The return to J.C. was filled with anxiety, not only because we were going back to the lion’s den but also because the first day back was also the day of Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. On that night, the school had a costume ball – 900 AD attire required.
The next Saturday and Sunday was the festival of the Lady of the Mercians, where the entire school, as well as the entire country, was decorated in Aethelflaed’s colours: a red flag with a yellow dragon.
I should have been excited – I loved festivals and balls – but I wasn’t. If it had been up to me, I would have celebrated Aethelflaed’s festival in London, in the comfort of my quarters. The entire way back to the school, all I could think about was that William had not asked me to the ball, and I had been forced to say yes to someone I didn’t even care about.
I had managed to keep my composure while in London, especially while ordering our outfits. Although the fashion style during the tenth century was very understated, Pam had been adamant that we all had to have the outfits cut a little more fitted to our bodies, which annoyed me.
Pam was a southerner, but I was a northerner and in the north we dressed for warmth and comfort – so as much as I loved looking at body-hugging dresses and sexy dresses, when I was forced to wear them, I always felt awkward, ugly and gauche.
My inside dress was white, with an ivory overlay dress and a splash of gold all over with golden borders. Pam’s dress was light green on the inside, with a dark green overlay dress and gold border.
Pam also made me order a light-pink inside dress with a dark pink overlay and velour border, and Pam had ordered a light-yellow inside dress with a dark yellow overlay and a white velour border as a backup for the ball.
For the festival, I put my foot down and bought our outfits off the rack from a costume shop, but in exchange we agreed to allow the seamstress to make them fit perfectly. And there we were, three tenth-century outfits for the entire festival, and a list of wooers I for one did not want.
In Yanar, crying was seen as weak and pitiful, and weakness in a girl was deemed unacceptable. Girls were simply not allowed to cry for anything except at a funeral, or at least not in public. My case was different. I was a cry-baby, and there was nothing I could do about it. Every time I thought of William not asking me to the dance, I felt an uncontrollable urge to cry.
Then anger took over. How could I be so weak? I was nothing but a pathetic fool with feelings unbecoming of a member of the Ten. I walked towards the bathroom mirror, stared at myself and realised that I was a strong, beautiful and powerful member of the Ten.
Most guys in the school had asked Pam and me to the ball. I had had my pick of J.C.’s crème de la crème. Since William didn’t want to accompany me to the ball, he was no longer worth a second of my time, I thought. I promised myself to never think of him or even speak his name ever again until Ragnarök.
Scarlett arrived just in time to get ready. She was so late that Pam was already in my room with Delphine, helping me with make-up. She told us that her train from Hereford had been late and that she and William had barely made it to the school in time. When I heard that she had been on the same train as him, my heart jumped and I hated myself for it.
Scarlett brought out her costume from her suitcase and after she was dressed, we realised that we had a problem. Pam and I had not only had our outfits custom-made but had even changed the style slightly, and they looked divine. Delphine and Scarlett, however, had bought theirs online, and they looked a little bit like they were wearing potato sacks. Delphine, being the champion that she always was, just shrugged her shoulders and pinned the sides from the inside to make it slightly more attractive, but Scarlett burst out crying. Despite our encouragement, she refused point-blank to leave the room. I knew that we were wasting our time, so I left the others trying to help her and went to Hogan’s room. I knew that he was the only one able to get Scarlett to come to the ball with us.
When I arrived, William was there. In my haste, I had forgotten that William was back as well and ended up face-to-face with him. I couldn’t help but smile; he had clearly ordered his outfit online, and looked comical in it, but he was still so cute that my heart jumped. I remembered that I hated him, so my smile turned into an evil look, and without a word to him, I turned to Hogan and informed him that his date was refusing to leave her room.
Hassan came in at that very moment and said, “Seriously, Di, couldn’t you wait for Will downstairs? What’s wrong with you?”
I wanted to punch him, but instead I answered, “I am not Will’s date. I was invited by Achilles. I’m here to get Hoggy, if you must know.”
“Achilles? Are you serious? I hate that guy. Why are going with him?” he said.
“Maybe, just maybe, because he is one of the hottest guys in school. He adores me, and he asked me with a bouquet of my favourite flowers.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me? I would have preferred to go with you rather than with Lizzy,” he said.
“Well, why didn’t you ask me?” I replied.
“Er, because I thought Will was going to ask you,” he said.
At that moment, we all turned to William, who said to Hassan without a single glance towards me, “I did ask her. She never answered.” He spoke in a very cold tone of voice and gave me the coldest stare I had ever seen. I could feel anger coming from him. I turned to Hogan, and I could see disappointment in his eyes as well.
I was flabbergasted – the nerve of those boys, especially William. I ignored them and turned to Hassan and said, “Do not listen to him. He never asked me to go to the ball. You can ask the girls.”
“What?” said William. “Not only did I ask you, but I even did it with a bouquet of flowers – white roses, white lilies and white lilies of the valley, because I know that they are your favourites – and I left a note asking you to go to the ball with me. But I got no answer.”
“Wait. Achilles’s bouquet was made of the same flowers. Where did you leave the bouquet?” I asked.
“I gave it to your housemistress to place in your room,” he said with a calmer voice while slowly walking towards me.
I placed my right hand on my eyes. It was obvious that Achilles somehow had replaced the card with a note of his own, and I had fallen for it. I had been surprised when I realised that Achilles knew my favourite flowers, but I had assumed that he had done his homework. It was now very clear to me that he had stolen William’s flowers and card. It wasn’t surprising; Achilles was an arrogant jerk, and if I had not been so mad at William, I would never had agreed to go to the ball with him – but now I had and I needed to rethink everything.
William took me in his arms and removed my hands from my face. He took his hand and pulled my face up, stared straight into my eyes and said, “Did you really think that I wouldn’t ask you to the dance?”
I turned red because that was exactly what I had thought, plus for some reason, I felt really shy being in his arms and hid my face in his shoulder. I could have stayed there forever, but Hassan broke the charm as usual by saying, “Well, if she wasn’t going with you, who did you ask?”
I felt William tensing up, so I looked up, and his face was all red. I felt a movement behind him and pulled away from him just in time to see Hogan pulling an embarrassed face and trying to make a quick exit.
I started to have a funny feeling inside, but I did not have the courage to ask the question that needed to be asked. Luckily for me, Hassan was devoid of such a weakness and walked towards the door, leaned on it as if to stop anyone from leaving and said, “So, who is it?”
William tried to take me back into his arms, but I refused. I really wanted him to answer, and then he said, “I asked Genie and she said yes.”
I heard Hassan gasp behind me, while I froze. I didn’t know what to say. He had asked his so-called ex-girlfriend to the dance, and she had accepted. Clearly, they were not over each other. I felt like such a fool. What was I doing there? Why had I even come to their room? Why hadn’t I just stayed in my room?
I didn’t know what to do, and my head was starting to spin all around me when suddenly Hassan grabbed my hand and got me out of there. William made a move towards me, trying to stop me from leaving, but Hogan stopped him and said, “Let them go. You can deal with that later. For now, we have a jerk to hunt down and some serious scores to settle.”
Noticing how down William looked, Hogan put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Chin up, mate. It’s going to be okay. Let me talk to my girl, and then I’ll get back to you and your problems,” he said, leaving the room.
Hassan walked me all the way to my room and had the courtesy to stay silent the whole time. However, when we got to my door, he stopped me, tuned me towards him and said, “Look, it is absolutely my place to point out that having feelings for a guy that is already taken is absolutely unforgivable and lame. I love you, and because I love you, I am begging you to stop humiliating yourself around him and forget about William for good.” He then grabbed my head, put his forehead on my forehead and said, “Any guy in the school would love to date you, if you could just give them a chance. It is not because he looks like Thor that he is the god of thunder or worth the attention of the prettiest girl in school. If we were at home, you would never have sunk so low.” He then grabbed my arm and said, “Get a bloody grip, and kick him to the kerb.” He then forcefully released me and left.
He was right; I needed to get a grip. I had humiliated myself long enough, and it was my lack of self-worth that had allowed losers like Achilles to play a prank like that. I decided to get revenge on him the best way I knew how: I would challenge him to a fight and give him the beating he so rightfully deserved.
While I was standing in front of my door, lost in my own thoughts, I felt a presence behind me and turned around. It was Hogan. I had forgotten that he was meant to come and speak to Scarlett. I got out of his way, pulled out my arm and waved it, signifying that he was welcome to go in, but he didn’t.
On the contrary, he hugged me and said, “Hassan is a great guy, but he can be a jerk sometimes.” He then took my face in both his hands and said, “Do you trust me?”
I raised one eyebrow, signifying that I was hesitant to answer, so he said, “Do you trust that I would never let anyone make a fool of you or hurt you?”
I nodded my head, meaning yes, and then he said, “He likes you, a lot, so please don’t write him off. And I know you; you will want to strangle the Athenian, but I am begging you not to touch him. Give Will enough respect to let him deal with the problem. Please, Di, promise me.”
Normally, I would have refused. I don’t usually let anyone make a fool of me, but I was so happy to hear that William liked me that I agreed to stay away from Achilles and followed Hogan inside.
Pam, Delphine and I left him with Scarlett, and we headed to the hall of the main building. Stations had been placed, and drinks were being passed around. The boys were all going towards the girls they had asked to be their date.
I was a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t really know how to act around Achilles when he came to me, so I was hoping that he wasn’t around yet. Pam had no such issue. John, her date, had appeared as soon as we had arrived, and taken her away.
Enrique, Delphine’s date, came and took her as well, so before I knew it, I was all alone. For a second, I felt like standing alone was quite uncomfortable, until I realised that on the other side of the room, Eugenie Pollard was standing alone as well. She was looking all around her, searching for someone, searching for William, who strangely enough was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly Scarlett appeared next to me, alone. I turned to her and asked, “Where is Hoggy?”
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know. He told me to stay with you. Apparently, he had some things to deal with, but he promised to be back as soon as possible.”
That sounded very suspicious to me. I started looking around, and I noticed that the Greek pack wasn’t around either. The Greek pack was what we called Achilles and his friends. They were all Greeks, all from Athens and always together, like a pack of wolves. Tonight there was no sign of any of them, and that was very strange.
I saw Hassan being the social butterfly that he always was, and he was flirting with the school’s least recommendable girls.
Unlike the rest of us, Hassan had always found the school bad apples fascinating and was very attracted them, and it was among them that I found him. Their choice of outfits clearly showed that they knew nothing about Aethelflaed, one of England’s greatest heroines, because they were off by at least a century when it came to their clothes.
I ignored the frowns I saw when I approached them, and turned Hassan. I expected to receive the cold shoulder from the girls, but I got it from the boys as well. I wasn’t surprised; I had made no secret of what I thought of them, and I wasn’t planning on apologising any time soon.
I dragged him away with a wave of protestation following us, but I was unaffected. I took him outside and said, “Where are they?”
He smiled; he knew exactly who I was talking about. He came really close to me, leaned over me and said, “He is making sure the Athenians know not to mess with him, and took Hoggy as a backup.”
As I was standing with my mouth open, he turned around and left. I was very tempted to leave and go back to my room, but I looked at my outfit and selfishly decided that I would go to the ball, and maybe William would be fine and would join me eventually.
I arrived just when everybody was being escorted to the ballroom, where the dance was starting, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty. In Yanar, friends join friends during battles, and here I was, not being able to help William give Achilles the correction he deserved, because I had promised Hogan I would stay away.
I had a lot of fun. Pam and I were the queens of the ball with our sensational outfits, and everybody, girls as well as boys, wanted to dance with us. The LGBT club had encouraged people to dress the way they wanted rather than as their gender stipulated, so we ended up with some girls dressed like gents, and some boys dressed like ladies. It was fantastic.
The only dark cloud was that after a few hours, I noticed Pollard leaving in tears with her friends trying to console her. She did not deserve that. It was Aethelflaed’s festival. As girls, it was one of the most important holidays for us because it showed that even in a world where women were nothing more than slaves and property, a woman had risen up and saved her entire country. As much as I wanted to help her, I knew that I couldn’t. I could only hope that the next days would get better for her.