Jake
When I woke up and saw Cassie's face it was like all the terrible things I had been through last 24 hours was over. I admit that I was a little surprised to see Tobias and Ax there, and Erek in addition, but I was too tired to care.
I was feeling quite ashamed too. Only some weeks ago I had told Cassie that a leader wasn't allowed to let others know if they were afraid. And had I done? I had run straight to Marco cried and been so hysterical that they had to call a doctor in the middle of the night.
And now when Cassie was there all I did was to stay there in her arms where no one could hurt me. And then I realized that I was crying again, and that made me even more ashamed. But as there was nothing I could to about it I just leaned against her and let her console me. After I had been physical and psychological assaulted by Tom for several hours and drugged by the ambulance staff, I needed a little comfort even if I were some kind of leader. Then I was aware of Marco again.
"You should have seen Cassie when she told Tom off" he said. "She slapped him in his face, and that sound just had to be audible on the moon. I am sure that even Ax's family could have heard it and wondered what it was.
"Marco it's impossible for the sound to travel that far…" Ax tried to say, but before he had finished, everyone was laughing. I lay down on the sofa again and looked from Cassie to Marco.
"Marco, did Cassie really abuse Tom?" I asked a bit worried.
"Right in front of Chapman and Visser 3."
"And then Tobias came to the school and did the same thing with Andy and Tap-Tap" Rachel said.
Marco smiled.
"Yeah, both he and Rachel drove about… every bully in the entire school crazy. But now we want to hear your story. What happened yesterday?"
Strange enough, it was quite easy to speak about it.
"Our parents wanted me to go with him to a camp with the Sharing this weekend, but I refused. And later he came to my room and started to ask me questions about morphing and Andalites…"
Then Marco came up with a new question which he had forgotten to ask about last night.
"Wait, wait, wait… Why did he ask you about those things?"
"I think it was because I had told them that I had promised Cassie to help her with the animals this weekend to be excused from this camp."
I didn't have to explain more, and no one forced me either. But there was one more thing I wanted to tell them, I just didn't dare.
Marco called for pizza and we watched some movies. Cassie took several beautiful birds feathers up from her backpack; she had found them in that zoo yesterday. There was no colour that wasn't represented in any of them. None of us had been given less then ten feathers when she had finished giving them away to the person she had been thinking about when she had found them. Even Tobias enjoyed himself. We all did, until we heard the doorbell.