Chapter Twenty-Four

Present day

Marie boinged happily on the trampoline. After two weeks with no incidents the school had finally lifted their ban, and had even cancelled classes for the day to take the kids on a trip to the fair. It was a much-needed break; everyone was relieved when the news had reported there would be no more murders now that the mountains were free of the flower. The twins were however still set to visit the crater that weekend as planned, knowing full well that the reporters rarely went there.

The two boys had gone off to play fair games and Marie was contemplating going to join them, when out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a flash of red. Turning, she saw a stunning scarlet-haired girl.

Remembering their last encounter, Marie felt an uncomfortable sense of guilt. She'd tried to speak to Georgie a few days later but the girl had been nowhere to be found. Marie had only caught glimpses of red since the incident on the staircase. But, within a blink of an eye they'd been gone.

Making up her mind to put things right, Marie jumped on to the grass and went to the candy floss cart where Georgie was currently picking a flavour.

'Hiya!' Georgie called out as she saw her, smiling benignly as if she hadn't just spent the past two weeks going to great lengths to avoid the smaller girl.

'Hi.' Marie paused, feeling quite uncharacteristically awkward. 'I just wanted to, uh-

She dug her hands into her pockets, looking down at the stone she was kicking while Georgie waited expectantly.

'I'm sorry about what happened that day,' Marie blurted out quickly, 'I shouldn't have just left you when you were feeling like that.'

'That's okay.'

'Is it?' Marie asked, a little too hopeful that she was simply let off the hook.

Georgie shot her a look. 'It became okay, I had other people to talk to. Anyway.' She stopped to shrug. 'I get why you left.'

Marie looked up questioningly. She herself didn't quite know why.

'You can't handle it when anything gets too deep or messy; your only option is to run.'

'Wow, I expected you'd be mad but I didn't think you'd psychoanalyse me,' she joked, only serving to prove her own light-hearted attitude.

Georgie laughed. 'I might've pondered on it a while. Anyway, enough about that. Do you like candy floss?' she asked, changing the subject.

'Love it!' Temporarily forgetting she couldn't each human food, Marie accepted the big blue ball Georgie handed her. She sniffed it in interest while the other girl bought a green one for herself.

'I can never decide between green apple and blueberry, now we can have both!' she exclaimed.

Marie smiled and absently waved it around a bit, realizing she couldn't eat it anyway, and then suggested they try the bouncy castle. It was even better than the trampoline and she wouldn't be expected to eat much whilst bouncing.

They boinged around for a while, exchanging their sticks now and then with Georgie unwittingly finishing them both.

'It's all over your face!' Marie giggled, bouncing over and wiping her sticky hand over the other girl's nose with the best of intentions.

'It wasn't until now!' the human exclaimed, pushing Marie down and pinning her in retaliation as she buried her sticky face in the cropped, black hair.

'Stop stop, my heavenly locks!' Marie laughed, trying unsuccessfully to push the sticky girl off of her own cleanliness. Her hands wound around the long scarlet hair and it fell on her face in silky waves, the scent of raspberry filling the air.

Marie suddenly had a long-forgotten memory of going raspberry picking with James and their mother back when they were young. It was one of the few good memories she had of their mother, the woman having become pushy and competitive once she reached her teenage years; always comparing her own daughter's beauty to that of the other ladies.

The scarlet curtain surrounded her face, blocking her vision of anything else and creating their own little world.

She smiled up at a sticky face.

~

Meanwhile on the other side of the fair, Andrew was trying to shoot three ducks in a row after failing miserably at the claw machine.

'The claw is just too BIG you know,' he was complaining now, 'It closed around that monkey perfectly but it just slipped out once it lifted!'

'It is terrible trickery,' James agreed somberly, as he watched Andrew miss yet another duck. Secretly, he thought that the other boy had been nowhere close to the monkey, but he decided to allow him his excuses.

'There were so many monkeys back home, they came into my house sometimes and stole our ice-cream,' Andrew sighed in nostalgia, missing the islands for the first time since he'd been here.

'They still exist then?' James asked in some surprise, realizing he'd never seen a monkey since they lived in warmer climates and he couldn't risk being in so much sun.

'Yes, most mammals are still around, not around here though...' his sentence hung in mid-air as he remembered the vampyre wouldn't be able to come back home with him. He didn't plan on going back anyway, the mountains were his home now.

'Wait a minute, did you say that they stole your ice-cream??!'

'Yes! Right out my hand!'

James stared at him in disbelief. 'Monkeys don't do that.'

'It's very hot there you know, the monkeys like cooling down with a nice vanilla cone too,'

James smiled at that; it was nice that Andrew's favourite ice-cream was vanilla too, there were so many crazy flavours now that he could hardly know what they meant, like what was a half-baked rocky carameline berry burst? What could it possibly mean??!

Andrew aimed again for the duck in the center, the heavy makeshift gun moving unsteadily in his inexperienced hands.

'Three ducks diagonally win first prize of that same monkey!' he pointed excitedly at the monkey from the claw machine, 'I'm trying to get at least one duck though, I think it gives a sticker that says "good job" or something.'

'Hold it a little higher and give it a better grip,' James advised. Andrew did as he suggested but his hand slipped down the barrel just as he pulled the trigger, the rubber bullet barely touching the duck's base.

'That was so close,' he sighed in remorse, about to give up, but James insisted on buying another round.

'Ducks are actually yellow,' he remarked as he paid the girl running the booth, she looked at him strangely before shrugging it off.

'The little DUCKIES are YELLOW?? That's my FAVOURITE COLOUR!'

James smiled at Andrew's excitement as he put his own hands over the human's and lined up the shot to the first white duck on the top left. 'They must've gotten them mixed up with white swans, they're a bit similar.'

'What are swans?'

'Nevermind,' the vampyre sighed tiredly, pressing down on Andrew's finger which in turn pressed down on the trigger. It hit the duck squarely in the middle and there was a pop of confetti where it had just been.

'Oh we got one we got one!' Andrew hopped a little on one foot in his excitement and James laughed as he moved a bit closer to line up their second shot on the center middle duck. He smelled distinctively of cherry blossoms and his breath felt cool against Andrew's ear as he breathed out and carefully hit the second duck dead center.

'Just one more now,' he murmured, his arm wrapped around Andrew's waist nudged his elbow a little sideways till they were pointing at the duck on the bottom right. Andrew glanced back at him, their eyes meeting just inches away and the fog of their breath blurring both their vision.

His heart felt like it was beating in his throat as James pulled down on the trigger, hitting the third duck and still not breaking eye contact till the girl at the booth blew a huge party horn at them and yelled her congratulations.

The boys awkwardly pulled apart and Andrew reached up with the hugest grin to claim his prize.

'I shall name you Monkey,' he said.

'That's extremely unoriginal, my dear.'

'Then I shall name him James!'

James frowned at this new development. 'You will do no such thing,' he mock-sternly stated. The corners of his lips started twitching soon afterwards, however, and his tinkling laugh rang out like fae bells.

The sun started peeking out after a while and Andrew insisted on accompanying James to the train station where they could sit inside. They found a spot to sit away from the windows and they talked and tossed around Monkey James.

Vampyre James pointed out that Andrew could go back to the fair and come to campus in the evening with the rest of their class, but he was hearing none of it, saying that he wouldn't quite enjoy it the same without the twins.

Marie arrived soon after, looking a bit red with candy floss in her hair, and they all hopped on the train back to campus.

~~~

a/n: Fun fact, I had a pet monkey and they do steal your ice cream sometimes. He also played with my Barbie dolls and we had cute lil tea parties