motioned for her to sit with her and her friends. Melina
still walked right past them with her nose up in the air. However,
Melina soon discovered that Bane's group was not allowing her to
sit with them either. After recovering from the shock, Melina drew
herself up defensively, stalked off to an empty table, and began to
eat her lunch in anger.
"I can't believe you live
with that," Everrett said as he flicked his thumb in Melina's
direction.
"Me neither," Aradia said
before biting into her sandwich.
Suddenly, Roy appeared and
sat down at their table. Aradia greeted him happily, not mentioning
his earlier behavior. However, by greeting he Aradia had
unintentionally drawn Melina's attention to Roy once again. As soon
as she recognized him, she stood up, picked up her lunch tray, and
strolled over to them. Roy was laughing, and just about to bite
into his apple when Melina showed up and stood behind
Aradia.
"Hey," she said.
Roy's mouth froze in mid-air
inches away from the apple. He then put it back on to the tray to
stare at Melina dreamily.
No spoke until Melina asked,
"Want to sit with me?"
Roy did not even hesitate.
He grabbed his things and followed Melina to her table while the
others just stared.
Aradia kept turning her head
forwards and backwards. "What just happened?"
"I believe Aradia," said
Tristan showing up at her side with a flourish and smiling
wickedly. "That what has happened is you now have competition for
Roy's affections."
"Yeah right," Aradia
scoffed.
She then heard Roy's
full-throated laughter from behind her. She turned once again to
see Melina laid a hand on Roy's cheek, smiling
seductively.
"Yeah," Tristan said
triumphantly, "Right."
As much as Aradia wanted to
confront Melina about Roy, she could not because tonight was Friday
night, which meant Club Tolerance was supposed to be open. She had
called Everrett, and worked it out with him that he could open the
club early. Aradia had also convinced Al and D, not only to bring
the food in early, but to keep an eye on Everrett as well. However,
even after working all these things out Aradia knew she still had
to show up as soon as possible. So after finishing her dinner, then
her homework, and hiding it under her bed so Melina would not steal
it Aradia got ready.
"I wish Rhonda was here,"
Aradia muttered as she frantically looked through her
clothes.
Aradia's three biggest
character flaws were her bad grades, her horrible cooking, and her
lack of good fashion sense. The lack of good fashion sense thing
was what plagued her the most. Therefore, for very special
occasions her friends or her mother often helped her pick out
things to wear. Unfortunately, there were times such as now when
neither was available to help her.
After looking through her
clothes dozens of times, Aradia was hit by a sudden wave of
inspiration or perhaps desperation, as she thought about it
further. Nevertheless, she dashed out of her room and knocked on
Melina's door. Marietta, however, was the one who
answered.
"What?" she asked
Aradia.
"Is your sister here?"
Aradia asked Marietta who shook her head.
"Damn!" Aradia swore but
then remembered Marietta's age and corrected herself. "I mean darn
it."
Marietta rolled her eyes.
"Honey, I'm from Brooklyn I have heard worse things, and to be
perfectly honest even though I am nine I think I know more swear
words than you do."
Aradia laughed as she
started towards her room.
Suddenly, she stopped,
turned, and asked, "Hey Mattie, how would you like to help me pick
out my clothes for tonight?"
"Sure," said Marietta
running into Aradia's room and plopping down onto the bed. "But
don't call me Mattie."
"So did your sister tell you
where she was going?" Aradia asked as she pulled out a pair of
black jeggings (leggings that look like jeans) to try
on.
Marietta shook her head and
said, "Something about a date."
"Hmm well at least your
sister is adapting nicely to Salem," Aradia said
sarcastically.
Marietta shrugged and