A/N: So anyway… ya'll enjoying the story? I'm trying to do things like they should be done. ' which is difficult cause I don't want to copy what goes on in the book.
Bleh. My hand looks like I beat someone up. It's mildly bruised and it has bandages over a scrape I got when I knocked my hand into the door of the Laundromat.
Chapter Two
Charlie found Olivia, her hair brown instead of the usual funky colors in it. She smiled at Charlie, though he was mildly surprised by her look. "What's going on, Livy?" he asked.
Emma giggled faintly. Olivia blushed and looked around. "I'm going to audition for that movie, like I told you I was going to before the end of term."
"Oh, but I thought that was during summer break," said Charlie, still mildly confused.
Emma shook her head. "She knew about it then, but she is auditioning this weekend on Saturday."
Charlie nodded. "I see. So, are you and Liv going to be at the Pets' Café on Saturday, if you finish before the evening," he said to Olivia, smiling.
Olivia nodded. "I'll try."
Charlie grinned and looked to Emma. "What about you, Em?"
Emma nodded and smiled brightly at Charlie before looking to his wrist. She remembered he had been wearing something on it beside his watch before she had tried to talk to him in the theatre.
Charlie blushed and put his hand into his pockets, looking around. "Where's Fidelio, do you know?"
Olivia nodded. "He's over there talking to Gabriel."
Charlie nodded. "Could you two stay here, for a moment?" Then, he jogged off toward Fidelio and their friend Gabriel Silk. However, the hunting horn sounded and he grunted in frustration. He needed all his friends together to tell them about the strange bracelet.
However, he felt strange in his stomach suddenly. He blinked as he felt like he was going to be sick all over the ground. He doubled up and landed on his knees as he panted. Fidelio and Gabriel were doing the same thing, though Gabriel looked the worse for wear.
"What's going on?" gasped Gabriel.
"Is something the matter?" asked a girlish voice. Charlie looked up from the ground into a heart shaped face littered with freckles and little pink lips. She had shoulder-length brown hair and wide light blue eyes as she looked down at him. "Are you all right?"
"CATHRINE PEST! GET INSIDE!" called Manfred.
The girl known as Cathrine Pest ran straight for the school, not stopping until she got inside. Charlie, Gabriel and Fidelio began to feel better when she left. They looked at one another in surprise at what had happened. "Was she…?" said Fidelio, coughing.
"She's endowed, but with what? Pestilence?" said Gabriel with a grunt.
"BONE! SILK! GUNN! INSIDE NOW!" called Manfred. They ran inside, still panting from their ordeal as well as having to run to get inside the school before Manfred decided to come out after them.
Charlie grunted when he was kicked out of his music lesson for not having his trumpet. It wasn't his fault he couldn't find it. He sighed and walked down the hallway to find where it could be.
He found himself in the music tower, looking at the sign on Mr. Pilgrim's door. "He's away?" He blinked as he looked into the empty room, anyway. No one was in there at the time, so he took a quick look before walking out. He wondered what happened to Mr. Pilgrim as he saw someone walking away wearing a purple cloak.
He blinked at the flap of cloak that went around the corner before wandering over to the art room. He felt Mr. MacGregor might be of some help since he was irrevocably on their side of this little battle between the endowed. He walked in and found Lysander Sage and Tancred Torrson, both grinned over at Charlie as they stopped working on their stone sculptures.
"What do you need, Charlie," said Tancred with a broad grin, yellow hair gelled to spiky perfection.
"My trumpet. I can't find it, so I thought I'd look here," he said.
"I saw some kid walking over there in the garden balcony with one," said Lysander, his hair in dreadlocks and decorated with beads that clinked together when he turned his head.
Charlie nodded and trotted past them. He found a group of kids working at a table, sketching various objects. Charlie found his trumpet in front of the boy with the crooked teeth and noticed he also had things like bits of paper and eraser stuck to him. Charlie felt that strange connection once again and grunted as he picked up the trumpet.
"Oi! That's my trumpet! I've been looking for it all over the place," said Charlie as he looked for his initials on the bell.
"No, it's mine," said the boy with a grin.
Mr. MacGregor looked up at Charlie and smiled at him. "Hello, Charlie. What's wrong?"
"I've been looking all over for my trumpet, sir. This boy had it," he said as he pointed to the initials.
The boy smiled at Mr. MacGregor, though Mr. MacGregor didn't smile back like Charlie somehow felt like doing. Mr. MacGregor, in fact, looked as though he was going to strangle the boy right there like Darth Vadar using the force.
"I was only pulling a little joke," said the boy, his grin fading slightly.
"I don't appreciate being lied to, Joshua," growled Mr. MacGregor before nodding to Charlie.
Charlie ran away as quickly as possible to get away from the boy named Joshua. When he was far enough away, he found that whatever was trying to connect him to Joshua had broken. He sighed as he walked back to his lesson only to find Mr. Paltry taking a coffee break. Mr. Paltry shooed him out and sent Charlie on his way.
Charlie groaned as he walked to his homeroom. The least he could do was get those lines done. He saw Corazon walking toward him, smiling sheepishly at him. "No sun… it's as cloudy as you all like it," she said, blushing darkly.
Charlie grinned at her. "Thanks, Corazon. Thank you." Then, he walked to homeroom to find the girl with the short brown hair and freckled face reading. She was wearing a blue cloak like he was and working on some homework, the teacher sleeping at his desk.
The teacher looked up at Charlie with one light grey eye and one brown eye. It was almost impossible to look at them at the same time. "And what are you doing here?"
"Ah… I have lines to do," said Charlie, unsure of how to act toward the man.
The man laughed. "On the first day back? My, my, I heard you got into trouble easily, but that's a first. Very well, sit down and be quiet." Then, the man went back to sleep.
Charlie attempted to sit as far away from the girl as possible. He still felt somewhat queasy sitting in the same room as her, but it wasn't as bad as before when she'd surprised them.
She looked over at Charlie with those light blue eyes and he gulped and looked away to his paper. He didn't want to run the gambit that she would make him sick the moment he looked at her for any length of time.
When it was time to leave, Charlie got up and walked out as quickly as possible. It was dinner time and he had to run to catch up with Fidelio. "Where have you been, Charlie?"
"Long story," said Charlie. He'd tell him later about the misadventure. They walked into the dining hall and sat down at the music table with all the other kids in blue.
Charlie looked around, but found that Morgan wasn't anywhere at the table, not even talking to Gabriel, and certainly wasn't with him and Fidelio. He knew she liked talking to Fidelio about violin concertos and the like.
He looked to Gabriel and whispered to him, "Have you seen Morgan around?"
Gabriel shook his head. "No, I didn't even see her at lunch."
"Neither did I," said Fidelio, "And she NEVER misses lunch or anytime there's food."
Charlie frowned as he ate his dinner, thankful for the Monday-back-feast that Cook always prepared the best. The only time Morgan had ever been absent was when Manfred had hypnotized her. He wondered if that was what had happened as he finished his dinner.
Dr. Bloor stood up and the children looked up at him. "We have some new students here. For those that are endowed, and you know who you are, you will report to the King's Room. The other endowed children will show you the way, or one of the prefects will." Charlie looked around as he noted about six different voices saying "Yes, Sir."
"Now, DISPERSE!" called Dr. Bloor before leaving with a swish of his black cloak.
Charlie waved to Fidelio before walking with Gabriel to the King's Room. He found little Billy Raven ahead of him and smiled at him. "Good evening, Billy," he said.
Billy looked to him, looking pale and scared. "Ah, hi, Charlie. Excuse me," he squeaked and ran off just as Charlie began getting a sick feeling in his stomach. The freckled girl was behind them and grinning at Charlie in a disconcerting manner.
He and Gabriel jogged into the King's Room and sat down. Once again, Morgan was absent. Cathrine Pest walked in and closed the door behind her, Manfred looking to her in an irritated fashion. "Pest! I told you to control that power of yours, and I mean it!" he growled.
Cathrine whimpered and nodded; the queasy feeling going away as she sat down at the end of the table. Billy was sitting across from her, looking as though he was trying to find a way to bolt from the room. Charlie sympathized.
"We have new students here among us. Here we have Idith and Inez Branko," said Manfred. There were two girls sitting beside him, both with blue eyes, china doll white skin and short black hair cropped just at their jaw line. They were twins all right, that is, if they were alive. They didn't move as their books in front of them flew off the table and landed in Charlie and Tancred's laps.
Tancred's sleeves shivered as his hair sparked. "Telekenisis," he grumbled.
"They're related to Zelda, so be nice," said Manfred with a withering glare at Tancred. He looked to Joshua and smiled at him, which was rather scary looking. "And we have Joshua Tilpin here. Rosemary Lace, " he said as he indicated the red haired girl who's head was bowed over her lap as she worked on something in her hands, "Cathrine Pest over there and Mary Dawson." He finished with pointing out a fair haired girl who was sitting near Dorcas Loom.
It was then Charlie noticed Asa was missing as well. He looked to Emma and Gabriel with raised eyebrows. Manfred glared at Charlie. "Bone, I told you to bring me your lines before dinner."
"Ah, sorry, Manfred," Charlie said, trying to avoid looking Manfred in the eye.
Manfred looked around. "Where are Pike and MacGregor? They're supposed to be here."
The door opened and Asa walked in, hands hidden under his cloak as he strolled over toward Dorcas and sat down. "Pike, where have you been?" grunted Manfred.
"I have been taking care of MacGregor, Manfred," he snorted, looking annoyed.
Charlie frowned and looked to Emma. She looked to him with wide eyes and then back to Asa as he pulled out his homework and started working on them. Manfred growled and sat down. Then rest of the evening went peaceably, however, the idea of Asa 'taking care' of Morgan still stuck in Charlie's mind.
He suddenly realized a note had been passed to him from toward Manfred. Charlie blinked and opened the note, reading the messy handwriting with some effort.
Bone,
MacGregor is in the Infirmary.
Charlie looked up and down the table to the people clustered around Manfred. No one was looking at him to see if he had read it. He frowned. What had Asa done to Morgan to make sure she ended up in the infirmary?
After study time was over, Charlie wound his way to the infirmary with Emma, Tancred and Lysander. He'd told them about the note, showing it to Lysander. "It's Pike, all right. He has the handwriting of a serial killer," grinned Lysander.
They walked into the infirmary to find Morgan on the bed asleep. The nurse wasn't in sight, so they walked over to her. "Morgan?" asked Emma as she prodded the older girl.
Morgan didn't wake. Tancred and Lysander tried their hands at waking her up, but it didn't work either. It was almost like sleeping beauty, except they were trying to avoid the kissing part like the plague. "I can't figure out what's wrong with her," said Lysander.
Emma frowned. "She sleeps like she's dead most of the time, but all we've done would have made her try to hit us."
"Not a bliven reaction from her," grunted Tancred.
Charlie looked Morgan over before he spotted something on her wrist next to her watch. It was a blue braided bracelet like the green one he had in his pocket. He took it off of her and felt a strange sleepy sensation when he held it in his hand. He threw it away from him with a grunt as Morgan blinked and yawned. "What's going on, lads?" she mumbled sleepily, stretching on the bed.
"You were very much asleep," said Lysander.
Morgan blinked. "What time is it?"
"About time to go to bed," said Emma.
Morgan shot off the bed, looking around. "The hell? What happened?"
Charlie frowned. Morgan had been wearing one of those strange bracelets as well. He wondered if Dorcas was behind it, since he knew she could bewitch clothing. Morgan grunted. "Well, I guess I get to go get to sleep," she grumbled, looking as though she could kill someone.
She left with Emma, leaving Charlie with Tancred and Lysander. "That was… unusual," said Lysander.
"Beyond weird," said Tancred.
"It was that bracelet she was wearing. The blue one. I think it made her fall asleep," said Charlie, working it out in his head.
"What do you mean?"
"I found this green bracelet in the theatre during assembly. When I put it on, I felt like my ears were going to bleed from the noise in there. I think they're bewitched," said Charlie as he pulled out the green bracelet. He could still feel power going into his hand as he held onto it. He shoved it back into his pocket after a moment, gritting his teeth. "It feels weird."
Lysander and Tancred looked to each other, Tancred's hair sparking. "We'll have to tell the others. We'll see you later, Charlie," they said as they walked out.
Charlie frowned as he looked to his hand where the green bracelet had been, then, he walked out of the infirmary.
