"So, now what?" asked Gertrude sipping her strawberry smoothie.
"I don't know to be honest," Tiffany answered sighing.
Stella laughed and eating a brownie said "For once the smartass doesn't have an answer."
"But right now I think none of us actually do..." Delia said and waved to a passing guy, causing him to crash into one of the tables and knock it over.
She giggled and said off topically, "That guy is hot."
"No, I don't think so, if his hair was straighter and he was more confident at everything, he might be average enough." Jackie said on a tangent, actually considering the guy.
Natalie suddenly grinned as she thought about Stephan and daydreamed on about Stephan at school at how hot he was looking, how nice he was, how...
"Earth to Natalie!" Kaitlin said loudly, startling her out of her daydream "what is up with you these days?"
"Ooo, are you finally crushing on a guy?" Tiffany said hopefully.
"In your dreams girl," Natalie replied flushing a light pink.
Jackie suddenly said in a serious tone "I guess the best thing to do right now is to get each and one of you-" She paused dramatically.
"Get each one of us a what?" Stella asked ruining the moment that Jackie had caused.
"Shhh!" Kaitlin said as Jackie shot daggers at Stella.
"If somebody didn't interrupt me you would have been able to know," Jackie said matter-of-factly. "The best thing to do right now is for each of you to have a crush and start dating them."
This sentence caused the table to be creepily silent, everyone was pondering what to do.
Then Tiffany said slowly, "Okay... so let's make a list." She waved her hands conjuring a pencil and paper out of thin air.
"Great!" Jackie said, while clasping her hands upon the table.
"So obviously Jackie likes Sebastian," Tiffany said writing it down. "And Delia likes Rayshawn?"
Delia grinned and said "Yes."
"Wait wha-?" Kaitlyn asked with a frown on her face.
"And you like Edward, Tiffany," Gertrude said, cutting Kaitlyn off.
"Yea," said Tiffany blushing and writing down the pairs.
"Stella what about you?" asked Kaitlin.
"I don't know," Stella said thoughtfully, "Stephan is looking cute, but he's not my type so..."
"Okay, so what about you Gertrude?" asked Delia.
"Either James or Alexander." Gertrude answered without thinking it over. "Write them both down on the list."
"Look who has their heart set already," said Natalie grinning, and reached over to steal Gertrude's smoothie, "Nice."
"You mean two boys?!" Jackie said laughing hysterically. "That's totally not you."
"Natalie, who do you like at the minute?" asked Tiffany.
Something is wrong with Natalie, she was never the type to blush over boys, Tiffany thought.
"No one," said Natalie, a bit too confident.
"Are you positively sure?" asked Kaitlin, she too knew that something was wrong.
"Yes I am sure, and who do you like Kaitlin?" said Natalie loudly, trying to control the flush spreading up her cheeks.
"Stop changing the topic Natalie," said Stella, her voice rising, "We all know that something is wrong with you."
Jackie, the people smart one, thought over all of the boys that Natalie had acted strange over.
Edward?
No, Natalie would never go for her best friends' crush, so Sebastian is out of the question too.
What about...
Suddenly she gasped aloud. Everyone stared at her. Jackie cleared her throat and asked Natalie smirking slightly, "Is this guy perhaps.. Stephan?"
Natalie blushed furiously and said incoherently, "N-n-o."
But even though she was trying hard to hide it, everyone was able to tell that Stephan indeed was the guy Natalie had been liking.
"That's not a bad thing Natalie, why are you trying to hide it?" asked Tiffany soothingly.
"I don't know." Natalie said timidly.
Jackie snapped her fingers down at the paper, "write it down."
"If you say so," said Tiffany now uncertain, she quickly scribbled it down
Gertrude muttered quietly to Natalie as Tiffany wrote the pair down, "You're going to be fine, everyone likes someone at one point." Natalie smiled slightly at this.
Tiffany scanned the list and realized that Kaitlin was still missing from the list. "Kaitlin?"
"Huh?" said Kaitlin. "What?"
"Who do you like?" questioned Delia.
"Well, I don't know him that well but I think that Jace looks pretty hot," replied Kaitlin after thinking, blushing pink, " and he's nice to me." she finished.
Stella said, "Ooo, nice." mischievously.
"Aww, you're like perfect for each other." Natalie said, bringing her hands up to her cheeks.
"He isn't so nice to me; he is such a jerk" Jackie said angrily. Then seeing Kaitlin's hurt reaction, she said hastily, "but I suppose he has a nice side."
"Well, now we have everyone done with this-" Tiffany began tapping her pencil on the table.
Jackie was listening to the news on the television nearby and suddenly heard something, "there had been another two murders in Dunning Street. One victim was brutally stabbed to death while the other had shown no signs of injury. Doctors are checking the second body right this minute but was unable to find any signs of death. The victim had no facial expression either so he was not scared to death…"
When Jackie heard this, she suddenly jumped up, her eyes wild.
"What's wrong Jackie?" Stella asked.
Jackie shook her head and sat down slowly. Then checking that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation, she inclined her head and whispered, "Did you hear that news?"
"Huh? Oh, that one," Tiffany said half-heartily. "Didn't two people get murdered or something?"
"Yes," hissed Jackie in reply. "But one was stabbed to death while the other died without showing any signs of how. This is just like the murder of the Evil Enchantress; someone has cast the forbidden curse."
Natalie muttered, "No, that… this is impossible."
"But it is possible, look; do you remember last week when there was that news article thing about people sighting glittering, fiery orbs rising out of the sea? Didn't they say that they were just festival things? Well then I thought what if those lights weren't lights at all, what if they were the orbs of people! The orbs that the Evil Enchantress had always cast on people." Argued Jackie.
They elapsed into silence again at Jackie's words.
Then Gertrude spoke up, "But if that did really happen, wouldn't we know? Wouldn't the mermaid council alert us?"
"I agree with Gertrude," said Stella unexpectedly, Gertrude looked surprise but pleased all the same.
"Yes, that does make sense," said a thoughtful Kaitlin.
Jackie looked worried and began, "What if a new Evil Enchantress did come? We have to do-"
"However, I still think we should still be prepared, because this is no silly matter to think about." Tiffany interrupted. "I know that not all of us think this is true," She flashed a look at Stella, looking let down, "but I do think that we should take some precautions."
Jackie raised her hand, "Preach, Tiffany." They all chortled at this.
"I think we should get going we've stayed here long enough." stated Natalie.
Tiffany stood up and then bent down to take the piece of paper that they wrote the 'pairs' down on.
"Wait, I think I know who I like!" Stella said hurriedly and fidgeting in her seat.