Alright! Third (or technically, second) chapter! DISCLAIMER!
Basil: Delaney owns nothing...
Oh, and by the way, there maybe a few spelling/grammar mistakes. My Microsoft Word isn't working, so I had to type this in APPLEWORKS, of all things.
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Chapter Two: Mysteries, Dates, and Dresses, OH MY!
Aleena heaved a sighed as she stood up from her desk, and started gathering up her binders, papers, and the like. It had been two days since the fire and things had mostly settled down and gone mostly back to normal. The dance had been postponed to a week from then, only a few days from now.
As she picked up her science notebook and started to close it, Aleena absentmindedly glanced down at the page she had turned to for note-taking, and mentally hit herself. It was blank. Aleena hadn't heard a word of Professor Cyrus' lecture. Where had her mind been? Then, figuratively, her blood turn to ice. Because she remembered just where her mind had been. It had happened again.
Aleena couldn't really remember when it had begun, which actually suited her fine, because she didn't really even know what it was, but she could remember when she first started to notice it...
It had been in English class, and that odd Willow girl had been giving an oral report about symbolism of this or that in some book. Aleena was too polite to say it, but she found it all very dull. She actually was having a relatively bad day, and was wishing the day would just be over with, that the bell would ring, and school would be other... But, sadly, there was at least another fifteen minutes before the end of-
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNG!! The sound of the dismissal bell echoed through the school halls.
What?! Aleena's gaze had flicked to the clock. It was still 3:45, class didn't get out until four o'clock... Not that Aleena had complained at the time but...
And, as she hurriedly gathered her belongings and slipped out of the classroom, Aleena remembered the bully girl who had slipped and got potato salad on her (right in the middle of the cafeteria where everyone could see her, too) at the exact moment Aleena had glared at her, her torn ribbon that was fine and whole the next time Aleena looked at it, the homework that's last three division problems where finished correctly even though she had skipped them, and the time Diamond's cute friend Basil had winked at her just when she willed him too.
And, just know, Aleena had spent the entire science class in her seat by the window, staring out it, at the clouds. But, soon the clouds started to move, a lot more fast, precise, and unusual than the clouds normally did. First, Aleena had seen a tiny Flicky flitting around a tree. Then, there was a peach tree with one peach falling off it, Basil waving at her, a pretty girl playing piano, and Monica sneering at her. She had wanted to see Basil again, and there he was. Add in the fact that no one else seemed to see these unusual cloud formations.
Aleena sighed again, and stuffed the notebook into her bag, hurrying out the door. All these strange things were impossible, she had spent enough time talking to Diamond to know that, and there must be some other reason behind it, but right know, she just wanted to leave.
Aleena strode down the hall as fast as she could, down to her locker. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Diamond talking with Willow, who suddenly looked like she could jump ten feet in the air and started vigorously nodding, and Diamond said something before breezing off coolly. Diamond, though he usually didn't try, always looked cool. And Monica always looked good, and Josephine always knew just what to say. Aleena, on the other hand, always felt awkward.
Aleena clicked her locker lock around and pulled open her locker. She boredly stuffed her notebooks and binders into her backpack and pulled in out of the small metal compartment. As she did so, the small magnetic mirror on the back of her locker came into view. Aleena scowled at it before slamming her locker door closed and spinning on her heel, and subsequently marched of towards the nearest exit.
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Aleena boredly skimmed over an open page of the book lying before her, and absentmindedly turned the page. Her eyes flicked up when she heard the door to the castle's library creak open. Aunt Amy's pink-furred head poke in to view.
"Leena?" Amy said cheerfully "There's a boy here to see you!" Aleena blinked. A boy?
"Um, okay..." Aleena close the book she had been reading a placed it back on the shelf behind her.
The two of them walked down a long corridor, and Amy opened the door to the main entrance hall. Basil was sitting uncomfortably on one of the chairs, occasionally glancing at this thing or that. An older woman was standing beside him, admiring the decorative columns. She was more feline in appearance, but had the same yellow-orange fur as Basil, so Aleena assumed she was his mother.
"Oh, hi, Basil? What's going on?" Aleena asked, taking a seat on the chair closest to his. Basil's mother nudged him.
"Well, ask her!" She insisted. Basil folded his arms and pouted a little.
"Why don't you ask her?" He quipped. His mother almost growled a little.
"Listen, do you want to take your cousin for the third time or do you want to get this right already?" she asked threateningly. Basil stuck out his tongue, sighed and turn back to Aleena. Aleena cocked her eyebrow questioningly, and she could have sworn she heard Amy giggle.
"Well, ah, I, that is, was, er, wondering, if, um, y'know, if you'd..." Basil glanced at his mom, who seemed to be hoping that there was some ice around so she could melt it with her glare. "That is, I would be honored if you would allow me to escort you to the dance." Basil gave her a sort of "Weeeeeeelllll?" look. Aleena pause, then though she was gonna burst out giggling.
"Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute! You, me, on a date!" Aleena honestly only had to say that...
"AH! No! I mean, yes! I mean, I do mean no, but it's that, I don't, it's, uh... MOM! Help me out here!" Aleena smiled as Basil started babbling, and then glance panickingly at his mom.
"Yes!" Basil's mother concluded, Basil looked like he was going to faint, and Aleena nearly fell out of her chair giggling.
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"This dress! No, no this dress. No, I think this. No, this one! Or maybe this one... Aaah! Too many choices!" Monica, having just gotten out of her two-hour-long bath a few minutes prior, had moved on to the next step in her preparing-for-a-party fest; clawing endlessly through her endless and claw-through-able closet of dresses. Aleena was sitting on the bed watching her in an odd sort of fascination, and Diamond was standing in front of the wall mirror in a pinstripe suit, which Aleena has no idea how he had managed to obtain, trying to decided whether or not it would be dorky to wear a bow tie to a school dance.
"So," Monica, having apparently decided on her dress or gotten bored with the whole ordeal, rounded on Aleena. "What are you wearing tonight, hmm?" Aleena sighed and nervously pulled her only dress out her bureau. Monica glanced skeptically at it from a few angles and bit her lip.
"What?" Aleena asked nervously. Monica shrugged.
"I dunno, it's just... kinda cheery. Halloween party? Halloween? Scary, dark, that kinda stuff? Do you have something darker?" Monica explained, half to herself almost. Aleena shook her head.
"This is all I have." She added. Monica grabbed her hand and pulled her to the other side of the room.
"You can wear one of mine, then!" Monica, always the fashionista, had in her mine a few dresses that she knew would look great on Aleena... Actually, most things looked good on Aleena, but Monica was hoping for something that would make her look confident. Aleena sat down on the bed as Monica started pawing through her wardrobe again. Aleena also noticed a short plum dress with a little pink lace rose on the neck laid out on the bed, which she assumed was what Monica had chosen to wear tonight.
Monica emerged from her closet and held up a dress. It had short sleeves, and the top part was off-white with a faint pattern covering it. The bottom part was a long dark blue skirt that would go down to about her ankles. The two parts were separated by a thin line of black stitching.
"Well, how about this?" Monica asked. Aleena stood up and gently took it from her older cousin. Aleena smiled.
"It's great! Perfect." The yellow-furred hedgebat remark. And she had the best pair of shoes she could wear with. And a date with Basil.
Yeah, mysterious phenomenon aside, thing were looking up.
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Yeah...
I actually own Aleena's dress.
ANNNNNNNNNNNNND, I would like to thank my buddy Sparx and Nova 4ever for being the only person who reveiwed, out of the sixty-someodd who read this. Thanks, Beth!