A/N: Stupid short chapters! Why'd I write these darn things so freaking short? Anyway . . . the story has been finished for a while, I just need to finish posting here. Thanks to everyone who still reads, it helps a lot!

-Chapter Twenty-One-

Bree met up with Scottie in Algebra, which Bree TA'd-only because Mr. Giannini had asked her to-and which Scottie was taking again because she'd flunked it. Twice.

"Oh, I forgot to give this to you earlier," Scottie said. She held out her hand. "I got it in Italy."

Bree held her hand out, palm up, and a gold bracelet, studded with rubies and sapphires, fell into her hand. Her eyes widened. "Scottie! This is . . ."

"Expensive, yeah, I know. But Daddy paid for it, so . . . why not?" Scottie shrugged.

She hesitated, then caved and attempted to put the bracelet on. When she couldn't get the clasp secured, Scottie rolled her eyes and helped out.

The door opened and Mr. G came in. He was looking a mite frazzled. So was his stepdaughter, Mia, who just happened to have his class, and who was trailing behind him.

"Morning, Mr. G," Bree said as Scottie sailed off to her desk.

"Morning, Brianna. How was your birthday?"

"Great."

He handed her a stack of papers. "Could you grade these for me? I didn't find time to over the weekend."

"Sure."

Bree's desk was off to one side. Usually, all she did was grade papers and help the students. Occasionally, she helped with the lesson, but today wasn't one of those days.

Mia's grasp of Algebra was improving, she noticed. Probably had to do with her stepdad being the teacher, and also with her super-smart-and hot-boyfriend, Michael. Michael the computer nerd.

Bree found herself watching Mia. Mia the princess, who had only known for a few months ago that she was, in fact, the heir to the throne of Genovia. Mia was a pretty, if somewhat gawky, fourteen-year-old the same height as Bree, with blonde hair and grey eyes. Mia had often lamented her lack of breasts, which was rather unfortunate, given her height. Studying her, Bree wondered how Mia was adjusting, inwardly, to the princess thing.

She longed suddenly to talk to someone who might know how she felt, the sudden displacement and everything. But Brianna felt awkward approaching the girl, someone she was barely acquainted with-mostly because Bree TA'd Mia's Algebra and French classes.

She couldn't confide the real story. Mia wouldn't believe it. Really, who would? "Oh, by the way, I'm an elf who was kidnapped by an evil wizard and now I'm living in New York, where I was adopted by a high-paid lawyer and his amnesiatic wife . . . and now my dad's come back, and I've got the hots for a guy who's almost three thousand years older than me."

Bree snorted to herself. Yeah. Right.

She'd just have to get through it on her own.

She trudged through her day until she met up with Shelley at lunch. They sat at their usual table. Scottie normally sat with them, but she'd had to run to the corner drugstore to get some Midol.

"Shane is worrying me," Bree admitted. "He's been acting weird the last couple of days. And he's not here today. He always meets me at my locker."

"I noticed," Shell said.

Brianna rested her chin on her hand and stared forlornly at her friend's pencil. For the last hour or so, she'd noticed that she was picking up on people's emotions, and she was wondering if that extended to their thoughts. If so, that would be very neat. Very "Buffy", like when the Buffster got telepathic powers. But then again, that almost drove Buffy crazy . . .

"I still think he's a loser," Shelley was saying.

"It's not that easy, Shelley. I happen to like Shane. Legolas is hot, but . . ." She trailed off, noticing that she was hearing the thoughts of the girl sitting at the next table, the one doing her calculus homework. Her eyes widened as she looked at the girl, then quickly glanced away.

"So?" Shelley said, oblivious to Bree's discovery. Her eyes went to her pencil, which was vibrating. Then it rolled two inches towards the edge of the table.

She glanced to either side, but no one was even sharing their table, let alone shaking it. She looked at Bree and froze. "Uh, Bree?"

Her friend's eyes were fixed on the pencil and just a little glazed, like she wasn't seeing it. Shelley didn't know if she even knew what she was doing. Nervously, she watched the writing utensil.

Her friend wasn't aware of the pencil. She'd heard, in the gradually growing clamour in her head, a single voice. A voice that bothered her. Brianna was seeking it out, tracking it with clumsy mental fingers through grains of metaphorical sand.

It was like a whisper, some small, dark spot that was backlit by the internal voices of the students. Almost negligible, but enough to catch her attention.

Brianna almost lost her concentration when she found it, she was so startled. With an effort, to forced herself to focus on it.

"But Master says we need to be careful. We can't raise suspicions."

"I can't help it. I'm sick of pretending."

"You weren't sick of it before you found out what it was."

"That doesn't matter. I won't do it anymore. I can't stand it."

"You will stand it. You can't back out now. You are in far too deep. If you back out, we will lose our advantage. Master would not be pleased. Not pleased at all."

"I don't care. I can't-"

"Brianna!"

Brianna jerked at Shelley's voice. She caught a glimpse of a pencil hovering inches above the table, just before said pencil shot across the room and embedded itself in the wall next to the head of a boy who'd just walked into the cafeteria.

That boy just happened to be Shane.

Shane reeled back, cutting off a cry of shock, as the pencil barely missed him. He reached over and grabbed the pencil, giving it a yank.

It didn't budge.

Shrugging, he gave up, then went to sit with Brianna.

Bree tensed as Shane tried to pull the pencil out of the wall. She was horrified, having nearly killed her boyfriend.

"Don't mention this," she hissed to Shelley as Shane approached.

Shelley just nodded, eyes still huge.

Shane sat down next to Bree. "Hey. Sorry, I just got here. I overslept."

"That's okay." Bree was happy to see he didn't suspect her of attempted murder by writing implement.

Secretly, she was thrilled. She had telekinetic abilities. Now, if only she could learn to control them . . .

"I just thought I'd stop in here for a minute," Shane said. "I still have to check in at the office."

"Well, lunch is almost over. I can walk you to the office, but I'll have to leave you there. Boris is practising this piece that gets on Mrs. Hill's nerves, so she's been in a snit all last week, and, I'm suspecting, this week. So if I'm late, I have the suspicion she'll try to kill me with his bow."

"Nah, I'll run ahead. I'll call you tonight?" Shane got up and kissed the top of her head. "Bye."

Shelley watched him leave, then turned to Brianna. "That was weird."

"Yeah." Brianna poked at her cafeteria food, then pulled out the lembas Haldir had given her. She broke off a corner and chewed it thoughtfully.

"what's that?" Shelley asked.

Bree handed her a bit of it. She watched the surprise on her friend's face as she tasted it.

"Lembas," she said. "Ada gave it to me because I couldn't stay for breakfast."

"Well, that was nice of him. This stuff is really good."

"Well, yeah. It's elvish." Bree stood up as the bell rang. She broke off another piece, stuff it in her mouth, and tucked the rest of it in her bag. She waved by to Shelley, and dashed off.

She paused by the door. A group of boys had gathered by the pencil. They were trying to pull it out. Apparently, there was $10 for whoever pulled it out.

Bree pushed her way through, gasped the pencil, and removed with with no visible effort. She plucked the $10 from the hand of the jock offering it, smiled in thanks, and walked out, leaving behind several awestruck teenagers.