Chapter 18

We found Tikaye walking back to her dormitory in the pouring rain outside.

The courtyard was never sunny; it was always raining - either that or it has just been a very rainy week. She was kind of edgy about something but when we approached her, she disguised it and put on a happy face for us.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Chase looked to me and then back to Tikaye.

“Well, Tee, Avril’s going to be making a few changes to the masquerade dance.” Tikaye’s eyes lit up,

“I’m listening.” She smiled as devious as Chase and I had been when we had thought of such a magnificent plan. We actually didn’t have a plan; we thought of it on the way over, but Tikaye didn’t know that.

“Well, you know how the theme was going to be fairytale romance?” Chase asked, disgust colouring his voice. Tikaye nodded and grimaced. “Avril hatched a very good plan.” He was right; I did have a very good plan up my sleeve. I intended to use Chelsea’s love for romance to my advantage and what could be more “romantic” than gothic love stories? So, discreetly, to make it more bearable for us, I planned to change the theme to gothic, instead of that crappy fairytale thing.

“We’re changing the theme to gothic to make it slightly more bearable for us,” I shortened. Tikaye looked at me with a cautious look,

“Chelsea will try and destroy you. She hates nothing more than Goths,” Oh, even better! “She wants romance, rather than Goths, so as much as I love the idea, I just don’t think that the leader of the committee would see eye-to-eye in this equation.” So, now she was Chelsea brainwashed?

“No, it’s still romance themed alright, only instead of Cinderella, it’s more of a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing where the two die.” I laughed and I sounded pretty evil without meaning to; sometimes, that was just my laugh. “It’s set back in some random time where everything was gothic and it’s only fitting for the reason as to why we’re having this dance in the first place.” The more bullshit I added on to reason with Tikaye, the more it made sense to me and I realised how genius that plan really was. Not bragging or anything because nobody likes a bragger. Tikaye looked at me and then at Chase and then back to me again,

“Avril Mavra; you are a genius!” I smiled and thanked her for the compliment and now came the scary part; getting the okay from the teachers.

Turns out, it was really easy. I just had to ask Anton who was able to convince all the rest of the teachers that it was a good idea and now, how were we going to break the news to CB? This should be fun, I thought to myself. We’d have to tell her in the morning because it was almost lights out and we were already outside past curfew. Would it matter if we were doing urgent committee business, since everyone loved that masquerade concept so much? I am the only one who could break the curse unless the vampires did and nobody wanted that and so I should be allowed to go to bed whenever I wanted because maybe I’d let the vampires kill me to teach them all a lesson. I wouldn’t do that. I’m too nice. Chase and I walked up to our dormitory and then he smiled,

“Well, since it’s not so pink and what-not anymore, does that mean you’ll go?” He asked, collecting his things for a shower. I hadn’t really given much thought that it would be pink in the first place. They’d lost me at dance, so I hadn’t really given it a second thought.

“Nah, probably not. I hate dancing,” I told him truthfully and he smiled before starting up the stairs,

“Yeah, me too. Big day tomorrow.” Telling CB about this would be fun.

The next day, I woke up before the siren and had a long shower. I had just got out when the siren began to ring and I was dressed on the second ring. I walked to LC with Chase and then sat through another one of Samson’s lessons and he announced the changes to the masquerade. Adam and all of his entourage of girls were heartbroken - the suckers. The rest of the class wore looks on their faces that seemed either to be relief or shock; I wasn’t sure, but if they were anything like me,, they would be relieved and then Paul and Sav came up to me.

“You did this, didn’t you, Mavra?” Sav asked, smiling. I looked at him and said,

“You didn’t honestly think you’d be seeing me in pink did you? That’s just ludicrous for the both of us.” Paul laughed and then the actual lesson commenced.

“You really want this masquerade thing to be special, don’t you?” Paul asked, noticing my normal black attire, “I mean, I don’t think you could own anything pink and this masquerade is in your honour.” I nodded and then Samson blabbed on for the next hour. I thought I’d better pay attention to this because I wanted to know more about the lycanthrope abilities or whatever. We weren’t going to learn them today, but I thought I’d better pay attention just in case. Instead, we learnt that the Year of the Moon was something that only occurred every ten years and about nine out of ten times, there was not a lycan that could break the curse. There have only been a few chances when a Mavra could kill the Valeska and all have failed - not a Valeska or a Mavra was killed but many other werewolves and vampires. It was time for breakfast after this lesson and so when I went to breakfast, my getting up early was starting to sink in and I was becoming a zombie who had absolutely no sleep or something. Tikaye, Chase and I, instead of going to our next class, had to meet up with CB and she was not going to be happy with the recent theme change of the masquerade. Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear I thought to myself.

“How dare you, Mavra?” She exploded, frustrated and angry. “You can’t just waltz on into this committee and change everything I’ve organised!” I looked around and thought, ‘dude the only thing you’ve ‘organised’ at all is the flyers you created in a flash on your flash Apple computer.’ I didn’t say it though, as much as I wanted to, I just smiled and said,

“Deal with it, sunshine.” I could not honestly be bothered with putting up with her bitchiness and so that was my best retort for the morning. She sighed and then whispered in a low threatening voice,

“You will regret this!” I snorted as she left our table and then I saw her leave the room and wondered what she was up to - she hadn’t even eaten anything. Speaking of eating, I went to get my toast and then Tikaye followed after CB. When she got back, she looked at me with concern,

“She’s trying to sabotage your leadership of the committee,” she informed me but how she found that out I will never know. After my toast, I poked around the school, looking out for my sabotager but could not find her anywhere and so I went to the bathroom to wash the sleep out of my eyes and she was in there, tagging the mirror with spray paint. The writing read, Avril Mavra was here. I didn’t care - it was an elementary school trick and what teachers would look in the bathroom anyway?

“But Mr. Fulton, I’m telling you! It wasn’t me that tagged that mirror! It was Chelsea-B***h!” I called her that instinctively, forgetting how much trouble I’d get into if I called her that.  So, I was in detention because Fulton checked the bathrooms in his break for one of two reasons: a) he was a paedophile or b) he wanted an excuse to tell the students off or give them a detention. Real mature, Fulton, buddy!

I sat in detention for about an hour, with my arms crossed and eventually, he gave up because he knew that I would not apologise if I did not commit the crime.

“Now, what is your side to this story, Miss. Mavra?” He asked me, pretending to actually care. I rolled my eyes and told him my version of the story.

“Chelsea got all pissy because I was bringing a new idea into the committee and she doesn’t like the thought of anyone else stepping in.” Fulton looked appalled, “What? It’s true.” I murmured and I thought how immature that sounded. Fulton put his clenched fist to his lip.

“There’s only one way to settle this. Go to the gym, right now, Mavra.” I looked at him quizzically, “I said now!” Quickly, I got up from my seat and walked to the gym. I had only been to the gym like twice before all of my combat classes were cancelled due to the preparations for the masquerade. When I got to the gym, I sat down in the centre, staring at the floor and thinking about why Jake and Charlie wouldn’t tell me how they knew about these lycanthrope abilities and what-not. Before I could get too into my thoughts, Fulton returned with Chelsea. Accompanied by Mr. Russia.

“April, I understand that you and Chelsea have been feuding about the organising of the masquerade and I think it only fitting that because you both would like to be in charge of the committee as much as each other, you shall face off in a duel and the winner of the duel shall be the leader.” I stared at him dumbfounded, “The rules are as follows. Each contender will battle until the other gives up or they are pinned to the ground by the other. No Lycanthrope Abilities may be used as this will result in automatic disqualification. To win, the opponent must have the other on the floor for no less than three seconds.” Chelsea rolled her eyes and then I was still dumbfounded. They were actually letting me kick Chelsea’s a*s. That was the part I couldn’t comprehend. Mr. Russia or should I say, Master Colvin took out a chrome coloured pen and drew a square on the ground. It levitated and appeared right in front of his eyes and he held his two hands together and then parted them slowly until they were as far from each other that they could go. The square then fell back onto the floor and expanded, concealing Fulton, CB, Mr. Russia and myself inside. Suddenly, Fulton and Russia ended up in a square bubble and the chrome coloured square around us turned into a room and it wasn’t even the gymnasium anymore.

“Let the battle begin!” Colvin shouted from his bubble.

Chelsea got her game face on and I thought I may as well too and so it began.

I waited for Chelsea to make the first offensive move, but of course, she was waiting for me to do the same. I thought I’d humour her because I was good with either offensive or defensive and Mr. Russia knew that all too well.

I made the first move by walking up to her calmly and punching her. The trick to beating an opponent is always surprise and I’m usually angry in battle and so this must have come as a surprise to her. She was bleeding and was slightly fazed by the blood and then she came at me, her face red with anger. She had me pinned to the walls of the chrome room, but it still wasn’t the floor. I swung my leg around her and jolted her in the stomach, knocking her to the ground. She fumbled to her feet but then I ran behind her and took her by surprise. As she was looking for me, I swept her like a broom sweeps trash and she fell back onto the floor and then I pinned her there.

“THREE, TWO ONE!” Anton Trezman yelled and then it was over. I had won the fight.