Circle Quartet: 26

Chapter 26

“Frogs! Frogs! They’re everywhere!” Amanda shrieks on top of her lungs.

I can see the slimy creatures hopping happily in this ballroom. Some of them are even trying to hop on my special gown. I kick them and one of them stuck on Raina’s hair.

“Get it off me! Get it off me!”She screams in horror, pulling her hair in madness as the frog is still sticking on her head, and running around like a headless chicken. Beatrice and Deena are shooting those frogs while chanting the spell as loud as they can.

The boys, on the other hand, are laughing happily as they see the frogs hopping here and there. They even compete who catches the most frogs.

“Harley!” Aunt Ada’s voice booms around the hall.

The ballroom becomes queer silence.

Everyone looks at Harley who is smiling sheepishly like nothing happen. There’s a big toad on top of his head and he’s holding some small frogs with my two cousins, Raymond and Heath.

Harley is a frog-lover. He played with frog since he’s 3 years old. When he reached 6, he started to learn more about frogs and collected them as his hobbies. Of course Aunt Ada forbade him to play with frogs inside the house so Harley spends most of his time at the pond near our compound.

His love towards the frogs was never changed. At the age of 10, Harley managed to cast his own magic spell as he learned from the frog; creating a green slimy liquid for traps. Because of that, he was known as a young alchemist. But sometimes, he made some mess, just like tonight.

“What. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Doing?” Aunt Ada grits her teeth, her hands on her hips. Aunt Ada’s eyes are blazing angrily. No one dare to speak any word.

“I…,” Harley gulps, “I just wanted to show them how to cast a frog spell.”

Silence.

“I can make them vanish,” Harley squeaks like a squirrel for his body starts to shake.

“How many times do I have to tell you NOT TO PLAY WITH FROGS?” Now Aunt Ada explodes.

There are two things that will make Aunt Ada explodes. First; don’t eat the instant noodle in front of her. Second; don’t play with the frogs.

Aunt Ada turns Harley into a big green ugly toad. My two cousins gasp in horror and hide behind their mother. I guess someone has to kiss froggy Harley to turn him back to normal.

“Serve him right!” exclaims Raina. “I’m not going to kiss you, stupid frog!”

Grandma Zelda makes the frogs vanish in one blink. The others sigh in relief and the leave the ballroom except me, Jeff and Beatrice.

“I guess I have to kiss it,” I sigh and pick up Harley who is now crying while croaking. I kiss the frog, ignoring how slimy it is, and Harley turns back into normal.

“Oh, thank you, Alice!” he hugs me tight and he’s still crying. “Thank you so much for saving me! I promise I won’t do that stupid thing again.”

After the frogs’ aftermath, we shuffle back to our room. I feel so tired tonight. But at the same time, I have a lot of fun. It’s been a while since last two year’s family gathering. My gown automatically change into my normal outfit after the clock strikes twelve. I smile and jump on the bed.

I received tons of text messages, mostly from Abbie. I know that she started to miss me since we left the Academy for the break. And I receive one text message from Stefan. He asked me about my holiday. I text him back, saying that I’m at Uncle Andy’s house. He replies my message, saying that he’s at his relative’s house and he’s just came back from the family dinner. I wonder what are they eating? Raw meat, I suppose.

Three days has passed swiftly and today my family and I need to go back to Sewra. How I miss my room so much! We board our private plane (Sable refuse to take the train because he said that the train are way too slow than the train). In one hour, we reach Sewra.

The first thing that I do is rushing to my room, jumping on my bed, hugging my smelly pillows which I can’t take them to the Academy. People might died if the smell my pillows!

We’re having a wonderful tea time this evening since it’s quite sunny. My little cousins are playing hop-scotch with Jeff and they are merrily laughing as Jeff loses to them. Beatrice, Raina, Raven and I are sitting around a small table, drinking milk tea made by Beatrice. She’s the best tea-maker.

Stefan and his brothers, Zayne and Tavis, pay a visit to our lovely mansion. Raina squeals in joy when she sees Tavis and nearly choke him to death as she hugs him tight. Poor Tavis.

Zayne and Beatrice exchange kisses on the cheek while Stefan greets me by shaking hands. Raina urges Stefan to kiss me on the cheek but he just smiles bashfully while gently scratching his cheek.

“Hey, what’s that?” asks Raven as she points to the box that Stefan has brought.

“Oh, this is a present to your sisters,” replies Stefan.

Lacey and Sabrina spot Stefan and come to him running. Both of them hug Stefan joyfully.

“I have a present for both of you,” he opens the box and there are two puppies inside it.

“Puppies! Puppies!” Both Lacey and Sabrina claps their hands. “Thank you, Stefan!” says Lacey and kisses him on the cheek. Sabrina does the same.

Stefan chuckles and hands them both puppies. Sabrina gets the brown puppy, as she wishes too, while Lacey gets the black puppy. The puppies yap with joy.

“You gave them puppies?” asks Jeff as he approaches us later.

Stefan nods. “I promised them long time ago to get them the puppies.”

“Mom will be shocked if she sees those puppies,” Raven smiles while shaking her head.

“What about me? You should give me one too, you know?” I tease him.

“You already have one, Alice. Don’t be so greedy,” says Jeff, pointing to Stefan. “Am I right, Steffy boy?”

Stefan blushes as Jeff calls him Steffy. Everybody laugh. We sit together around the table and talk about things that we usually do at the Academy.

The appearance of those puppies surprises Aunt Nadine as she comes down to the lawn. She thanks Stefan for buying those puppies to Lacey and Sabrina. At dawn, the Silver brothers excuse themselves to leave.

“I guess we have to go now,” says Zayne. “But we’ll see you girls anytime,” he winks.

“Yeah. We have one week to spend our precious time here,” I say.

“See you later, Alice. I’ll text you tonight,” says Stefan, leaning towards me and gives a small kiss on my cheek.

Stefan kisses me! I think my face turns into beet-red! I never thought that he might do that!

I’m now speechless. I watch him waving goodbye and leave. Raina, Beatrice and Jeff squeal with surprise, saying, “Oh my God! Did you see that? Stefan kissed Alice!”

I reply Abbie’s email after dinner. The kissing event spreads so fast – Dad is the most happiest when he heard the news. Then they discussed about the wedding ceremony of me and Stefan. They get so easily excited.

I told Abbie about the kissing event and I think she’ll jump with joy because she’s longing to hear this ‘good’ news. I can imagine her I-can’t-believe-he-kiss-you face. Somehow, I really miss Abbie so much. She’s a talkative and warm person. Living with her makes me feel that living with my own sister.

I send my email to her and lie down for a while. I stare at the ceiling, still thinking about what has happened this evening. I can’t believe Stefan really kissed me. I know that we’re trying to get along like we used to be. But the kiss is too sudden.

I wake up and get off from bed. I need to talk to Mom as the weird feeling crawls over my feeling, again. I go downstairs to Mom’s room and the door is not properly closed.

“Oh no, it’s horrible,” Mom gasps.

I lean to the door closer.

“I know, honey. And from now on we have to take a careful step. I’m worried about our children,” Dad says soothingly.

I gulp. I don’t mean to eavesdrop but something bad is happening!