FOR A WHILE AT least the forest slopes seemed somehow less foreboding around Miss Plazenby's to Vetta whenever the botany mistress Miss Zacharim took some first years out to interrogate flowers and chase squirrels.
Her brief time with the blue-haired girl, where strange stories of a wandering life were told in that remote cabin as they had shared a memorable meal of soupy vegetables and three day old bread, gave her a sense she was never alone among the trees. She would always be safe.
'Don't step there!' came a sudden shout as Vetta wandered along an amble path well within bounds, reminding her indeed she was not alone that misty morning a few days later.
'Oh!' she gasped and looked down at a cluster of leaves, a protruding root and a very small pink flower. She realised the flower would have been crushed by her foot and she paused.
'Thank you, Anthera, for warning me. It would have been a shame to spoil such a tiny little thing like that,' and she carefully manoeuvred around the plant. A crunching sound seconds later made several girls cackle with laughter, for in avoiding one thing she had blundered into another, namely a snail shell.
'Oh,' she sighed, checking her shoe for slime. It had been an empty shell thankfully.
'I think one of those twins from Dorm Flare left it there,' Meresinth said, consoling the Poldorama girl for the mishap.
'They are such big, energetic girls,' Vetta said. 'I do not like to admit it, but they frighten me sometimes. They are so boisterous.'
'They mean no harm I'm sure.'
'Yaaaah!' came a sudden cry as a dark figure with an enormous mass of hair leapt out upon the two girls from behind a tree.
'That Evernight creature on the other hand I'm not so sure about,' Meresinth added as the aforementioned creature hooted with delight at startling others and then ran off to seek further shadows to lurk in. The land she came from was well named for it was always dark among the thick endless forests of Evernight. As a result the girl had a pale and ghostly complexion which she managed to cultivate even in the sunny land of Frangea by always seeking shade.
'One day Vetta she's going to catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror and frighten herself half to death. Vetta?'
Meresinth looked around and found she was speaking to herself. Her nervous friend had been thoroughly alarmed and scampered off somewhere herself.