THREE HEADS WERE pressed together in one corner of Dorm Wonder, one blonde and two dark. They were whispering animatedly and Pirouette Wrangely noticed them as she came in from breakfast. It was a weekend and that meant first years did not have to attend any kind of instruction for two whole days. Time was all their own.
Finding things to do was never a problem.
'What are you doing?' Pirouette asked suspiciously. To some this tone of voice was her normal way of speaking when she was not referring to herself or the land of her birth. The three heads turned quickly.
'Ah, Pirry, there you are,' said Meresinth happily.
'Pirouette,' Anthera nodded, her glasses flashing in the slanting sunlight at the gesture.
The third girl remained silent though there was a slight tinge of red upon her pale cheeks.
Pirouette looked at her.
'Vetta,' she said seriously. 'What are you doing?' The other two, standing either side of the Poldorama girl, looked meaningfully at her.
'We were,' and Vetta fumbled a moment, 'planning a morning's trip down to Cherryball Flats, to the shops,' and she blushed a little more intensely.
Though highly untrusting of just about everyone else across the Face of the World, Pirouette Wrangely recognised there was a certain integrity that clung to the small blonde girl like a strange perfume. It was possibly because she came from a land that was so lacking in imagination that the idea of subterfuge had never entered it as far as she could tell.
'Shopping!' was her warm response. 'Count me in. When do we start?' and she grabbed her hat as if answering her own query. She was not disappointed.
'Right away,' Anthera said.
'All of us?' Pirouette asked, glancing at Dolly Bloomen's bed by the window which was currently occupied by a snoring figure.
'It would be a shame to wake her,' Esper said from her corner of the room. 'I'll keep her company just in case she revives and panics about where she is. Remember that nightmare she had about the Edge of the World and how it seemed to look like Nordeyer her homeland? No, I'm happy to read these notes from the last five lessons we had, just in case I missed something.'
'Well, I missed everything,' Meresinth joked, 'so no amount of revision will save me. Come ladies, the glamour of shopping awaits.'
With that she led the others out of the room at a quick march.
Esper watched after them in silence a moment.
'Oh dear,' she said in that knowing way of hers.