Hey guys! As promised, the next chapter!

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Chapter Eight

Food Fight Is a One-way Friendship Train

Shock. That was the only expression on everyone's faces inside the cafeteria. I mirrored their expression too but it was only for a second. I regained my peace of mind and grabbed a handful of table napkins from a random table and handed it to the princess. The sight of me seemed to bring her back into reality because her green eyes glittered in not-so mild anger. Then there – I let what happened happen again.

The princess grabbed the uneaten yogurt Mia had given me and tossed the mushy thing on Kathy's face. Kathy's previously shocked face turned irritated and yogurt-filled. A second passed and another thing was dumped on Kathy's very low-cut shirt.

She let out a shriek and glowered at Mia with hard tawny eyes.

"Oh, it is on." She said and started to pick up plateful of lasagna from somebody's table but before she could dump it on Mia's face, thick red-hot sauce dripped down her perfect blonde wig. I saw and was pretty surprised to see that it was Mason who poured that on her. The Conta twins just stared at their mistress but I was sure they were ready to bolt at any minute right now.

Mason caught my eye and he just winked.

And I got his message.

No. This. Was. Not. Happening.

"Food fight!" he declared and that single shout woke everybody up. Most of the dhampirs started to throw all kinds of food randomly, laughing and bickering. While the dhampirs played along, the Moroi cowered away and sought for shelter on their trays or the bottom of their tables.

Within the maddening chaos, I almost got hit by a flying egg (whole egg) in the face but I managed to dodge it before it started to fry on my face. Dhampirs were having fun throwing food and it looked like they had two victims/targets namely, Kathy and Mason. I chuckled and dove away from incoming edible materials.

In the midst of all the food chaos, I found an appealing looking fork. I looked back at Kathy's food-clad form and a mischievous smile crept slowly to my lips like The Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland. I picked up the fork and expertly threw it to the tip-top of Kathy's blonde wig and I made sure there was nobody at her back; I couldn't risk a life for a wig. When I served the fork, her wig went flying off of her head.

She noticed the absence of the wig and frantically touched her head where her alleged hair was supposed to be. She gave a shriek again and ducked and covered her hair with her arms. I nearly lost my composure then and there when I saw her true hair. It was short, pure frizzy and carrot-orange in color. I always thought that red hair was beautiful but she put my mother's hair color's beauty to shame just seeing hers now. It was pure vegetable carrot orange with smears of white blond like Mr. Humphries's hair in the Ancient Ram Inn. I understood why she covered that mane; it was more than a little embarrassing. Well, she could have put some medication on her hair but it looked like it had been kind of overdosed from them.

"Rose!" I heard Mason call. I looked around and saw that he was food-clad too. I couldn't help but laugh, he looked like he was having the time of his life. "Catch!" I could see that he was throwing me a very big and rotten tomato. Ew. I caught the rotten tomato easily and, again, Mason winked.

The mischievous smile that I always give out whenever I had a scheme played on my lips. I narrowed my eyes and zeroed down on my target. I threw it with strong deliberateness but I knew that the tomato was too rotten to cause her pain. I looked with satisfaction as the beet red of the rotten tomato spread on her orange hair. Her skinny form couldn't hold her and she tumbled from the impact I made even though it was just enough to sweep off a leaf. For me, that is.

She screamed, touched her head and smelled the rotten tomato on her fingers. I saw her face turn a little green but she looked around until her amber eyes laded on me.

I covered my laugh and she hissed at me, baring her fangs and crawled to me like an insane baby. I almost lost myself laughing at what she was doing but somebody grabbed me from behind.

It was the princess and Mia. It looked like nothing had happened before because they were smiling madly at me.

"Come on, Rose! We have to get out of here!" Mia cried and tugged on me harder.

"Yeah, Rose!" the princess laughed and her eyes twinkled in humor. "I don't want to get my hair messed up!"

"I think I want to stay." I told them.

They shook their heads at me. "You don't want to get in trouble! Everyone caught inside the cafeteria during a food fight gets to clean the place up and gets detention for three days!" Mia cried again and she tried hard not to burst out laughing again.

"So we have to get away from here now and hide!" the princess yelled.

The idea of cleaning up the cafeteria after the fun was not appealing so I, along with Mia and the Princess, retreated from the hostile territory as fast as we could. But before we were completely out of the cafeteria, I caught a very clear sight of a very tall Russian in a cowboy duster on the other side of the cafeteria's door, looking inanely strict.

The girls giggled quietly when they heard the guardians busting up the food fight. Good luck to Mason and Eddie inside. We were outside now, in the safety of the woods and from my hearing, there were Moroi who were able to escape from the cafeteria. They were royals. With my vision, I could see that Jesse was there, running toward the trees' shelter too with his friend-slash-rival Ralf, Aaron and the only dhampir, Stas. The twins were nowhere to be found. I chuckled to myself when I intentionally controlled one of the tree's roots to block Jesse's foot. Jesse stumbled and I could hear an audible sound of bones slightly going amiss from their proper places. He let out a girly shriek. Ugh, royals suck face. There, he messed with me, he got my promise. He'll be limping for the rest of year.

"Where are we supposed to go?" the princess asked. They hadn't noticed the other Moroi. I was the only one who could see them with my hawk-like vision and great hearing abilities. I was a good kind of freak of nature. Er, deviant, I mean.

"The Moroi dorms are too far from here…" Mia realized with a frown. "The guardians are supposed to be scanning the front doors of the novice dorms now, too."

"Only at the front?" I asked Mia and both girls nodded. "I got a way." I quietly led them to the back metal stairs where Dimitri had led me to last night.

"How did you find this?" the princess asked, a little dumbfounded.

"Last night. I had to sneak around the dorm so I wouldn't get caught." I lied smoothly.

"Oh," the princess said, appearing to have remembered what happened last night.

Slowly and quietly, we made our way up the stairs. They cringed at every creak the old metal staircase made. When we were up to my floor's doorway, I slowly listened inside. There were guardians checking the hallway inside. When they found no students, they retreated.

When I was sure that nobody was around the dorm, I unlocked the door with my picking-on-the-door ability and, "Coast is clear," I opened the door and we went straight to my room, not wanting to risk any chances of getting caught. They sighed in relief when we were inside the safety of my room.

My room smelled of faint incense but I wish they wouldn't notice it. I had been meditating after I got that weird call last night. The princess and Mia were a bit surprised to see my room so fixed and neat.

"Nice," Mia breathed. They sat down on my bed.

"You should change your clothes, princess." I told the princess, pointing at her shirt.

"It's Lissa…" the princess said. "…and I don't want to be a bother." She gave me a small smile.

"Not in the least… Lissa." I said and started to pick some clothes similar to hers. Lucky enough for her, I had some Stella McCartney's with me. I let her pick between an ivory silk blouse close to her sweater or a comfortable top. She chose the silk blouse, of course. When Lissa was done changing her clothes, she gave me a grateful look.

"Thank you, Rose." She told me and without warning, she ran and hugged me. "I hope you would forgive me for what I did last night. I shouldn't have been so abrupt in leaving." She slightly pulled back and turned to face Mia. "Sorry, Mimi," Lissa apologized. PMS alert! Mia's eyes brightened with tears and she ran to us and hugged us. "I was just surprised and I'm embarrassed to say that maybe you were replacing me." Lissa said while I awkwardly hugged them back.

"It's okay, Lissa. There's nothing to forgive anyway." Mia told Lissa and they hugged tighter, including me. "Whatever happens, you're still my best friend." I didn't know what I felt but it was a mixture of a little jealously and something else. PMS again.

"Thank you, Rose." Lissa thanked me and hugged tighter, making it a little hard to breathe.

"What for?"

"Without you, me and Mia's friendship wouldn't be reconciled." She told me as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course, thank you that you're here too. We're best friends from now on." She announced and I couldn't help but feel happy and excited about that.

"Really?" I asked, not believing that I had a best friend now. Two of them, for sure.

"Really Rose." Mia and Lissa said in unison and they started to laugh.

"Gee, thanks." I gave them a meek smile.

"Is it time for the secret revelation?" Mia asked.

What kind of friendship was this? And what secret? Is this some kind of weird things best friends talk about?

"What does that mean?" I asked them.

Lissa gave me a small smile like she was making me understand something.

"Play along," Lissa sang and I could see understanding glint in her eyes but she was still a little confused. Huh, muddled emotions are sucky.

So there, I played along and Mia and Lissa talked. I was just content to listen to them. They were my friends. High school life was fascinating.

~~~*****~~~

I came to Dimitri's class practically sprinting. I got inside a little noisily than normal and it reminded me of one of sensei's trainings when I was out killing Strigoi and I had been late and you probably all know what happened next.

Dimitri didn't notice my entrance though. He was busy talking through his phone and the conversation took place in Russian. I felt a little guilty for eavesdropping but it was nothing. I couldn't understand what they were saying except for some basic words like nyet, dah, and whatever. I think that it was the most complicated language in the whole wide world next to German. The only straight phrase I learned was "on your knees" but they sounded more suitable for police men or robbers than a Stirgoi hunter. Words didn't do much against Strigoi.

The conversation on the phone sounded tense and urgent. I wondered if anyone could even talk that way without spitting about half a gallon of saliva out of their Russian mouth. No pun intended. I could hear Dimitri's pace stop. This was something not good. I told myself to walk away but my legs wouldn't obey me. Instead of walking away, I found myself stretching out my hearing until I could hear Dimitri's heartbeat pick up. There was a man on the phone and I could tell that he didn't even have a single English word on his sleeve because of that very thick accent he had. Even if he had even one English word, it would just end up sounding like a Russian word.

Other than Dimitri's heartbeat and the guy on the phone, I could hear other things. I could hear footsteps, whispers and other run-the-mill things people do here inside the academy at three hours before sunrise.

The phone call ended and I heard Dimitri sigh heavily and mutter something in Russian.

Whatever that phone call was about, it was troubling him.

Uh-oh, what was that about? Nah, nothing too serious I think. :D

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Love lots,

Kate