“Children! Come inside, please! Dinner is ready!” Emulan and Andrea had just finished their discussion about some of the things that went on in the loop when Miss Ostrich began calling everyone into the dining room.
“Well, looks like it’s time for dinner,” Emulan said, “let’s go.” She exited the room, but Andrea stared at the doorway for a few seconds before following her.
The table was big. But then again so was the house. It was like nothing Andrea had ever seen before, it looked so regal. The table was covered to the corners with turkey, mashed potatoes, salads, and other similar dishes. It looked like the perfect meal. Andrea realized she was staring and snapped herself out of it, lightly pinching her arm to make sure it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t.
Children began to enter the room behind her, making their way to different spots at the table. One boy even took a seat in front of a set of wooden utensils, but Andrea decided not to question it. Miss Ostrich -who was already seated at the head of the table- motioned for Andrea to come sit at an unoccupied seat at the very corner of the table that looked like it had been put there last minute.
Andrea looked around, all the other seats around the table were taken, and she was the last one left standing. She hurried to the seat and sat down, feeling awkward with almost everyone’s eyes on her.
“Miss O, I thought you sent someone out to go get more food. Everyone’s here,” Emulan pointed out.
Miss Ostrich nodded, “I thought I’d wait until after dinner since Tomas and Dilong said they could make do with the ingredients they had.” A few kids turned a cheered Tomas’s name. He must be pretty popular here.
A girl with a red headscarf spoke from across the table, “well, I’m hungry, so thank bird for the food. Now let’s eat!”
“I’m with Bern on this one,” Tomas said, he was already chewing on a turkey leg. The other children started filling their plates. Miss Ostrich let out a sigh. Andrea looked at her, freezing in the middle of reaching for a bowl of fruit salad.
“Go ahead, dear,” Miss Ostrich said, “we were never that big on formal dinners anyway.”
“So, new girl, what’s your deal?” Andrea looked up from her plate, the boy across the table-the one with the wooden utensils-was looking at her. A few others turned their attention in her direction as well, but most of them just continued with their own conversations.
“Well for one, my name’s not new girl, it’s Andrea,” she corrected, “and what do you mean ‘what’s my deal’?”
The boy shrugged, “I don’t know, where are you from, who are you?” Andrea could see static swirling around his head, he went blurry for a second, then she could see him clearly again.
“Uh…” she began, but she couldn’t find the words. She was too focused on the sparks forming around the boy’s hands.
“Alex generates electricity,” Tomas explained. He had been watching them.
“Oh…cool,” Andrea replied, not knowing what else to say.
“Hey, guys, let’s all go around and use our peculiarities, that was Andrea can see how cool we are,” Tomas suggested. There were a few in agreement but most of them didn’t want any part in it.
Miss Ostrich sighed, “children, please, the house-”
“I’ll go first,” Tomas volunteered, earning a glare of the head ymbryne. A few people groaned, but he stood up nonetheless. When Tomas had everyone’s attention, he began duplicated himself. Yes, four more of him appeared behind the original, and they all looked identical. The original Tomas smirked but was pulled down by Dilong, his clones disappearing in the process.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Dilong muttered, Tomas just kept smirking.
“Bern, we’re going clockwise,” he said, looking to the girl on his left with the red headscarf.
The girl just stared at him, “I don’t know what you want me to do. My peculiarity isn’t exactly for show.”
“Tell that to the guy you exposed at our last performance!” a voice called from the other end of the table, earning a few laughs from the audience.
The girl rolled her eyes, “unlike Tomas, I won’t be making a bad impression on the new ymbryne, thank you very much. Now leave me alone before I start pulling out all of your secrets.”
It was quiet for a moment, before Tomas interjected once again, “Dilong! We’re going counterclockwise!”
Dilong groaned and set his fork down, “no offense, Tommy, but I don’t particularly feel like lifting a chunk of rock right now.” Andrea had just stopped questioning everything at that point. Tomas could clone himself and Dilong could lift pieces of ground…cool, just another Saturday at Miss Ostrich’s house. Speaking of the ymbryne, she had given up trying to corral her children and was now hyper-focused on the chicken she was sawing in half on her plate.
Tomas, however, seemed to be great reading the looks of disbelief on Andrea’s face, “just wait until you see everyone else’s peculiarities!”
Then Tomas frowned, “speaking of seeing peculiarities, where’s Noelani?” Someone on Andrea’s side of the table raised their hand, “how did you miss me?”
Tomas shrugged, “sorry ‘Lani. Hey, mind showing Andrea what you look like?” Reluctantly, the girl stood up, and Andrea’s jaw finally dropped. The girl’s skin was shimmering blue, white cloud-like patterns dotting the skin all across her face and arms, as well as a bright ball of light on the side of her neck that looked like the sun.
“Pretty cool, right? Noelani’s skin reflects the sky,” Tomas explained as Noelani sat back down. Andrea tried to find the words to say something-anything-but she was rendered awe-struck and unable to speak. She was truly amazed.
“Well, I think that’s enough of that,” Miss Ostrich said finally. Tomas groaned but sat back down quietly. The boy across from Andrea -Alex- raised his hand.
“Miss! Can I go to town and get the food this time?” he asked.
“Oh! Can I come too!” the kid next to him asked. Another boy raised his hand, but all that came out of his mouth was a series of piano noises. Sure, why not, I guess.
“Really? All three of you?” Miss Ostrich asked. They all nodded.
Miss Ostrich sighed, “very well. Alex, Bonnie, and Leo will go into town and purchase food for dinner tomorrow. Autumn, would you accompany them?” A very frizzy-haired girl on the other end of the table perked up.
She swallowed the food that was in her mouth and nodded, “of course, ma’am.”
Miss Ostrich stood up, “alright, I will get you four the list. The rest of you are excused to go to bed.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll get less weird the longer you’re here.” Andrea jumped and turned to see Tomas standing in her doorway. She forgot she had left the door open.
She frowned, “how do you know what I’m thinking? Your peculiarity is duplication, or whatever, not mind reading.” Andrea was beginning to feel a bit bothered by his nosiness.
Tomas chuckled, “brother’s intuition.”
“You’re not my brother,” Andrea muttered. They stood in silence for a few minutes, and Andrea started to regret being so snappy. Tomas did seem like a cool guy, even if he was a bit…intense.
“I get it, you’re in a new place with all these weird new people, it’s weird,” Tomas said finally, “but if you ever need a stand-in brother figure or just someone to talk to, call me.” Before Andrea could say anything more, he turned and left. This place is weird, it does have weird people, but I’m supposed to be one of them. I’m supposed to be caring and kind. I’m supposed to be the one people can rely on. Before Andrea could go to close the door, a hair-raising shriek echoed through the air. It was deadly silent for a moment as Andrea assumed everyone was trying to figure out what was going on.
“Daysha! Alice!” another voice rang through the air. That was definitely Tomas, but he sounded…scared. Andrea ran out of her room, almost tripping as she made her way down the stairs to find everyone crowding together in the entrance hall of the house. Isaac was the first to run past Andrea, shoving her to get her to move. Before she could say anything, however, the others followed him, and Tomas grabbed Andrea by the wrist, dragging her along. The crowd of peculiars finally stopped when everyone was outside. Andrea tried to see what was going on, but everyone else was in front of her, blocking her view.
“Move!” a voice boomed. Miss Ostrich. Instantly, everyone split to make way for the ymbryne. She hurried down the steps of the house and out into the yard where everyone was staring. Finally, Andrea managed to push her way to the front and saw what everyone was so worked up about. Standing there in the yard was Noelani, who was hugging and kissing a curly-haired girl like she hadn’t seen her in a million years. Now standing beside them was Miss Ostrich, who was helping another, not so well looking girl keep herself from falling to the ground.
“Who are they?” Andrea whispered. If anyone heard her, they didn’t bother responding. Instead, the others were whispering amongst themselves. Things like, “why are they here” and “do you really think she ran here from France?”
“Our loop’s been raided by wights!” the curly-haired girl shouted suddenly, still leaning on Noelani for support.
“They took our friends! They took Miss Emu! Alice ran us here, she thought you could help.” Noelani rubbed her back and whispered something, but the girl kept crying. Thunder cracked above, clouds moved to cover the sun, it started to rain. And Noelani’s skin reflected it all. But there was a rainbow just a moment ago.
