"Oh I see, sorry if I came to any sudden conclusions." said Annie apologetically, how could she jump to such a conclusion? of course no matter how excited Stella was, she would never condone cheating, she hated injustice, she hated cutting corners, she hated cheating, so there was no way that she would allow anyone else do it no matter the reason.
"Oh it's alright dear, I am sure that you meant well." said Stella as she smiled, obviously not offended the slightest bit.
"Is it really necessary for us to write privately?" asked Annie as she frowned.
"Well yes dear it is, you see the thing is that Artrovan only accepts new students twice year year and this time of the year happens to be when they accept new students." said Stella as she smiled.
"Because of that there will be several applicants, trust me when I say that the competition for admission is very high, just on the admission's test day alone there are over five thousand people that will show up" said Stella.
"Five thousand?!" asked Matt in surprise as Stella nodded, he did not expect to hear such a high number of applicants present on that day.
"Yes, so that is definitely a lot, and it is because of that that I do not want you all to feel stressed or tired, I don't want you to feel overwhelmed because there certainly will be a lot of attention drawn to you." said Stella as her eyes unconsciously moved to Maddie's direction before looking at Annie.
"It's best that you write privately to avoid any distractions and altercations, that is why I am thinking of involving my friend, she can help us arrange that" said Stella as Annie could see the logic there.
"Well I understand that Aunt Stella..." said Annie as it sounded like she wanted to say more but she decided to keep it to herself.
"So Aunt Stella can we write the admissions test in the centre?" asked Matt as Stella smiled at looked at him.
"Yes of course you can if you want to, but why go through all the stress of having to leave the Palace when you can write it comfortably here?" asked Stella.
"Well the thing is Aunt it's not like we don't appreciate the fact that we can write comfortably here, but..." said Matt as he paused for a moment.
"But what?" asked Stella as she was very eager to know what was on his mind.
"But things have changed, we no longer have to be escorted by guards whenever we leave the Palace, there is nothing dangerous that we have to be worried about since Azazel is serving his time in the holds for his crimes, and well we just want to be able to go out more and see things for ourselves" said Matt.
"It gets really boring here sometimes, and we just feel like going out, but there's nowhere for us to go to, or at least nowhere we know to go, so I feel like if we can go into the city for once and see things for ourselves and just get an experience of how it feels to be a normal teenager" said Matt as Stella could not help but smile at his words.
Annie looked at Matt with wide eyes, for one she was beyond shocked with what he had said, that was what she wanted to say but didn't because she felt like she was the one doing all the talking, but for Matt to say that without her telling him to made her feel like she wasn't the only one who thought like that.
Matt just smiled back at her, he had known that she wanted to say that herself, but she felt like she would just sound bossy and like she was making decisions for everyone.
"You know what Matt, you are definitely right." said Stella as she smiled at him.
"Sometimes I keep on forgetting that you are all growing into young adults and you need to go out and explore, and I totally understand why; I was exactly like that when I was your age believe it or not." said Stella as she chuckled and Annie and Matt chuckled as well.
"So it is settled, you can go and write at the centre privately" said Stella as she smiled.
"Thank you Aunt Stella." said Annie and Matt as they smiled.
"So when do we have to write this admissions test?" asked Maddie as Stella smiled at her.
"Well the admissions test is on Saturday which leaves you with five days to study." said Stella happily as hearing that they only had five days to study for a nearly impossible test was starting to make them worry.
"Now I know that on first glance five days doesn't seem like a lot, but remember what I told you, the test will not be so hard for you." said Stella as she smiled.
"The books that you need to study will be delivered to you before afternoon." said Stella.
"I am really sorry that I have to leave like this, but Mira just called my attention to something very important that requires my attention at the Cauldron headquarters, so please excuse me dears, I will see you later and enjoy your day." said Stella happily as she stood up and quickly left the room before Annie, Maddie and Matt could respond.
"Well something serious has to be going on for Aunt Stella to just get up and leave like that." said Matt as he looked at Annie and Maddie.
"Well whatever it is, I just hope that everything is okay." said Annie as she looked at Maddie who didn't say anything at all.
...
"So what do you think that we can expect from the admissions test?" asked Matt as he, Annie and Maddie were now in the library.
Maddie was idly laying on the couch playing with her hair as he and Annie were sitting down at the table and looking through some books of basic magic potions.
"I have no idea, I'm honestly so scared, I've never written a magic test before, it baffles me thinking of what the test is going to be about." said Annie as she was already nervous before the test started.
Having only five days to be prepared for the test was nothing at all.
"What about you Maddie, what do you think?" asked Matt as he looked at Maddie who frowned.
"Don't ask me what I think because you don't really care." she replied.
"Aww Maddie, come on, how long are you going to be upset?" asked Annie as she frowned, she thought that Maddie would have cheered up by now, but boy was she wrong.
"For as long as I want to be." she replied as Annie was about to say something when there was suddenly a knock on the library doors as the three of them turned to look at the doors that opened on their own and six books stacked on top of each other floating as they moved and divided themselves into two stacks and made their way to where Annie, Maddie and Matt were.
"I guess that these are the books that we have to study." said Matt as his own two books landed in front of him.
"It seems like it, I'm going to start studying now." said Annie as she was not joking at all, she opened one of the books immediately and began skimming.
"Yes that seems like the sensible thing to do, after all we have nothing better to do." said Matt as he opened the book as well.
"What about you Maddie?" asked Matt as he looked at Maddie who pushed the books floating in front of her down as they dropped on the ground.
"I'm not studying." she replied casually as she looked at Matt lazily.
"What do you mean you're not studying??" asked Annie as she looked at Maddie in surprise.
"It's as simple as that, I'm not studying." said Maddie as Annie and Matt looked at each other in shock and then back at Maddie.
"Maddie, you can't be serious." said Matt as Maddie looked at them both.
"Oh I am very serious. I'm not studying, there's no point studying for a test that's basically impossible, I'm not about to waste my valuable time studying" said Maddie as Annie looked at her with her mouth ajar, that didn't make sense.
That was literally stupid reasoning, why not study for a hard test when that's the only way to pass? Obviously Maddie didn't want to put in effort.
"I'm not going to study for something I don't want." said Maddie.
"But then you are going to fail??!" said Annie as she really wanted to talk sense to Maddie.
"So what? If I fail then I won't be different from the other sixty five percent of people who studied and yet are destined to fail." replied Maddie as now Matt was worried, she was really serious about this by the way she was talking.
"Oh no way Maddie, if not studying is your way of retaliating even though you already agreed to this, it's not going to work." said Annie as she frowned.
"I am putting my foot down, you are studying missy!" said Annie as she could not believe this.
"I am not studying!" replied Maddie as she sat upright.
"Then you are going to fail!" said Annie.
"It's alright, I want to fail!" replied Maddie.
"Oh no, I'm not going to let you fail!" replied Annie.
"And there's no way that you're going to let me cheat either." replied Maddie with a soft annoying smile on her annoying face as Annie started to feel really angry.
Annie was fuming, could Maddie be any more childish? If she thought that this was affecting her, it certainly did not, after all, she wasn't going to be the one to fail, but what just got on Annie's nerves so much was that she knew Maddie, and she knew that she was also dead serious about not taking this seriously.
"*Ugh* You are so difficult Maddie! What does it cost you to take this seriously for once and just do the right thing!" said Annie as she was seriously irked in the moment, if anything, she had tried her best to cheer up Maddie, and make her not feel bad, but she was done right now, she was done being the reasonable one here.
Maddie on the other hand smiled in glee. She had found the perfect way to counter Annie from nagging her any further. For one, she knew that Annie would never condone cheating, she was the type of friend to report you if she caught you cheating, so for sure cheating was not an option.
But that wasn't a problem at all for Maddie, she didn't plan to cheat, it was just that she did not plan to study either, which wasn't such a big deal since it was her problem, but it made Annie angry, why? Well because this was Maddie's way of rebelling and showing that no one could force her to do anything she didn't want to do even if they tried, it would never work.
She could be a very difficult person and she admired that about herself very much.
"You know what Maddie, I'm doing being your chaperone, It's alright, you can do whatever you want, but you're still going to write the test and you better study for it, if you fail, that's your problem and not ours." said Annie sternly, extremely pissed up by Maddie's immature behaviour.
Refusing to cooperate was one thing, but now, purposely not studying with the intent to fail was just terribly stubborn and that was the definition of Maddie. Terribly stubborn.
"Thanks dear, you say it as if any one is going to pass that death sentence of a test." said Maddie with a frown as Annie scoffed and looked away before she felt like pulling Maddie's hear as a way for her to regain her senses.
Matt on the other hand had been completely silent. After being with these two as much as he had, he came to the conclusion that whenever these two were fighting it was best that he stayed out of it so he wasn't forced to take sides.
No offence to the girls, but when they were involved in a serious fight, they always wanted someone to back them up, and Matt was the outlier, the one who saw the entire picture, and he would be forced to take a side, which left him torn to both of his friends and he didn't want that. Therefore silence was his best choice.
To be honest Matt agreed with both of them. Maddie had a point when she reminded them of the incredibly impossible rates of success, and it was a bit downhearting, it was like your best efforts were bound to fail in the end; but on the other hand, Annie was right, just because the chances for success were so low didn't mean that if you studied all your efforts would go to waste.
It was just one of those things were it was a personal choice that determined your actions and feelings towards the matter. It was clear though that Maddie was just being petty and lazy, but Annie needed to relax.
They had to start getting used to the fact that Maddie might not be coming with them after all, and even though it was hard to think about, that might be their reality soon.
"Well hello, hello guys!" came Ollie's ever happy voice as he waltzed into the library as if he owned the place, which in a way he did.
"Hey dude!" said Matt in immediate relief as he was thankful that he was not going to be alone to deal with this little fight the girls were currently in.
"Hi Ollie." replied Annie in her not to usually cheery tone, while Maddie on the other hand greeted him with her usual scoff of irritation.
At this point Ollie didn't mind if Maddie scoffed, spit, or threw up whenever he was present, it was sort of the norm, and he sure was used to it, in fact, if she didn't react that way when he was around, he was sure that either she wasn't herself, or she had been kidnapped and replaced by someone else.
Ollie walked to the couch and sat down comfortably beside Maddie despite her sharp glares of displeasure, which he was also used to at this point.
Ollie didn't notice this when he came in, but as soon as he sat down, he could sense an air of disagreement, and as if the upset look on Annie's face was not enough to give away the fact that something was going on here.
"What's going on?" asked Ollie in concern as Maddie flicked her wrist, signaling him to move to the end of the couch, there was no way that she was going to stand up and leave her comfortable spot on the couch just because he was here.
Ollie calmly complied as he moved to the end of the couch, still worried as he looked between Maddie and Annie and then Matt, but it seemed like no one was ready to talk.
"There's a disagreement." said Matt as he looked at Annie, cautiously wondering if she would get upset if he told Ollie what was going on.
"Ahh that's clear, is it because of Artrovan?" asked Ollie as both Annie and Maddie turned to look at him with a cautious look of surprise. They didn't remember telling him about Artrovan, so it was either he had ears in the Palace or he was somehow listening to all their conversations.
Knowing Ollie, they wouldn't put it past him to invade their privacy just so he could keep track of what was going on.
"What?" he asked as he looked at the strange look on their faces.
"Relax guys, I told him about Artrovan." said Matt as he knew what they were thinking of.
"When?" asked Annie in surprise as she looked at Matt.
"Last night." replied Matt.
"You guys talk when we aren't there?" asked Maddie as she narrowed her eyes.
"Of course we do." replied Matt.
"Don't you guys talk about us and other things when we aren't there?" asked Matt as he didn't see what the big deal was.
"Yes we do, but that's different." said Maddie.
"How is it different? You guys talk and we talk, anyway, that's not why you and Annie are upset though is it?" asked Ollie as Maddie scoffed and looked away.
"Well Maddie doesn't want to study for the admissions test, she says it's near to impossible to pass and there's no point studying, but Annie disagrees." said Matt as the look of realization passed through Ollie's face.
"I'm not just disagreeing, Maddie decided not be reasonable for some odd reason, she thinks that failing will take her out of this whole going to Artrovan thing." said Annie.
"Ahh I see, well I mean I don't blame her, the test is fairly difficult, I remember when I took it for fun." said Ollie as he seemed to be thinking.
"You did??" asked Annie in surprise as Ollie nodded casually.
"Yes I did, to be honest, it wasn't really for fun, my Father wanted to test my capability and how else than to take the most feared test in the entire realm." said Ollie as he chuckled but neither Annie or Maddie found it funny the slightest bit.
"You see, it's the most feared test in the entire realm and someone doesn't want to study for it." said Annie as she cast an accusing gaze at Maddie who in turn scoffed.
"Yes that is true, but I took it and it was fine, trust me when I say that you guys will do okay." said Ollie as he smiled, he had no intention of telling them about the contents of the the test, not like his words would change anything, the test changed every single year, anyway, he was sure that they would be fine.
"Aunt Stella said the same thing and I don't get it." said Annie as she frowned.
"If the Chancellor thinks the same then you have nothing to worry about, trust me, the things you guys have done and been through is more than enough experience." said Ollie as he smiled.
"Anyway, enough about that, allow me to change the subject, I actually came here to talk to you guys about something else." said Ollie.
"Spit it out already blondie, so you can leave." said Maddie as she smiled sweetly but her tone was far from sweet.