Author's Note: Sorry I don't have enough time to do individual notes. I can't help it, but this time a review was REALLY important, so here it is:
V. Kasz: I'm sorry! I knew your fic had a dance, but that was before I wrote down Kristy's life in my notebook-thingy. I'm REALLY sorry, but I couldn't change it when I learned that you wrote about the ball and everything, 'cause I wrote this chapter with the ball, and the next chapters turning back to the memory of the ball. Again, I'm sooooo sorry!
SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY
It was the big day. The day of the Anniversary Ball. Students were excused from their classes to have the day to get ready. Everyone was nervous and quiet, except Zelda, Beth, and Kristy. Zelda was always laughing, and cooing to Manfred, and Beth was known to be giggling in the halls. And Kristy . . .
Kristy was known to her friends to have very large temper tantrums. She started the day with a whole lot of them. The plants outside were growing at the speed of light. As for the girl who caused them, she was in the girls' dormitory on her large, bouncy bed, looking very bad-tempered indeed. Emma, Olivia, and a few other girls were hiding in the bathroom from all the power that was generating from her.
"Kris, have you calmed down yet?" Emma asked her friend, peeping out from the door.
"No," Kristy said, cutting to the point.
"I don't get it," Rosie Stubbs complained. "All this fussing just because we have to wear dresses." Emma ducked for cover.
Kristy started yelling the loudest she could, and believe me when I say she has a very loud voice. All the people at the other side of the castle could hear her perfectly well. Rosie dropped to the ground, clutching her ears with her skinny hands.
"Boy, that girl's loud," she said, looking white. Just then, Zelda Dobinski came into the dormitory.
"What's going on?" she snarled, glaring at Kristy. "What's all this noise about?"
Kristy growled. "Who made up the rule about having to wear a dress to the ball anyway?" she asked bad-temperedly.
To everyone's surprise, Zelda laughed. Kristy looked bewildered. "You sometimes make a fuss over the strangest things, Twirl," she said with a grin.
Kristy literally fainted. Zelda had never been known to be nice to anyone except Manfred, and she had actually called Kristy by her real name (last name, anyway).
Olivia looked so shocked that Emma couldn't help but laugh. "What? This is so . . . unusual, don't you think, Em? I have a reason to be shocked," the purple-haired girl said. Emma rolled her eyes.
"Was it something I did?" was Zelda's question. She was being very abnormally nice.
"Why are you being so kind?" Rebecca Smith asked the ever-hated senior girl, her dark brown eyes wide.
"Haven't I always been nice?" Zelda asked. This moment was the time Kristy woke up again. She looked at the senior girl once and started stuttering.
"You—you—you were nice. This is a total nightmare!" she cried, and bolted out of the room.
"That was so expected," Olivia whispered to Emma. "Sometimes Kristy can be very predictable. Emma nodded.
"What'd I do?" Zelda said, confused.
A few hours later, Kristy was back, on the lookout for Zelda. Emma and the girls were getting ready big time.
"Oh, Kris. She's gone. Don' t worry," Emma said, laughing.
"Phew," the green-eyed girl breathed a sigh of relief. She went into the bathroom to get changed into her gauzy periwinkle blue dress. A few minutes later, she came out looking rosy and majestic in the new dress. Emma, who was clothed in a foamy, light green dress, gasped.
"Oh my word! Kristy, you have never looked so pretty since the day I met you," Emma sighed.
"You look great, too, Em," Kristy replied, smiling. Her friend's dress fitted perfectly. Her hair was done in a French braid, and her dreamy blue eyes twinkled in the light. "Charlie is going to swoon."
"Thanks, Kris," Emma answered, blushing. "D'you want me to do your hair for you?"
"It would be an honor," said Kristy, smiling all the while. Emma grinned as her older friend sat down at a chair. She went behind Kristy and did her hair in a bun, leaving some of the auburn locks in the front loose. She curled them up quickly, and gave a mirror to the thirteen-year-old.
"Oh, my God," Kristy breathed. "Is that really me?" When Emma nodded, she hugged her young friend and said gratefully, "Emma Tolly, I have never looked, or felt so beautiful in my whole life!"
"Always a pleasure, Kristy. Always a pleasure," Emma said, smiling. The curled hair did well for Kristy's delicate, almost-perfect features. "Whenever you have a ball, call me up and I'll be there for ya."
"Em, you are the best friend anyone could ever have, has anyone ever told you that?" Kristy asked, her deep green eyes shining like stars.
"No. Thanks, Kris," was Emma's reply.
"Come on, girls! Isn't it time to go?" Anna Katz called as she swept in, her brown curls flying behind her.
"Yep," Kristy answered, glancing at her watch.
"Kristina Twirl, take that watch off! It's a ball, for heaven's sake!" Miranda Robertson exclaimed. Sticking her tongue out, Kristy obeyed.
The girls, ranging from ages ten through fourteen, went down the stairs, Kristy and Emma bringing up the rear. Olivia daren't speak to her bird-friend if Kristy was there.
"Oh, great. I'm going to be seen in public wearing these horrid garments," Kristy said, her eyes dropping to the floor.
"Don't worry, Kris. They aren't laughing at you, they're actually staring," Emma replied, smiling affectionately at her friend.
"No, they're staring at you, Em," Kristy said as she scanned the corridor for Gabriel.
"There they are, Kristy!" Emma shouted as she spotted Charlie and Gabriel talking in front of the doors where the ball would take place.
"Hey, Chazz and Gabe!" Kristy called as the two girls came over.
"Hey, Kris. Nice to see you, Em," Charlie and Gabriel said in unison.
"When are the doors going to open?" Kristy asked mournfully.
"In like . . . two minutes. Don't be nervous, Kris," Gabriel told his friend, squeezing her arm.
"I'll try not to," was Kristy's answer as she cast a death glare at Beth, who was walking by with a huge hot pink dress on.
"Can you believe that girl?" she asked distastefully. "Wearing that giant thing around in public?" Beth scowled as she heard her, but the scowl changed to a sickeningly sweet smile when a certain yellow-haired, blue-eyed boy came into the corridor.
"Hi, Tancred!" Gabriel called to his ex-friend. Tancred just waved halfheartedly at him. The tumultuous boy didn't get along well with Kristy's gang. Gabriel smiled sadly. Suddenly, there was the sound of doors opening with very loud noise. Not louder than Kristy's tantrums, though. Dr. Bloor could be seen at the entrance, wearing black clothing that rather suited him.
He went on explaining why they were having the ball, the honor in being part of it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
"This is so boring," Kristy muttered. Charlie silently agreed.
"Now let us walk through the doors and have a good time," Dr. Bloor said emotionlessly. The group of giddy people (or very dispirited, for Kristy, Emma, Gabriel, and Charlie) walked through the doors to find a sight to behold.
The usually cold, dark stone walls were cheerful and bright against the bright light. A crystal and sapphire chandelier hung on the ceiling, glittering. There were tables of punch, cookies, and other various snacks, and a whole marble floor, which was the dance floor.
"I never thought I'd see the day Bloor's would be this happy and bright," Emma murmured, in awe of the things she had gazed upon. The four were sitting at a small table (suited for four, obviously).
"So what's supposed to happen?" Gabriel asked boredly.
"I don't know," Charlie answered, shrugging. "Are we supposed to dance first or what?"
"No clue," Kristy said, and stared at a table where Tancred, Beth, Rosie, and Thomas Blake were sitting at with mixed emotions plain on her face. Her eyes seemed faraway.
"Kristy? KRISTY!" Emma yelled into the auburn-haired girl as the music started playing. She blinked, her green eyes back to normal.
"Come on, Kris!" Gabriel and Charlie called, as they were standing on the dance floor already.
"Oh, right!" Kristy said, and quickly bolted out of her chair and joined the boys with Emma.
"Er, don't mind me if I step on your toes, Em. I never learned how to dance, much," Charlie muttered, growing pink.
"Don't worry, Chazz. I'll teach you," Emma replied, her blue eyes glowing.
"So, let's go, Kris," Gabriel said awkwardly. Kristy nodded and danced along with the music. She seemed to know every step, every beat.
"How do you do that?" Gabriel asked in an awed voice as his partner just showed some graceful moves.
"Daddy insisted that I get dance lessons in preparations for the future when I was five or six. My dance teacher taught me everything she knew, and this is where I end up now," Kristy replied.
"So how's it going?" Emma asked at the punch stand when the two stopped for refreshments.
"Not bad. How's Chazz coming along?" Kristy said, draining her first cup of blood-red punch.
"Not so horribly," was Emma's answer as she smiled. "It was actually a bit fun dancing with him."
"I'm gonna go now, Em. See ya later, if I'm thirsty!" Kristy called as she walked away, her head turned in Emma's direction. So she didn't see the yellow-haired, blue-eyed boy in a navy blue outfit walk in the opposite direction, his mass of crackling hair turned around in the same way as Kristy's. They crashed, and were thrown to the floor.
"I'm so sorry," Kristy apologized, lending a hand to the boy. "I wasn't looking where I was goin—Tancred?" Her eyes lost the warm glow they had, and turned into a frosty pine-green like the trees covered in snow in the winter. "Oh, my God."
"Kristy?" Tancred asked, forgetting himself as he stared into the icy green eyes.
"Yes?" the girl said in an emotionless voice so like Dr. Bloor's.
"Er, would you like to dance?" The words slipped out of his mouth, and though he regretted it then, in the future, he went all dreamy-eyed and happy as he recalled that moment.
"Um, yeah. I guess," Kristy answered awkwardly, staring at him as if he had grown three more heads.
"'Kay. C'mon," the yellow-haired boy said contently, being like his old self all of a sudden. Kristy followed him to the dance floor and couldn't help but smile back at the grin he gave her.
Kristy and Tancred fell into step, dancing as if their lives depended on it. They were both very talented; there was no doubt about that. Fidelio and Olivia grinned at each other as they passed, and Lysander's heart was bursting with joy when he saw his friends. Emma, Charlie, and Gabriel smiled as they watched the scene from the punch table.
"Um, Tanc, can I speak with you for a second?" Kristy asked just as Beth came over angrily. "Privately?"
"Sure," Tancred replied, obviously eager to get away from the rosy girl in the humongous hot pink dress.
The two slipped away, not unnoticed by anyone. The whole room stared after them as they went.
"But they're supposed to hate each other!" Beth cried, bursting into tears. Good-natured Lysander couldn't help but snicker.
Meanwhile, Kristy and Tancred were in the corridor outside.
"Well, I really needed to tell you something—"Kristy began.
"I think I really need to say this—"Tancred said at the same time.
"I'm sorry," the two apologized at the same time. Kristy blinked.
"You are?" she asked as her emerald green eyes met Tancred's sapphire blue ones.
"No, you're telling me that you're sorry?" Tancred said, bewildered.
"But you didn't do anything!" they exclaimed in unison.
"This is a very confusing day," Kristy muttered.
"Zelda's being nice, Dr. Bloor doesn't yell at us, Olivia and Fidelio are officially going out, and this," Tancred took over.
"Oh, my God," Kristy said, feeling dizzy. "I'll never forget this day."
"Neither will I," was Tancred.
END OF CHAPTER 9.