Moonhaven

Chapter 4: Are You Now...? Have You Ever...?

The next morning at 9 a.m., Alex and Carsyn busied themselves around the Mitchell kitchen table with a mini breakfast feast. Alex poured honey on his pancakes, while Carsyn smeared plum jam on her toast. Then Alex handed the bottle to Carsyn, and she handed him the jar and knife in return, and they repeated each other's actions.

"So instead of an 'E', Ziro's mom made it an 'I' in some backwards attempt to throw people off about him. Let me warn you now that Ziro is top-notch in nearly everything he does," Carsyn explained.

Alex choked on his pancakes. "Noted... And hey, where's that uncle of yours you mentioned in the letters?" he asked.

Carsyn groaned. "Out of town. Meeting up with some weirdo high school friends or something. Don't ask me for details, 'cuz I didn't bother asking him."

"Aren't I weird?" Alex gestured to himself.

"Yeah, but you're a good kind of weird. The lot of us in this town are. Now eat up. Ziro texted me earlier, said to be at the café before ten. He will stare at you even harder if we're late."

Alex frowned, worried about another sour staring contest, but quickly went to work on clearing his plate. Carsyn watched him, somewhat amused as she dug into her own breakfast.

About half an hour later, the front door of Halcyon unlocked. In walked Ziro with a spare key, and he beelined towards the center of the café. Behind him were four other individuals.

First after Ziro, was a boy with tan skin and a black crew cut, leaped onto a pink hexagonal table and raised his feet onto a chair. He had a blue and grey-ish skateboard tucked under his arm, and then placed it over his lap. His left knuckles had 'EVIL' tattooed on it, while his right had a tattoo of 'LIVE'.

Not far behind him, was another boy with deep-wheat shaded skin and curly light-brown hair, who took a seat across from the tanned boy, by a red square. He had a ladybug tattoo on his left hand. In his other hand, he twirled a magnifying glass.

After him was a girl with olive skin and medium length, platinum blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, who stalked her way up to the front counter and leaned back against it with her arms crossed. In-between her lips was a cherry lollipop. Engulfed on her right hand, was a tattoo of a lion's face with piercing lavender eyes.

Last inside, was a girl with sandy skin and black Dutch braids with auburn ends and bangs. She ambled to a seat by an orange rectangle, avoiding everyone's eyes and fiddling with her ash-blue nails. Coiled on her back was a large tattoo of a cobra with probing red eyes.

The boy perched by the red square spoke up. "Is this a bad time to mention that I saw 'he-who-shall-not-be-named', earlier today going to Riviam point?"

Everyone glanced at Ziro, but Ziro didn't take his eyes off of the front door. "We'll deal with it later," he said, prompting an obedient nod from everyone.

The front door opened again, and in strolled Carsyn and Alex. Immediately, all eyes fell to Alex.

Carsyn glanced at him and then back at her friends. "Quit the staring contest, weirdos. This is Alex. I call him Lexy every now and then."

"Unacceptable!" shrieked the girl leaning against the counter. She puled the lollipop from her mouth and jabbed a finger at Carsyn from across the room. "He can't just walk around being addressed by some childish sobriquet. I won't allow it!"

"You got something better, Nyne?"

"Well give me a minute. I just met your pen-mate here."

"It's pen-pal, Nyne," corrected the boy by the red square.