Chapter Five: Contact (Part One)

Dorothea screamed in frustration as her hairbrush struck another knot. Once upon a time she had been tempted to just hack the whole lot off, but according to her hairdresser the only thing keeping her locks from forming a halo around her head was their weight. If she chopped even a little off, she'd be giving the ceiling a free dusting every time she walked anywhere indoors. That was why she had pinned it into a manageable ponytail for the plane trip: the last thing she needed was to get her hair stuck in the overhead lockers.

Ten minutes of patience, perseverance and several choice phrases saw Dorothea's hair brushed flat down her back. Deciding as she looked in the huge bathroom mirror that none of her pimples were visible from more than half a metre away, she ambled back into the bedroom- her bedroom, for the next few weeks- put on some fresh clothes and ventured out into the hallway.

A quarter of an hour later she found herself outside her bedroom again.

Where had she gone wrong? Well… she'd turned left at the first corridor intersection, right at the second, straight ahead through a green room with lots of books in it, had doubled back at the locked door, had turned left and left and right and left and found herself back where she'd started. It was worse than her first day at high school.

At least there had been other people at high school! Sure, they had been loud, obnoxious, mufti-wearing 7th formers who gaped openly at Dorothea's horizontal hair, but she'd been able to stammer up the courage to ask one of the shorter ones where room 352b was.

(One of the stranger aspects of Dorothea's school was the room numbers. The numbers of the rooms started at 342a and finished at 399.75h. The letters stuck on the end didn't actually mean anything. This sort of thing was very confusing for the Year 9 Dorothea, but the uniform was worse.)

After taking a few deep breaths to calm down, Dorothea steeled herself and set off again, this way in the opposite direction. She was beginning to feel a bit depressed. Even without the disturbingly maze-like layout of the building, everything around Dorothea shouted 'I have so much money that I can buy a Picasso and use it to decorate my broom cupboard. Be awed! Be overwhelmed! Think about the preschool finger-paintings on your walls at home and wince!

And wince Dorothea did. But she also thought, 'What is the point of all this… splendour… if THERE IS NOBODY HERE? There's no point! Why even have such a big house? Worst of all, why leave me here without little arrows on the floor showing me where to go, like they have at the airport?'

She's come to the locked door again. Presumably if she went back and then right and right and left and right again, she would end up somewhere that was not her bedroom. Or was it left then right then…

'I should've saved some of that croissant,' thought Dorothea gloomily. 'I could've done a Hansel and Gretel. Or maybe I could've used bars of soap instead. After all, there were several hundred in that bathroom.' Indeed, Dorothea had sampled so many of those scented guest soaps that she was being followed around by a cloud of flower perfumes strong enough to kill cockroaches at ten paces. She leant against the locked door and tried to remember which way she'd come.

The door opened.

From her new viewpoint on the floor, Dorothea looked up at two midnight-blue eyes staring down at her in shock. After the time it takes a mosquito to buzz the eyes regained their usual haughty expression.

'Oh, no', thought Dorothea. 'Not him!'

Several moments went by as the teenagers looked at each other. Finally Artemis spoke:

"As I sincerely doubt that you could give me an acceptable answer, I will not even ask for what purpose you are lying on the floor. I suspect, however, that my parents are waiting in the living room to better make your acquaintance. Follow me; unless, of course, you would prefer to remain on the floor," the boy added scathingly before stalking off down the hallway.

Dorothea scrambled clumsily to her feet and scurried after him, brushing nonexistent dust off the seat of her pants with one hand and checking her hair with the other. It was only sticking out at 45˚ today: hooray!

Artemis was giving off a particularly cool aura, so she didn't try to talk to him. Cool? The guy was practically an iceberg! A walking, talking iceberg imported straight from Antarctica.

He led Dorothea down corridor after corridor, and past enough hand-woven rugs for her to trip and crash into furniture eight times. One time her hair got caught in an ornate silver lamp and he waited, scowling, as she untangled herself. Another time, Dorothea was so distracted by the sight of snow-covered grounds out the window- snow, in December! - that she walked into the doorframe instead of the door.

At last they reached the living room.

Mr and Mrs Fowl had been waiting for their young guest for an hour or too, but after the first half hour they had realised that their house may have been a little overwhelming for the girl and weren't too bothered by the time she spent getting up. After all, it gave them more time to plot ways of making sure Artemis and Dorothea spent some time together. His reaction to her last night had been… less than welcoming, but they believed that there was still hope left for their son's social health. The door opened.

"Artemis, Dorothea!" Angeline gushed, sweeping them both into a hug. Dorothea tried not to sneeze as her hostess's white merino scarf got up her nose. "We were just talking about you! Weren't we, Timmy? So-" she turned back to the children, "have you two got anything planned for today? Timmy and I are just sorting through the accounts, but if you two would like to go into town for lunch or something…?"

Dorothea couldn't help but feel sorry for the woman. She was obviously desperate for her son to make friends, while Artemis was just as stubborn to stay a- to stay the way he was. Dorothea quickly censored all the descriptive labels her subconscious was giving the boy. Well, foozles to him. Dorothea wanted to shop in the snow!

"Town sounds great," she replied. "I have to get some stuff for everyone back home anyway; they've already organized a lynching squad if I return home empty handed." Artemis glared at her, but said nothing. His mother worried about him, he knew that. It wouldn't hurt him to humour her until this… girl… went back to New Zealand.

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24.04.06 …and there we go. All finished, hurrah!