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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.
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self_composed
edgeofyourseat
"Yeah, let you in and then let you fall straight to the basement," he says. "Were there any skeletons of previous descendants down there?"
self_composed
"The only thing in the room was a weird sourceless probably-magic glow, and the book and the hex."
edgeofyourseat
"Great, now I'm imagining that the floor down there eats skeletons," he says. "...Stop me if I'm creeping you out."
self_composed
Bella laughed. "I don't think so. I think Elias Frobisher just didn't have a lot of descendants who happened to wander into the house. It's a two-story fall - it could kill me if I dove headfirst, but it wouldn't be too likely." She shrugged. "For practical reasons he wasn't really concerned about being injured, himself - maybe the point of the fall is specifically so what happened to me was possible."
edgeofyourseat
"Well, it's definitely one way to make sure whoever finds the book would use it," he says, rubbing the back of his head and looking half-suspiciously, half-admiringly at the chimney.
self_composed
"It does seem like it could backfire, though. Anyone can use the coin and there was only the one in there. I could have wasted it fixing my leg if I'd been a slightly different person." She glances at her backpack, currently on the floor. "I guess that's what the stash is for."
self_composed
She grins back, and giggles, and then laughs aloud. Not at all maniacally.
A little bit maniacally.
A little bit maniacally.
self_composed
Bella laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and bites her own hand to keep from laughing, and a triangle appears between her first and middle fingers.
self_composed
This just sends Bella into another paroxysm of giggles. She gets another triangle out of biting her hand, then chomps harder and gets a square.
edgeofyourseat
...It's kind of...
Where'd he put that notebook she gave him? He gets up to look for it.
Where'd he put that notebook she gave him? He gets up to look for it.
self_composed
Bella watches this with interest, releasing her hand from her teeth. She puts the coins in her pocket, which now contains enough that the glow is visible through the material. She frowns at this, and then puts her accumulation in the thicker backpack.
edgeofyourseat
"So," he says, digging in the laundry drifts near the chimney, "will it creep you out if I say it's kinda hot when you do that?"
self_composed
"Nah," Bella says. "It would only escalate to creepitude if you started swatting me without me signing up for that - whether you were doing it because it's hot or to try to steal the coins or because I annoyed you or whatever."
edgeofyourseat
"Okay, good. 'Cause it's kinda hot when you do that."
There it is! As he predicted, under a couple of shirts that he kicked aside while he was clearing a path to the desk for Bella. He holds it up triumphantly, then swings by the desk to grab a pen.
There it is! As he predicted, under a couple of shirts that he kicked aside while he was clearing a path to the desk for Bella. He holds it up triumphantly, then swings by the desk to grab a pen.
self_composed
Bella cranes her neck slightly so she'll be able to see what he writes, but if he's not interested in showing her she's not going to make a fuss.
edgeofyourseat
"What, you wanna watch?" he asks, following the movement. "Sure."
He looks between the desk and the bed for a moment, and then takes option c) none of the above and sits on the floor at her feet.
He looks between the desk and the bed for a moment, and then takes option c) none of the above and sits on the floor at her feet.
self_composed
"Mm-hm. If you don't mind." Bella peers over his shoulder.
edgeofyourseat
"Nah, go for it," he says easily, tipping his head back to grin at her upside-down. "That's the point, right?"
At the top of the very first page of the notebook, he writes: but why is it hot?
At the top of the very first page of the notebook, he writes: but why is it hot?
self_composed
Bella mulls over whether to be helpful. He doesn't have any practice at this yet. "Would it be hot if I did the same things and no coins happened? Or if the coins happened some other way?"
edgeofyourseat
"...yeah," he says. "But not as hot, either way."
So that's two lines dropping down from the main topic. At the end of one he writes: you were laughing; at the end of the other, his pen pauses. Then he goes back up and draws a third line. The two other subpoints, apparently, are it hurt and you're gonna take over the world.
He goes back and crosses out 'laughing', replacing it with having fun for a more general case. Then he circles 'you're gonna take over the world' and draws a question mark beside it.
So that's two lines dropping down from the main topic. At the end of one he writes: you were laughing; at the end of the other, his pen pauses. Then he goes back up and draws a third line. The two other subpoints, apparently, are it hurt and you're gonna take over the world.
He goes back and crosses out 'laughing', replacing it with having fun for a more general case. Then he circles 'you're gonna take over the world' and draws a question mark beside it.