Chatoyant College Book 12: Chapter 32: Changing Attitudes

Monday, April 24

Edie and her friends paid attention all weekend, trying to notice any small (or large) changes in the magic on campus, but they didn’t see anything. They didn’t hear anything from the magic professors, either, but Edie would have been surprised if they had—even if the warning helped the professors somehow, she didn’t think they would contact three freshmen about the control of magic on campus overall.

Unless they needed their help again, of course.

It was actually a pretty relaxing weekend. Or it would have been, if Edie hadn’t been simultaneously trying to notice the campus magic and see whether Leila was anywhere about. Edie hadn’t seen her, or heard anything from her, since Tuesday; she kept checking the place where they’d agreed to leave notes, but there was nothing from Leila.

However, Edie had left a couple of notes herself—mostly to the effect that she missed Leila and hoped they could talk again soon—and those had been gone the next time she checked. So she knew Leila was on campus fairly frequently.

Corrie and Dawn had both spent most of Saturday with their boyfriends (Corrie kept insisting Charlie wasn’t her boyfriend, but as they spent so much time together and neither of them was dating anyone else, Edie didn’t see much difference), so Edie had ended up hanging out with Annie. They watched videos online, swapping back and forth between choosing one, so they ended up watching a variety of cute cats, cute puppies, funny pranks, and hilarious comedy sketches.

Edie was a little surprised by how much fun she had hanging out with Annie. Corrie and Dawn were her best friends, but it was good to spend time with other friends, too.

She was thinking of that fun, relaxing afternoon as she dragged her steps toward her theater class. She was more tempted to skip it than she’d ever been to skip any other class, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’d probably end up missing something important, and anyway, she would feel too guilty if she ever actually skipped a class.

She knew the other students would keep laughing at her, and Professor Somerville would keep up his polite concern. She knew he was trying to be helpful, but it was still unpleasant.

Edie ended up being the last person to class, just short of being late. Actually, she might have been a minute or two late, but Professor Somerville never cared about that.

He gathered the class into a circle for a few exercises. They did some voice exercises, then some improv. Then he gave out a scene from Hamlet and broke them up into small groups. He had them do a cold read, then another run-through with gestures and a few props.

Finally, they had to take a few minutes to work on their scenes from the playwriting class. That was, as usual, the worst part of the class, but it was over quickly. They’d be performing the scenes next week, and the week after, the playwriting students would be submitting revisions. The acting students would have to perform the revised scenes a few weeks after that, but in between, the playwriting students would be allowed to come to class to see if they wanted to revise anything else.

What really surprised Edie was that no one laughed at her during the entire class. No one seemed to want to look her in the eye, either, but that wasn’t unusual. She didn’t even hear any cracks about her not knowing things or believing in strange things, which she’d heard before.

Professor Somerville came up to her after class again, but he didn’t say anything about her needing to see a counselor. “You’re doing good work, Edie,” he said. “Do you think you’re going to continue with the theater program?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” she lied, surprised by his question. “I might take scene design or something, but I don’t think acting is for me. A lot of my other classes are more interesting.”

He nodded, smiling. “Any of the acting classes would be happy to have you, but scene design may be more your speed. I’m happy you’re here, regardless.” He hurried away again to speak to another student.

Edie gathered her things and got out of there as quickly as she could. What had that been about? Had something changed his mind about her?

He hadn’t apologized for trying to send her to the counselor, but then, maybe that wasn’t something he felt he needed to apologize for. He had seemed to think that he was only trying to help.

She shook her head as she walked back toward Gilkey. It didn’t really matter why people’s attitudes had changed. At least the rest of her semester would be easier, if they didn’t change their minds again.

She automatically walked around behind the building to check the rock where she and Leila were supposed to swap notes. She picked it up, her mind still on class, but her attention was riveted when she looked.

A note was under the rock.