.

“Fine, but...” I wait to see if she’ll interrupt me again; she doesn’t, “I have to be my house by a quarter past four.”

“But that's only gonna give us an hour.” She pouts, glancing at me like I had a choice in the matter.

“I promised Mara,” I say with finality.

“Fine.” Demina rolls her eyes.

“Also, you can come to my house for a sleepover; Aunt Mara gave permission.” It should help with the pouty expression that still adorns her face.

“Awesome,” Demina’s gloomy demeanour vanishes as expected and is then replaced by a very cheeky smile.

“We can talk about boys!” she says gleefully. I groan, not again. “And your lack of a boyfriend…” she smiles wickedly.

“Really Demi? Really?” I step on her foot.

“Ow!” she looks at me, a slightly reproachful expression on her face, eyes wide and mouth pouting.

I glare.

“Oh come on, Ally, it’ll be fun! You can tell me your crush! I still can’t believe you haven’t told me who it is! yet...” Oh right, my mystery crush. Truth be told, I don’t like him anymore; Jarrod Peterson is a prick. Also, last time I told her my crush, she practically shouted it to the whole school in surprise.

"Yeah, yeah..." I say moodily.

We walk into the school and I tell her about my new phone that Mara gave me, I don’t mention the other thing, a stylis is what I believe Mara called it.

***

After sweating out my second-to-last period; PE, we were playing soccer then Ms Chelsey (who was for some reason in a very bad mood today) made us run around the soccer field five times when Layla said she had a sore foot from kicking the soccer ball too hard.

Ms Chelsey (I presume) and I, had noticed, that Layla hadn’t even touched the ball once in the hour that we had played for. So her punishment had been to run around the field twice, but then Venus had said a rude comment to a couple of the guys about Layla. Unfortunately, Ms Chelsey was in hearing distance but didn’t know who had said it so she had made the whole class run five freaking laps.

So thus, I drag myself to my last class of the day; Chemistry. At least it doesn’t involve running or any other form of physical activity for that matter, I don’t count experiments as we literally just stand, plus we don’t have any experiments or close to that today, we are usually given prior warning to them.

Halfway through my Chemistry class, I get this really annoying, funny sensation in the pit of my stomach or to be more precise, my abdomen. It's not painful like my stupid period cramps. The feeling more like a funny tingling sensation coming from inside, similar to the feeling of being tickled. Somehow it doesn't have the same effect, I mean it doesn't make me laugh out loud, thankfully.

I squirm as the feeling gets stronger, filling my whole belly then rising up to engulf my whole upper body, I rub my stomach, trying to dispel the sensation, it only gets worse. Soon, weirdly, my senses start to heighten, which includes the uncomfortable sensation that has a similar feeling to pins and needles at this point, but I can also somehow smell the sweat of the boy sitting next to me, he's on an uncomfortable chair that sadly the school has yet to replace with a new one. I can hear Ciana Walls chewing strawberry flavoured gum while tapping away on her phone under her desk two rows back and I know that she is somehow texting her boyfriend Tyson Clement the most popular jock in school, he is also a jerk and a cocky one at that. I can taste the strong scent of testosterone in the air from the guys silently glaring at each other at the back of the room, typical boys, probably fighting over a girl.

Somehow, I can also see that Mr Sardos is checking his email on his laptop- a girl named Stacy just messaged him asking him whether he can meet her at the Seawater Cafe downtown at four this afternoon. Without realising I shiver the air conditioner in the room suddenly feeling a lot colder than it did a couple of seconds ago. What's happening to me? What are these weird... sensations I'm feeling?

I put my hand up, waiting for Mr Sardos to notice.

“Ms Goldain? Do you have a question?” he says surprised at my raised hand, I usually show my brilliance the other, less public ways.

“Uh, no sir, I would like to go to the Lady’s restroom,” I cringe as most of the students in the classroom look at me curiously.

“Why?” he asks, I resist the urge to roll my eyes, this will be fun, and easy.

I stare at him with a ‘why do you think look’ that dares him to ask the question again, it makes me smile inwardly especially since his reaction is turning bright red and stuttering an apology then, ushering me out, embarrassed at his lack of tact. He’s only twenty-four so he’s still a bit embarrassed by that sort of thing, most male teachers have learned not to question a girls request to visit the restrooms, we exploit it sometimes.

I walk to the restrooms, resisting the urges to just lean against a wall on the way to wait for it to pass, knowing I would stay there for some time and if someone passed me it would get a bit annoyingly complicated. I make it to the restroom panting.

I lean on the sinks and flinch back at the freezing temperature, I cautiously turn the tap on ignoring the cold, maybe some refreshing water on my face will make this fantasy disappear, just my luck it feels more like liquid dry ice instead of calming water. I stand tiredly waiting to wake up, pinching myself to see if it will help, it's just painful.

It takes five minutes for the weird sensation in my stomach to go away, and another five for all the noises in my head that are causing a headache, -mostly my hearing, which is picking up on every little sound -including the classes next to the girls room and it just so happens our history teacher Mr O’Conna is giving a history lecture about the first fleet- like come on I heard enough about that in year eight let alone now in year ten!!!

I can also smell a lot of things most people wouldn’t enjoy smelling, I am in a restroom after all, so I can smell a few things I’d rather not mention. Normally the perfume in here would disperse the bad smells but now that just smells sickly sweet and is only marginally better than the stench of the other stuff.