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Bella brings two blank notebooks to school the next day. Her old one is safely computerized and boxed up with its predecessors.
At lunch, she sits with Angela; Jessica and Eric and Lauren sit at the same table but mostly talk to each other, and Mike is nowhere to be seen.
Bella is just about on time to gym, thanks to an overnight icing that means she has to pick her way with extreme care across the slippery grass or the slick sidewalks. The second time she falls down, she gives up on attempting any dignity at all, and, cradling her thwacked elbow, scoots the rest of the way to the gym on her rear. This leaves her with damp jeans but no further injuries, and they were a little damp anyway from the falls.
She doesn't have time to do more than smile and wave at Alice on her way to get her mat and get out of the way of careening balls. She spends the class doing the subset of her safe activities that won't stress her elbow.
self_composed
edgeofyourseat
"Thanks, I guess," he says. "I used up an extra one so I could draw the map that well. I figured we didn't want to end up in the wrong place because I scribble."
edgeofyourseat
"Sure!" says Alice. "Whenever you feel like, just call me before you get here. Do you even have my number? You don't, do you."
edgeofyourseat
"Oh, thanks," he says, and puts it on his desk under a previously lonely paperweight.
self_composed
Bella counts her coins. She has the pentagon, and one square left from hand-biting, and ten triangles. She's still got one shoe off and one shoe on; she stands up and kicks the wall smartly a few times, then massages the toe, yielding in all four more squares and another triangle. Then she hands him two squares and four triangles. "If you need them. Keep them inside your socks or something where they won't be visible but you can still use them."
self_composed
"In case the treasure's already gone," she mutters, "or it doesn't have any hexes in it. In which case these denominations are what we have to work with until I make one heck of a hack into my brain."
self_composed
"Until I work up to handing you a hammer, or holding still while you brandish some form of acid, or whatever," Bella says, gritting her teeth.
self_composed
"It's going to hurt like fuck to get the right coins, whatever we do," Bella says, shuddering.
self_composed
She nods. "Of course," she says, "if you got the powers in the first place I wouldn't feel nearly so entitled to the possible fruits of your, er, labors. Whereas I think I have some claim if a stash of coins left to me provides you the ability to produce said fruits."
edgeofyourseat
"...it's the same either way for me," says Alice. "I mean, if I get wish powers, I'm giving you my extras because I want to. Not because I owe you them or something."
self_composed
"Right," Bella says. "But I probably wouldn't give anyone else wish powers if I didn't expect to get something from it. I feel pretty okay about profiting from something that's mine and would probably be vaguely guilty if it were not ever mine and you were just giving me a lot of wishes made out of pain all the time."
edgeofyourseat
"I like pain," Alice points out. "Like, I don't want wish powers to have wish powers, I want wish powers so I can hurt myself in creative ways and not end up in the hospital for it. The part where you end up sleeping on a hoard of hexes like a sexy dragon is just a bonus."