The Gifted 004

004 Majestic Eye Graze.

A hush came over the pre-bell crowd right then as if someone had been discovered wearing pleather shoes. Perplexed and forgetting the ill-kept rockstar blog page, the quartet shared a collective glance as students began to whisper around them in reverent tones. Okay, so it wasn’t a fashion faux pas after all…

“What’s going on?” Francie whispered. “Are we being visited by the Prince of England or something?”

“Ooh, I hope so,” Carmen whispered back. “Don’t you know I’d be his girl faster than you can say That’s amore.”

Francie rolled her eyes. “Sure Carmen. As if the rest of us didn’t have a chance.”

A few moments passed, and soon the objects of every one’s rapt attention came into their view. The first person they saw was a slim blonde with her long tawny hair pulled away from her face, and she was clad in a high-necked skirt suit in a dark teal hue that brought out the color of her dark blue eyes. A second blonde, who wore her hair in an elegant bun, resembled the first so much that it was clear they were sisters. She wore the same teal in a suit with a different cut and serene expression as her counterpart.

Behind the blonde pair (it had been passed along that they were fraternal twins) was a darker-haired male in black slacks and the aforementioned teal blazer. His eyes were a dark, unknown color, and his russet-colored hair fell down past his shoulders and made him look like a struggling poet who dashed out lines to attractive girls who wouldn’t understand a word he wrote. He looked slightly bored at the moment, however, not able to successfully mimic the blonde twins’ serenity.

“Well, look, it’s the Doublemint twins and the Mentos guy,” Francie muttered.

“Oh, the Doublemint twins have nothing on these two—trust me,” Will remarked. Francie slanted him an exasperated look and he stared back so deadpan that Francie’s eyebrows furrowed. Even Carmen and Sydney had caught the straightforward tone of his voice—which indicated that he knew more than he was saying.

“What do you mean?” Sydney inquired. “Do you know who these people are?”

“Well…” At that moment, Will bit off of the rest of his sentence because the debonair caboose of the stately caravan looked in their direction. Carmen, Francie, and Will followed his stare…and found themselves looking at Sydney.

“It looks like you’ve caught his attention,” Carmen remarked with half-surprise, half-admiration.

The majestic eye graze (of course, that description was making it sound like it was merely PG-rated) had left Sydney feeling oddly vulnerable as if she were now as naked as a jaybird. After the events of this morning, it was more than disconcerting. She had no intention of anyone seeing underneath her school uniform—and that included that god-awful flowered bra. (Thanks, Carmen!)

“You didn’t answer the question,” Francie pointed out as the moment passed. “Who are these people?”

“You mean you didn’t read the paper?” Will inquired, earning a look from Francie that indicated she’d strip him of his right to have children with relative ease. At that, Will cleared his throat and said, “They’re royalty.”

Carmen, Sydney, and Francie went so still Michelangelo’s statue of David would have been envious of their forms.

“Royalty?” Carmen managed.

“From where?” Sydney wanted to know.

“Are they related to the Queen?” Francie inquired.

“Yes, from some small country in Western Europe, and no, they are not related to Queen Elizabeth the second,” Will responded with an arched eyebrow for Francie. He nodded in the trio’s direction as they made their way down the observer-designated path and away from them. “The one in front is the Crown Princess Angelia Sanford. Her fraternal twin is Aurora, and the guy is their younger brother Bennett. If memory serves,” he continued, seeing the questions in his friends’ eyes as if they were teleprompters, “Angelia and Aurora are in their mid-twenties, and Bennett is slightly younger. As far as I know, we have them until the end of tomorrow, after the dedication ceremony.”

“Are we invited to this ceremony?” Sydney asked.

Carmen snorted. “All of the students are invited, silly.” Then she brightened; one of the Triple Delights was within range. “We are so going shopping tonight!”

“Can we not and say we did?” Sydney grumbled. She knew full well where they’d end up on their shopping expedition: looking at undergarments. And if Will tagged along—and he probably would—it would make things even more embarrassing.

“I’m actually kind of excited about this,” Francie admitted as the crowd began to thin out. “I mean, I’m sorry that the Sakura Tsukimori story slipped out of your hands, Will, but this is the biggest thing to happen since they put orange soda in the vending machine.”

Will nodded thoughtfully. “Now that was pretty big stuff. I heard that the upperclassmen used to barter with the vending machine guy when he came to fill it up every week. It was like watching a drug deal go down or something.”

“Well, who needs Sunkist in a school made for paradise?” Carmen asked.

Sydney and Francie both raised a hand. “I do,” they declared in unison.

“Well,” Carmen began, “you know what they say about the quiet ones.”

Sydney’s eyebrows furrowed as Will and Francie stared at her speculatively. “And what does that mean, Carmen?”

Carmen just looked at Sydney, mouth twisted up into an impish smirk, and said nothing.

 

back – home