Hello everyone! I'm actually updating soon! (Yay! Chapter 10!)
Thanks a lot for all the reviewed last chapter and super thanks to my editor for editing lots lately! :D
Now, last time I updated, I told you how my one story Brotherhood was nominated for an award and I'd like to remind you again that TOMORROW is when you can vote for my story. (hopefully) I'll have the link at the bottom. :)
Now, time for the story and I hope you all love it.
The woman flashed her bright flashlight into their faces as she moved closer. Edward was so insanely glad that Russell and Al had offered to take the alcohol they had brought back with them. Being caught out after curfew was one thing but being caught with alcohol was worth at least a suspension.
The woman stopped two feet away from them. She was a bit taller than Ed but Jean towered over her; she didn't seem to mind. She carried the same air Riza did when she was pissed except this was worse because this woman wasn't a friend they could defuse in a few minutes.
Ed could see her give the two a tiny sniff. Could she smell alcohol or cigarette smoke on them? Or was this simply something she did with everyone she caught because obviously, all teenagers drink and smoke illegally.
She started at them for a long minute, unnerving Ed and Jean, before she spoke in a harsh voice that told them they wouldn't be getting out of this one easily.
"Are you two aware of what time it is?" she barked out.
"Um, yeah," Ed said quietly. "It's like, one-thirty."
Sometimes they would try and play dumb, -say their phone broke and they didn't know what time it was, that they had fallen asleep in a random field and they lost track of time, that they were staying up late trying to finish a project in one of the libraries, even pretend they didn't even speak English- but this woman clearly would not take any of joking around and would probably only add to their punishment if they did.
"Like one-thirty?" she repeated, sounding slightly patronizing. "It is exactly one-thirty-nine in the morning, which is almost two hours later than any student should be allowed outside. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?"
Edward exchanged a look with Jean before he shook his head.
"Well, how about we go see what the Headmaster has to say about this," she said coldly before she tightly gripped both Jean's and Ed's wrist. "Come now."
"And what do you expect me to do?" Grumman asked tiredly.
The woman had practically dragged the two to the administration building and into Grumman's office. Edward and Jean were both surprised when they found Grumman at his desk, working but close to sleep. Now, they sat on the couch, trying to look innocent, while the woman tried to throw them under the preverbal bus. Grumman however, didn't seem to be interested with it in the least.
"It's now over two hours past their curfew," she growled. "I expect you to deal with them as a Headmaster should."
"Yes well, since term has not yet started, there really isn't much to do," Grumman said, sounding slightly annoyed with the woman. "And even if term had started, I would give them a warning since this is a first offense. But as it not, I shall do neither but ask you to please escort them back to their dormitory. I have much more pressing matters to attend to."
The woman looked as if he had jumped over the desk and slapped her across the face. He gave the woman a little nod and a stern look before she relented.
All Edward and Jean could do was give Grumman an appreciative smile behind the woman's back, which he returned, and silently thank that Grumman wasn't known for his sternness.
"What happened, guys?" Roy cried as Jean and Ed made their way through the front doors of the dorm.
Roy had seen Ed and Jean being taken away by the Patrol Officer and immediately went to tell all of the others who were awake at the time. He didn't know what would happen. Headmaster Grumman was a rather lenient man and believed greatly in giving warnings instead of punishment and term hadn't officially started yet. But what if they had been caught with alcohol or spelled like the stuff? Roy was pretty sure Grumman's leniency had to end at some point and underage drinking was probably where he drew the line.
Edward and Jean both gave a relieved smile and let out a relieved breath of air.
"Nothing, man," Jean said. "He let us go. Not even with the usual slap on the wrist."
"What?"
"He said because term hadn't started there really wasn't anything he could have done."
"Not like he really seemed into dolling out punishments," Ed muttered.
"Yeah, the poor guy looked like a mess."
"Well school is starting a few days. He must busy with getting ready," Roy said, which earned a shrug from the two blonds.
Edward let out an enormous yawn and stretched his arms into the air.
"Man, am I beat," he mumbled before he begun dragging himself towards the elevator. "I don't know what I'm going to do Thursday when we have to be up at eight."
"Well maybe you shouldn't stay up until four every night reading," Roy said, following after Ed and giving him a small conk on the head with his fist.
"Wake up, Winry!"
"Go…" Winry grumbled as several people continue to shove and shake her while she's trying to sleep.
"Come on! Our uniforms just came in! We have to try them on," Rebecca shouts ungodly loud into her uncovered ear.
After another minute of this, Winry opened her eyes to find Rebecca, Sheska, Riza, and Gracia standing around her bed, all in varying degrees of being dressed. On the floor are a number of thin, rectangular boxes, some with brown paper wrapping them and some with every scrap torn off of it while others are ripped apart with its contents lying on the floor.
Winry glanced at her clock and saw that it was half-past ten, not too late to be sleeping in but she assumed if everyone else was up and somewhat dressed, she probably should be too. She pushed the blankets off of her body and dangled her thin, pale legs over the edge.
"So what's going on again?"
Even though their party had been two nights ago, Winry still felt exhausted. Many of her friends had resigned themselves to staying in bed the day after, with minimal sound, light, and food, but she didn't think she was tired from an excessive hangover, mainly because she didn't drink at all at the party. Maybe it was just end of summer blues weighing her down.
"We got our new school uniforms," Riza informed her with a tired look; Winry guessed Riza may have been woken up in the same manner she was. "Yours is right over there."
Winry looked at her own desk and saw a larger box, wrapped in the same brown paper and string as the others, with her name, dorm, and room number carefully written across the middle. A small ripple of uncertainty passed by her. She hadn't bothered to look at pictures of what her new uniform would look like, and now she kinda wished she did so she'd know what she was in for.
"You should try it on so that you can make sure everything fits," Gracia said wisely as she pulled a grey sweater vest over her head and studied its fit on her small body.
Once the paper was taken off the box, the lid removed, and the tissue paper taken out, Winry took out her uniform piece by piece. First came out the stiff, black blazers, the school crest plastered onto the left breast pocket; she had gotten two of them. Next came out three black, pleated skirts that fell to about knee length. After this came two pairs of black, pleated pants; at least she was going to a school were the uniform allowed girls to wear pants. After the pants, Winry pulled out two grey sweaters and two sweater-vests, both bearing the school's crest. Last of all, she pulled out ten white oxford shirts, five with long sleeves and five with elbow-length sleeves, and three red ties.
"Woo, you got the full set," Sheska said, staring at the bunches of new clothes. "I just had to get some new shirts and ties. I think Jean stole all mine."
"Jeeze, that must have run you a fortune," Rebecca commented. "And you got five with short sleeves? Man, my mom bought be three and told me that if I wanted to wear them everyday, I'd have to do my laundry more than once a week or I'd have to pay for them myself."
"Sucks for you," Sheska said with a little smile.
"Yeah, yeah it does suck," Rebecca said, looking quite serious.
"Well how about you try on your things so they all fit," Riza suggested with a smile.
"Go ahead," Rebecca said with a grumble. "I'm sure you'll look way better than I do."
Once in the bathroom with some of the articles of clothing, Winry slowly changed into her new school clothes, trying to get used to the feel of them all. She then came out of the bathroom, feeling a little hesitant about her appearance.
"I was right, you look way better than I do," Rebecca grumbled, looking like she was about to punch something.
"Turn around!" Gracia said with a little squeal. "Aw, you look like a little doll."
Winry tried to imagine what she looked like, since there was no full length mirror in the bathroom or in their room. She had tried on all the clothes but came out in what she'd probably wear to school on the first: black skirt, short-sleeved shirt, tie, sweater-vest, and the black blazer. It was all pretty comfortable and she was pretty sure she didn't look half bad in it. The only problem she had was the sweater-vest. Was she really expected to wear one in this kind of weather?
"Do we really have to wear all this when it's eighty degrees outside?" Winry asked with a small whine, tugging at the grey, soft fabric.
"Only on the first day really," Riza said. "Then you should be able to get away with just the shirt and tie and blazer."
"Oh, good," Winry sighed in relief.
There was a knock at the door and once Sheska said to come in, Roy poked his head inside the room. His face seemed to fall a bit at the sight at everyone with bits of new clothes layered over their own.
"Ugh, uniforms," he said, making a face, before turning to look at Winry. "Hmm, looks nice on you, Win."
"Oh, thanks," she said brightly, not used to compliments from the dark-haired boy.
Roy walked inside and collapsed on Sheska's computer chair, looking rather annoyed.
"You know, I'm all for equality but this school is just not very equal."
"What do you mean?" Winry asked while everyone else in the room groaned.
"Not this again," Sheska sighed.
"Roy, give it a rest, alright?" Riza growled, glaring at the dark-haired boy.
"No, I will not!" he yelled quickly before turning to Winry. "Okay so, it's nice and all the girls can wear both pants and skirts since we're all in 2009 and we're finally letting them be equal. But what I want to know is why wearing a skirt isn't an option for guys. Why not? Girls can wear pants and skirts but oh! You get a boy wearing a skirt and suddenly, he's a cross-dressing freak!"
Winry stood there, not sure how to react to the teen's outburst. Was he being serious? Or was this just another end-of-summer rituals between the group of friends that she didn't know.
"And it's not just about the uniforms, it's about equal righ-!" Roy said before he was forced to stop when one of Riza's sandals made contact with the back of his head.
Roy turned around, looking like he was going to fight with her, but she spoke before he got the chance.
"Next I start throwing Sheska's sewing kit," Riza warned, holding up the bright orange basket that held needles, scissors, and pins. "Do you really think you want to continue?"
"…no," he muttered in a barely audible voice, staring at the ground like a punished child.
"Well then why'd you come in here?" Riza asked with a sigh, placing the sewing basket into Sheska's outstretched arms.
"Oh, right," Roy said, face snapping back to its usual calm/bored expression. "Just wanted to tell you that the schedules are downstairs in the mail-"
"What?" nearly all the girls in the room shouted in annoyance and surprise.
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Rebecca cried before she burst out of the room, almost knocking Winry down in the process.
The group rushed out of the room after Rebecca and down to the mail room. Winry had never been down there before but knew the general location. As the group jogged along the hallway that lead to the room, her new friends pointed out a few things.
"These dorms are usually given to seniors who need time to study," Roy said, gesturing to the rows of doors, all shut tight, some with lights on, some without. "They're all so uptight and would probably be throwing a fit if we were running like this during the school year."
"Five bucks says that Ed will be one of these seniors next year," Sheska said with a little giggle.
"I'm surprised he didn't try and get one of these rooms this year," Riza said.
At the end of the hall, they reached a door and on the other side of it held a set of stairs that went to the floor below. The basement smelled of mildew and was chilling on Winry's skin but not in the way the air-conditioning was when they set it too low; she couldn't explain it. Winry was pretty sure Jean had joked about their being a ghost that haunted the mail room.
The mail room was large, probably almost as big as the common room. But unlike the friendly, comforting common room, the mail room was cold, dank, and dark when the lights flickered on and off. The three walls were devoted completely to the small copper-plated doors. Each was about a square foot and had the room number painted on it along with a small square of sticky paper with student's names. A small keyhole was placed on the corner of the doors, signaling that you needed your room key to open it. Rebecca was standing by one of the cubbies on right wall, staring down at a slip of paper, her dark eyes moving fast.
"So, what's the prognosis?" Roy asked, leaning against the wall next to her.
"I can't…believe it," she said slowly and quietly.
"What?" Sheska asked as she opened both hers and Winry's box with her room key.
"Guess what math they put me in?" she cried. "Just guess!"
"Algebra two," Riza answered, giving her a kind of 'what else would you be in' expression.
"No! No, they put me in honors algebra two. Honors! Can you believe it?"
"No, I certainly can't," Roy said with a small smile.
"What's so bad about it?" Winry asked, glancing down at her schedule for a moment.
"First off, honors has like, twice the work. Second, Al and Russell are probably in that class and they are just going to make me feel like a total dumbass!" Rebecca yelled, actually looking close to tears.
"Oh."
"Yeah, and that's not the only bad thing! It's my first period! How am I supposed to get a decent grade if I'm asleep in it?"
"I don't know," Roy said with a shrug. "Me and Jean slept through World History last year and I aced the final."
"Why don't you just go to sleep earlier?" Riza suggested.
"It won't help. You know me. Once school starts, I go from being a morning person to Roy before he's had any caffeine. And Meehan's already a hard-ass. He won't even let anyone put their head on their books!"
"Well, there's not much you can do," Gracia said with a shrug, peering at Rebecca's list. "Regular algebra's second period and that's the only time you could get craft class."
"Oh right… crap," Rebecca said, stamping her foot a little.
"You'll get over it," Roy said with a wave of his hand. "Al will help you when you're flunking out of school. The kid's too nice to just watch you fail a class."
Rebecca huffed and puffed like the big, bad, annoying wolf she was, but Roy just brushed it off, not in the mood to fight.
"What classes do you guys have?"
Winry stared at the stiff slip of paper and stared at her classes. She had the usual classes, all honors, like pre-calculus, English, chemistry, and Government and Economy but then she also had her electives. The one thing that had made coming to Amestris Academy bearable in the first place was the fact that they had a metal shop class, which she signed up for in a heartbeat. Then, in a moment of giddiness, had signed up for one of their cooking classes. She cooked a bit at home and liked doing it too so she thought she might as well try it.
"Winry, you have almost all the same classes as us," Gracia said with a smile.
When Winry looked at Riza, Gracia, and Roy's schedules, she saw that they did indeed have all the same core classes. The only thing that was different was their electives.
"Gracia, you're taking the foods class too?"
"Yeah. I love cooking."
"And you're seriously taking Child Development?" Rebecca asked with a scoff. "The only kids who should be taking that class are the knocked up chicks and their baby-daddies."
"Well me and Maes wanted-"
"Maes is taking it too?" Roy cried in shock while Rebecca made loud, exaggerated gagging noises. "You guys are just…"
"Aw, look at them all. They're so cute," Roy muttered as he stared down from the roof of East Dorm at the tiny figures below. "Do you ever remember being that small?"
Roy held up his right hand and began smashing the tiny figures of the students below with his thumb and forefinger.
"Hell no," Jean mumbled next to him.
"Well yeah, you probably jumped out of the womb six feet tall," Roy said with a smirk.
It was their last day of summer vacation. Tomorrow, they'd have to get up at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning, put on their crisp, hot uniform, sit at an assembly and then get to class to start another long year. And of course, the only way to celebrate the end of a summer was by having a party that probably involved breaking at least ten school rules.
Being on the roof of East Dorm was the most obvious rule broken.
Winry didn't know how they managed to get away with so much, but they did. Apparently, two years ago, Maes and Roy had managed to disarm the alarm on the emergency door that led up to the roof. At first glance, Winry couldn't see why being up here was worth the risk, not like going to the island. It was covered in hard, hot gravel along with lots of garbage and bird poop. But like everything these strange teens did, they made it fun.
They had taken one of the rafts they used to ride to the island and filled it with water as a make-shift waiting pool. Rebecca was currently floating around in a large inner tube that nearly took up the entire raft. She wore a bright magenta bikini with yellow poke dots, large sunglasses and an obscenely large straw hat.
Riza, Winry, Gracia and Sheska sat in their bathing suits on beach chairs, sipping sodas and chatting. Maes said a few feet away, making burgers two at a time on his small George Forman grill while he wore an apron that said 'Kiss the Cook'. Roy and Jean stood overlooking the edge, staring down at new arrivals and commenting on certain people: yelling hello if they liked them, spitting obstinacies if they hated them, and ducking if they saw someone who they thought would snitch on them.
Ed, Al, Russell, and Fletcher were no where to be seen. Roy kept commenting on how they had to show up or else.
"Calm down," Rebecca sighed as she drifted around the small pool of water. "I'm sure you're little boyfriends will show up an minute now."
And just as Roy opens his mouth to retort, the door opens and the four blond teenagers come running out. All of them look a little out of breath, as if they had just run from the bottom floor to the roof, which they might have just done.
"Where were you guys?" Maes asked as he checked his hamburgers.
"Down at the libraries," Ed said, taking off his black book bag and letting it fall on the ground with a heavy thud; it was probably filled with several books.
"Of course you were," Roy said with a slightly disapproving look.
"What? We had to go run down there and check out a book," Ed said as he took a soda from the cooler. "What if some dumb-ass kid took it and colored in it or something?"
"You have a serious problem my friend," Jean said with a shake of his head.
"Doesn't matter," Sheska said with a smile. "It's just good that you finally pulled yourself from the library and came up here."
"Exactly!" Jean cried as he fired off a tiny fire cracker. "Let's party like we don't have to get up early tomorrow!"
The roof top was filled with laughter and loud music as the group of friends ended their summer together. Water balloon fights were held, sometimes the balloons 'fell' over the edge and hit people below, and many slowly cooked burgers were made two at a time. When the sun went down, they all laid out on blankets and towels and stared up at the twinkling night. Slowly the friends' numbers dwindled, as more and more of the teenagers realized they should be in bed, until only a few remained. The ones who knew they could function on a few hours sleep or didn't care.
"Do you think this year will be good?" Jean asked as he blew out a large puff of smoke; he knew no one would see him smoking.
"I bet so," Roy said as he stared, seemingly mystified, at the moon.
"Hope so," Edward sighed, closing his eyes.
In his mind, he pictured finding the cure for his mother in one of the hundreds of books he spent pouring over. His mother would become healthy again and everything would be better with their family again. Then he and Al wouldn't have to spend hours in the library, reading and searching and then… what? What would he do if he was freed of that burden?
Edward opened his eyes and stared at the dark, inky sky.
If he didn't have to use all his spare would he act like the rest of his friends? Spend all of his spare time goofing around with them? Would he just turn into the average teenager with no worry or care in the world? Would he and Al even stay at the Academy if they had no reason to need to be here? Ed liked to think that he might but he didn't know for sure. The question he was pondering over was too difficult to think about.
Edward let out a loud sigh, closed his eyes again, and tried to picture his mother becoming healthy once more.
(1) story takes place in 2009
Aw, poor Ed. :'(
Next chapter, school starts! So get ready for tests, schedule mishaps, encounters with new students and maybe a super hot new teacher that may just stir up so jealousy. Anything can happen.
Thanks for reading and here's the link to the website so you can vote for me: fmagoldworthaward .wordpress. com/best-au/ (take out the spaces) And once you're there, just enter you e-mail into the little white bar on the right side of the page and it should tell you when you can vote. :)
*REMEMBER TO VOTE TOMORROW*
Hope you all have a happy Easter! (if you celebrate it)
-FSK