Body, Mind and God

Chapter 35: Athelia

Chapter 35: Athelia

Getting inside her house had been the easy bit. So had getting her reflection back into the mirror, and getting into bed without being caught. The hard part was the morning, when Athelia, completely unaware of any conversations from the previous night, was caught unawares by more than a few questions.

"Did you get that study done you wanted to do?" What study?
"I told you to empty the dishwasher, Athelia! How come it isn't done?"
"Did  everything  go in and straight out of your ears last night, child?"
And the worst one was when, in front of Jen, her mom asked if she could do the 'thing' today. What was the 'thing'? Urgh. She was going to have to interrogate her reflection later.
'Wait, can I do that?' Athelia asked Athena as she rushed around trying to get out  the door to school.
'Can you get one-on-one time with a mirror?' Athena answered her question with a question. This was becoming an annoying habit, Athelia noted. She just nodded in reply.

After finally evading her mom and getting out the door, the rest of the morning seemed to fly. Although, she did check her phone in English, something she had never done before, to see if her reflection had sent any texts she needed to know about. Urgh, there were going to be some rules next time that girl came out of the mirror. Like, record all and any conversations. Thankfully, there was only one call on her phone that had been recieved, from Cecily. Lia was almost certain that Cecily wouldn't have picked up on anything suspicious.

Third hour Classics was better than ever today, her new-found friendship with Isibel making her engage a little bit more, even if it was just explaining it in more detail to Isibel, who looked glad to have the extra help. History was pretty good too. Isibel swapped seats with the girl beside her, and she tutored her through this class as well. And it wasn't even hard to hide their conversations from the teacher, now that Athelia had discovered her telepathy.
'Is it just me, or is Mr Romanov acting a bit weird today?' Isibel asked as Athelia wrote down yet another mistake the teacher had made already today, bringing the total to twenty-two in the last fourty minutes.
'I'm sure it's just an off day. Everyone has them.' Athelia replied, but she wasn't totally convinced herself. It was strange that Mr Romanov, who was a massive history expert, was making errors, such as mixing up Anthony and Augustus, and calling Virgil 'Virgin'.
'Yeah right. But really, I'm just concerned about that god awful fez. I mean, that, paired with his toupè? Yikes. It's like dressing up a monkey.' And Isibel was right. He did look absolutely ridiculous. She had to stifle a laugh, which failed miserably, and it came out as a cross between a sneeze and a cough.

"Would you like to share the joke with the class, Miss Sage?" Mr Romanov said sarcastically from the front of the class. Everyone turned around and stared at her, and she felt her cheeks flush bright red.
"No, thank you, Mr Romanov." She said quietly, while Isibel sniggered softly beside her.
"What about you, Miss Culpepper?" He had caught Isibel laughing at her.
"Sure, why not?" Isibel said. The teacher stood there, waiting. "It's you ridiculous fez / toupè combination, Sir. It looks like you learnt how to dress form fifties movies." She snickered again, but this time Athelia wasn't laughing with her.
'What are you doing, annoying the teacher? You'll get a detention.' Athelia chastised her.
'Relax, class is more fun when you annoy the teacher.' Isibel said calmly, as Mr Romanov started turning a delightful shade of purple. 'Anyway, the bell is due to go early, in about three, two, one...' The bell rang, and the teacher looked at his watch in confusion.
"Wait!" He tried to retain the fleeing class. "It's not time for lunch yet!" But the majority, Isibel included, had already swept their belongings into their bags, and were heading out the door. Athelia grabbed her bag too, and stuffing things in it as she fled the classroom, all the while shaking her head at Izzy's antics.