Just a week to go until Winter Break and Pinky Ponsonby gazed out the window at the blue sky and pale sunshine for winter in this land of Frangea looked more like spring time. Her Home Winkel of Perfecta had short sharp winters with sprinklings of pretty snow and a whole range of winter fashion accessories to enjoy. Yet still, her first Winter Break in a new land was sure to be fascinating and the school always held a grand festival to celebrate the end of the first term and the year besides.
A jerky movement caught her eye just then and she glanced across at Petal Mara looking around alertly before resuming her more sleepy pose at her desk. Pinky felt she shouldn't laugh as Petal was a dorm mate after all and loyalty counted for something at Miss Plazenby's Extremely Exclusive Seminary for Girls, yet it was funny. This was first year botany, a fairly dull subject unless you were the oddly enthusiastic mistress at the head of class holding forth about plants and various things. Currently she was going through the structure of the flower and every time she referred to the petals poor Petal Mara would jerk awake, thinking she was being asked a question.
Pinky recalled there was a Flower Devine or some such in the second year. She had seen the name on the notice board. Botany must have been hilarious or embarrassing for that girl during her first year at Miss Plazenby's until she had time to settle in and be herself. Petal of course was like Pinky new to the school and not used to the crowds of demanding girls. Thankfully there were other Perfectines at the school whom Pinky could turn to for advice on style and popularity if need be.
One in particular had caught her eye at assembly more than once, had caught everyone's eye actually. Before she knew her name she called her the Golden Girl. It summed her up perfectly so that even when she had discovered she was a second year Perfectine called Zephany Ildorim she still thought of her as the Golden Girl.
Her hair was pure gold, really. There was nothing about the long wavy locks that suggested ordinary hair dyed to imitate a shiny yellow, just as Pinky ensured her own hair was a glowing rosy pink to match her given name. Zephany Ildorim's hair when viewed up close resembled strands of drawn gold perfectly and as it gently blew in one of Frangea's soft sea breezes the sound it made was of metallic chimes melodiously sweet and entrancing. Pinky had no idea how she had achieved the effect and would kill to find out.
Yet it was not just her hair. Lightly tanned skin glowed with golden vitality. The school skirt, plaited and dark, was trimmed with gold thread that flashed in sunlight and shone in shadow. Her very blouse seemed to glitter in an unknown way.
As for the accessories, they made Pinky swoon and salivate simultaneously. Numerous bangles, gold and green and translucent ruby added to the tinkling sounds that marked the second year's every movement. Earrings sparkled with jewels framed in reddish gold and her blue eyes were framed too in goldy glitter mascara of the richest hue, eyelashes tipped with gold and so on. Even her clutch bag which she carried everywhere with her had a heavy gold chain strap and was made of soft old gold fabric that reflected the world in its warm hues. The list of details was endless. They all added up to the same thing. Zephany Ildorim was the Golden Girl and Pinky Ponsonby was absolutely devoted to her.
Petal Mara gave a snort that brought the Perfecta girl back to herself and the more mundane reality of first year botany. She glanced ahead of her and saw the glossy black hair of an Octora girl who was scribbling notes furiously. What was the hurry? Handouts and online recaps would be available later, as always. The botany mistress, Miss Zacharim, wasn't even saying anything but was glaring reproachfully at the classroom door which opened as she glared and a peremptory rap upon its wooden panel announced the arrival of a prefect.
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"Apologies for interrupting you in mid-flow miss," the tall, dark-haired girl said, looking very smart and self-assured in a way that half the class admired and the other half envied. Her heels, prefects were allowed such luxuries, clopped across the polished floor and she reached out a folded note on tinted paper for the mistress to take. "A message from Miss Plazenby. She knew you would wish to receive it as soon as possible."
"Thank you Rangelle," Miss Zacharim said with a nod of dismissal. "You may go." The prefect glanced at the gaping faces of row upon row of curious first years, gave them a secret wink, and departed without further comment. Everyone continued to stare, but this time at the botany mistress as she deftly unfolded the note with great respect for it was indeed from the head of the Extremely Exclusive Seminary and at any moment the pupils witnessing this careful unravelling expected heavenly music to fill the air, such was the reverence with which Miss Zacharim handled the missive.
Like a statue she was as her bespectacled eyes scanned the handwriting in silence, except for the scratchy sounds from the Octora girl who continued to write something on a sheet of paper that anyone could see was almost full to the very bottom. A girl with reddish hair nudged her and she stopped and mumbled an apology. Meanwhile Miss Zacharim's face flushed pleasantly as she absorbed the head mistress's message.
"Oh my," she sighed. "The Golden Roses of Winter Vale have blossomed and Miss Plazenby has invited me to view them as soon as I may." She sighed again and let her gaze roam over the first year faces looking up at her with a mixture of awe and puzzlement. "Well, I still have my botany class duties to fulfil," she said, shaking her head, and placed the note, carefully refolded, upon the edge of her desk. "Now where was I?" A hand shot up.
"Stamens and pistils," the Octora girl murmured and nodded her head in an apologetic bow. She was from Flare Dormitory, Pinky remembered, a rival dorm, something Dragonsong, she could not quite recall. But then she was completely forgettable anyway.
"Thank you Sharshua," the mistress said with a smile and resumed her lesson, only it seemed she had befuddled herself and reviewed information already alluded to so that the Octora girl had to flip her notepaper over and begin on the other side of her sheet.
"The petals-"
"What? Sorry miss, did you ask me something?" Petal Mara gurgled sleepily and everyone cackled. The mistress pursed her lips but said nothing. More than once her eyes slid to the folded note and she paused several times as she spoke, distracted. She began pacing in front of the class, as if stalking the piece of paper on the edge of her desk, addressing it more often than the class. Then she huffed and picked up the note again. A glance at the clock at the back of the room decided her.
"Although there is still twenty minutes to the end of the lesson I think that's enough for the day. It's such fine weather so perhaps you might wish to wander the grounds for the remainder of the hour and study nature for real. Class dismissed!"
There was a cheer and chairs scraped noisily. Sharshua Dragonsong only stopped writing when the redhead, Pinky thought she was called Bubbles, snatched the pen from her busy grasp and tossed it into her bag. The mistress was already gone in search of this Golden Rose thing elsewhere by this time so the girls wandered happily outside to fritter away the remainder of botany in the winter sunshine.
Pinky sauntered off alone for the presence of Petal Mara and her dreamy ways was too smothering for such a moment of freedom so she raced round the nearest corner, crunched happily upon thick laid gravel and found herself suddenly caught out in the open by a group of second years. Among them, shining like a golden idol, was Zephany Ildorim herself.