67. Familiar face

Seated on the bench were three extremely familiar faces.

Olivia's eyes hovered over them for a moment before moving on to the other fifty-four students following the Principal's introduction.

He said, "From left to right, here's Nishith Dey, Sreemanti Sanyal, Koushik Roy, Bikram Sen, Rishi Chatterjee..."

"Okay, now let me introduce the Students' Council members." The Principal smiled at the new students.

"From right to left, this is Olivia Basu, the School Captain, Ritutandra Chowdhury, the School Vice Captain, Trayee Basak, the Club President, Nilambori Saha, the Sports Captain, Nidhi Sharma, the Substitute School Captain, Arko Guho, the Substitute VC, Parijat Mallick, the Substitute Club President and Joy Dutta, the Substitute Sports Captain."

"That's her..." Bikram whispered, stunned to see the person introduced as the VC of Ketu.

The white-haired girl with ghostly pale skin and grey eyes, whom he had been searching for and up until now, whose name he was unaware of, was standing right before him.

Just when he had lost hope of finding his benefactor, she appeared before him like a miracle.

"Ritutandra." He mumbled a few times to get used the name lest he called her by his made up name ghost fairy.

He was so lost in thought that he did not hear what the Principal was talking about next. When he came back to himself, he only heard the Principal say that they could leave and was so confused about what to do next.

He turned to his right and nudged Koushik with his elbow, asking in a whisper, "What did the Principal say? Where are we supposed to go?"

But he got no answer for Koushik was also lost in thoughts, staring ahead with a frown and narrowed eyes.

Bikram nudged him again, "Hey."

"Huh?" Koushik looked at him with a start.

He had not heard Bikram the first time because his mind was occupied with something else or rather someone. For some reason, he felt a strange sense of familiarity from the School Captain, especially when she looked straight at him. It was very vague yet he felt like he had seen her somewhere but also not. Bikram's second nudge broke him out of his stupor.

"I asked, where are we going?" Bikram repeated his question.

"I don't know. Ask Rishi." Koushik said in a clueless tone.

Bikram gave him a hopeless look and turned to Rishi, who, until then, had been enjoying the entertainment of watching his two friends fumbling for information after going blank and dazed for a solid four minutes.

"I can tell you but remember, you need to spill the reason you were out of service during the Principal's speech. The Students' Council will show us our respective classes and the various departments," Rishi explained as they walked out of the Principal's office.

Koushik and Bikram nodded.

"Seven students with each Council member. One student extra in one group. Now separate." Olivia instructed.

Most of the new students were elated to meet the Students' Council of Ketu and wanted to make an acquaintance with them, but to their dismay, they had to form groups in alphabetical order. Even the three idols were not given special treatment as Koushik went to Olivia's team, Bikram to Ritutandra's and Rishi was with Parijat. After the students divided, the respective Council members of each group room took them to different floors to start showing around. Olivia and Nilambori went to the first floor, Ritutandra, Parijat and Joy to the second floor, Trayee to the third floor, and Arko and Nidhi to the fourth floor. Since the ground floor only consisted of the staircase, elevators and garage, it was skipped.

On the first floor, Olivia went to the right and Nilambori to the left.

"The dance room," Olivia said to her team, bringing them in front of the first room.

It had mirrors on all sides and barres on both sides. On the ceiling, pieces of equipment for aerial act were fitted. There were no windows as the room was centrally air-conditioned. At one end, there was a row of seats and a little away from that, stood a big cupboard that contained various spare dance equipments.

She first showed them how to scan their ID proofs on their watch at the door to enter or exit the room. Then demonstrated how to register their names on the cupboard while for borrowing required equipments. Next she showed them how to access all the other facilities while using the dance room. And at the end she informed them about the rules they needed to follow while staying inside.

After that, she took them to the art room. It was also very spacious. About a hundred seats were embedded and pressed on the floor which could be raised to the desired height by using the switches on the wall. A cabinet was filled with canvases, brushes, palettes and other spare art materials. On one side of the room was a floor to ceiling glass wall that provided a great outside view. Through it, one could see the skating arena and the mini forest at the back of the school.

"The washroom." Olivia pointed towards the cubicles.

At this point, many of the students felt intimidated. Olivia had a deadpan face throughout the tour and spoke as little as possible. Some even started wondering if they offended her somehow and panicked, thinking they might have messed up their first impression on the school captain.

"Excuse me, I need to use the washroom." Someone said.

Everyone turned to the source of the voice and saw a boy of extraordinary beauty.

"Hey, do you know him? I think I've seen him somewhere. Is he a model or something?" One of the students asked.

She had been curious about the beautiful boy in their team but did not dare to ask anything during the tour in front of the scary looking school captain. Now that they got a bathroom break, she decided to be brave but only in whispers.

Another student replied, "He's a member of that famous boy band, Antariksha. I saw him on TV a few times."

"Yes, he's Koushik Roy!" A second one replied.

"You know him?"

"Yes, of course, I'm a Tricks."

"What's a celebrity doing here?"

"Are they here to shoot something?"

As such the murmuring went on.

Olivia looked at Koushik for a few seconds and waved her hand.

Another boy raised his hand and timidly said, "I... I need... to go too."

As Olivia turned to him, he gulped, facing her cold eyes. She ignored the scared look on his face and pointed her chin towards the washroom. He thanked her with a little bow and hurried inside. Olivia then looked at the rest of the five students. When no one said anything, she moved towards a wall and leaned against it, closing her eyes.