THE FIRST YEAR dormitories were on the very top floor of the large main building just below the roof space to keep them well away from everyone else. Each of the four of them could accommodate six girls to a room.
Dorm Sensation and Dorm Flare were at one side of the building and Dorm Amaze and Dorm Wonder at the other. Thus when Vetta entered the room after Pirouette Wrangely she found a large central space crowded with beds in niches and corners. Beyond was a flood of light from a large window overlooking a forested hill slope and she could see what appeared to be a balcony. She turned to Meresinth.
'This is amazing,' she said with genuine awe.
'No, that's next door,' the Arbornica girl said wittily, knowing their neighbours were known as Dorm Amaze for some reason. Why the dorms had such funny names she could not guess but accepted the fact for a year at least, if she failed to get expelled, she would be a Wonder girl, for what that was worth.
'Our luggage is already here,' Vetta then cried happily, noting piles of suitcases and bags laid in the centre upon the plush patterned carpet. 'I was wondering how I was to carry all my belongings up those many steps. We are so high up I feel almost dizzy.'
'We are part of an extremely exclusive seminary I might remind you. The privileged do not carry luggage,' Pirouette said. She had glanced around the room briefly. 'That bed is mine.' With that she grabbed the most sparkly suitcase Vetta had ever seen, pressed a button on it and the thing almost seemed to hover over to where she had placed her straw hat with its Plazenby ribbon of blue and yellow stripes. Then she stood by the bed and waited.
Vetta waited also. She was in a terrible dilemma as soon as she realised beds were not allocated but chosen. Another girl had come in carrying three bags which she tossed into a corner. Without saying anything to anyone, she threw herself onto a bed near the window, settled herself and then looked around.
'Hello,' she said, big blue eyes scanning the others. 'This is fun. I'm Dolly Bloomen, from Nordeyer somewhere over that way,' and she waved a hand at a cabinet next her bed.
'I am intensely pleased to meet you,' Vetta Mindal said before anyone else opened their mouths. 'My name is Vetta Mindal from the Blessed Hub in Poldorama.' She paused, thinking. 'My father makes cheese,' she added uncertainly. Dolly lay back on hearing this and smiled.
'I've no idea what my father makes,' she said and laughed. 'I tend to make a mess though,' and she indicated the bags she had brought with her, the contents of which were half tumbled on the floor.
Four beds were left now, but when Vetta turned she saw a quiet girl with large glasses sitting on the edge of the bed opposite the one Pirouette had claimed. Meresinth had by this time turned down the covers of the other bed near the window as if searching for things and a most curious looking girl with strange purple eyes had wheeled a suitcase from the centre of the room to one of the two beds near the door, the one at an angle from the quiet bespectacled girl. She had opened her case and was removing its contents.
Vetta breathed a sigh of relief and went over to the remaining bed where she stood next to it hesitantly. Then she turned and faced the busy scene as nearly everyone else had begun unpacking.
'I hope,' she said, barely audible above the noisy sounds of the others, 'no one minds if I choose this bed. It seems nice and close to the door with a shady darkness to it in this corner.'
'You're welcome to it,' Pirouette snorted as she lay out a rainbow collection of packages and shop parcels that suggested high fashion. This was not surprising for she was a Perfectine, hailing from a land where design and style were the lifeblood of the society she grew up in. Anywhere else beyond the barriers that surrounded Perfecta seemed barbaric by comparison. Yet here she was among the aesthetically challenged with a mission to bring quality to the benighted peoples of Frangea, and most particularly her vaguely acknowledged associates of Dorm Wonder.
'A brilliant choice Vetta,' Meresinth said. 'It was almost as if you waited until everyone else was settled where they wanted to be and then the most ideal spot was the one left,' and she cackled gleefully as she put things in a cabinet next to her bed.
'It was indeed the best choice,' the curious girl with purple eyes said from the bed opposite to that of the Poldorama girl. 'One of generosity and kindness which we could all learn from.'
Vetta gaped at this speech. It seemed so very right.
'I am Sentimentalia Placidia Rosala,' the girl said. 'From Granite,' and she held out a hand.
'Creepy,' Meresinth sniggered.
'As if we are going to remember that mouthful,' Pirouette said over her shoulder as she examined empty cupboards and shelves and bemoaned the absence of special decorated sheeting to add brightness to her bedside cabinet's interior.
'That is why I often ask my friends to call me Esper for short,' the girl said placidly.
'Creepier,' Meresinth chortled.
Vetta shook Esper's hand and introduced herself in a set speech that made the mischievous girl from Arbornica jump in before she had finished all of it to remind everyone helpfully that Vetta's father also made cheese.
'A very worthy occupation,' came a voice from another bed and Vetta turned to see the bespectacled girl walking towards her. The lenses she wore made her eyes seem enormous as she approached and Vetta took a step back. Before reaching where Vetta stood, pressed up against her bed, the girl knelt down and retrieved something from the floor.
'Could not help noticing you dropped this,' she said and held up a yellow pencil.
Vetta glanced at Meresinth, recognising the original owner when Esper's soft, calming voice interceded.
'It is yours Vetta, truly so, and you must claim it accordingly. We are here to learn all about sharing.'
'Thank you,' Vetta said with a stutter, taking the pencil. 'I am Vetta,' she began again.
'I know,' the bespectacled girl interrupted with a smile. 'And I am Anthera Malabona from Meditia. Like you I have left my homeland far away across the storm barriers to come here and learn things I could not possibly learn back home.'
'What sort of things?' Vetta whimpered for the magnified gaze of the girl was intense.
'The true meaning of friendship.'
That had been three of the five wellsprings of joy these girls had mentioned without Vetta uttering a word on the matter. She was astounded, astonished and delighted all at once.
'I hope,' she said faintly, 'we have all come to the right place.'
'I have my doubts,' Pirouette countered with a huff, surveying her untouched belongings. 'When is the maid going to appear to unpack my things?'
'Just before the world is due to end,' Esper whispered.