“Later,” Ethan said, giving Nora and me a back-handed wave.

Amelia also bid us farewell, stepping closer to my best friend as he greeted Chloe, who was waiting for him by the doorway. Recently, she’d been much more confident in approaching him. While I was glad for her, something else had been on my mind.

Nora was acting strange. For her, anyway. Since we had attended the fair two weeks ago, the entire dynamic between her, Ethan, and Amelia had shifted. She continued to argue with Amelia–it’d be real concerning should that ever stop–but she no longer seemed to care about one-upping the other girl. She wasn’t overly clingy with Ethan or bothered when Amelia was. This new attitude thrilled Amelia, allowing her to dote on him to her heart’s content without complaint. Yet, it wasn’t as if Nora was ignoring him. She still laughed at his lame jokes and gave him vague compliments, but it all lacked her prior enthusiasm.

Almost like she was just going through the motions.

“You’re not going with them again?” I asked.

Nora paused packing away her textbook and a stack of half-completed math worksheets to give me a stare. “Sometimes I don’t get you. Anyway, you’re coming to my game, right? Everyone except Amelia is going to be there.”

Ignoring her quip about that being for the best, I shoved my materials into my bag. While it may have been Friday, such a thing meant nothing to Mr. Morrison. The amount of homework he assigned for us to complete over the weekend was overwhelming; Nora was struggling to even fit the mountain of paperwork into her backpack. But, I couldn’t fault him. He held us to a high standard and desired for each of his students to improve themselves. Plus, he had to deal with Rika every morning, and she wasn’t even in any of his classes.

Truly the man was a saint and deserved the utmost respect.

“Volleyball?” I asked, vaguely recalling Ethan mentioning she was on the team once or twice.

“Uh-huh. It’ll be in the main gym after school.”

Watching a volleyball match sounded about as exciting as watching paint dry, but I had no real reason to decline. My web novel wasn’t scheduled to be updated until tomorrow, and I certainly didn't bother making any other plans. Besides, I’d still have the entire weekend free. “I’ll go.”

“Cool, but remember this is an important game, so make sure you bring some good ju-ju for once. None of that moping you like to do.”

Ju-ju? What century are you living in? But more importantly, how dare you slander my name.

“I don’t mope.”

“You kind of do.”

I spun around to scowl at the person with the scalding remark, not particularly pleased to see her. Neither was my teacher if his long-drawn-out sigh was any indication. Placing his attendance sheet on the podium, he sauntered over to the three of us, his usual mug of coffee in hand. With a wave of his other hand, he redirected the students strolling in to go to their desks before turning his full attention to Rika. “You do realize this isn’t your classroom?”

“Of course.”

“And yet, you show up more than some of my students who are supposed to be here.”

“Oh, stop it. You’re going to make me blush.”

He took a swig of coffee, a mature approach to hiding the fact of how far back his eyes rolled into his head. “That wasn’t a compliment. At all.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Starting to feel bad for Mr. Morrison, I decided it was time to help him out. I stood up, swinging my bag over my shoulders, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. “Don’t worry. I’ll take her to our next class.”

“Please do. And”–he tapped his wristwatch–“make sure you hurry. There’s only three minutes until the next class starts.”

What happened next may have come as a shock to Nora, but I had already resigned myself to my fate. Grabbing both of us by the wrist, she twirled around and bolted out the door with us in tow. “Later, Mr. Morrison.”

“Don’t run in the halls, Rika.”

His request garnered nothing more than a laugh from her. We continued at our break-neck pace, somehow avoiding anything worse than brushing shoulders with the students clogging the hallways.

“Slow down, Rika!”

The line was spoken in near unison between the assistant principal and Nora. For a second, I thought she would ignore the woman entirely. Thankfully, Rika must have had some common sense. Either that or she had an aversion to a one-way ticket to the office. Letting out a small whine, the girl released our hands. We meekly shuffled by under the watchful eye of the woman. On the way past, I tried to subtly convey that I wanted nothing to do with Rika’s shenanigans, but I wasn’t sure she received the message.

Once we were out of ear-shot, Rika loudly sighed. “She always ruins all the fun.”

“What part of that was fun?” Nora asked, straightening up and fixing her former captor with a scowl.

“Which part wasn’t fun?” she countered.

I interjected, feeling that Nora was on the verge of snapping. “Are you going to the game too?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. Though I’m a little surprised you agreed to go.” Rika leaned in toward the shorter girl and stage whispered. “Did bribe him?”

“Nah, he’s been acting weird recently. Still being a loner and grumpy like usual, but more caring or something. It’s hard to explain, but he’s starting to freak me out.”

“Seriously, you guys? And here I am trying to support a friend.”

They stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, forcing me to skirt around them. A locker slammed nearby, as they stared at me in disbelief, Nora’s mouth slightly agape and Rikka letting out a small gasp. The girls exchanged a series of glances that were completely foreign to me; however, they must have made sense to them because they kept snickering throughout their charade.

I made a face. “What?”

That made them laugh harder until Rika managed to pull it together. “Don’t look at me like that. You’ll make me feel bad. We were just messing with you.”

“God, see what I mean about being mopey? Then, he gets all honest. It’s creeping me the hell out.”

“I think it’s kind of sweet.”

Nora scoffed. “You would.”

Truth be told, I had kind of lost track of the point of this conversation. Anytime these two were involved that seemed to be the case, however, I was certain of one thing. I was being toyed with.

“I take back everything nice I ever thought about either one of you.”

Rika winked at me. “Now that’s not a very nice way to talk to your friends. Especially when you think about them so much.”

Impossible. It was impossible to win an argument against this girl. I may have pulled a fast one on her in the ferris wheel, but that still only brought the score to something like a hundred to one. An overwhelming defeat, which led me to wisely carry on silent and slumped over. No reason to let her press the advantage any further.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

The bell chiming sent me into a mad scramble for class. The others’ footsteps pounded on the tiles behind, threatening to overtake me. Despite being both out of shape and out of breath already, I pressed on. If I was tardy again, I would have no choice but to serve detention. My only option was to hurry there and hope my teacher was feeling merciful.

“Shit! I knew you idiots were going to make me late!”

“Actually, we’ll be fine. We’re right here,” Rika said, overtaking me and slipping into our classroom with a smirk. “See you at lunch.”

Walking in after her, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Nora put together a string of curses that should never have worked together but somehow flowed regardless. The moment I fully entered the room, every pair of eyes was upon me and Rika. Our teacher was no exception, forgoing the act of taking attendance on the computer to further place us on the spot.

She raised a manicured eyebrow at us. “Any reason you’re late?”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“I’ll see you both after school then.”

Damn it, we weren’t fine at all.