French,
were particularly boring today. She spent a lot of time absentmindedly doodling
Alex’s name with little hearts in her notebook and watching as the hands of the
clock seemed to cease all movement.
Ugh…This
day is just never ending!
Sometimes,
just to amuse herself, Ellie would tap into Griffin’s mind reading power and
idly listen in on the high school gossip. Usually she didn’t like to invade
people’s privacy, especially his. And if she did stumble on anything personal
or anything mean, she always immediately moved away from those thoughts. Today
there was apparently very little going on.
A bit of a
competition was brewing between two of the girls Ellie sat with at lunch, Kayla
and Rose, over Brian, the boy from Ellie’s economics class.
“Kayla just
needs to back off. She’s soooo obvious, coming on to Brian that way,” Ellie
caught Rose’s thoughts during lunch.
“Jeez. Rose
should get a clue that Brian is not remotely into her,” Kayla was thinking
during economics.
Brian tended
to be the focus of a lot of the girls at the school, and Ellie could understand
why. He was hot, outgoing, genuinely nice, smart, and athletic. A good catch
for anyone . Brian didn’t tend to show favoritism for any one girl, which
led all the girls interested in him to think they had a chance. It was silly,
but this small bit of drama managed to keep Ellie’s mind occupied to get her
through the day.
As soon as her
last class was over, Ellie met Lila, Adelaide, and Nate in the parking lot and
drove them all to the library. Ellie hadn’t been there yet. The building was
one of the first you came to when going down the main street of downtown Estes
Park. All wooden beams and stone, it looked more like a lodge than a library.
It wasn’t very busy on a Thursday night in March.
They trooped
into the building and headed upstairs where the tables and study carols were
located.
“Awesome!”
Nate exclaimed. “The biggest table is still open.”
They pulled
out chairs and spent the first several minutes getting settled and spread
out…organizing their books and notes and booting up their laptops.
Ellie had
never studied with other people before, always working on her homework in the
middle of the night, and never allowing herself to make friends at any of her
previous schools. In general, her impression was that most students used
studying in a group as an excuse to socialize, never really getting any work
done.
As Ellie
looked at her new friends, she thought, I should just tell them who I am.
“Don’t you
dare, Ellie,” Griffin’s voice echoed in her mind. “ You agreed we would
wait until I could find out a little more about them.”
Keeping her
expression carefully blank, she mentally replied, “This is getting silly,
Griffin. I know these are good people.”
“Just a
little longer Elle. I can’t shake this feeling that something is wrong. At
least give me till the end of the week. That’s only a few more days. Okay?”
“Okay,” she
agreed reluctantly.
Breaking the
mental contact with her brother, Ellie turned to concentrating on school work. Fairly
quickly, the three girls knocked out studying for their test scheduled for the
end of the week. Since they were all fluent, it wasn’t that hard. French was
Ellie’s “easy A” class. Apparently it was the same for Adelaide and Lila.
“How’d you get
so good?” Lila asked as she put away her textbook, and pulled out homework for
another class. They’d decided they were all ready for the exam.
Ellie answered
with her usual practice of sticking as closely to the truth as she could and
being as vague as possible about the rest. “My mother’s side of the family’s
from France.” She made sure to gloss over the verb tense as she said it. “I’ve
spoken it since I was a child.”
Ellie caught a
slightly perplexed look on Lila’s face. But she covered it up so rapidly, Ellie
wondered if she’d really seen it.
“Did your
parents meet in
were particularly boring today. She spent a lot of time absentmindedly doodling
Alex’s name with little hearts in her notebook and watching as the hands of the
clock seemed to cease all movement.
Ugh…This
day is just never ending!
Sometimes,
just to amuse herself, Ellie would tap into Griffin’s mind reading power and
idly listen in on the high school gossip. Usually she didn’t like to invade
people’s privacy, especially his. And if she did stumble on anything personal
or anything mean, she always immediately moved away from those thoughts. Today
there was apparently very little going on.
A bit of a
competition was brewing between two of the girls Ellie sat with at lunch, Kayla
and Rose, over Brian, the boy from Ellie’s economics class.
“Kayla just
needs to back off. She’s soooo obvious, coming on to Brian that way,” Ellie
caught Rose’s thoughts during lunch.
“Jeez. Rose
should get a clue that Brian is not remotely into her,” Kayla was thinking
during economics.
Brian tended
to be the focus of a lot of the girls at the school, and Ellie could understand
why. He was hot, outgoing, genuinely nice, smart, and athletic. A good catch
for anyone . Brian didn’t tend to show favoritism for any one girl, which
led all the girls interested in him to think they had a chance. It was silly,
but this small bit of drama managed to keep Ellie’s mind occupied to get her
through the day.
As soon as her
last class was over, Ellie met Lila, Adelaide, and Nate in the parking lot and
drove them all to the library. Ellie hadn’t been there yet. The building was
one of the first you came to when going down the main street of downtown Estes
Park. All wooden beams and stone, it looked more like a lodge than a library.
It wasn’t very busy on a Thursday night in March.
They trooped
into the building and headed upstairs where the tables and study carols were
located.
“Awesome!”
Nate exclaimed. “The biggest table is still open.”
They pulled
out chairs and spent the first several minutes getting settled and spread
out…organizing their books and notes and booting up their laptops.
Ellie had
never studied with other people before, always working on her homework in the
middle of the night, and never allowing herself to make friends at any of her
previous schools. In general, her impression was that most students used
studying in a group as an excuse to socialize, never really getting any work
done.
As Ellie
looked at her new friends, she thought, I should just tell them who I am.
“Don’t you
dare, Ellie,” Griffin’s voice echoed in her mind. “ You agreed we would
wait until I could find out a little more about them.”
Keeping her
expression carefully blank, she mentally replied, “This is getting silly,
Griffin. I know these are good people.”
“Just a
little longer Elle. I can’t shake this feeling that something is wrong. At
least give me till the end of the week. That’s only a few more days. Okay?”
“Okay,” she
agreed reluctantly.
Breaking the
mental contact with her brother, Ellie turned to concentrating on school work. Fairly
quickly, the three girls knocked out studying for their test scheduled for the
end of the week. Since they were all fluent, it wasn’t that hard. French was
Ellie’s “easy A” class. Apparently it was the same for Adelaide and Lila.
“How’d you get
so good?” Lila asked as she put away her textbook, and pulled out homework for
another class. They’d decided they were all ready for the exam.
Ellie answered
with her usual practice of sticking as closely to the truth as she could and
being as vague as possible about the rest. “My mother’s side of the family’s
from France.” She made sure to gloss over the verb tense as she said it. “I’ve
spoken it since I was a child.”
Ellie caught a
slightly perplexed look on Lila’s face. But she covered it up so rapidly, Ellie
wondered if she’d really seen it.
“Did your
parents meet in
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