The Dark Ice Chronicles - The Magi

Chapter 13 - You Can Twist Perceptions, Reality Won't Budge

“Interesting idea for a cover story,” Evan muses. “Just make sure he’s aware we’re gonna have separate tents for the boys and girls.”

I laugh again. “Yeah, that’s what he cares about the most, making sure my virtue is intact.”

“His heart’s in the right place, then,” Evan says, smiling. “My dad thinks along the same lines. What about yours, Harris?”

“He doesn’t care what happens to my body, unless it’s one of two things,” Harris says, raising two fingers. “One, that I bulk up a lot - preferably with natural methods, like protein-loading or workin’ out or real world labor. Two, that I don’t end up losin’ it, ‘cause it’s the only one I’ve got, and I gotta treat it like a temple, yada yada.”

Evan and I both laugh hard at this. “Does this mean you don’t care about your body?” I ask.

“I care enough to shield it from prying eyes,” Harris says.

We all start laughing now, to the point where Adele emerges from down the hall and hisses at us to be quiet, saying Mr. and Mrs. Michaelsen are trying to sleep.

“Are they really?” I ask.

“No,” Adele admits, raising the volume of her voice back to normal. “But Rachel and I are tryin’ to listen to the latest One Direction single, so could you please be quiet and not disrupt the good vibrations? Thank you.”

“Okay,” Evan says.

“Thanks!” Adele skips merrily back to her room.

“One Direction, huh?” Evan mutters as Adele leaves. “They don’t do boy bands, usually. I guess times change, though. And I mean, they’ve never had this much time together before, so…”

“So you figure they’re tryin’ to bond as much as possible?” Harris asks.

“Can’t imagine why not,” Evan says.

“That’s really sweet,” I say.

“Isn’t it?” Evan stretches her legs. I hope she’s not too aware of the fact that my eyes are tracing the shapes of her calves under her jeans.

A few minutes later, Harris and I decide to leave - it’s dark now, and we’re both sure our parents won’t want us to be out too late, even if they’re as unaware of the Fire gang problem as we think they are. We walk in silence, devoting our attention to keeping an eye out for said Fire gang, but they’re nowhere to be seen tonight.

When I get home, as Dad and I start cooking our microwave dinners along with Jeremy, I bring up the subject of the planned “campout.”

“So,” I say as casually as possible, “my friends and I, we were, uh, thinkin’ about goin’ up to Mount Hamilton this weekend and-”

“Oh, you guys wanna watch the party at the Ice palace?” Dad asks.

“How’d you guess?”

“It’s only natural,” Dad says, smiling. “I remember I wanted to go to the Norwegian Ice palace every year when I was in my teens, but I never did until I was eighteen. You’re lucky, there’s an Ice palace right near here for once.” He loads his ziti parmesano diet dinner into the microwave. “But how’d you and your friends get a campsite? I heard they were all taken up.”

“One of us has...erm...connections,” I say, thinking of Michelle. And Evan, because it’s her father who’s responsible for having us go on this...excursion, as it were.

“I see,” Dad says.

“What are you lookin’ at?” I say to Jeremy, who’s eyeballing me in a funny way. “This is none of your bees’ guts. Shoo!”