Chapter Nine:

Lili's Fascination With The Circus

Angus knocked nervously on Lili's door, casting a look at Tessa, who looked less then interested in the situation. Both of them stood in silence as they waited for someone to answer the door. During that period of time Angus noticed with dismay that his palms were sweating and that his face had reddened.

"Err…maybe she didn't go back to the room." He said quietly. Tessa stepped forward and tried the knob. It wouldn't budge. She sighed and began to search her pockets for the key to the room.

"Aww, hell." She knocked loudly on the door and yelled, causing Angus to flinch back from her a little.

"Hey is anyone in there?"

Down the hall, someone opened their door and glared out at her and Angus before slamming it shut again. Tessa stood back and crossed her arms.

From the inside of the room came the sound of someone unlocking the door. Zoe opened it up a slit and glared at Tessa through the crack.

"You know normal people use keys." She said bitterly.

"Forgot it. Is Lili in there?"

"No. He's not suppose to be here." She said, casting a dark look towards Angus who was nervously playing with his fingers.

"Well…did she stop by here?" Tessa asked, pointedly ignoring Zoe's statement. Zoe shrugged.

"Yea…for a second, then she muttered something about going outside…which I told her was against the rules past 6:00…she didn't listen."

Tessa sighed.

"Why don't you just apologize tomorrow Angus. You'll see her for sure in class."

Andus nodded, looking slightly troubled.

Zoe raised her brow.

"What'd you do to her?"

Tessa pushed past Zoe, who gave her a dirty look as she did.

"None of your business." Tessa muttered. "See you tomorrow Angus." Angus nodded and walked slowly down the hall, nearly running into a wall at least once due to his lack of attention.

Tessa rolled her eyes and shut the door.

"He's such a loser." Zoe said as Tessa threw herself down on her bed. Tessa chose to ignore her, although, even she admitted that Angus was at least the most awkward person she'd ever met.

She had started to search for her CD player in the drawers in the dresser next to her bed, when her eyes fell on Lili's stuff, still unpacked on the bed across from her. She bit the inside of her lip and cast a quick look at Zoe, before standing and crossing over to Lili's belongings. Zoe looked up from a small pink book (probably a diary.) and wrinkled her nose.

"What are you doing?"

"Searching through Lili's stuff." She said quickly, as she rummaged through various articles of colorful clothes. Zoe made an almost inaudible 'hmpf' sound From across the room.

"I hope you don't do that to my stuff when I'm not around!" She said, while glaring at the back of Tessa's head.

Tessa rolled her eyes.

"Trust me, I have no interest in your stuff." She said. "I'm just trying to get an idea of what Lili would want for a Birthday present."

Zoe closed her diary and gave Tessa a critical look.

"Well you could just ask her, rather then digging through her belongings."

"If I ask her she'll say something like 'It doesn't matter' or 'Don't bother, it's not important.' Or something like that." Tessa said as she pulled out a small calendar. She glimpsed at it briefly before tossing it over her shoulder onto Lili's bed.

After a few seconds Tessa paused and gave Zoe an irritated look, who had, apparently already forgotten her outburst at how inappropriate it was to search through someone's belongings, and was standing by Tessa's shoulder prodding at one of Lili's shirts.

She sighed and pulled out a small bag.

"Purse?" Zoe asked, now matching a small skirt with the shirt. Tessa watched her for a moment before snatching the stuff away from her.

"Hey!'

"Trust me…" Tessa said, as she put Lili's clothes back into the bag. "It wouldn't have fit."

"I wasn't matching it for me! I was just seeing if ANYTHING she has looks good together. If Lili would try a little harder she might actually succeed at looking nice."

Tessa rolled her eyes as she unzipped the bag.

"I like the way she dresses." She said defensively.

"Oh yeah…this coming from the princess of darkness." Zoe said. "I think she dresses like a circus freak." She said as she picked up the calendar Tessa had cast away only moments before.

Tessa zipped the bag back up and sighed.

"Just school stuff…I'm starting to wonder if Lili has any interests." She put the small bag back into Lili's suitcase and closed it up after casting a few more articles of clothing back inside.

"Maybe she doesn't care about her birthday. She doesn't even write it down in her calendar." Zoe said, thumbing through the tiny calendar absently. Tessa grabbed the calendar from Zoe, who scowled and went back to her diary.

Tessa started to put the Calendar back into her bag, then, she spotted some writing and pulled it back out.

"What the hell?" She thumbed through a couple pages, reading all of the entries with a bemused look on her face.

Zoe raised her eyebrow.

"What is it?"

"She has…like days and locations marked…for…circuses." Tessa said, skipping a few months ahead.

"That's…weird." Zoe said, looking at the calendar distastefully. "Who would be interested in a bunch of freaks hopping around in tights…and it smells SO bad there."

Tessa chuckled humorlessly.

"Plenty of idiots like the circus…I've just never met a person so obsessed that they write the dates of every nearby circus in a calendar…especially someone who punched a kid in the face in the third grade for calling her a Freak."

Zoe shrugged.

"Well…she dresses like she belongs in the circus…"

"So what…you dress like you belong in a petting zoo…I dunno…I want to give Lili a good birthday…but if that means actually going TO the Circus…" She shivered. "With clowns and stuff…"

Zoe had made an offended sound when Tessa had insulted her clothes, but, in seeing that the other girl didn't notice, she let it go.

"I'm certainly not going to circus! That's poor people entertainment."

Tessa considered this.

"Well…on the other hand…it might be worth it if you have to go…and maybe someone will fall…or a clown'll catch on fire or something. That'd be cool."

"Humph, I don't like Lili enough to go into one of those places, you can count me out." Zoe said as she buried herself back into her diary.

Tessa shook her head.

"Lili probably wouldn't like it that we knew about this…uh…circus fascination of hers, anyways. Maybe we should just get like…a cake…and flowers…I think she likes flowers." She put the calendar back into Lili's suitcase and went back to her bed.

"Wow…and I thought she was one of the normal ones." She said as she pulled out her headphones. For a moment she stared at the suitcase with the pause button pushed on her CD player. Then, she sighed and crossed back over to Lili's suitcase.

"I thought you were going to get her flowers." Zoe said, still staring at her diary.

"Yeah…but…you know…it doesn't hurt to at least consider the circus." She said. She grabbed Lili's notebook and pulled out a piece of notebook paper. She then fished for a pen and began copying a couple of the names of different circuses onto the lines. She muttered stuff as she did.

"This one has a star beside it…this one's underlined." She went on like this until she got to the end of the next month.

"Hmm…this is weird. Most of the ones that are starred don't even come close to here."

"Probably her favorite…you know…with the biggest freaks."

"Ok fine…but then why are some of THESE crossed out. Look." She crossed over to Zoe's bed and pointed to a circus performing three days before Lili's birthday.

"This is the Aladdin Shrine Circus…which I've actually heard of. The location is set for only three miles away from the school…but she has it crossed out. And this one…the Twilight Circus…it's only five miles away, in three weeks…and I've never heard of it…but still…it's really close. Then she has this…the Bazaar Circus…it's circled, doesn't even perform again for three months, and doesn't even come within 300 miles of here or her house. It's like this with almost all of them…she has all the ones that travel a lot and aren't well known circled or starred…but any that sound even remotely familiar are crossed out. Look…like this one; the Aquato Circus…I've never heard of that. She has it circled three times." Zoe kneeled over and looked at the name.

"What's that written beside it?"

Tessa looked down.

"Looks like…Raz with a question mark next to it."

"What's that?"

"I dunno…" There was a sound associated with someone trying to open the door, and finding the knob wouldn't budge, which sent both girls in a state of panic often linked with the guilt of doing something you weren't suppose to.

Tessa threw Lili's calendar back into her open bag and jumped onto her bed when the door opened.

Lili walked in and eyed both girls oddly. (Which also brings up the subject of suspicion. That is, that far too often when someone is trying NOT to look distrustful, they focus WAY too hard on something else, which causes further suspicion, in this case being that 1. They don't acknowledge someone as they have just entered the door and 2. Are writing in their diary upside down. The same thing happens when a conversation suddenly stops when one enters the room…it's better to find something else to talk about REALLY quickly rather then to try to convince the person who has just entered to believe that you had been sitting there the whole time in silence. Oh…and this little blob proves that I read WAY too much Terry Pratchett.)

"Hey…" Lili said hesitantly. Both girls muttered an inaudible response in unison. Lili raised her brow and scanned the room suspiciously. Her eyes fell on her bag…which was open. Lili's eyes narrowed as she crossed over and began to shuffle through some of her stuff. It was all there…which was good…it wasn't all in the same place…which wasn't.

She watched Tessa for a moment, who was chewing gum, with her headphones on. The girl looked up, smiled briefly, and looked back down at her CD player, which she realized suddenly, wasn't on.

"You…were going through my stuff?" Lili asked, her face disconcertingly neutral.

"Uhh…" (Also a dead giveaway, mind you.) "I was just looking to see if you had a pen…so I could…you know…write stuff."

"Oh." Lili said. Her eyelashes fluttered a little. "You mean…like the one on the table beside you."

Tessa frowned.

"Yeah…like…that one."

Lili gave her a slightly annoyed look before pulling her stuff out of her suitcase.

"What are you doing?" Tessa asked a little nervously.

"Unpacking." Lili said quietly. "You can watch if you want." She added in a sarcastic tone. Tessa shared a look with Zoe before pulling her headphones off and looked down in embarrassment. After a moment, Zoe muttered something about going to the bathroom and left the room hurriedly, so as not to get caught up in any drama.

After a moment, when the silence between the both of them was almost too much to take, Tessa eyed Lili and then bit her lip.

"So uhh…I umm…noticed the Circus was coming into town…and umm…I was wondering if you'd go…if I got the tickets." She said quickly. Lili had paused, with her back turned to Tessa, after only an instant of hesitation; she pulled out her calendar and set it on the dresser by her bed.

"I hate the circus." She said quietly.

"You do?" Tessa said…momentarily taken aback. (Especially since she was looking at Lili's calendar from across the room.)

"Well…I'm not…really fond of it either, but…it might be…you know fun."

Lili turned and met Tessa's eyes.

"Nah…" She said after a moment. "Just a lot of freaks in tights and some guy who says he can make some girl levitate, but is only using really thin wires. I'm not interested."

Tessa frowned and stood up. Lili watched her as she crossed the room and stood in front of her calendar.

"Ok, I happened to come across this thing." She said, while motioning towards the calendar sitting in plain view on the dresser. "While I was…"

"Searching for a pen." Lili said sardonically.

"Yeah…right…and I couldn't help noticing that…there's a lot of…circus stuff in there." She waited, watching Lili's expression, which didn't change.

"Uh huh?" Lili said, making Tessa scowl.

"So I…put two and two together…" Tessa said, agitation edging into her voice. "And decided you must LIKE the circus."

"I don't." Lili said. Tessa watched her in disbelief for a moment.

"Oh." Was all she could think to say.

Lili sighed and flipped back to the current month on her calendar, then started to unpack again. Tessa sighed.

"Sorry I went through your stuff." She said finally. Lili looked up as she shoved a stack of shirts into the top drawer of her dresser. They were both silent for a moment, then Lili sighed and tossed her suitcase onto the floor.

"The summer before last I met this…friend at camp." She said. "He works for my dad sometimes. The rest of the time he travels around with a circus." She sat down on her bed and crossed her legs.

"Oh..." Tessa said, slightly taken aback. "So…you don't like the circus?"

"No." Tessa sagged with visible relief.

"Oh thank God. I thought I'd actually have to go to one for a second there."

Lili smiled sadly and started absently to play with the now stained bracelet around her wrist.

"I am sorry…it's not…I mean…I wasn't doing it to be nosy or anything. It's just…" Tessa seemed to think for a moment. "Your birthday…is coming up…and since you know…you always seem so bummed out around this time…I thought maybe there'd be SOMETHING that could cheer you up…but…I guess the circus isn't it, huh?"

Lili's smile broadened a little as she shook her head.

"I probably wouldn't even have gone out of gratitude." She said. Tessa laughed.

Tessa watched her play with her bracelet for a while before another; slightly bewildering thought filled her mind.

"So this friend…he's uh…he's not like Angus or Lester, or um…Manny huh?" She said carefully.

Lili shrugged, and, to Tessa's surprise, colored a little.

"Is the bracelet…?"

"Yeah…" Lili said while pulling her sleeve over it when she finally realized that she had been playing with it.

"Ah…definitely not like Angus or Lester or Manny then…if they gave you a bracelet you'd call it stupid and throw it away."

Lili's blush deepened a little. In seeing it, Tessa decided to find something interesting to look at on the floor. After a while Lili spoke again.

"If Lester gave me a bracelet I'd call it stupid, set it on fire, THEN throw it in the garbage."

They both shared an amused look, and then went back to their own thing when Zoe reentered the room.

Tessa watched her friend inconspicuously for a little while before turning her CD player on and lying back on her bed. While she was lounging and just before she fell into an odd dream, induced by falling asleep to gothic rock music, a thought kept entering her mind. The thought was, that maybe, just maybe, she had found SOMETHING to give her friend for her birthday…that was…if she ever figured out an achievable way to do so.

Wee I did it!…On the last day…but still…better late then never.

I hope it's all right…I think I was in an odd caffeine provoked mood when I started it.