Oh my god, it's been ages everyone! Sorry for not updating. I was experiencing the joy of school holidays and now I'm back to the boredom of school. Exam marks? Oh um, hehe well I got 70's for most of them, I got a 94 for Geography which technically means an A*! As for Math… Somewhere between 30 and 40 :( Hehe, enjoy and review!

Chapter Seven – Back To Normal?

I guess I'm just not ready to lose Bianca to some brown-haired, skinny boy. It doesn't help that it's my brother – it's not like Bianca and I can talk into the small hours about how cute he is. Please.

'It's amazing,' she said for the forty-second time this week, as we leaned up against the cast-iron radiators waiting for Hilbert's class to come out of French. 'I mean, all those years and I just never really saw him before, right?'

'Whatever,' I shrugged.

'He's a great kisser. Really strong lips.'

'Bianca! Too much information! Seriously.'

At that moment, Mr. Malinque stalked past and cast an outraged glance at Bianca's Charizard Meets Meganium tartan mini kilt, draped with chains. It was barely visible beneath the hem of her pink blazer, which may account for Mr. Malinque's scrunched-up purple face. Any minute, there will be smoke coming out of his ears.

'Miss Chiranuy.' He choked out. 'What…is…this?'

He flicked a gnarled and quivering hand towards the tartan skirt, and Bianca sprang to life and did a little twirl for him.

'Sir, I know it's not uniform,' she said sweetly. 'I know that, and I'm sorry. But we are a school, and I'm a schoolgirl. We're studying school history and learning Robert Burn's poems in English, and you're always telling us to be proud of our school and lessons, aren't you? So I thought that, under the circumstances – '

'You thought wrong!' Mr. Malinque roared. 'That skirt must go!'

'Right now, sir?' Bianca blinked innocently.

Mr. Malinque backed away, suddenly pale.

'Not now, you insolent girl,' he said shakily. 'You know what I mean. No more kilts, Miss Chiranuy. And you're in detention – for a week!'

As Mr. Malinque disappeared around the corner, a small roar of applause broke out behind us. Hilbert and his friends had been watching from the classroom door. Austin, Tom and Harris melted away, leaving Hilbert to wander up to Bianca. He brought a packet of candy from out of his blazer pocket and handed them to her. Candied Pecha Berry Hearts.

I turned away, suddenly in need of fresh air.

Outside, the school field is a huge mix of soccer games. Small knots of girls huddled on the edges, gossiping, catching up on homework or reading magazines. Beyond them I spotted N Harmonia, sitting alone on a low piece of wall behind the music block. N had been alone all week – in class, in the lunch hall, in the field. He probably felt worse than I did.

I walked over to him, watched him close a small black sketchbook and slide it into his pocket as soon as he sees me approach. He slipped a pencil behind his ear and grinned at me from behind his tea-green hair.

'Hey. Hilda. Where's Bianca?'

'She's with Hilbert,' I told him, sitting down next to him. 'What a surprise. I kind of got the feeling that three's a crowd.'

'Ouch,' N said. 'That's two of us out in the cold then.'

'Is Hilbert still pissed about the drawings?' I asked.

'Ever so slightly. I just thought – at the start – I thought things would work out okay. Should've known.'

'Hilbert's a pain,' I told him. 'Don't stress, you'll make other friends.'

'I'm not so good at that stuff,' N admitted. 'I've always been more of a loner,'

'You don't have to be,' I reassured him, getting up from the wall.

'Don't worry, I'm fine.'

'Okay, see you in the art room at lunchtime?' I asked hopefully.

'Yeah, maybe.' N shrugged. With that, I walked off towards where my next lesson would be.

I cannot stand another five minutes of Hilbert and Bianca feed each other spoons of caramel sauce and bits of sandwich.

'Want to go to the art room?' I asked Bianca, but she just mouthed the word 'later' and turns her back so she can describe the plot of last night's Pokémon Parody episode, practically word for word.

Nightmare. My smart, sassy and sweet best friend is turning into a fluff-brained, lovesick gimp. Of course, she was always a hopeless romantic, but still. When Hilbert is around, nobody else exists around her. It could be possible I'm turning invisible.

'I'm gonna go up,' I told her.

'Mmm.'

'There's a rumor going around that Bullet For My Valentine will be there,' I said, testing to see whether she was even listening. 'Professor Juniper invited them to give a one-off workshop on non-permanent tattoos.'

'Fantastic,' Bianca sighed vaguely.

That proved it.

I am officially invisible.

The art room was packed with the usual crowd of kids. The ones who are into art sit painting or doing strange, experimental stuff with wire and pliers and glue. The ones who are avoiding the windswept playground lounge on desktops, chatting and adding the occasional scribble to a piece of class work. The ones who are here because they have nowhere else to go, nobody else to be with, try hardest to look busy.

Normally, I'm in the second category, looking for a warm place to hang out in when the weather got arctic. Today, though, I know I'm in with the loners. I fished my art folder out from the drawers and took out an unfinished still-life painting.

'Hey, Hilda.'

N waved from the sink area, and then wandered over to where I'm sitting. He set a paint palette and a water jar down on the table, and took a huge comic-style happy families picture from his folder. Two smiling faces, a young woman and a little boy, arranged like a holiday snapshot.

'It's good,' I told him. 'Is that your mum?'

'It's how I remember her, anyway.' N said with a shrug. 'I don't have any photos. Sometimes it's hard to remember,'

'Tough.'

N fished out a glass bottle of something orange and fizzy from his rucksack, pushing it across the table at me. It's one of those old-fashioned bottles of drinks which you can buy at the corner shop opposite the school. Aprijuice. It's sweet and cool and fizzy, with a flavor of long-ago summers. It originates from Johto I think.

'You okay?' N pressed. 'You look like you're in a bad mood.'

'I'm invisible,' I told him, holding up a hand to check whether it's transparent or not. 'It's happening slowly but it's happening. Pretty soon, you won't see me at all.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Seriously,' I told him. 'People can't see me. People can't hear me. I could disappear any minute.'

N Harmonia laughed. 'Have you been hanging around with Romeo and Juliet again?' he asked me. 'Don't take it personally. They wouldn't notice if there was an Ursaring right next to them.'

'It feels like I'm losing my best friend.' I told him. 'It hurts.'

'Yeah, I know.' He said sadly, and I remembered that he does.

'Hey we'll survive,' I grinned. 'Won't we?'

'Are you sure I'm not looking hazy to you?' I checked. 'Kind of wishy-washy?'

'Not even slightly.'

We painted in silence for a while and then Professor Juniper glided up behind us.

'No Bianca today?' she asked.

'Bianca's got a boyfriend.' I explained, trying the words out for size.

'Sweet!' Professor Juniper smiled.

'Er, no, not exactly!'

'Oh, well. I don't suppose it'll last forever.' She shrugged. 'How are those Purrloin getting along?'

'They're fine. They're eating solid food now, and they're huge – compared to when we found them, anyway. They're really clever too.'

'Almost house-trained.' N chipped in. 'Except for when Amethyst mistook Mikelly's handbag for the litter tray.'

'Scary,' said Professor Juniper.

'Very.'

Later on, in Math, I was pounding through a shed load of fractions. Bianca, who loves Math (I told you she was weird), had finished and sat doodling hearts and skulls all over the back of her notebook in her favorite silver pen.

'Hey,' she whispered when Professor Rowan turned his back to scrawl more sums on the black board. 'Was it just a rumor, then, about Bullet For My Valentine?'

I blinked at her. 'They were there, all right.' I said. 'They're much better-looking in real life. You missed out.'

'Show me your tattoo, then!'

'I can't,' I said, my mouth twitching into a smile. 'It's in a very private place.'

'You wouldn't be just saying that?' Bianca asked, her eyes laughing. 'To get your own back?'

'Would I lie about something that important?'

'Possibly, Hilda, possibly. But if they were to turn up….'

'Mmm?'

'Would you get an autograph for me?'

I raised an eyebrow. 'Whatever would Hilbert say?'

Bianca rolled her eyes. 'Kit?' she asked. 'Kit who?'

How was it? Please tell me! Read and review!

-Skylaa :)