Spellweaver (5 page)

She was so grateful to
be out of the counselling session that she barely even noticed how
short it had been.

4.

Later that day,
Felicity once again returned to an empty flat. Her father was
working late, as was his obligation every fortnight or so, so she
had the place to herself. This arrangement suited her quite well,
particularly today, for she was still anxious about her experience
with the school counsellor.

She wondered if all
counsellors were like Mr Oakley. Were they always so to the point?
It seemed to Felicity to demonstrate a severe lack of tact, but
then perhaps it was a method of forcing her to cope with the loss
she had suffered. Still, although Felicity had not cried after her
mother’s death, she didn’t feel as though she wasn’t coping. She
was getting on with things - she was going to school, she was doing
her homework; she was existing. She highly doubted that she needed
a counsellor, and she was certain she didn’t want one.

An unexpected knock at
the door came as Felicity was taking a pizza out of the oven for
dinner. Frowning, she went to answer it, and no sooner had she
opened the door that Hollie walked inside.

“Your neighbour let me
into the building,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind me coming
over. I’m just so excited about tonight and thought we could go to
the Talk together. I mean, not that I can’t go by myself or
anything, but I’d prefer the company since I’m so totally nervous!
Do you think Oliver will like my outfit?” She raised a hand to her
blonde hair, which was arranged in long, bouncy curls, and then
another thought occurred to her. “I wonder if he prefers Olly to
Oliver?”

Felicity stood by the
her door, her hand still resting on the handle, and stared
open-mouthed at Hollie. She had been so preoccupied with her
experience with Mr Oakley that she had completely forgotten about
the arrangement tonight.

Hollie noticed the
pizza on the kitchen table. “Wow! It’s like you knew I was coming!”
she said, and sat down. “I’m so hungry but I’ve been too nervous to
eat. You don’t mind, do you?” When Felicity didn’t protest, Hollie
took a slice of pizza. “Hey, you better go get ready. It’s almost
time to go.”

Felicity stared.
Hollie looked gorgeous. She was wearing a tight fitting red dress
with a black belt around her waist. Her shiny red shoes had a six
inch heel, the kind of thing that Felicity had only seen on
television and in magazines. Her hair was perfect, her makeup was
perfect and her jewellery was perfect.

She shook her head.
“Uh, Hollie...” she began. “Look, I - I don’t think I can make it
tonight,” she said. “I, uh, I’m not feeling well. Yeah, I’m, uh...
sick.”

Hollie looked up from
her pizza and studied Felicity’s expression. She frowned, opened
her mouth to speak - and then she appeared to change her mind and
smiled instead.

“You know, Fliss,” she
said, putting her pizza down and approaching Felicity. “You are
most probably the worst liar I have ever met.”

Felicity stared at
Hollie, a combination of confusion, surprise and horror painted on
her face.

“Look, it’s okay to be
nervous,” Hollie continued, putting her arm around Felicity and
guiding her into the lounge area. “But I’ll be with you. You’ll be
fine.”

“But -”

“No,
no, no,” Hollie interrupted. “No buts!” She sighed. “Oh em gee,
Fliss, you’ve made me sound like my mother. Don’t ever do that to
me again.” She clapped her hands together. “Now, do you want me to
do your makeup for you? I have some lipstick that would go
perfectly with your complexion. And I know an up do that would
frame your face like a dream. What do you say?”

Helpless and defeated,
Felicity nodded weakly.

Hollie smiled. “This
is so exciting!”

The two of them
retreated to Felicity’s bedroom, where Hollie began her art. She
had brought with her a small makeup bag, and in spite of her
awkwardness its contents were enchanting to Felicity, the girl who
had never owned even an eyeshadow. Hollie worked like a
professional, dipping brushes into colours brighter than rainbows,
softer than feathers and darker than the night sky. She talked as
she went along, telling Felicity all about where she had obtained
her brushes and lipsticks, who had taught her how to do the perfect
eyeliner and how much she enjoyed making others look beautiful. Not
that Felicity wasn’t beautiful already, she was keen to add, but
everyone had room for improvement. Felicity was used to the way in
which Hollie ran on, talking without stopping to see if her
audience was attentive. She had done it to Oliver, too. But
Felicity was grateful, for it meant that she did not have to talk
much at all.

When Hollie had
finished with Felicity’s makeup she set to work on her hair. She
used her own clips, slides and bands to fashion the red locks on
top of her head, and then she pulled a few down to hang either side
of her face. Felicity didn’t own hair straighteners or curling
tongs, but they made do with a bunch of pencils and a hairdryer.
When Hollie finally allowed Felicity to look in the mirror, what
she saw caused her breath to catch in her throat.

“What do you think?”
Hollie asked eagerly.

Felicity was
speechless. She had never considered herself an attractive girl,
but then, she had never considered her looks at all. She simply
accepted what was. But now that she stared at the image of herself
in the mirror, with bright, shining eyes and deep, red lips, she
felt something that she didn’t think she had ever felt before. She
felt beautiful, and before she even had time to think about it, she
found herself smiling.

“You look nothing
short of gorgeous,” Hollie said. “Don’t you think? I’ve never seen
you with makeup on. Did you, uh, leave it at your old
house?”

Felicity stared at her
reflection as her smile left her coloured lips.

“
I,
uh...” She paused. A part of her, deep inside, wanted to open up to
Hollie, this girl who called herself her friend and who had made
her look like a goddess. But another part of her wanted to run as
far as way as possible, to retreat and hide somewhere she would
never be found. In the end, there could be only one
winner.

She averted her eyes.
“Yes,” she lied. “I left it at my old house.”

Hollie looked at
Felicity and it was clear that she didn’t believe her. She was,
after all, an inexperienced and ineffective liar. After a moment or
two of silence, she fished a few items out of her makeup
case.

“Here,” she said. “Take these.”

Felicity did so, and
then looked up at Hollie with a frown.

Hollie smiled. “Do I
need an excuse to give a gift to my BFF?” she asked. “Now come on,
get changed or we’re gonna be late!”

After she found
something suitable to wear, Felicity followed Hollie out of the
bedroom but stopped at the door, turning back to look at the gifts
Hollie had given her. They were only a few items of secondhand
makeup, but to Felicity they meant as much as if they were made of
gold.

Felicity was not so
separated from the world that she didn’t know what a club was - she
had always had access to television - but actually being in one was
vastly different. To begin with there was the sheer noise of the
place. When characters in films and television shows spoke to one
another in clubs they always managed to hear exactly what they were
saying, even if they were speaking at a normal volume. That
certainly wasn’t the case at the Talk. Several times Hollie had
shouted something in her direction but Felicity had been unable to
hear her.

Secondly, there was
the lighting. It was always easy to see people in clubs - or so the
television had led her to believe. Felicity was starting to
understand why everyone she had spoken to at Greenfields expected
her old boarding school to have been like Hogwarts or St Trinian’s.
The strobe lighting, the flashes, the colours - all of it impaired
Felicity’s ability to see, and so she found herself squinting. The
smoke machine did nothing to help matters, either.

Hollie led her
directly to the bar, where she ordered the two of them a coke. “No
alcohol I’m afraid,” she said apologetically as she passed the
drink to Felicity. “Not on a Snap Night, anyway.”

Felicity wondered
briefly if Hollie was used to drinking alcohol, but by then they
had moved away from the bar and the bass line of the music was once
again making verbal communication difficult. Thankfully, Hollie led
her to a seated area rather than the dance floor, and although the
place was crowded with people, it was much easier to talk
there.

“I wonder if Oliver is
here yet,” Hollie said to her as they found a seat and sat
down.

“He’s
here.”

The two girls looked
up to see Jamie standing in front of them.

Hollie rolled her
eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that it’s rude to sneak up on
people and interrupt their conversations in that weird way that you
do? Seriously, Jamie, that’s twice in one day.”

“Sorry,” Jamie
apologised with mock sincerity, and then he sat down beside them.
“But I did learn from the best, after all.” He gestured towards his
sister.

“Ugh, what do you
want?” Hollie asked. “Do you get off on annoying me?”

“Oh, then I suppose
you won’t be interested in any news of, say... Oliver?” He smiled
and then tilted his head to look past his sister and wave to
Felicity. “Hi, Fliss.”

Felicity nodded an
acknowledgement to Jamie.

Hollie’s attitude
suddenly changed. “You’ve seen Oliver?” she asked excitedly, her
show of contempt for her brother dissolving. “Where is
he?”

“He’ll be along in a
minute,” Jamie replied, helping himself to a sip of Hollie’s drink.
“So tell me, what’s with the outfit? Going for an emo
theme?”

“As if,” replied
Hollie, her eyes flitting across the club as she tried to locate
Oliver.

Jamie drew in a breath
between his teeth. “Then it must be...” He paused, and then clicked
his fingers triumphantly. “Dennis the Menace! Am I
right?”

Hollie curled the left
side of her upper lip. “Who?”

Jamie chuckled to himself, shaking his head at his sister’s
ignorance. “No, you’re right,” he continued. “Your red dress...
don’t tell me you’re trying to warn Oliver that you’re
dangerous
before
he gets to know you? That’s an
improvement.” He looked at Felicity. “Usually they don’t find that
out until later.”

Hollie glared at him.
“If you’re not gonna go away, maybe we ought to tell Fliss all
about your last girlfriend,” she snapped. “You know, the one who
dumped you because all you wanted to do was play online games with
her?”

The smile faded from
Jamie’s face and he shifted uncomfortably. “Right, well, uh...” He
stood up. “I’ll just be leaving you two ladies alone then.” He
shuffled away.

Once he had gone,
Hollie giggled. “I’m glad I’ve been able to use that one against
him again. He hates that. At least it made him go away. Oh em gee,
Fliss!” Her attitude suddenly changed to one of almost paralysing
excitement as something caught her attention. “There he
is!”

Felicity looked.
Surely enough, amongst the crowd of teenage revellers was Oliver,
and he was heading towards them.

Hollie grabbed
Felicity’s arm, forcing her to turn back to her. “Do I look all
right?” she asked desperately. “I mean, how’s my hair? My makeup?
It’s not smudged at all? Oh em gee, do you think I should have worn
a different outfit? Ah! Quiet, here he is...”

Oliver nodded towards
Hollie as he arrived, and then he folded his arms and leant to one
side in a way that clearly impressed her.

She smiled. “Hi,” she
said coolly, in complete contrast to how she had just been
behaving.

Oliver looked at
Felicity, but he didn’t say anything. Hollie followed his gaze.
“Oh, um, Fliss,” she said somewhat nervously. “I think, uh, Chloe
was waiting for you. Yeah, Chloe. By the bar?”

“Oh, uh...” Felicity
stood up, looking at Hollie, then Oliver, then Hollie again, then
she began to shuffle away hesitantly. She turned back in time to
see her friend mouth ‘thank you’ at her, and then her attention was
given solely to Oliver.

Left alone yet
surrounded by people, Felicity wandered to the bar. It took her
several minutes to get there as the place was very busy and it was
not in her nature to push and shove her way through a crowd; that
kind of behaviour was likely to get her noticed, and she didn’t
want that. Once she got to the bar she pulled herself up onto one
of the high stools and looked around.

The dance floor was
packed. The DJ was playing upbeat and current tunes, interrupting
them every so often to mention names or declare the apparent
awesomeness of his tracks. A group of girls were hovering by his
booth, evidently trying to get their names called out, or perhaps
they felt that hanging out with the DJ was cool? Felicity couldn’t
tell. She watched her peers as they danced, drank and flirted with
one another. She, on the other hand, felt content with her own
little bubble from which she could observe. She squinted in an
attempt to see in the dim yet occasionally flashing light of the
club, searching unsuccessfully for Hollie and Oliver.