“Pah ha ha!” Beatrix chortled. “You can wish me ugly all you want, Saffie, but you’ll never-”
She stopped abruptly and turned back to the mirror, peering at her reflection.
The spell had begun to work, causing her manicured eyebrows to suddenly become bushy and unkempt, and creating deep wrinkles around her eyes.
“No!” Beatrix said in disbelief, taking a step closer to the mirror. “What’s happening to me?!”
As she leaned closer to her reflection, her expression getting more horrified by the second, her ears began to cauliflower, as if she’d spent ten rounds in a boxing ring, a load of snot began oozing out of her left nostril, and with a pop, a large, hairy wart sprouted out of her chin.
“Stop it!” Beatrix squealed, as Saffie pursed her lips, trying not to laugh.
“If you want me to reverse the spell,” Saffie said. “You need to give me my uncle’s glasses back.”
Beatrix ripped the glasses off and threw them at Saffie, her eyes flooding with tears.
Saffie simply waved her hand and said, “Spell removed!” even though Beatrix would no longer be able to see the Overworld augmentation without the glasses anyway.
Beatrix made to run, but Saffie grabbed her arm.
“Listen to me, Beatrix,” she said through gritted teeth. “You’re going to go off and make yourself busy, and then you’re going to go home and tell your parents that we had a great day, you hear? And they are going to tell MY parents we had a great day. You will get your pocket money, and I will be considered ‘fixed.’”
Beatrix nodded frantically and tried to pull away, but there was one more thing Saffie wanted to say.
“If you EVER bully me again, I’ll cast something way worse than that Uglify spell on you. And next time, it’ll be permanent.”
Beatrix finally ripped herself free and fled the department store bawling her eyes out, leaving the staff and the other customers gawping at Saffie in silence.
When Saffie stepped out onto the street, she felt as light as a feather. She was no longer the timid girl who had taken Beatrix’s abuse for so long, and she knew she would never go back to being that girl.
She checked the time on her phone. It was only 1pm in the afternoon, and her parents were expecting her to spend the entire day with Beatrix, so she decided to get herself a large tub of ice cream and sit out in the sunshine, simply enjoying the freedom from Beatrix, her parents, and the pressure of levelling up.
As she was heading home a few hours later, a message appeared:
RUBEN: Guys - meet me at the top of Greenwich Hill at 9pm. The park will be closed, but you can easily hop the wall on Charlton Way.
Saffie thought ‘Switch to private message with Nate’ then:
SAFFIE: Any idea what he’s talking about?
NATE: None at all. He said he’s got snacks…
When Saffie arrived home, her parents stared at her expectantly.
“So?” said Holly. “How was your day?”
“I had a blast,” Saffie said with a wide grin. “Lovely girl, Beatrix. Absolutely lovely. I feel like a totally new person! No more weirdness from me!” She faked a yawn. “I’m so tired from all the fun we had. Goodnight!” With that, she trotted up the stairs, leaving her parents looking bewildered.
Saffie lay on her bed in silence, hoping Acorn was okay in whatever form of oblivion he was in, until close to 8pm, which would give her just enough time to get across the city.
Before she left, she decided it was a good idea to use the bathroom since there would be none open in the closed park, and as she was creeping back to her own bedroom to make her escape for the evening, she heard faint voices coming from her parents’ bedroom.
She stopped for a moment and listened.
“What did we do today, Holly?” It was her dad’s voice.
“We did what needed to be done,” Holly replied sternly.
“Did we?” said Peter. “We can’t deny that that girl has been awful to Saffie for years. She bullied our child, Holly. And we invited her into our home. We forced Saffie to spend the day with her.”
“For goodness sake, Pete, we’re just trying to help our daughter!”
There was a pause before Peter spoke again.
“If Dax ever comes through this thing,” he said softly, “I don’t think we should discourage their friendship any more. She loves him, and she clearly has a strong bond with him.”
“You’re her father,” Holly hissed. “She should want to bond with you, not him.”
“Honey, it’s too late,” Peter replied in a defeated tone. “There’s no getting around it. Dax is the father to Saffie that I never was. I lost her a long time ago.”
There was silence after that, so Saffie crept back to her bedroom. As she climbed out of her window onto Oakley, she was surprised to find that she had a lump in her throat.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
When Saffie arrived at the top of Greenwich Hill after a decidedly more difficult wall hop than Ruben had implied, she wasn’t surprised to find that Cora hadn’t joined them.
“I think she’s gonna need a bit of time to herself,” Ruben explained, though he didn’t need to.
“Are you going to tell us what this is all about?” said Nate. “Or are we meant to guess?”
“Six years ago today,” Ruben explained, “a guy named Elliot Chambers won an old key at a fair in Brighton. When he placed that key to his temple, the Overworld chip was inserted into his brain and he became the first ever player.”
“It’s the anniversary of the launch?” said Nate.
“Exactly. And you know what that means? Celebration. Every year, there’s fireworks, and this is the best place to watch them.”
“I thought you’d started without me,” came a voice.
They all turned and were surprised to see Cora striding up the hill.
“Just to forewarn you,” she said as she joined them, “I don’t want to talk about him.”
Saffie knew she could only be talking about one person - Liam.
“He made his decision,” Cora continued. “That’s the end of it.”
They respected Cora’s request and instead turned their attention to a large chequered blanket that Ruben had laid out on the grass, full of weird looking foodstuffs.
“Behold, my selection of alchemist’s treats,” Ruben said proudly. “We’ve got Dipple Sticks, Candied Cuthberts, Looperlollies, Pendred Puckerbread, and Slew Spread. Go ahead, help yourselves.”
Saffie had no idea what any of it was, nor if any of it was safe to eat, but she didn’t want to seem rude. Ruben had proven he was no longer an enemy, so she picked up a stick of something and bit into it. The texture was like gum, but the flavour was like roast beef. She decided to swallow it before her tastebuds could experience any more of the putrid stuff.
“This looks like a bogey,” said Cora, holding something warily between her forefinger and thumb that did indeed look like it had come out of a giant’s nostril.
“It’s a Pooklefruit,” said Ruben. “The skin tastes kind of apple-like, but when it bursts, the juice tastes like fish.”
Cora slowly placed it back into its jar, and said, “anyone bring any chocolate?”
While they tried some of the less disgusting sounding treats, Ruben poured four tankards of a sparkly pink liquid and handed them around.
“Here’s to thwarting Jade’s plans to mess with the Overworld source code,” he said, holding his out in front of him.
“And to the antidote that’ll heal Saffie’s uncle,” said Nate.
They all clinked their tankards together and sipped.
“You know,” said Ruben. “I can safely say I never thought I’d be having a night-time picnic in the park with Saffie Sparkes.”
“I don’t get why you have this reputation at your school,” Cora said to Saffie. “You seem perfectly normal to me.”
Saffie briefly told them about Beatrix’s campaign of bullying, and what had happened earlier that day at Harvey Nichols.
“I had no idea all those rumours had come from Beatrix,” said Ruben. “Does that mean you don’t wash your hair with cat pee?”
“No, I do not,” Saffie said dryly.
“That’s disgusting,” Cora said to Ruben.
“What?” he replied. “People think that’s like, common knowledge at Willow Grove.”
“Common fake knowledge,” Saffie corrected.
“And you never ate a live snake?” Ruben mused.
“Again, no,” Saffie confirmed.
“Huh…” said Ruben. “I always thought it was unlikely there’d be a snake just wandering around in the UK.”
“Wow, this girl really screwed school up for you, didn’t she?” Cora said.
“And your school has to be a bunch of idiots believing any of that stuff,” said Nate, who seemed to be getting pretty angry.
“Well,” said Ruben, “I’m proud to say that I am now a friend of Saffie Sparkes. When we go back to school, I will make it known that there is nothing to be fearful of, and that the scratches on the door of the girl’s bathroom are NOT because Saffie has a split personality called Mavis who likes to dabble in cannibalism.”
“Thanks,” Saffie said with a wry chuckle.
“Us four right here,” said Cora. “We’re all friends now right? The kind of friends who don’t betray one another.”
Everyone nodded, and Saffie felt a deep happiness like she’d never felt before.
“Cheers again,” said Cora, raising her tankard. “To friends.”
“To friends,” they repeated.
It was official. For the first time in her life, Saffie had friends. Friends her own age. Friends who wanted to be her friend. She never thought it would be with one who’d tried to steal from her, one who’d stalked and attacked her, and another who’d poisoned her uncle, but sat there waiting for the fireworks, Saffie couldn’t imagine those friends being anyone else.
A short while later, Cora was making a mixture out of the various drinks Ruben had brought.
“Don’t combine those two,” Ruben warned. “It’ll make you find everything hilarious. No, I said don’t - oh, she’s doing it anyway. Yep, those are big gulps. Okay.”
Cora wiped her mouth.
“After what happened with Liam, I could do with a laugh.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about him,” said Ruben.
“We’re not,” said Cora, draining the last dregs of her concoction.
No more than ten minutes later, Cora was staring at Ruben with wide eyes.
“Rubes!” she said. “What are those things sticking out of your legs?!”
Ruben glanced down.
“My… feet?” he said.
Cora burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. “Feet!” she cried. “It’s such a funny word!”
“If you think that’s a funny word, how about toes?” said Nate.
“TOES!” Cora screamed, slapping the grass in hysteria.
“Oh boy,” said Ruben.
The laughing eventually evolved into more of a sighing, and Cora lay her head on the blanket before falling asleep.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light in the distance. The fireworks had started.
Saffie went to announce it loudly, but Nate put his finger to his lips and pointed downward. Ruben was also asleep.
“Do you think we should wake them up?” said Saffie.
“Probably,” Nate said quietly. “But I just can’t bring myself to break up that.” He nodded in the direction of Cora’s hand, where her little finger was wrapped around Ruben’s.
“Come with me,” Nate said, and took Saffie’s hand.
With an excited smile, he led her to the highest point of the hill, where they could get the best view of the display, although calling it a display didn’t do it justice. It was more like a full parade in the sky. Chariots of light soared above the cityscape, giant flowers of all colours bloomed within seconds and burst into powder, and at one point a crystal blue leviathan of light rose from the horizon, gliding over the rooftops and eventually exploding into tiny sparkles.
As the amazing spectacle continued, Saffie turned to Nate.
“Nate, there’s something I want to say. Something I’ve wanted to say for a long time.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What for?”
“Everything. You wanted to help me from the beginning. You had no reason to have my back, but you did.”
Nate smiled and his brown eyes glistened with the reflection of the fireworks.
She opened her mouth to speak again, but nothing would come out. She wanted to tell Nate that the way she felt about him was something she had never felt about anyone before.
“You’re trembling,” Nate said softly. “Here, have my jacket.”
“It’s… not because I’m cold,” Saffie admitted. “It’s because… because I…”
She had never felt so terrified of letting herself be vulnerable.
“It’s okay,” Nate said, squeezing her hand tightly. At his touch, she felt her nerves melt away.
“If you’re trying to say what I think you’re trying to say,” Nate said, still holding her hand tightly. “I want you to know that… I feel the same way.”
With that, he reached up and ran his finger from the side of Saffie’s forehead down to her cheek, sending tingles spreading from the point of contact all the way through her body.
Ever so cautiously, Saffie leaned towards Nate, and he leaned towards her.
Saffie closed her eyes, her heart beating so fast she could feel it thumping against her chest.
She was about to have her first kiss.
But there was a sound.
A sound she had only heard once before.
The sound of slithering tentacles.
Saffie opened her eyes to find octopus suckers sticking themselves to Nate’s temples. Before either Saffie or Nate had time to react, the tips of the tentacles sparked as if giving off an electric shock, and Nate collapsed to the grass, taking Octavius with him.
There, looming in the eery moonlight just a yard or two behind the spot where Nate had been standing, was Jade.