Hey! So sorry for this being this late... I mean to update at least once a week... but time got away from me these past two weeks or so (beware! muffin cravings are incredibly distracting) and I rewrote this one after I had written the whole chapter already XD. Anyvays, here's the new chapter, please enjoy and review, they make strangely bouncy :D
-Laff
The rest of the week had gone downhill from there. Alice's awkward attempts at befriending Lovina had either been ignored or turned away by the younger girl's wickedly sharp tongue. She sighed as she remembered the worst time.
Alice had approached Lovina on a particularly bad day of the month, and the girl had whirled on her as soon as she had greeted her and had cut Alice down with a surprising number of rather creative insults. She couldn't say she had ever been called a stick-up-her-arse, tea-loving bastard of a fairy and a unicorn. She also couldn't say she had ever been insulted in Italian before, the words had been incomprehensible to her, but the tone clear enough at the time. Alice winced internally, but her mother's voice shook her out of her reverie.
"Alice, love, hurry up. The team party at the park will be starting soon, we should go." Alice startled a little bit, and got up to head downstairs, fluffing up the unicorn she had been petting and placing it gently on her bed. At least it was a nice day, the thin wisps of clouds stood against the startling blue sky, an unusual phenomenon for autumn in Seattle.
"Coming, mum!" Alice wasn't particularly excited about the thing at the park. It was a 'team-bonding' experience and required social skills and the actual want to talk to other people. The year before they had played a version of hide-and-seek after dark and she had hidden in a bush, the branches had scratched against her arms and face, and the awkward squat she was in started to burn her thighs after a few minutes. Alice hadn't heard the call of 'olly-olly-oxen-free' and had stayed hidden until Alfred found her, wanting to show her the so-called 'amazing' ice cream cone he had created.
So she didn't really enjoy this specific swim team tradition. But she went anyway.
"Goodbye, Mum. Love you!" Alice called as she turning to walk into the park. It was a nice enough place, full of stands of evergreen trees that towered above her, but still let in plenty of sunlight. There were a few covered areas for eating, tables underneath already filling up with people from her swim team. She had gone about 2 feet towards them when she was tackled by an overexcited American.
"Bloody hell, Alfred!" She whacked her friend over the head in retaliation for startling her, "Haven't you ever heard of greeting someone normally?"
"But I missed you Ally!" the teen whined, still glomping her despite Alice's repeated attempts to get him to go away, "Plus you're adorable in that unicorn shirt!"
Alice spluttered, turning a rather fantastic shade of red at the last comment.
"Aww Ally! You're so red!" Alfred let her go and turned in the direction of the grill area, "Well, Imma go get a burger of the grill. Ya want one?"
"It's I'm a not Imma, you bugger. And why would I want of your horridly greasy hamburgers anyway?" Alice glared and crossed her arms over her chest.
"'Cause they're AWESOME!" Alfred shouted, which was twice as loud as a normal person's yell. He called it his 'awesome hero voice'. Alice called it 'bloody annoying'.
"Whatever Alfred." She turned away from him as he dashed off in the direction of the covered area which housed the grill.
Scowling at the ground, Alice tried to understand the reason for the furious blush that had arisen earlier.
I've never done that before and he's been tackling me since I was in 7th grade. I should be used to it, not blushing like some girl in a rubbish romance. It couldn't be that I like the blighter. That's impossible. Completely. Absolutely. Right?
Alice was starting to sound a bit desperate, even in her mind. Thankfully, her train of thought was interrupted. Sadly, the one who interrupted it was definitely not Alice's favorite person.
"Hello frog." She smacked his hand away from her bum, as he had stretched it out for a grope.
"Bonjour, ma cheri! Looking… good. As always." Francis cocked an eyebrow, pointedly staring at her unicorn shirt and black team sweatpants.
"Oh shut up, you prat. Unicorns are a perfectly reasonable thing for a 15 year old to wear." Alice looked around desperately for something to distract Francis with, so he (and his increasingly skeptical stare) would go elsewhere. Her eye alighted on something uniquely suited for the task, "Francis? Isn't that Gilbert over there?"
"Yes it is, mon cher. Why do you – Mon Dieu! Gilbert! Hold on!" Francis rushed off to the aid of his friend, who was currently being attacked by an irate Elizabeta, who had pulled out her frying pan from who-knows-where. Alice decided it was best not to ask and started giggling at the bizarre sight of Gilbert hiding behind Francis while the French teen tried to distract the furious girl. She spun around, planning on finding Alfred and telling him of the incredibly amusing event currently taking place on one of the open soccer fields and didn't notice when she ran into someone.
"Ah, sorry, I didn't see you there." Alice looked at the girl in front of her. She looked rather like a faded version of Alfred, as if someone had taken him and diluted with him with water, leaving fainter colors behind, except for her brilliant purple eyes.
"It's okay, it happens sometimes." The girl glanced up at her, a small smile playing at her lips.
"Mattie, right? I'm Alice. Pleasure to meet you." Alice stuck her hand out for the Canadian teen to shake, slightly surprised by the girl's strong grip. She was still a little edgy around the other girl though, as this was the part in the conversation where things usually disintegrated.
"Pleasure's all mine Alice. I've heard a lot about you from Alfred. We exchanged emails a lot while I lived in Canada with my dad." Mattie smiled as she thought back, "Somehow, he even manages to be loud over email."
Alice laughed at that, the ice truly broken between the two, and they proceeded to launch into retellings of ridiculous things Alfred had done over the years. Mattie had a fair share from his younger years, including one when he tried to eat a plastic burger because she had convinced him it was real. It had taken Alice a few minutes to stop laughing after that one, and by the time she had caught her breath Alfred was back from the grill area.
"The hero is back from his epic burger quest!" Alfred displayed the burger proudly, despite the fact that the endless number of toppings he had put on it were dropping off at an alarming rate.
"Alfred, how the hell are you going to eat that? Without choking?" the English girl looked slightly disturbed by the slab of beef on a bun, and how tall it was.
"Me? Choke? No way. But it's nice to know that you worry." Alfred teased, laughing as Alice denied it all. He glanced up and caught sight of his sister, "Whoa! Hey Mattie!"
"Hey Al." Mattie smiled at him, poking him in the belly, "You know, it's not good for you to eat too many hamburgers…"
"Mattie!" he whined, "Not you too!"
Alice and Mattie both burst out laughing at the look on his face, a combination of righteous indignation and puppy dog eyes that was just plain hilarious. Mattie's giggles cut short as she glimpsed a group of people in the parking lot all dressed in purple and white sweats.
"Alfred, who are they?" his sister pulled at his sleeve to drag his attention away from the hamburger he was eating. Alice glanced over and her eyes widened.
"What the bleedin' hell are they doing here?"
