Chapter Five

One thing remained for Anabelle to do that night: find her room.
Anabelle found it a rather dubious prospect to share a room. At Coronet, she would never have been required to have a roommate, although after seeing the number of students that Landomel Academy took, she could understand why they would have two students to a room.
She hoped her roommate would be a decent sort. Not too loud, agreeable, amenable to lots of fun, not too boring. As long as it was someone other than the girl who’d sat next to her at orientation, she’d be fine.
One of the pieces of paper in her folder gave her room number as 243, and said that she’d be sharing it with one Coraline Atree. She’d never met anyone named Atree before, but Coraline was at least a respectable name. It was a start. At the very least, they’d be able to talk about school.
It took her a few minutes to find the lift, but it was, like seemingly everything else in the school, very well-labeled. If the school took the money they spent on signage and invested it, they’d be able to make this place a lot nicer within a couple years, she thought, as she called the lift down from the fifth floor.
To her surprise, it was a smooth ride up, but then again, it was hard to make a magic-powered lift run awkwardly. It was telling of her impression of the school so far that she’d expected the lift to be bumpy.
The elevator and the second floor were both empty, which was no surprise, given that she’d been last to receive her room number and key. She found the room easily, found that it was unlocked, and knocked lightly on it before pushing it open.
“Hello!” she called, cheerfully. “I’m Anabelle, is anyone in here?”
“Yeah — I’m over here, setting up my bunk. You can come in,” said a muffled voice from inside. Hang on one sec.” There was a rustling sound, and suddenly a ginger-haired girl poked her head around the corner that led to the bedroom area. “I’m Coraline Atree. Here, you just come on in — I took the liberty of setting up on the left side, you can have the right.”
Anabelle was a little surprised at the girl. She had a strange accent — her voice was much broader and rounder than Anabelle would have expected. And she was very tan. Anabelle supposed that she must be from somewhere else — maybe a tropical region. She seemed quite friendly, though, and Anabelle followed her in and plopped her things down on the bed on the right side.
“Thanks,” she said. “So, say,” she added, for the sake of conversation, “where do you come from? Renalia? Brigane? I don’t recognize your accent.”
Coraline colored nicely, despite her dark coloration. “Nevonshire, actually,” she said, flatly, and at Anabelle’s blank stare: “We’re farmers.”
“Oh,” said Anabelle. “That’s… very interesting. What’s it like?”
“It’s difficult,” said Coraline, curtly. “So where are you from?”
“Grigonaire,” said Anabelle, as she opened her valise to pull out a her nightdress and toothpaste. “About a day’s travel by carriage west of here. Lovely area of the country, if I do say so myself,” she added, proudly. “Probably not too different from Nevonshire, then. There’s a lot of wide, open countryside.”
“Perhaps–” began Coraline, but was cut off by a muffled scream from Anabelle. “What is it?” she asked.
“Th-the-there’s a hole in my sheets!” said Anabelle, who had been neatening up the thin sheets on her bed. She straightened, realizing that cringing wasn’t very ladylike, but kept her look of astonished horror. “I mean, it’s not like they’re even good sheets, but there must be a mouse in here somewhere or something like that — you’d think they could do a better job about that sort of thing…”
Coraline wrinkled her nose. “Well, it’s not like there aren’t mice everywhere. Don’t you have them in your house?”
“Not if the butler had any say in it. He always set out traps in the times of the year when they tried to get in the house…”
“You have a butler?” said Coraline, but not with the mixture of surprise and awe that Anabelle was used to accompanying the phrase. In fact, it sounded to her more like disgust.
“Do you have a problem with that?” asked Anabelle, giving her roommate a sideways glance.
Coraline raised an eyebrow. “I just think it’s an odd concept. Why can’t you just do things on your own? It seems a bit… frivolous.”
Anabelle sniffed. “I suppose you’d have an idea of what it’s like, then?”
Frowning, Coraline leaned back against her own bedpost. “Generally, one cannot pay a butler when they are attempting to support a family of seven on a single family farm.”
“You wouldn’t know, then,” said Anabelle, loftily. “It’s very difficult to manage a whole household when you work away from home. Doing very important work.”
“So what kind of work are your parents in?” asked Coraline, icily, and Anabelle realized suddenly that Coraline knew more than Anabelle had been giving her credit for.
“None of your business,” Anabelle retorted, as she smoothed the sheets and inspected the rest of the bed. “Ech, it’s all dirty in the corners under the bed. Do they ever clean these rooms.”
“It’s a very large school. Besides, it’s not so bad. This is bigger than my room at home, anyway.”
“What are you trying to imply?” questioned Anabelle, suspiciously.
Coraline crossed her arms. “I’m trying to imply that you’re a pretentious, holier-than-thou, rich-ass twat who takes everything in her life for granted.”
Anabelle was completely taken aback. “Take that back!”
“Why should I? It’s true.”
“No, it’s not!” retorted Anabelle. “Why, you little–”
She whipped an arm around, palm forward. “You’re going to pay for that,” she growled.
“I doubt it,” said Coraline, shifting to the side and shielding herself with the side of her arm. “I don’t fear pretentious little twits.” She met Anabelle’s glare evenly. “I’d stop now, if I were you. Quit before you make it worse for yourself.”
“As if,” said Anabelle. Behind her, she had wordlessly levitated a small trinket out of her valise. x
The missile shot towards Coraline with incredible speed — and bounced off, a meter away from her, and hovered in midair, at the same level as her other hand, which was outstretched. “Nice try, sweetheart,” she said, and let the trinket drop to the floor.