The Art of Dying
Clue

After a good night’s rest, I ate the breakfast C.C. brought me, with her, in our dorm. She got me a raspberry muffin and raspberry green tea, when she went to the cafeteria while I slept. She still seemed oblivious to my new relationship status with Zane ─which might be a good thing, seeing as how she reacted to me only kissing him… We chatted amiably about ‘Mertell’ as we ate, or more like I tried to pry information out of her but she wouldn’t budge.

After breakfast, I took a quick shower and tried to, again, get rid of the stain Dixie’s drink left on my hand, to no avail. What could be in that energy drink that could stain like that?

I then dressed in a pair of black jeans, a black shirt and my black and white skull scarf. I brushed my teeth, flattened my hair and did my usual makeup before putting on my ‘Converse’ and headed out to my first class of the day: science.

In class we were doing a lab and as we worked, I asked Nina some questions about ‘Mertell’ to know what to expect to happen. Unfortunately, she was as cryptic as C.C. concerning tomorrow’s festivities ─which was very unnerving if you ask me but it only seemed to amuse her. Argh.

Next class was: English ─it passed by in a blur. We were reading ‘Bram Stoker’s’ ‘Dracula’ and I couldn’t help but smile a little and think of Zane.

And then it was lunch. I was sort of worried about facing Blake since last night, when Zane said that I was his girlfriend, and he left very suddenly. The only thing that helps is that C.C. will be there so it’s sure to be less awkward with her to diffuse the awkwardness… if there is any.

The lunch bell rang; I gathered my things and left towards my locker. I got there and opened it, dumped my things haphazardly and grabbed my ‘caf’ pass. I closed the door and found C.C. lounging on the locker next to mine, dressed in her little white dress and denim jacket. “Hola, Del!”

“Hey.” I replied.

“How’s it going?” She asked as we made our way to the cafeteria together.

“Fine.” I said. “What about you?”

“I’m great!” She said then added in a sing-song voice: “And I have your costume”

“Nice. What is it” I asked, trying to pry.

“Ah ah. Nice try.” She said playfully. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” Grrrrrr. I want to know, now. We stepped in the ‘caf’ and went in line to get our food.

“Can’t you at least tell me a clue?” I tried again.

“Hmmmmm…” She seemed to debate with herself. Then a big grin took place over her features. “Ok, the clue is… Me.” Me…? Me as in me or me as in her?

“Me as you or me as me?” She laughed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Ha ha.” She said, still giggling a little.

“Oh, come on C.C. that’s hardly a clue.” I complained.

“Ah, ah, ah.” She said with her sing-song tone of voice. “I gave you a clue, now it’s up to you to replace out what it means. I could have left you hanging you know. But I love you so much, bestie!” She exclaimed just as it was her turn to select her food. She gasped. “Rice krispies treats! My favorite!” She said as she grabbed a few, plus a piece lasagna and a cherry coke.

I picked a salad, a custard apple and a bottle of water. We gave our passes to the cafeteria lady at the cash register then went to our usual table in the garden/terrace. Since her clue was hardly a clue I decided to drop the subject and to let myself be surprised, tomorrow. Or… I’ll try to get information out of Zane…

Blake and Oliver were talking amiably at the table but Abbigail was nowhere to be seen. As C.C. and I came closer to the table and Blake took notice of us, he became less jovial and more closed up ─his earlier easy-going attitude, gone in an instant. Oliver turned and stood up to greet C.C. with a kiss that she returned before they both sat down. “Hi, Delphine.” Oliver said to me as C.C. and Blake exchanged pleasantries.

“Hey.” I addressed him before looking at Blake across from where I was sitting. He was ignoring me completely and started talking with Oliver about MMA and their training schedule.

“What’s up with you and Blake?” C.C. asked me in a whisper.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to deny. She didn’t appear convinced and looked at me pointedly.

“Oh, come on. You can’t fool me that easily.” She said. “I know you better than that. Now spill.”

“I… It’s, uh, nothing.” I then quickly took a bite out of my salad to keep from answering her.

“Sorry I’m late, babe.” Abbigail said, as she took a seat next to Blake and kissed him. I averted my eyes and Oliver engaged C.C. in a conversation. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“This isn’t over.” C.C. said to me before returning to her conversation with her boyfriend. My relief was short lived but hopefully she’ll forget that she needs to talk to me about Blake since she’s easily distractible… Before she could get back on the subject with me, I hurriedly finished my food and stood up. This caught C.C.’s attention for she turned towards me and asked: “Hey, where’re you going?” with a cute confused expression on her face.

“Got to go get ready for dance. Ciao, guys.” I caught Blake’s eye for a second and saw something flicker in them but it as gone before I had time to identify what it was. He then quickly turned back to Abbigail and ignored me.

I left the table and dumped what was left on my tray into the trash on my way out of the garden/terrace. I then made my way to my dorm and once in, changed into a pair of black leggings and a dark green, long-sleeve T-shirt before tying my hair up in a messy bun, so it wouldn’t get in my way. I then put on my ‘Converse’, grabbed my key and a towel before I also filled my bottle of water with water and grabbed my dance shoes then headed out the door and to my dance class.

The first bell rang just as I stepped foot in the dance studio. Guess I’m early. Shawn came out from his office. “Ah, Delphine. Are you ready to start point work after class, today?” He asked me seriously as he went to set the stereo for the class.

“Yeah, can’t wait.” I said. He seemed please to hear that.

“Good, good.” He said but then other students began swarming in and I went to change my shoes for the class, as Shawn greeted them and checked their name on his attending list.

The second bell rang and I noticed that Dixie wasn’t there. Strange. She once told me that dance was her favorite class, she must be sick. I didn’t dwell on it too long since Shawn started class and I soon got caught up in the movements, music and choreography.

After seventy-five minutes of class, the bell rang indicating the fifteen minutes break between classes. I hung out with Mandy. She may be a little over-enthusiastic, if not a little childish but she’s endearing. “I can’t wait to start. OMG, it’s going to be, like, so amazing you know.” She said practically jumping up and down. She was wearing black leggings, a lime green tank top and her platinum blonde hair was up in a neat bun atop her head.

“Yeah… but it’s going to hurt too though.” I said, ever the pessimist thinking of the calluses that my feet were sure to obtain.

“I know… But it will be worth it.” She said, ever optimistically. I smiled. We talked some more before the bell rang and we went back to class. We took our places and started back where we left off in the choreography, before the break.

The final bell of the day rang. “Great class, everyone. See you all next week.” Shawn said. “Don’t forget to practice.” As everyone left, I went and took a sip of my bottle of water and wiped off some sweat before I began my extra class with Shawn and Mandy.

“It’s going to be so much fun!” Mandy exclaimed as she did a couple pirouettes on the dance floor, as Shawn disappeared into his office. I set my bottle of water and towel down and went to join her on the platform.

“Here girls, put them on.” Shawn said as he stepped out of his office with two shoe boxes in his hands. “Delphine.” He said as he handed me one box. “And Mandy.” He said as he handed her the other. Mandy jumped up with a small squeal before she hurriedly sat down to put her pointes on. I sat down more slowly and opened my box.

Inside were the same pointes as the last time but there were two black ribbons added to each light pink pointes. I looked up at Shawn confused. I noticed Mandy had the same look of confusion etched on her face. “Why are the ribbons black?” She asked him for the both of us. I mean, weren’t the ribbons supposed to be pink, to match the shoe’s color?

“They are black because for the show I’m going to dye each of your pointes black so that they match the theme and costumes.”

“Why not dye them now?” I asked. I mean, why wait?

“You’re going to worn out the dye on some spots with the practice and so I will wait till the very last minute before dying them. Now hurry both of you and put them on. We got a lot of work to do.” He said and Mandy and I did as we were told.

After ninety minutes of tedious hard work, Shawn stopped us. “That was good, girls. I’ll see you both next week and we’ll take back where we left off. Good?”

“Uh-huh.” I said, breathing heavily.

“Good.” Mandy replied, out of breath, at the same time as me. Her bright smile from earlier was still plastered across her face but it wavers slightly as she too was breathing hard. Pointe work was even harder than the full dance class we had before.

We practiced the basic ballet positions, tendus, relevé and did a lot of ‘sous-sus’ at the bar in front of the mirrors. Overall it was very strenuous and exhausting.

“Leave your pointes in their boxes and you’re both free to go.” Shawn said before retreating to his office. Once he was out of sight, Mandy’s enormous smile slipped from her face.

“That was so hard.” She said, surprised as she wiped some sweat from her brow with her hand. That cracked me up and I started to laugh hard. She giggled a little along.

After taking off our shoes, Mandy and I left the studio together, talking as we went about the class we just had. We parted ways at the glass bridge as she continued on down the corridor to exit the school out its front doors, in order to catch the bus that will bring her home. I crossed the bridge and took the elevator to my dorm.

I opened the door to C.C. painting some sort of black, grey and white 3D squares overlapping each other on the wall, on her side of the room. Her posters that were previously on the wall were scattered on the floor and she was blasting some ‘J. Alvarez’ through the MP3 speaker on the black dresser, as she worked on her master piece. Her painting was truly mind-blowing. Some of the squares seemed to come out of the wall while others seemed to create holes in it. It was amazing. Really realistic and an incredible illusion.

C.C. stepped away from her work, took off her respirator and sat down on her bed, ─that she pushed away from the wall─ to observe her work. I closed the door and dropped my things haphazardly on the dresser next to C.C.’s IPOD before I went to sit beside her on her bed to observe her work. “What do you think?” She asked me in a pensive tone of voice. “Mrs. Campbell asked us to explore dept in paintings… So I tried this out.”

Still observing the masterpiece she just created, I answered: “Wow, that’s… amazing. C.C. you’re very talented.” I said as I turned to look at her. She really has a gift for art.

“Awww, thanks.” She said with an overly-touched expression and a hand on her heart, as she turned to look at me. “Eww, you’re all sweaty and stinky.” I laughed and stood up.

“Yeah, I’ll go take a shower now.” I said as I went over to my ‘clean pile’ and grabbed a fresh pair of jeans, some clean underwears and a plum T-shirt.

“Good idea.” She said, crinkling her nose making me laugh again as I made my way to the bathroom to take my second shower today.

After my shower, I dressed, reapplied my usual makeup of black smokey eye and slight blush, I flattened my hair and stepped out of the bathroom. I vaguely noticed that the stain from Dixie’s energy drink slowly started to fade away. About time, too.

C.C. was sitting on her bed reading a fashion magazine and stood as soon as she saw me. “You took forever in there.” She whined. “I’m starved, let’s go.” She grabbed her beige trench coat and ‘caf’ pass. I threw my dirty laundry in the ‘dirty pile’ and grabbed my black and white printed skull scarf and black faux-leather jacket from my bed. I quickly slipped on my ‘Converse’ and grabbed my ‘caf’ pass and room key before joining her out the door.

We talked animatedly on the way to the ‘caf’ about her painting and art assignment as well as the pointe class I just had. Soon, we were in the cafeteria and after waiting in line for about five minutes, I chose a bowl of spaghetti with a bottle of water and some chocolate chip cookies for desert. C.C. chose the nachos, a cherry coke and again she took some rice krispies treats.

We gave our passes to the cafeteria lady and went out to the garden/terrace, to our usual table. Oliver and Blake soon joined us with their trays, talking animatedly together but Blake’s happy demeanor seemed to grow chilly as he noticed me sitting with C.C. at the table.

C.C. didn’t seem to notice the change in Blake’s attitude as she stood up and went to greet them. First Oliver with a big passionate kiss and then Blake with a big bear-hug before she sat back down in her seat next to me.

Oliver sat beside Blake who sat in front of me. C.C. talked animatedly about her new painting and tomorrow’s festivities. She still stayed very vague on the subject but boasted about how awesome it will be and how much her and Nina worked hard and that it will be epic. I tried to pay attention but my focus always seemed to stray towards Blake.

I surreptitiously glanced his way every once in a while but he was looking straight at C.C. with a blank face and never looked my way.

My staring was interrupted by Abbigail and Zane. They arrived at the same time but they came from two opposite direction. Abbigail sat next to Blake and gave him a quick kiss on his perfect lips before stealing one of his French fries. Zane sat next to me and gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek. “Hey.” He whispered tenderly to me as he tucked a strand of my blonde hair behind my left ear.

“Hi.” I answered just as softly, as I turned my head to face him. “How are you?” He gave me a sweet crooked smile as he started to play with my left hand.

“I’m good. How about you?” He looked at me with fondness in his beautiful blue eyes.

“Tired.” I answered. “Had my first pointe class today.” This seemed to spike his interest and he looked at me more closely.

He also inched closer to me and whispered sensually in my ear: “Are you sore?” He asked with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk.

“No.” I answered. “Though, tomorrow, I might be.” I said before I took a bite out of one of my chocolate chip cookies.

“Want to be…?” He asked me wickedly. “Sore… Tomorrow?” It took me a moment to get what he meant, as he looked at me expectantly.

“Gosh, you’re such a dog.” I said as I rolled my eyes at him with a small smile.

“No, I’m a vampire, not a dog.” He said playfully.

“But you have such a one track mind… Exactly like a dog.” I said looking at him pointedly as I took a bite out of my cookie with a big smile.

He laughed and we continued our conversation through out dinner with sometimes interruption from C.C. as she turned to talk to me and inadvertently ended up picking small fights with Zane. They really do seem to hate each other.

When I was finished with my meal, Zane took me on a small walk in the woods, like we normally do. “Do you know what’ll happen tomorrow at ‘Mertell’?” I asked him. Maybe he’ll tell me something since he’s my boyfriend and all.

“You know, I never agree with Cassandra on anything.” He said pensively. “but on this, I agree with her, ─though only this once─ that since it’s your first ‘Mertell’, it should be a surprise.” I had to try.

We stayed out a little longer, talking and sometimes kissing, until the work-out I did today caught up with me and I needed to go catch some z’s. We walked to my dorm holding hands and stopped in front of the door.

“Tomorrow, I’ll pick you up here, at 8 PM. Alright?” He asked as I leaned my back against the door and he imprisoned me with both his hands on either side of my head.

“Yeah, that’s good.” I said looking deeply into his eyes. He gave me a bright smile then he leaned in and gave me a passionate kiss. I responded fervently and after a while we let go of one another. He gave me a wink and disappeared at vampire speed.

I stayed against the door for a minute more before I stepped inside and quickly got ready for sleep.

My alarm woke me up and as I sat up, C.C. entered the room with a brown paper bag and two disposable cups in her hands. “Good morning, doodly.” She said and handed me one of the two cups.

“Morning.” I said in a hoarse voice as I took the cup she was offering. “Thanks.” She then took a seat on her bed.

“So, here’s how everything is going to go. At lunch, I’ll go with Nina to apply the final touches for tonight while you ─after you’ve eaten─ will go take a shower, so that you wipe off all of that makeup I know you’re going to put on for class” She said making a face. “and also so that your hair is all nice and easy to style. Then, I’ll give you your costume to put on and by the way, I just know that you’ll love it. After that, we’ll eat supper and then I’ll do your makeup and hair.” She said enthusiastically. “It’ll be so much fun!”

It’s a little too early to be this energetic, I thought as I took a sip of my cranberry green tea. After I finished my breakfast (which was a raspberry muffin), I dressed in a checkered shirt and faded blue, ripped jeans and did my usual makeup ─that apparently C.C. disapproves of. I then brushed my hair, styled it and brushed my teeth before slipping in my ‘Converse’ as I waited for C.C. to finish getting ready. She tied her long hair in a simple side braid and applied lots of mascara to bring out her dark eyes and a little blush. She wore a long turquoise dress with a cream knitted cardigan over it. When she was finally ready, we left our dorm to go to class together.

As we entered the school, I noticed that several students were wearing costumes ─practically everyone, in fact. I saw several witches, a ‘Batman’, a cat lady, an elephant, a ‘Willy Wonka’ and many more. I just remembered that not only is today ‘Mertell’ but it’s also Halloween. Nice!

The bell rang; I headed to my locker to grab my textbook and other stuff I’d need before I walked to my first class: English. We continued our reading of ‘Bram Stocker’s’ ‘Dracula’ and the class passed by in a blur.

Next, was math. We did algebra and I couldn’t seem to concentrate seeing as it was the last class of the day and tomorrow we won’t have any classes. There was also C.C.’s party that was making me nervous since I knew of nothing to expect… and the unknown makes me nervous…

When the bell rang indicating the end of class, I quickly gathered my things and left. I dumped them in my locker before grabbing my ‘caf’ pass and going to the cafeteria. Since C.C. won’t be at our table and I still have a hard time facing Blake, I got my lunch in a paper bag and went to eat it in my dorm.

I got myself a cucumber sandwich, a small caramel cupcake and a bottle of water. I ate it quickly while listening to some ‘Simple Plan’ and then I went to take a shower as C.C. instructed me to do.

After my shower I dressed in an over-sized ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ T-shirt and purple checkered PJ pants, and had to resist the urge to apply some makeup, as I hate not wearing some when I know I’ll be seeing people but I had to stay a blank canvas for C.C.

I dumped my dirty clothing in my ‘dirty pile’ of clothes and then plopped down on my bed as I began my algebra assignment while waiting for C.C. to come back ─so that I could finally see my costume for tonight.

I was almost done with my homework when she walked in carrying two dust cover clothing bags and a big brown paper bag. “Oh, you took your shower! Good, that’s good.” She put the paper bag on her nightstand and one of the two dust cover clothing bags down on her bed before she turned to face me, holding the other dust cover clothing bag. “Here’s your costume!” She exclaimed happily and she held it out for me to take. I grabbed it and opened it.

Inside was a beautiful, black lace, long dress with lots of chains of rhinestones all over. It was beautiful. I took it out of the bag then looked at C.C., speechless. “It’s… wow… Thank you.” I looked back at the dress in amazement.

“You’re welcome.” She said with a satisfied smile. “Now go put it on, so that I can see how it fits.”

“Alright.” I stood up and brought the dress with me to the bathroom. I closed the door and quickly changed into the beauty that is this dress. I hope it’ll look good on me… I then stepped out of the bathroom omitting to look in the mirror prior and found C.C. waiting in front of the bathroom door. “So… How do I look?” I asked her, a little self-consciously.