Chapter 8:
"Why?" Ahiru asked, confused as to why fakir would quite ballet. She knew he loved ballet, or at least she thought he did.
"Who knows," he said and walked out the door, his bag in hand.
"You do," Ahiru said, after the door had closed. She fell back on the bed, "what do I do now?" she turned onto her side and lay there for a long time till she heard people outside the door and they had knocked on the door and were trying to open the door. Ahiru quickly stripped down and shoved her clothes in the crevice of the bed, turned into a duck and was about to hop into the drawer when she realized it was closed! She looked around for places to hide and saw Fakir's wardrobe door was open a crack and she crawled in just before the door burst open. She heard footsteps against the soft carpet.
Suddenly she heard a girl's voice, "look under the beds I'll check the wardrobe" she said. The footsteps came closer and she hid under a pile of Fakir's clothes. The doors opened for a brief moment then closed the doors with a click.
"Nobody over here" said a different girl's voice.
"Nobody in here either," said the girl who just checked the wardrobe. "I could've sworn that I saw a girl in here this morning she couldn't have left, someone would have seen her.
"Maybe you were just seeing things Millie" said the other girl.
"Maybe…" Millie said, her footsteps drawing away from the wardrobe and out the door. Even after Ahiru had heard the doors lock click she dared not move, in fear that they would come back and see her. After awhile Ahiru decided that it was safe to come out and pushed on the door, still in her duck form.
Uh-Oh she thought when the door didn't budge, she had forgotten that the wardrobes at the academy locked. She reached her wing up and tried to unlatch the lock but to no avail. She sat down against the door
What do I do now? She wondered, she just sat there for about an hour. Suddenly she was engulfed in a red light and then she became a girl again. She shifted her position so her legs could spread out.
What was that? She wondered, examining her hands, why did I suddenly become human?
She stood up and bumped her head on the ceiling, forgetting she was still in the wardrobe. She stood up again, bent over so as not to hit her head again, and pushed against the door. Suddenly the door burst open and Ahiru toppled out and landed on something. She sat up and saw she had landed on Fakir, who was rubbing his forehead where the door had hit him.
"Get off me…" he moaned, his eyes closed.
"Sorry," she said and ran over to where her clothes were.
Fakir sat up, still rubbing his forehead which was clearly bruised, "what were you doing in there?" he asked annoyed, "that's the second time you've fallen on me!"
"Some girls came into your room and the drawer was shut. I had nowhere else to hide," she sat down on the bed.
"Girls?" fakir asked examining his bruise in the mirror.
"I think there were two, one of them was called 'Millie'."
"Millie…" Fakir pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
"Who is she?" asked Ahiru, puzzled by his reaction.
"I'm not sure, but she's always following me." Fakir shook his head, "what did they say."
"I think they said something about Millie seeing something somebody in here... I think she saw me."
"That's not good," Fakir looked out the window and saw people running to the academic buildings, "Uh-oh!" He grabbed his books. "gotta go," he said and ran out the door to his next class.