April Showers Chapter 3: Cold Shoulders

The Milkweed Sisters. A well known set of triplets, whose family was very much disliked in town on account of them being Milkweeds, who attracted all types of pests and insects. So they had moved (well, they were forced) to the Wither Village, and surprisingly loved it there. Though it was almost always cold in the summer and the only time it was warm was during during April, May and June, they enjoyed their stay. Yes, triplets were well known, but not for a good reason. The oldest by 2 hours is Jade, an outdoorsy type girl who can climb trees with ease, even though she still falls. The second oldest is Athena, a shy girl who did what she was told and stayed in line around her parents. But she was too smart for her own good, making her troublesome when it came to her mischievous ideas. And Lark....Well, she digs. Yes, she digs in everything, If you thought it was impossible to dig through a tile floor, well then she made it possible. If I knew how she did it, I would tell you, but really I think Lark is just a little crazy. But the three of them together were a force to be reckoned with, especially with Mabel. And here they are now, forming a human pyramid to get Mabel high enough to see through the window outside of Tilly's school. Yes, she knows what her father said, but she just had to know what they were doing for math this week, and it was her favorite subject. When the triplets started to wobble, Mabel had to bend down and steady them. "Guys, please don't squirm, just 5 more minutes!" Jade rolled her eyes. "You've been saying that for a while now, can we go? What if someone sees you?" She said. Athena shrugged. "It's not that bad, I like math, too!" Lark scoffed. "You don't even know how to do math!" She yelped as a shoe hit her face, "Sorry!" Mabel said. "I do so know how to do math!" Jade giggled. "Oh yeah? What's 2+8?"

"Uh...Uh, 10!" Athena said. Mabel smiled. "That's very good, Athena!" Jade gasped. "That was the right answer? Gee, maybe I should learn math, too!" Mabel chuckled. "Guys, you've got to stay quiet." She shushed them one last time before shifting her focus back to the window. Looking inside, she saw many desks that traveled up and up and stopped at the wall, almost like the gym bleachers she saw in their gym. Mr. Archie was discussing algebra, which seemed fun but she hated the fact that they threw the alphabet in with math. Learning abc's out of her language was already hard, but now this? Mabel soon stopped paying attention to the lesson and looked at all the students' hair. So vibrant! So many colors! And their clothes were extravagant and expensive looking! She wondered if she could get into the school if she just dressed like them. Her thoughts were intruded when she heard the groans of the triplets underneath her. "We don't got all day, Mabel!" Jade exclaimed. Mabel took one last peek inside, but...something caught her eye. Mabel gasped in fear, yelling "Go, go, go!" to the girls. Jade, Lark and Athena all fell, exhausted. Mabel landed the wrong way, feeling pain in the leg that she fell on, but ignored it. "Guys, we have to go, someone saw us!" They all gasped, jumped up and ran as fast as they could (well, Mabel limped), knowing the Oak Domains weren't too far away. They had already made it around the corner of the street just before someone burst through the back doors of the school. The person looked around, hoping to confirm if what she had seen wasn't her imagination. *Those were the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen,* Tilly thought.

"Matilda!" Mr. Archie called. "Come back to class, right now!" Tilly turned her head, annoyed. "It's Tilly." She muttered, sulking back inside the building. The classroom was muttering to themselves, presumably about her. She sat down at desk, glad the long and silent walk through the hallway was over. She opened her textbook back to page she had originally been on, hoping that nothing could interrupt her this time. "Matilda, this is the 4th this week you've disturbed this class." A classmate said. Tilly looked up, annoyed. "And your point being?" The girl narrowed her eyes, a half smile creeping on her face. "It's literally only Monday." The class desperately tried to stifle their laughs, but failed. Tilly growled at the girl. Rue Harper. She was a psycho, and people only like her because her older sister Tiffany was popular. Rue was a Stinging Nettle, a plant that possessed the abilities to paralyze (and/or sting) you on command. "Feed your own ego, Rue. I'm busy at the moment." Tilly replied. Rue scoffed. "Oh, because I'm sure you've got much better things to do, right?"

Tilly rolled her eyes. She knew that if she said anything else, Mr. Archie would give her detention. But not Rue, of course. Mr. Archie nervously snapped his fingers for attention. "Girls, settle down please!"

"Wait your turn, Mr. Archie." Rue said. The teacher look shocked, but sat down in silence. TIlly gave Rue a look. "Did you really just stop the whole class just to scold me for disturbing them earlier?" Yet Rue chuckled, unfazed by her being called out. "Everybody shut up, for goodness sake!" Someone yelled. Rue stood up, looking around all the desks and tables. "Who said that?" She said. Another one of Tilly's classmates stood up, an angry look on her face and seeds surrounding her desk. "Could we get on with the day, please? You've just wasted all of our precious time just so you can say what you could've said after school! I would call you an idiot, but that'd just insult all the stupid people, now wouldn't it?"

The whole class was quiet after Maggie Jenkins finished speaking. Tilly sighed in relief, glad that someone had finally had finally shut Rue up. "Mr. Archie, you can continue." Maggie said calmly. Rue sat back down, her cheeks red with embarrassment. Maggie looked down at Tilly, smiling. She knew it was a genuine smile, so she did it back.

One hour later, the bell rang as everyone was dismissed for lunch. Tilly walked down the marble hallways that were decked with red and yellow lockers. After she had set her books in her locker and grabbed her same old lunch, she turned around to see Maggie standing behind her. Yet Tilly barely flinched. "Uh...Hello." Maggie waved shyly. "Um...Thanks for the help back in class, I guess."

"You are very much welcome. I'd be happy to tell that old witch what's on my mind anytime. She's the type of person who makes you envy what life was like before you met them." Maggie replied. Tilly didn't really want to, but it seemed polite to laugh, so she did. Then there was awkward silence. "Do you wanna sit with me and a couple of people at lunch?" Maggie asked. Tilly nodded, following her (kind of) friend to the lunch room. They sat down at a table that was almost too crowded as people started chatting. One of the girls, who was most likely a marigold, started talking to Maggie. "Hey, Mags! How's it going?"

"It's going good. Rue was being a scuz in class again." Ericka, the marigold, rolled her eyes. "She's so demanding, its like all the attention just has to go to her all day everyday!" Tilly nodded, not knowing what to say. Ericka peeked over to shoulder to see Tilly sitting on the far side of the bench. "Oh, hi! I'm Ericka Taget! You probably recognize the last name because my father is one of the councilman of the town!" *She talks a lot...* Tilly thought. She noticed that there was something in the girl's hair, like a heart shape. "Hey, you've got some kind of...Heart in you hair." Tilly said. Ericka smiled. "Oh, you don't know what this means? A heart in your hair means...Well, it means you're in love." She said. Tilly raised an eyebrow, wondering how she never noticed this before. Maggie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Ericka won't shut up about her boyfriend who took her to the Mayor's Parade this morning."

Ericka giggled, making Maggie roll her eyes again. The three of them were silent for the remainder of lunch, while the rest of the table kept on talking, ignoring them. Tilly stood up to go throw out the scraps from her lunch when she felt a strange sensation shiver through her body. *What just happened?* She thought. She tried to ignore it, but when she attempted at continuing to walk..she felt like she couldn't move. *I-I can't walk...* Tilly felt stiff, and that stinging feeling still shot through her body. The lunch room fell quiet as they heard her grunting as she struggled to move. Tilly heard someone giggle behind her, and knew what had happened. She felt a hand on her shoulder as someone got close to her ear. "Now this is what I call the highlight of my day." Rue whispered. Another shock of pain waved through Tilly, feeling worse than the first two. *How do I get out of this?* Rue's grip on her shoulder got tighter. "What was that you were saying earlier? Oh yes, 'feed your own ego', now I remember." She said. Tilly felt another sensation, but this time it wasn't from Rue. It was Tilly herself. Rue took a step back. "What are you doing?" Tilly started breathing heavy. *Well, might as well put my abilities to good use.*

Her body started to put out a soft blue light as she healed herself. When she could finally move, she turned to face Rue. "How-?" Rue stammered. Tilly took a deep breath, relieved to be set free from the paralysis that Rue had trapped her in. "I'm a Tiger Lily, Rue. Just leave me alone from now on." (Now if you were paying attention to what I said about Tiger Lilies in chapter 1, this will make sense.) She walked away, not wanting to stay there any longer. "Tilly, where are you going?" Maggie asked. The lunch room was still quiet, talking to themselves. Nobody asked if Tilly was okay, nobody told Rue that was she had done was wrong. Nobody even wanted to know how she had broken out of Rue's paralyzation. They all just looked at her like she was a freak, even when she did nothing wrong. "I'm going home." She said, making her way to the doors that led outside. She only had a few hours left in the day, what good would staying at school do?

It was raining hard, so that was just perfect. *Where are all the teachers when you need them...* She thought. She was about to make her way across the street, but heard sniffling behind her. Tilly turned around, but saw nothing but an alley. She took a quick peek at the street light that had just turned green. *I could go home right now, but...*

Afraid that someone might need help, she turned on her heel, walking towards the narrow space, The sniffling got louder and clearer to the point where Tilly could hear crying, too. *Ok, someone is definitely here.*

The closer she got, the more it sounded like a woman. Finally, she saw someone. It was a girl, backed up against the dead end of the alley. She was wearing a crimson dress, if not brown, and it was tattered and worn at the bottom. Her hair was pale and faded, and it looked like she was hurt. The girl's eyes were closed, but she was still crying. "M-ma'am?" Tilly said. The girl snapped open her eyes, inhaling sharply. *It's those eyes again...* Tilly thought.

She had a scared look on her face when she saw who had awoken her. "DON'T HURT ME, PLEASE!" She screamed. Tilly backed up a few steps. "I-I'm not gonna hurt you, I promise! Are you alright?" She crouched down, reaching for the girl's hand. She drew back, keeping her hand out of reach. "No, you don't wanna touch me! I...I'm sick!"

"Why shouldn't I? Whatever sickness you've got just might keep me out of school, and that's an opportunity I don't want to miss out on!" Tilly replied. The girl smiled. "What's your name?" Tilly asked. "It's...Mabel." Tilly blushed. *Mabel...* "I have to get back home, I kind of hurt my leg earlier." Tilly nodded, taking the girl's hand and lifting her up. She didn't mean to, but she held her hands, looking up into her eyes. "Are you alright?" Mabel asked. She continued to stare, until she finally broke the silence. "Will you marry me?"

Mabel gasped. "Huh?"

*I said that out loud, didn't I?*