Chapter 2

"There she is! I thought she might have a concussion!"

"Mother! Stop exaggerating!" Bella said, then turned to her daughter.Lilly was listlessly climbing down the stairs. "'Morning, hun! Why so early today?"

"I just happened to wake up at that time, that's all!" Lilly mumbled as she joined them in the kitchen, checking out breakfast. Her grandmother immediately hid a steaming cup of hot chocolate under the newspaper. Lilly noticed she's done something odd, but ignored it and just reached for a roll of bread.

"Did you sleep well, dear?" her mother asked as she washed the dishes by the sink. She just mumbled a 'yes', and went on drowsily munching her breakfast. Her grandmother passed a stern look to Bella, who quickly dried the dishes, took her cup of tea and sat down with them at the table.

"Hunny," she started gently. "Have you been having some of those chocolates again?"
Lilly momentarily froze. "Mum," she whined. "You found out!"

Her mother blinked. "Yes, I did happen to find out! We did talk about this before, haven't we?"

"Yeah! Since I was four?"

"And what are they doing to you now?"

"Mummy, you can't really be telling me to go through my entire life without a speck of candy. You don't know how difficult this has made my childhood. I was the only kid who never knew what candy tasted like. Because if I've ever did try one, I would turn into a whirlwind of madness. And that would've been a better reason for the kids not to like me. They already thought something was strangely wrong with me!"

"Oh, don't say that! Nothing is wrong with you…"

A loud snort came from behind a newspaper. Bella immediately looked up. "Mother!" she whispered angrily.

Somebody knocked on the door, when Lilly was finishing breakfast, and after a few seconds her mum called out to her.

"Lilly! It's your friends!"

Lilly was suddenly overcome by uneasiness. Seldom did people come to her house to see her, and she hated it when that unexpectedly happened. Her mother, on the other hand, got so delighted about it. She thought her daughter would be a lot healthier if she interacted more with other human beings, which was then again, not necessarily true.

"Hello Lil!" a voice chirped into the kitchen, and another one followed. "Hey, Lilly!"

Lilly groaned inwardly. Not with my nighties. An arm fell over her shoulder, and a nudge on the other side.

"Hello, guys!" Lilly squeaked. It was her associates from the other night. The ones most closest to her, because they were the most talkative. Andie, a tall and skinny girl with a delightful pair of radiant hazel eyes, and Kay, who was always in high spirits and always so inanely prattling, had sparkling blue-green eyes and ruffled blond hair.

"We're here to take you the funfair!" Lilly stared at them.

"But I don't go to any funfairs with you guys!"

"Well, today, you shall! And we came to pick you up!"

"Like this!" Lilly said referring to her nighties, hoping that would make them turn back and leave.

"No silly!" Andie giggled goofily. "You'll go change while we wait for you right here!"

"Go, Lilly! I'll clear the table!" her mum said excitedly. Lilly considered all this, then stomped up to her room. She flung open the closet door. She hated going out. She hated it when someone made her go out. More than sometimes she just wished that people would let her be. Who said they knew what was best for her?

The crisp air rushed through their backs as the three comrades strolled along the lane. It was a bracing early morning walk.

"So, what made you come and take me out of the house?"

Kay turned to her at once. "Are you joking? D'you think we'd leave you there to rot?"

Both of her partners muffled silly giggled. Lilly smiled herself, and looked down.

"Actually, I didn't think anyone would care about that! I don't care about it myself!"
"Look, Lilly!" Andie spoke, stopping in front of her. "We know you're one of those aspired writers, who spend weeks cooped in their little fantasy worlds! But you know what, people start to worry! They get suspicious about those people who never come out of their room! They start thinking of them as very dreary and eerie! Because of the way they stop coping with the outside world and stuff, and in the end they'd flip! We surely didn't want you to turn into one of them!"

Lilly stared at Andie's intense, piercing eyes with a dumbfounded expression. She pushed her friend aside. "Get out of my way!" she said, stuffing her hand back in her pocket and continued to walk heftily.

"You obviously don't know what you're talking about! I bet you got all that nonsensical talk from my mother!" she muttered striding ahead of them, as Andie and Kay exchanged speechless glances. "I live my life accordingly to my intentions! And my intentions are not to waste time with common people and go for the impossible!"

Kay looked oddly at her. "Then you won't reach anything!"

"Why not?" Lilly turned back at him with a confident half-smile.

"Because what you want is impossible!"

"Look! Nothing is impossible! And if I'm striving for something impossible, then I'd most likely reach something a tad lesser than my aims! Something like… extraordinary?"

Andie was also perplexed, but she cracked into a stupid smile. "I don't know what you're talking about, but it's cool! We just thought you might want to have some fun with us today, for a change!"
"I do have fun! I have fun when I write! I really like hanging with you guys, but you know…"

Andie grinned. "We know! 'Not my kinda thing'. We don't know what's you're kind of thing, Lilly, but sighwe like you!"

"Thanks, you guys are great!"

They were once again on their way, downhill, their feet splashing muck on the street, as they trod by, singing a song.

"This is fantastic!" Lilly exclaimed, and ran over the damp, snowy road into the emerging sun, and threw her arms wide to let the sunlight touch her. Her other friends were happy, too, and they didn't see her being that alive so often.

"I can almost feel the rhythm in my fast-flowing blood!"

"One other thing, Andie!" Kay said lowly, leaning onto her. "It's music!"

"What was that? I heard that!"

Kay rubbed his neck. "Nothing, Lil! It's all the sudden sprightliness in the air!" he said frivolously. "You know, you got a funny way of showing how pleased you are!"

"You mean my bizarre stimlulation, don't you?"

The others smiled, but just couldn't help themselves from laughing. "Guys! It's okay, I know I shouldn't have wolfed down those chocolates yesterday!"

"That's alright, Lil! This has been increasingly happening this week! What made you so suddenly hooked on chocolate anyway?"

Lilly wistfully smiled to herself. "Nothing," she mumbled. "It's that when you get one, you can't stop afterwards kind of thing, that's it!"

But then she secretly smiled to herself...