With almost all the girls gone home for the break, there was something indescribably unsettling about the unusual peace and stillness that lingered within the walls of our school. That tranquillity wasn't frightening in a 'there's a ghost lurking around the corner' way no, it just felt unnaturally out of place.

        Seated on the windowsill and bundled up in two thick layers of blankets, I licked peanut butter off my thumb and watched rain trickle down our room's only window.

         I saw someone enter the phonebooth, and then bits of the conversation I'd had with my Mother earlier came rushing into my head.

        She hadn't picked up on the first ring nor on the second. But on the third, her cheerful voice had come on the line, bombarding me with tons of questions I had zero answers to. She then went on and on about how much they'd all missed and couldn't wait to see me.

        She'd asked whether I was on my way home but after I'd informed her that the girls on the scholarship program were to stay behind in order to take up extra town work, she'd wept for a whole minute. I'd just chuckled at her overreaction and told her that everything was alright.

        The scholarship arrangement that existed in Saint Margaret didn't bother me no, because it had been my choice in the first place.

         Three years ago, after I'd completed Middle school, I'd been at the public library surfing the internet for boarding schools which ran great scholarship programs when I stumbled upon St. Margaret Mary's Boarding School For Girls. For someone who had always been intrigued by the concept of countryside life, I'd gotten excited, visited their website and fallen in love with the school right away.

        Their gallery had displayed photographs of cultivated looking teenage girls in thick woollen sweaters gripping lacrosse sticks, balancing stacks of hardcover books on their heads, singing hymns at the chapel and having meals inside the dinning hall.

        Saint Margaret had seemed to me like a safe Haven, a perfect place where I could hide away from my family's over burdening financial misery.

        The scholarship program had seemed harmless and fair. Girls attending the school on scholarships would have to take up mini town jobs in order to contribute a portion of their wages towards a rather small percentage of their school fees.

        But as I'd expected, my Parents had outright objected to the entire 'going to a boarding school far away from home' idea.  After I'd marked out the scholarship program to them however, they'd promised to think about it.

        "Hey Claire. Are you alright? Do you feel sick?" I heard Aspeth ask quietly from somewhere inside our room.

        I turned to see her in a green jumper, sitting cross legged Indian style on her bed and braiding her hair into pigtails.

        "I'm fine. Just feeling a little homesick," I lied. I wasn't feeling homesick. I never did. There was something about the severe hardship that existed back home that always prevented me from feeling homesick.

        It wasn't that I sought to isolate myself entirely from my family, but in the quiet song of the birds and the company of new friends, I found peace.

        "Me too," Aspeth said and let out a sad sigh. "But at least we have a party to look forward to right?"

        "You'll be going for the party?" My voice came out louder than I had intended, because hearing Aspeth show genuine interest in a party was as shocking as hearing that Osama Bin Laden was still alive, only that would be bad news.

        Aspeth never talked about parties nor ever attended any. She was anti-social, but not antisocial in the rude kind of way. She had no close friends and almost always spoke only when spoken to. She seemed nervous and jumpy all the time, and wrote in her diary always.

        "Yeah. Why? Aren't you planning on going?" She asked with wide wondering eyes.

        "I don't really know. I just--"

        "Everyone will be going Claire," she cut in, "and I'm not sure you'd want to stay in here alone. You know, ghosts and monsters and all." The seriousness with which she said the latter made me want to roll my eyes. But I didn't.

        "I don't believe in stuff like that," I said instead, my eyes wandering over to Ellen's empty bed.

         Ellen was our other roommate. She was rich, conceited and never spoke to neither Aspeth nor I. Her best and only friend was Whyte, the richest girl in our school, but Whyte was polite and treated everybody with respect. Ellen's elitist behaviour didn't really bother me anyway, because I felt it to be childish and unecessary.

        Aspeth stopped braiding her hair and gaped at me as if I'd said the most preposterous thing a person could ever say. "You're kidding right?" Her eyes widened.

        "They're not real." I gave a nonchalant shrug.

        She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. "Ghosts are real. Monsters are real too," she said serenely after a while like a drugged up hospital patient under a hypnotic trance.

        There was however a tone of finality in her voice which made me not want to argue any further.

        "I'm going to see Peggy," I said, pulled off the blankets and jumped down from the windowsill.

        She didn't say anything, appearing as though she hadn't heard me.

        When I got to the door, I heard her ask quietly, "did I say something to offend you Claire?"

        I turned around and put on the most conciliatory sugar sweet smile I could afford. "Of course not Aspeth, everybody is entitled to their own opinion."

        She smiled a sad distant smile. "Okay."

***

 
      "Claire!" Peggy squealed as if she hadn't seen me in milleniums. From in front of the dressing mirror where she had been applying eyeliner, she stood up, rushed to the center of the room and posed.

        Peggy was the President of our school's Drama Club, and it seemed she sometimes couldn't tell the difference between when she was acting on stage and when she was acting in real life.

        "How do I look?" She raised her chin and wiggled her eyebrows.

        "Where did you get that dress from?" I asked, kicking off my sandals and giving her a look over.

        "Emily got it from the discount store today," she said, holding out her hands and doing a complete 360. "So, how do I look?"

        "There's no way Matron's going to allow you wear such heavy makeup nor that dress," I stated as a matter of fact, sauntered over to her bed and crawled into it.

        She tssked, turned around to face me and pouted like a bratty child. "Your negativity is not going to kill my vibe Claire McDonalds, not today."

        I laughed.

        "So, Roman's going to be there huh?" She asked as she took a seat on my bottom.

        "You should be asking Chelsie," I said. "His girlfriend," I added for good measure.

        "Yeah, but you're his pen pal and you have a serious crush on him."

         "I am not crushing on him," I said flatly, hoping that my condescending tone would mask the hidden traces of excitement in my voice.

        I was crushing on Roman. Obsessed with him, even.

        Penpal.com was this old letter writing system that existed between Saint Margaret and Saint Patrick's Boarding School For Boys. On admission, all students from both schools were randomly paired and encouraged to write friendly letters to each other, as a means of establishing long-lasting friendships and strengthening the alliance between the schools. It wasn't compulsory really, and many people, like Peggy, almost always neither bothered to find out who their pen pals were nor ever considered writing to them.

        But Penpal.com was something I took very personal because I saw it to be romantic.

        Roman had been my pen pal since first year and on Penpal.com, I could swear that we were the best of friends. In real life however, we were just mere strangers to each other or at least, I was a mere stranger to him. Though I knew exactly who he was, he on the other hand had no idea what I looked like. Okay maybe he did.

        But just like almost every other boy in Saint Patrick, from the letters he sent me, it was obvious his mental photograph of me was that of some Angel whose Parents were famous and rich and important. And I wanted it to stay that way, because I worried about him not liking me after seeing that I really was some underprivileged girl whose beauty could only be described with words of the most average magnitude.

        Chelsie, our Head Girl and Roman's girlfriend, was pretty and smart and that was enough to discourage me from revealing to him my true and only self.

       Peggy's eyes glazed over. "You can fool some of the people all of the time Claire, and you can fool all of the people some of the time. But you can never fool all of the people all of the time."

        I had no idea what that meant.

        "Maybe you should just tell him who you are tonight."

        I wiggled her off my back and sat upright. "Are you out of your mind?"

        She shrugged and nodded. "Maybe."

        I shook my head and was about saying something when Emily burst into the room, drenched from hair to toe and gaping for breath.

        Peggy and I exchanged glances.

        "Why are you so wet Emily?" Sin-Jun asked as she emerged from the bathroom, draped in a cream towel with her face hidden behind a hideous black face mask.

        Emily finally managed to catch her breath and stood upright. "Ma..Matron," she said and sneezed. "I went to Matron's house for the computer room keys."

        Slack jawed, my eyes popped out as I gawked at her in disbelief.

        I knew my story was by some standards okay, but I didn't consider it to be so good for her to go through all that stress. The storyline wasn't anything phenomenal or even close. It was just what most teens wrote about then, those stories where the shy girl always fell desperately in love with the school's football captain. Nothing different.

        Peggy frowned. "Computer room keys for what?"

        "Wattpad. C'mon Claire, let's go."

        I made an effort to stand but Peggy held me back. "Not so fast," she turned to Emily, "who the hell is Write pad?"

        Within the next few minutes that passed, Emily took pains to explain and re-explain to everyone what Wattpad was about and how it worked and how oh-so-incredible it was.

         At the end of it all, Sin-Jun mumbled some words under her breath and returned to the bathroom but Peggy still looked as lost as the prodigal son.

        "So...it's a free app where like...people write stories and stuff like that?" Peggy asked.

        "But that's what she's been saying!" I threw up my hands and groaned.

        She ignored me and continued, "and other users vote and..." she trailed off.

        "Comment," Emily answered, hugged herself and shivered. I could sense her capacity to tolerate Peggy's questions shorten by the moment.

        "Right." She sounded more lost than before and I couldn't really tell if she was purposely trying to not understand or she genuinely didn't get the entire thing.

        Emily huffed in frustration. "Maybe you should just come with us."

        "Nah, I'll pass. I need my beauty nap for tonight," she said and shoved me off her bed. "Bye Claire," she said lazily and vanished under her comforter.

        I managed to persuade Emily into putting on some dry clothes and fetched my writing pad.

        Bouncing cheerfully, Emily clapped her hands and looped arms with me as we trudged down the stairs and across the school yard. "Oh My God, I'm so excited!"

        "Me too!" I said with enthusiasm, though I wasn't quite feeling it.

A/N

#844 in horror! Thank you all so much for sticking around and giving my story a chance 💋. I love you 💕. Don't forget to vote 👍 and leave a couple of comments. They mean so much to me👄.

Special shoutouts to Nuella_17 for being my biggest fan of all time. She's stuck with me right from my very first story on Wattpad till now. Please check out her works because she's an incredible writer! I love you Ella!