I was sitting in my car, head as low as I could possibly manage.

My parents drove quietly, both beet red with embarrassment. Lisa couldn’t help but snicker. I felt sorry for her when she kept doubling over and over to stifle her laugh with her jacket. As we sped off, I couldn’t help but drown in the events that had transpired...

"HALLELUJAH!" I yelled, and right as I’d dumped the contents of my glass on Gilbert, the ghost decided to leave my body.

Mother nearly fainted. The mere sight of her face made me frozen stiff to the bones. My head whipped towards the confounded spirit, horror contorting my features. "What did you do?!" I yelled, oblivious to how people could watch me shouting at no one in particular. 

Of course, she didn't respond. She was staring at Gilbert with glee as he let out a scream. Goosebumps washed over my body. "You're evil!"

"No, I’m Selene." She smiled. 

I simply kept staring at her, speechless. A commotion erupted in the banquet hall. Waiters scuttled towards Gilbert with towels and anxious faces while the immediate neighbours complained about their stained dresses with contempt. Mother stormed up the staircase two steps at a time, and before I knew it, their meeting with the conglomerate had been botched and I was being dragged straight home...

"Ah! The glory!" the ghost exclaimed, currently sitting in between Lisa and me, dangling her feet in sheer merriment. She was so oblivious and beyond the reach of the impending disaster that I was feeling jealous. Mother wouldn’t scold her, she couldn’t even see her.

"Oh come on. You sabotaged the meeting and taught that brat a lesson. Two birds with one stone!"

"Sure. Let’s celebrate after I’m grounded."

Selene gave me a long look. At least she kept quiet after that.

Throughout the journey, none of us made a sound, save for Lisa who was occasionally coughing to hide her sudden outbursts. Mother finally noticed it and shot her a glare through the front mirror. She calmed down eventually.

༻❁༺

Needless to say, Lisa and I faced a huge scolding, but it was at times like these that we sisters resorted to an unspoken pact. We knew when to keep our mouths shut. I kept her make-out session a secret from mother the same way she hadn't said a word about my first smoking experience. 

Currently, we sat in the kitchen, quietly eating our food. At least I was. Lisa kept separating her parsley as if she were plucking feathers.

Minutes went by rather slowly until our father showed up, his face stern and cold. Lisa and I automatically straightened our backs. He quietly settled at the dinner table, staring at his empty plate without a sound. The silence was so uncomfortable that Lisa stopped eating her food altogether.

Soon, my mother came back with a bowl full of soup and placed it at the centre of the table. Because we had fled the party, we practically had nothing decent to eat. Mother had hoped she wouldn't have to cook for the night, another reason why she was glaring at me right now.

Lisa and I kept watching our parents from the corner of our eyes. It was only when we were certain that they were more busy eating than thinking about what to say to us that we picked up our spoons and began to gobble down our food at lightning speed. Better finish quick and bolt.

Suddenly, my father declared. "We are moving next month."

I immediately stopped eating. Lisa's head whipped up at him. "What?" she blurted out, her fear morphing into surprise in a split second.

"We are only waiting for Sandra to complete her entrances. Once the results come out, we are leaving."

Despair began to fill me. "But your meeting didn’t go well!" I croaked in defence, making my father flit his gaze up and fix me with a cold glare. Let's just say I lost my appetite after that.

Silence descended again, but I was too nervous to process how long it had lasted. Eventually, mother broke it with a sigh. "Your father is a capable man, Sandra. He doesn’t need a conglomerate to earn a job at the capital."

And with that, she stood up. We didn’t even notice that she had settled last but finished first. She picked up the remaining dishes and went off to clean her plate under the sink. Father had finished by then, so she offered to clean his plate and then retired to her room with her needle and wool. Once they were gone, Lisa sighed and soon followed suit, lazily beginning to scrub her own plate clean, while I kept sitting on my chair in dead silence, shocked. Did they want to go to the capital that bad?

I slammed my head against the table. Fine. We’re just moving out because they expect me to get into an elite academy. If I fare so terribly on my entrances that I get stuck in one of my hometown schools, mother and Lisa will have to stay back with me. Over time, I'll bring my father here too.

Realising it was quite a brilliant idea, I immediately looked up at the calendar. The entrances are towards the end of the month… twenty-ninth of August, was it? Right, only nine days away.

And with that, I buried my head on the table again. Like it or not, to any meticulous student, flunking was still a nightmare. 

From the sounds of the tap closing, I could tell Lisa was already done with her dishes. She turned to look at my plate and instantly let out a frustrated sigh. I couldn't care less.

Wordlessly, she walked up to me, poked on my shoulder, and when I didn't respond, dragged her feet towards the sink again. I heard the tap open as she began scrubbing my plate like she was doing the most boring thing on the planet.

"What are you loitering around for?" Mother’s voice boomed out of nowhere all of a sudden, making Lisa and I straighten our backs in an instant. She was peering out of her room with a stern glare. "Clean up and go back to study!"

I bobbed my head into a nod and went straight to bed. Studying my foot.