Chapter fourteen { A favor to return}I

Sometimes, school could be boring and epic with tons of classes where majority of the teachers had no hint of animation to lighten the students. Like the strong spell of a powerful warlord, the class tended to start getting filled up with bunch of them zonking out.

"Chinese is a unique language, the olden written language in the world," Mrs. Kang taught with so much interest in hope that her students found her attention-grabbing. She was a woman in her late fifties, anticipating to retire by the end of semester.

"The language Chinese has at least six thousand years of history. Chinese character engravings have been found in turtle shells dating back to the Shang dynasty-"

"Why does it feels like this is the fourth time she's saying Shang dynasty?" Gracie could see Katy who was sitting in her front, nudging close to a girl in her squad. Her name was Vanessa Hills and she was the principal's daughter.

"Cause the old ones with glasses has faded memory. Can't you see Morgan the ancient witch." Vanessa reply and they laughed. Even though Gracie thought Vanessa probably was the prettiest in senior year with her brunette waves, she believed what she said was harsh.

"Although many Chinese dialects exist, the written language is a common form of communication. Even though people are not able to verbally communicate in different provinces, they are able to understand each other in writing. However, the written language can be further subdivided in three forms, which are simplified, traditional and informal slang or phonetic..."

Gracie hardly denied the fact that she found the class boring, Spanish could have been a better option but she wanted to continue with Chinese as she took it in Junior year and everything still seems like introduction.

Gracie was flabbergasted to see her one-minute-ago classmates flying out of the class as the bell rang. Mrs. Kang was rather rendered speechless.

Even in state of stun, Gracie fleetingly gathered her books and raced out with others. She squeezed in her way through and panted as she found herself in the hallway.

For a minute, she paused and watched everyone loitering around the hallway, dredging up how everything was four weeks before now. The way she had walked down this same place and every phone was vibrating with the video.

How bad she wanted to scream then and tell them what happened. How she wanted to tell them not to judge her but instead she went into hiding.

And now, same set of people still wandering and resting against each other's body on the wall with same look on their face while some had a bit of pity.

Abruptly, someone grabbed her from behind, taking each of her arm. When she turned sideway, her body cooled down seeing a girl with yellow hair and familiar face and reeling to the other side, the same face appeared to her with a bright smile.

"I still can't believe you really did went for language."

"And it was Chinese." One of the twin scoffed.

"Hey guys, it wasn't that bad." She giggled as they moved along with them with their hands pressed to her arms.

"Ugh, I'm very sure she brought her sleeping pills along, she never forgets them." The twin with blue ribbon laughed.

They were right, majority of the class slept like the kids she did babysat back then. Mrs. Kang would undoubtedly be sad. Gracie wanted to say but shut up when the twin on her right side spoke.

"There is a match tomorrow, it's a soccer game,"

"Epic one is gonna be!" The one on the left side said with so much excitement.

"Hotties on the field! including the ones coming from other school to play against our babies." The right hand one sighed.

Gracie was confused and she felt she should know their names and be able to differentiate them from another.

They were talking about the soccer game too much that she didn't notice when they entered the swimming court. Few people were present and part of those few was Tori in her cheerleading attire that matched the ones the twins wore.

Tori was busy stretching herself that she didn't notice them coming near as the swimming court was extremely spacious, considering the fifty meters long and twenty-five meters wide plus extra space for walker-bys, some swimmers were even practicing.

"Look who we brought for you." The blue ribbon twin winked, she was the one on the left side.

Slowly, Tori looked up at them. At first she was confused to see the three of them together. After some seconds a smile crept to her face on locking gaze with Gracie.

"Where did you guys found each other." She asked.

"We found her on the hallway, you won't believe she went for Chinese class."

"It wasn't that bad, Katy and Vanessa were in the class."

After the sentence dropped from Gracie's mouth, Tori's face became grimaced and the twin released her arm. From there she knew something was up, so she made inquiries.

"Well, the both of them are supposed to be on suspension 'cause of something... I don't know the deets." The blue ribbon shrugged and jumped in front of Gracie.

"So are you coming for the game? Please! please come and watch us cheer–" She pleaded with her two hand joined in her front, begging.

"OMG!" The blue ribbon twin gasped as her big blue eyes sluggishly magnified.

The rest turned back to see what made her gasped.

It was a sight to behold indeed, Gracie's jaw dropped. Lewis as he was called by the twins adjusted his goggles and pouted his lips, breathing heavily. With his chest exposed, one could easily tell that he never skipped his gym routine.

"Check out those firm biceps... hmm, yummy." Gracie heard one of the twin squalled in high-pitched voice.

As if Lewis could hear them a smiled appeared on his face between he jumped off the starting block, diving into the clear water.

"Okay now, the show is over, Jenny. So Gracie are you gonna come for the game?" That was definitely Sheila. Now Gracie knew the one beside her was Sheila and the fan girl with blue ribbon was Jenny.

"Well..." She reversed and stared into Tori's amber eyes, while Tori also wanted her answer, "... I'll be busy–"

"C'mon, babygirl tomorrow is Friday and trust me, even Granny Lily will be ecstatic." Tori winked.

Never had Gracie gone for a soccer game, so she didn't know what it was like however she could tell a little about basketball as she almost always went for the game in the past when she was with Will Packer.

"I think I can make it."

The twin squawked in joy and jumped doing a little checky cheerleading stuff, "Fly high! do or die! dare to dream! cheer extreme! yahoo!"

Tori rolled her eyes and grabbed a bottle of water, she gulped some and corked it up. Processing with her things she packed her bag and snagged Gracie's hand, dragged her out of the court.

"Oops." Gracie exclaimed as she reluctantly followed her best friend, leaving the twins to continue with their scream. It wasn't like they were the only ones present there.

"How'd you do?" Tori voiced up a question as they were out of the place.

Gracie glanced over at the shorter girl with her short hair pinned behind her, "I guess, I'm fine... Just that I've not gotten my payback from the shift." she wriggled her shoulder.

"Oh, he probably forgot, I'll remind him." She grinned at Gracie.

"Okay"

"Tori, do you have a partner for your history assignment yet?" Gracie asked out of the blues.

"Yes, Pete and I are doing it together–" Tori gasped, "Oh my God! I totally forgot."

"It's okay, I'll just look for someone willing to work with me before the week runs out." Gracie shrugged.

Deep down she was pained, knowing that no one wanted to be her partner.

"I'm sorry–"

"It's fineee."

The friends entered the nearest girl's locker, a free and expediently, it was one of the private restroom. Gracie had never entered the place before, she looked round the classic washroom. It differed from the normal restroom she used to visit, right from the black and white unique theme and the black terrazzo to the bravura incandescence and mirror that sparkled with the glow and reflected like diamond.

"How did you get the key to this palace." Gracie laughed.

Tori dropped her bag on the hand basin and searched in for something, "Benefit of being the HBIC." she said nonchalantly.

"Wow, cool." she ran to the first toilet's tilled black door and check inside, it was clean and scented nice unlike the ill smell that always erupt from the common one.

"Yeeeeah, for the main timeee." She dragged the words as she reapplied her pink matte lipstick. She mashed her lips together.

Gracie popped out of the toilet and lopped to meet Tori, "Why did you said that?" She rested her face on her palm while her elbows were on the tile of the hand basin, she pouted, examining Tori especially the fine line of her hair lengthening to each side of her ear.

Tori sighed, putting the lipstick back in her bag. "But, Katy is doing everything in her power to get her position back which includes watching me till I fail. God, it's not easy even if everyone in the cheerleading team wants me and Pete is doing his best- I just feel like this is not forever."

Gracie's lips were sealed after Tori's pour, she always felt that the road of fame was never easy. She stood straight and opened her arms, "Come."

Slowly, Tori went into her arms and hugged her tight, inhaling every part of her. They stood like that for some minutes before Tori spoke out, "Do you still use the peach cream recommendation by Granny Lily?"

"Hmm, yes why?"

"You smell warm and nice."

"Thanks." They parted.

A glow suddenly appeared in Tori's eyes, "Now I remember, you texted me late night on snap that you wanna tell me something important."

Gracie frowned, trying to recalled what she was talking about. "Oh," she hollered as she had a flashback.

"Well... It was something really strange."

Tori bobbed, paying serious attention as she crossed her arms.

"Yesternight after my shift. Mrs. Adam wanted me to pack up my stuffs so she can lock the diner and I went to get them, then... there was this continuous whamming on the back door- I was curious, so I checked... The sound got louder and I swear I heard someone screamed for help but it was very low." She explained to Tori.

Even though, she knew Tori had zero believe for things like this especially when it comes to something mysterious and hazardous, but she confined in her with her secrets except from the birthmark.

"It's truly strange." Tori commented and picked her bag up. "See Gracie, I believe you but right now I need to be in practice... For tomorrow's game. I love you." She kissed her cheek and raced out of the restroom, leaving Gracie in.

She always leave her in restroom, every time.

Gracie breathed in relief, knowing that she downloaded with couldn't give her good sleep late night. She scrutinized the area one more time before she decided to leave, hence it could be her last time in here.

As she was about stepping out, someone blocked her making her to leap back inside. Her eyes widened as two girls she darned not to have a conversation entered and smirked wickedly at her.

"Well, well look who decided to show up in my private locker."