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Chapter Thirty-One
Josephine took her daughters to a local cafe for breakfast, it was one the girls had never been to before but they thought it smelled amazing and they were even happier when their gran told them they could pick whatever they wanted of the menu. All starving, they all picked a full English, well Ethel's without beans and Sybil's without bacon as they didn't like it. Grandma Jo ordered some egg on toast, not as hungry as the girls and they waited impatiently for their food.
"I hope it isn't long, I am starving" Sybil said, ready to have some breakfast and fill her aching belly.
"There isn't many people I am sure it won't be too long" Grandma Jo replied as she turned towards the eldest.
"How is Cackles?" Josephine then asked her eldest Granddaughter.
Esmerelda thought what she should tell her, that the other pupils were bullies and found her weird, the prank she had pulled on the bullies and how they had nearly killed her for it in return? How she had been really homesick and started having horrible nightmares and then bed-wetting because she was under a curse? Or how she had started her period and had a breakdown because she had no idea what was happening as her mum never bothered to explain it? Esmerelda looked at the woman and smiled as this ran through her mind.
"It is good, but I miss my sisters" Esmerelda lied, knowing her Grandmother would not be able to handle the fact she had had such a bad year, she didn't want to tell her what had been going on, in a way she felt like a failure, she was a Hallow, she was supposed to love the school, but she just didn't.
"That is great darling, I was hoping it wouldn't take you long to settle" Grandma Jo replied before she turned to Ethel and Sybil and asked how their year had been, unlike her son and daughter in law she was not going to nag Esmerelda with questions about every single thing that had happened and what she had learned.
"It was bad, we missed Esmie" Ethel sighed, looking at the ground.
"Oh I know honey, but don't worry, you can always mirror call her" Josephine said just as breakfast came and everyone stopped talking to tuck in. Sybil squeezed an abnormally large amount of ketchup onto her plate and then passed it to Esmie who put a much smaller amount on her plate, Esmerelda didn't offer it to Ethel as she detested Ketchup, so offered it to Jo instead but the woman shook her head.
"No thank you darling, I don't like ketchup" the woman told her and Esmie nodded and put the bottle in the middle of the table and they all picked up their knives and forks and started eating.
"Mmmm it is so good" Esmie said, a full English breakfast a rare treat for them.
"Especially when you are starving" Ethel replied and ate some of her egg happily.
"I am glad you all like it" the woman told them as they all continued to eat their yummy breakfast.
"Er I am stuffed" Ethel complained holding her stomach as she was really full after eating all her breakfast, her sisters did the same, filled up.
"So you don't want lunch then?" Jo asked with a chuckle
"No, I will be sick" Sybil commented
"Thank you Gran for buying us breakfast" Esmie said
"Yes thank you Gran" Ethel and Sybil said in unison
"No problem darlings, I am just happy you enjoyed it, now where do you want to go next?" the woman asked them and Esmerelda's eyes lit up.
"Can we go shopping? Please?" Esmerelda asked. Ethel and Sybil smiled too and started to beg alongside their sister.
The three girls loved shopping with the woman, it wasn't even because she brought them loads of things it was just fun to look and find something they had never seen before, most young girls shop with their parents, the only shopping the girls did with their parents was in a clothing tailors for clothes and that was not a nice shopping trip because they always ended up being pricked with pins during the alterations.
"Okay why not? let's go" the woman said as she transferred them all to the local shopping area for witches. There was shops with potions ingredients, broomsticks, robes, books, cats, anything you could think off. Sybil was instantly on the move and tried to run in six directions at once.
"Sybil stay close" the woman said casting a spell without the girl seeing. It was a spell that would cause Sybil to be unable to run further when she got to far ahead of them.
"But I want to look at everything" Sybil said, and Ethel started running off too as she saw a bookshop and Jo had to cast the spell again to make it effective on Ethel.
"I am surprised you aren't running off" Josephine said to Esmie who was happy and walking around but not trying to run into every shop like her sisters.
"I am just older now Gran, I know to stay in sight" Esmerelda replied with a shrug.
The truth was that Esmerelda had changed. She didn't know when exactly it had happened during the year but something had changed, her sense of fun was not really there anymore, she hadn't told anyone that, she knew she used to have fun, and would of ran off like her sisters but she just didn't want to anymore, she wasn't sure if it was her age or something but running around the shops just wasn't appealing anymore.
"I can see you have changed slightly, more mature" Grandma Jo said and Esmerelda smiled at her not knowing what else to say.
The was a secret she was hiding and she didn't want to tell anyone, she didn't want to upset or burden anyone with her problem, so she rushed after her sisters, acting normal.
Esmerelda was not as happy as she had once being, she was estatic to be with her sisters of course and loved them just as much that day as she had done when she first set her eyes on their scan photos but there was something inside of her which had just died, she had lost her spirit, she wasn't depressed, because she could and she was happy but she just wasn't as happy as she used to be and she was much less optimistic, now instead of worrying about things when they came she would worry about them all the time, instead of being excited she had four weeks left with her sisters she was just dreading the day she had to leave, all this pressure and expectations put on her was just making her hate studying more, and she was losing her childlike nature.
Josephine knew something was wrong but she was not overly concerned. Her granddaughter was growing up and becoming more mature she was bound to change in that time. She still was enjoying the shopping trip even if they she wasn't running around so there didn't seem to be anything wrong.
"GRAN GRAN" Ethel shouted, as she ran towards her grandmother, a look of pure excitement on her face.
"What is it darling?" the woman asked looking at her excited granddaughter
"They are selling cats, oh can I get one gran please!" Ethel asked. The girl adored cats and wanted one really badly.
"No Ethel, you will get a cat when you go to Cackles, you know that" Grandmother Josephine told her.
"But that is ages away and Esmie is going to take Morgana back to school with her, please I will look after it!" Ethel said, begging her grandmother.
"Sorry Ethel you can't, you know the rules, I am sorry, but you can get a toy cat" the woman told her and Ethel scowled, looking down folded her arms, pulling a stroppy face because she didn't get her way.
"No stropping Ethel, you can't have one, come on this is suppose to be a fun day" Grandma Jo said.
Ethel soon cheered up when the woman brought her a soft cuddly black cat toy, Ethel took a hold of it and wouldn't let go. Sybil got one too but Esmerelda decided to buy a book as her treat, her grandmother tried to convince her to get something more original but when it didn't work she brought her the book.
"Thank you" Esmerelda said, as she happily took the book and smiled. She loved reading, she could enter a new world where everything was easy and she didn't have to worry about anything, if only her life was really like that.