Polly

It was the middle of lunchtime. Polly Bright sat with her three friends, silently eating but for the first time, without conversation.

It had been two days since Louise broke her information to Polly and the others, not just about the Demonia business but about her secret boyfriend as well. Polly thought that Louise always told them everything, Polly always shared her secrets with her friends, and always assumed that they did the same. But right now, Polly wasn't sure what to believe anymore, she wasn't sure who she could trust, and she didn't know whether her friends were still her friends.

All of this confused Polly, if Hugh's betrayal and the demonic picture weren't enough, Louise had to come out with this big secret that she had been hiding from everyone. Polly wanted to trust Louise but how could she do that when everything else was crumbling around her.

"OK, this has gone far enough. We need to talk, seriously!" Piper bursted out, without interruption.

"what is there to talk about? Louise told us her secret, we all have to leave town, what could possibly help the situation?" Polly said.

"Maybe you could tell us how you really feel, after everything that has happened the last few days, you must feel something" Piper argued.

"Piper's right. Maybe it will help if you talk about it" Ivy said.

"do you want to know how I feel? betrayed, alright! first it was Cassandra stealing my friends away, then it was Hugh lying to me about feeling nothing for her, and to top it all off Louise had just revealed the biggest secret. I don't know what to believe or who to believe, I just don't like being betrayed"

When Polly had finished her friends all sympathised for her. Piper put an arm around her shoulder, Ivy squeezed her hand, and all Louise could do was speak.

"I'm sorry, to all of you. I know we never keep secrets, not matter how dangerous they are, but I had other people to consider if I told you guys. I thought I was doing the right thing by everybody for keeping this secret, but I have a feeling that secrets just may be the thing that separates us"

"Louise, you should know that you can tell us these things and we'll keep quite about them. We're your friends, you should know better than keeping all of that to yourself" Polly said.

"I guess. So, what about the other thing?" Louise asked.

"what other thing?" Piper questioned.

"About demonia. If gangs are afraid of her then we are way out of our depth, I want to believe that she doesn't exist but I'm kinda having trouble with that" Polly knew that Louise had a point.

If demonia was feared by even the toughest criminals in California, then she was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, real. But what could she do about it? Polly didn't ask for the picture, somebody sent it to her. She didn't want for all of this to happen to her and her friends, everything just happened by itself. Louise said herself that the safest option for all of them was to leave town, maybe she was right.

"Louise, maybe you're right. I'm not saying that I believe all of this supernatural stuff, but I do believe there could be somebody after us. But until we are sure, we stay put" Polly decided. Everybody else nodded in agreement, even Louise had to.

The warning bell sounded for fith period. Polly and her friends went their separate ways to their classroom, Polly made her way to 11th grade art.

Art was the only thing Polly kept to herself, her friends knew better then to interrupt Polly's private time, even Cassandra let Polly have art to herself, in Polly's opinion, that was the only decent thing Cassandra could do by her. But even now art had it's down side, Hugh was in her art class.

Polly could avoid Hugh throughout the whole day, but in art there was no avoiding him, not for an entire hour. Polly sat at the back of the class, wishing that the only time she be noticed was somebody was on fire and she was next to the extinguisher. It didn't help that much as when Hugh walked in he sat right next to Polly.

"hey! how's it going?" Polly ignored him and returned to her textbook.

"Okay... what did I do wrong?"

"Hmm, lets see.....you lie to me about not feeling anything for Cassandra, only to start making out with her the very next day!" Polly exclaimed.

"Polly it wasn't like that!"

"oh really, what was it like then?"

"Cassandra jumped me! after you left she asked to go back to my place, I told her that I couldn't but she didn't get the message. The day after she thought I hadn't taken the hint so she kissed me, Polly you have to believe me!"

"Hugh I don't know what to believe. What you told me at the autumn do was one thing but what I saw Cassandra doing to you was another, I know I'm not your girlfriend or anything but I just hate being lied to"

"I'm not lying to you. I don't have feelings for Cassandra and I never will, I've tried to make that clear to her but she didn't want to hear it. Polly, I would rather have you as my girlfriend than anyone else. You have to believe that"

"Not here" Polly whispered "Not now. We need to talk about this where nobody else can hear, where nobody will pass on whatever they hear" Hugh nodded silently and then responded.

"Meet me in Clover park tonight, I know we'll be safe there" he whispered, and the two continued with their work.

The assignment in Polly's class was to pair up and take a photograph of your partner, using the photograph the pairs do portraits of one another, being in any kind of fashion they wanted. Polly was drawing Hugh in oil pastels while Hugh did her in water colours, Polly had worked so hard on Hugh but found his face shape difficult to sketch. Hugh was having trouble with Polly altogether, working with water colours was very hard for him as he couldn't keep the definition with black water running all through the paper.

Polly couldn't focus on her portrait anyway, she was too busy feeling relieved that Hugh had not betrayed her, nervous about meeting him tonight, and bitter that Cassandra had used Hugh to get at her.