Talia found herself with Auriana and Iris again one afternoon. Since the first batch of posters seemed to be gaining some attention, they decided to put together a few more for the rest of the hallways. Right now, they were in Iris' room playing music and cutting out cardstock.

"Whaddaya think?" Auriana held up a garland of stars and cresent moons she'd cut out of paper.

"Doesn't seem like anyone will know where to go with that" Talia teased.

She played along, "Oh sure, I'll hang one end outside the classroom and the other all the way at the auditorium."

Iris' eyes lit up at the suggestion, "Hey that might work! Pass me another sheet and we can make a chain all around the school!"

They held a straight face for not even two seconds before they all burst out laughing. Talia remembered Nathaniel's request from last week. She should tell Iris and Auriana about the club, but why was she hesitating now?

She tried to bring up the topic first. They might not be interested in a poetry club. "What if we wrote poems for the flyers?" Talia asked.

Auriana supported the idea, "Yeah that'd be really cool. I can't write well though, so it's up to you two."

"I'm not much of a writer, but do you want to do it Talia?" Iris asked.

"I mean, I don't have anything in mind yet, but I could try to write some." Talia said. She only meant to figure out whether they'd like a poetry club, but now she found herself stuck to the idea.

In the end, Talia couldn't bring herself to mention the poetry club. Not that she needed to, they weren't in the same lunch period anyways. But why was she treating this like it was a secret?

Talia reasoned with herself,

No it's not a secret. If they ask about it I'll tell them. When the time comes, I'll tell them.

But there was no way of telling when the time would come.

~~

Once they'd made enough posters, Iris said goodbye to her friends. She picked up her phone and saw there was a text from Nathaniel.

Nathaniel!

How long had it been since they'd seen each other? Two weeks? How did that happen? She opened his message:

Hey Iris, are you free to catch up sometime?

She went to reply, then stopped. What could she say? "Sorry for not talking to you for two weeks?" What kind of friend does that?

Calm down Iris, it's not the end of the world. You can talk to him now.

She checked the time; it was still 5 o'clock.

Hey Nathaniel! Sorry I've been really busy lately- I'm free right now though. Do you wanna meet up?

A few minutes later came the reply,

Actually, I'm at work right now. . .

I'll be off tomorrow though we can hang out then?

Oh actually, I have practice tomorrow. What if we just met up during lunch- or I guess between lunches?

Sure.

I'll meet you outside the cafeteria.

Phew, that was settled. Iris flopped on her bed. She already finished her homework, so all that was left to do was figure out what to do with her free time.

Just then a call came from downstairs, "Iris? If you aren't busy would you mind helping me unpack groceries?

"Coming Aunt Ellen!"

Or she could do that later.

~~

Auriana waited in the hallway for Mephisto to show up. They'd agreed to meet up today during free period to work on math. There wasn't a classroom they could use, so she set up shop outisde her locker. Now that she thought about it, what was she going to do when he got here? She hadn't planned anything different besides repeating what they'd done in class.

If Mr. Gramorr couldn't teach him, what made her think she could?

"Hey"

"Ack!" His voice came seemingly out of nowhere, and she stumbled back a bit.

Mephisto covered his mouth, he was laughing, "Pfft- Did you not see me? I was right in front of you."

She in fact had not seen him. Her face was pink from embarrasment, "No, I guess not. Wear a construction vest next time so I know."

She sat on the floor in front of her locker, Mephisto followed suit.

He spoke up first, "So what's the plan for me to actually learn?"

That's right. She hadn't planned anything yet. "Um, I was just thinking we go over stuff to see what you know? To be honest, I didn't think this through that far. I was working on play stuff with Iris and Talia that I didn't get around to working on this."

His demenor changed, "Oh, okay. You know you don't have to help me if you don't want to right? This isn't your responsibility." It almost felt like he wasn't talking to her the way he kept his eyes glued to the tiles on the floor.

"Ahh wait! I didn't mean it like that. I just get sidetracked a lot. But I do want to be here." She tried to look him in the eyes, but he wouldn't budge.

Finally, he looked up and said, "Thanks."

He took out his homework, and even though she had no idea what she was doing, Auriana was determined to help him out.