Hello! I'm back with chapter 3! This chapter was going to be posted on Wednesday but my dumb computer deleted both copies I made of it.
I'd like to thank Guest 2, Zee, Bughead4Life, and Malice-Mal-Ben-Bree-1998 for reviewing! And to answer your question Guest 2, I plan to update at least once a week, but I don't have a scheduled day or anything.
Enjoy!
The Tourney field is full of action by the time I take a seat in the mostly empty bleachers, which is probably because I stopped to get a snack on the way here. I can see Aziz running around on the field in his usual manner, being the son of a former street rat making him pretty agile. Down at the bottom of the stands is Audrey and her group of cheerleaders bouncing around like a bunch of jumping beans.
One player on the field in particular catches my eye. From what I can tell with his uniform on, he's tall and muscular, and pretty quick on his feet. He knocks down just about anyone in his path, including Aziz, as he makes his way towards the danger zone. He flips over the projectiles and rams into another player before making it to the other side and rushing at a defender.
"Jay! It's me, it's Carlos!" The smaller figure waves his arms around spastically, "Stop, Jay, stop!"
So, the talented player is the son of Jafar, while the little defender is Carlos.
Jay doesn't show any sign of stopping or hearing him, so the boy crouches and protects himself with his shield, which Jay uses to propel himself up into the air and knocks down Ben who's on his team. He flicks the ball up into the air and shoots it into the goal, scoring a point for his team.
The boy does a victory dance after scaring the goalie some more, while all the cheerleaders, besides Audrey, who looks extremely ticked off, jump up and down in excitement. Knowing Audrey isn't happy makes me even more impressed with the guy.
I wish I could get to the point where my presence alone just pisses her off.
A shrill whistle draws everyone's attention to Coach who's pointing right at Jay, "You! Get over here!" The team gathers around the older man as the Arabian boy jogs up to him, "What do you call that?" He doesn't leave time for a reply, "I call that raw talent! Come find me sometime, I'll show you something called a rulebook!"
He glances over at Carlos.
"Have you ever thought about band?"
Ooooh burn!
The team laughs, and Ben promises the coach that he'll work with the non-athletic kid. I can see Chad standing with his arms crossed and a frown on his face, clearly not thrilled with the new member of the team.
Yet again, I honestly wish I could put him and Audrey in a box and ship them to the furthest corner of the kingdom.
A tan, sweaty arm is draped around my shoulders as Aziz plops down next to me on the bleachers, grinning at me crookedly, "What'd you think, Graceful?"
"Call me that one more time and I'll show you how graceful I can be when I shove that Tourney stick where the sun don't shine." I push the offending appendage off of me, earning a smirk from him, "And I think that you got your ass handed to you out there."
"What can I say?" Aziz takes off his gloves and places them in his bag, "Kid's got skills."
The lack of animosity in his voice impresses me, "That's really cool of you 'Ziz. I wish all of us," I shoot the bane of my existence a glare, "could be so mature about these things. Especially since he's the son of your dad's worst enemy."
My friend shrugs his shoulders and when he looks up to meet my eyes, there's a tingle that runs through me, "He hasn't given me any reason not to like him," He turns to glance at the boy in question, who's leaving the field with Carlos, "and just because his dad's a bad guy, doesn't automatically make him one. There's people who aren't on the Isle that aren't necessarily 'good,' but since their parents are heroes, no one says anything."
His response actually shocks me enough to make me unable to respond. I can't believe how much he sounds like an adult, which kind of puts him in a new light.
"What?"
"I-I'm just impressed with your answer is all." I admit, my cheeks warming up with the way he smiles at me, "You'd usually say something like that with a blanket of sarcasm, so I'm just pleasantly surprised."
Just as quick as it came, the moment of maturity ends when he wiggles his eyebrows at me, "Impressed enough to make out with me?" He smirks and puckers his lips.
"Not unless Dude starts talking, your Majesty," My palm makes a small smack sound as it hits his face to push him away, "and this was fun and all, but I've got some new kids to check on!"
"Bye, Graceful! See you later!"
As I walk across the field, I throw my hand up to give him a middle fingered salute. His laughter follows me as I head towards the girls dorms.
The door opens after I've knocked for the second time, a blue head peaking out into the hallway. "Hey Evie, I was just coming by to see how your first day went."
"Hi, Grace." She eyes me for a moment as if searching for any signs of deception before turning to tell Mal, who must also be in the room. She says something back to Evie and the girl opens the door wider, gesturing for me to come in.
Evie shuts the door behind her and sits at one of the two desks in the room, this one holding a sewing machine and different types of fabric. Mal is spread out on her bed with an old, leather book laid out in front of her, but she immediately shuts it when I sit down on Evie's bed across from her.
"So," I say, both of them watching me somewhat suspiciously, "how'd your first day go?"
"It was okay," The girl on the bed responds distractedly, "nobody was rude to our faces at least."
"That's good,"
"No offense," Mal drawls, "but why do you care?"
I tap my finger to my chin as if deep in thought before speaking, "Well, if I was new, I'd want someone who's super awesome," Mal makes a sound like she's choking, "to check on me."
"You don't have to do that. We're fine." She says curtly.
"I don't have to do anything." I cross my arms, "I want to do it." Both girls exchange skeptical glances, "Besides, you guys are a whole lot more fun than some of these prissy princes and princesses around here. I mean how's anybody supposed to have any fun when everyone's got a stick up their ass."
"What?" Evie tilts her head to the side, seemingly confused at my words, "Why would someone have a stick up their…?"
"It's a figure of speech, but I was kidding. It means that they're uptight or no fun." I inform them, but when they still don't look like they understand, I continue, "Didn't you guys have fun on the Isle?"
The girls share a look and this time the daughter of Maleficent speaks, "The only time people had fun was if they were doing something cruel or hurting someone else," Her eyes look as if they are starting to glow but it could just be a trick of the light.
"I'm sorry," Yep. Her eyes are definitely glowing, so I put my hands up in a placating manner, "I did't think about that."
"Well," Mal retorts shortly, flipping open her spell book, "you should have."
I look over to see Evie staring down at her hands sadly, so thinking fast I quickly change the subject, "Just wait until you see all the pranks Aziz and I play. One time, we put magical dye in Aubrey's body wash and she was blue for a week! Best week ever!"
My attempt to cheer them up seems to work because both girls start to giggle, which is strange because I've yet to see Mal even smile genuinely until now. Although she's probably just laughing because something bad happened to Audrey, which in its own right is hilarious. We lapse into a comfortable silence, me remembering the look on the princesses face, while they try and imagine it.
"Who's Aziz?" Evie asks innocently, looking up from her work and effectively breaking the silence. "Is he your boyfriend?"
I nearly choke on the gum I've just stuck in my mouth, sitting up straight to keep it from happening, "Aziz? My boyfriend? No way, the guy is like my best friend here." The way my face turns tomato red seems to make them think differently.
"Hmm," She hums, a smirk forming on her lips, "you sure about that?"
"Yes, I'm positive. I've known the guy since we were in diapers!" I cringe at how desperate I sound.
"Okay."
I can almost feel her amusement in the air as she turns back to her work, the sound of the machine filling the silence. Mal is looking through her book again, seemingly having ignored our exchange, but I don't miss the way her ear is slightly tilted towards our direction.
No one makes any attempt to say anything else, so I lay back on the bed and let my eyes close, the exhaustion from the busy day finally catching up to me. I'm not quite sure if the girls are uncomfortable with me napping in their room, but all my friends know that I have the ability to fall asleep just about anywhere.
The peace can only last so long until it's interrupted.
"Ugh!" The door is thrown open, and in marches a short brunette in a light blue dress, everyone jumping at the abrupt entrance.
"Jesus C….Jane?" My shy roommate turns to face me before dropping down next to me, her face set in an unusual expression for her, a frown. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Mal fixed my hair." She reaches up to twirl the now long brown locks, "Do you like it?"
The purple haired girl smirks when I raise my eyebrows at her, "Yeah, I love it, but how did you do it?"
Mal lifts up the books she's been reading since I got here, "Spell book. My mom gave it to me."
Hmmm. That sounds pretty suspicious to me. The evilest villain in the land giving her daughter a spell book to take to Auradon. I'll have to keep my eyes on that.
"You can do magic?" She nods. "Awesome! I wish I had magic, stupid dwarf genes and not giving me better ones." I cross my arms and frown, causing the other girls to laugh before Jane hops up and starts pacing.
"I can't believe my mom said she wouldn't fix my nose! I mean she has all that power and she just doesn't use it," She's about to make a hole in the ground with how fast she's going back and forth, "it's what's on the inside that counts." She mocks her mother, which is a first for the mouse-like girl.
For once, instead of speaking without a filter, I decide to take the backseat in this conversation, my suspicion due to the spell book still on my mind.
Jane continues to complain about her mom, and how she wouldn't use the wand, which makes Mal deflate, because why would she care about the wand so much. Although she did ask F.G. about it when she first got here. The conversation quickly turns to how Mal has never had a boyfriend thanks to Evie, and then someone else joins the party.
Lonnie, daughter of Mulan—which she has to remind the Isle kids—heard about Jane's hair and now apparently everyone wants Mal to do theirs. At first, the purple haired girl refuses, but Lonnie says she'll pay her, so Evie agrees to it for Mal.
"Beware, forswear, change the old with cool hair."
She moves her finger as she recites the spell, Lonnie's head following the movement before she flips her hair down and it grows out and curls magically.
Mal's pretty good with that spell book.
What happen's next though, truly shocks me.
Both Jane and Lonnie rip their shirts, and then turn to me, expecting me to do the same.
"No thanks," I tell them with a smirk, "I'm not wearing a skirt, and I already have three pairs of ripped jeans."
They leave soon after and that leaves me with Mal and Evie, who stare at me expectantly.
"Oh, right. This isn't my room." I laugh awkwardly, standing up and brushing off my clothes, "Thanks for letting me hang out with you guys. Well, actually you should be thanking me since I usually charge for my time."
I receive blank looks, "I'm kidding…" But both girls grin and start to laugh, making me realize they were pulling my leg, "not funny! See you guys later!"
I'm halfway out the door when Evie calls out after me, making me pause, "Thank you for treating us the same as everyone else. Not many people seem to feel that way."
"You're welcome! Just don't start acting all entitled and it can stay that way," Throwing them a wink, I walk backwards, shutting the door and strutting off to the kitchen to get a bite to eat.
Hope you liked it! As always, leave a review to tell me what you thought or any suggestions, I'm open to ideas! Have a great day!
