Harper wasn’t just extremely talented with her studies, but also at gluing her eyes to a phone screen. So much so, that her friends at the cafe table were starting to notice her obsession with it and tried to pull her out of the digital world.

"Hey Harper dearest, you wanna put the phone down and order breakfast? You're the last one now, we don’t wanna be waiting around for you to finish your cuppa and vegemite toast. Places to go, you know?”

One of the girls chimed up, pulling down on the top of the phone screen like an intrusive parent. Felicite was her name, and along with her was Patty and Georgia who smiled playfully at the situation. These three were Harper’s closest friends at The SilkenArts academy, even if they did drive her mad some days. They were a rather simple group of girls that weren't entirely interested in studies, but it only made Harper feel smarter being around them. Not that she saw them as stupid in any way.

Harper laughed slightly as she was forced to stop reading her texts and placed her phone gently on the table. She sighed, acting a bit half-heartedly.

"Okay okay, sorry, just having a long chat with Atlas, important stuff you know. Stuff like…me, and you guys, the whole academy! The important stuff he left behind?"

There was an obvious tinge of sarcasm at the end of her sentence that made the group laugh.

"You know, I might actually need two coffees at this point.” She mumbled to herself.

Already standing from her chair, Harper quickly grabbed her wallet and ran up to the counter of the cafe. This was her favourite spot to buy breakfast because not only was it a charity-supporting cafe, but they also served some of the best coffee in town. She couldn't get enough of the stuff, and it was a permanent ‘to-do’ task for her to obtain it every morning before class. It was pretty much the only way she was going to stay awake long enough to get anything done in a day. Standing at the counter, she gently played with the red-toned banksia plant nearby in its decorative pot. She noticed how it withered because it normally flowered in winter which had just passed.

The cashier that Harper knew very well approached the service side of the counter, brushing his hair out of his face after loading up the bottom shelf of the bread ovens.

"Morning Harper, how can I help you?" He welcomed her with a kind smile, one that Harper reciprocated.

She pretended to think for a few seconds with her finger to her chin, taking out her credit card as she did.

"Just the usual again thanks Ricky, I'm not about to try anything else at the moment. Even if my week has been a bit of a crisis."

He chuckled softly and smiled as Harper handed her card over.

"I wouldn't expect anything else of you really, even when you're with a different crowd."

He was very obviously talking about the other girls at the table. Most days, Harper would turn up with Atlas to the cafe, despite his pleas to sleep in for an extra ten or twenty minutes. Things were going to change now that he was gone.

She was too deep in thought to realise the strange look that Ricky gave to her card.

"American Express? This is Australia, Harper, we don't take those, unfortunately."

He handed back the card, a twinge of a smile on his face. Harper shot back an awkward smile and a nervous laugh, realising her incompetent mistake.

“Sometimes”, Harper inspected, “I don’t have the brains to understand what I'm doing. Or maybe I just need a stronger coffee some mornings.”

She covered her mouth in a hushed laugh and wove the card through her fingers nervously. The accepting cashier responded with a gentle smile.

“You know what?”

“What?” She replied eagerly with some amount of curiousness.

“You can have this one on the house. I’m pretty sure I have to give you a discount now anyway since it’s been sitting out for at least five minutes. You’re welcome to make a complaint about the temperature if it doesn’t appeal to your taste.”

Harper laughed again, this time with a joyful radiance.

“I’ll accept your offer, but it better be a good batch like always, and not the cheap stuff!”

She accepted the generously donated coffee from him and bowed lightly, a kind gesture she often used, being such a dramatic actor. The other girls smiled at her, knowingly, once she returned the table, thinking it was some sort of romantic show. She rolled her eyes at them and sipped on her coffee just as they enjoyed their breakfast.

A quiet buzz came from her phone on the table. She looked down at it to read Atlas's message, furrowing her eyebrows in visual annoyance at it. Sometimes she despised his blasé reactions, especially during serious conversations.

"It's not even my fault I had to leave. Blame someone who isn't me for once, Harper."

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier then?”

“Tell you what?”

“Are you stupid? Why didn’t you say anything about moving?”

“I dunno, I don't think I knew?”

“How could you not know? You literally live with your parents. I could have dropped out of the competition but now I have to partner with someone else.”

“Sorry that I hurt you, I guess.”

Harper could hear the dryness in his voice from across the screen, and she could tell he wasn't as invested in the conversation as she was. Although, she was also surprised at how quickly he was responding this early in the morning; usually he would sleep day in and out through the holidays. She wished he'd just gone back to sleep though because every one of his short and effortless replies only frustrated her more. How could he not take such an issue seriously? Was he really that oblivious to her situation?

Harper was suddenly snapped out of her deep thinking when Patty directed a question at her.

"So, are you ready for the big night tonight? You gotta do that presentation speech thing now that Atlas is gone right?"

Harper quickly looked up at her friend Patty, the most prying one of the group, giving her an acknowledging smile.

"Why of course. I've been prepping ever since yesterday afternoon when I found out."

Patty piped up again, a confused look had spread across her face.

"Wait, you only learned about it yesterday as well? What on earth? Anyone would think you'd be the first to find out… but that's just cold."

Harper nodded sadly, twirling her fingers through a lock of her hair.

"There was no forewarning for me, neither for him. I think we'd both found out at the same time actually. It was just a decision made in an instant by his parents. I told him that he was old enough to not have to listen to them, but you know Atlas…"

She gave them a nervous laugh before continuing.

"He's practically managed by his parents; they control his life. Horrible helicopter parents they are."

Her friends listened to her speak about Atlas, and they all seemed very understanding but also quite distant from the matter. None of them had ever been personally close to the boy like Harper was. Georgia spoke up, a calm sympathetic tone to her voice.

"We’re going to miss him just as much as you, Harper. He was an essential part to our group, just as much as anyone else at Silken."

Harper nodded, but she'd seen through pretty much everything her friend had said. She knew everyone had been after Atlas from the start. Even though they were technically permanent partners, all the other girls in the class, including Harper's friend group, would have killed to get a chance to perform with him. Those dreams and wishes would have died along with Harper's chance at being the main role in-class performances ever again.

She felt no sympathy for the jealous ones anyway.

Nonetheless, Harper did have a sliver of decent news. The fact that she was his replacement for the speech that night was enough to get her excited about her future at the academy. All she wanted to do was boast about it.

"I mean, Atlas even helped me with the script and everything for this speech before he left. He only had the guts to tell me once we met up why I had to do it rather than him. He already had dot points half planned for me just in case I had no idea what to talk about. Cause you know, we’re dance partners for life and all that. The teachers basically expect us to work as a team if one half seems to fall and fail."

She was somewhat telling the truth about the script, having used half of Atlas's writing. That being said, it wouldn’t have been much of a help since it was only a few dot points he'd written up on a scrap piece of paper. She suspected he planned to write it on the morning of the event, much like every other assignment he'd ever turned in at the last minute. She still couldn't understand how anyone could procrastinate that much and still be an excelling student.

Her smile faded when the group of girls laughed at her mention of Atlas helping with the speech. Georgia, the tallest one in the group spoke up, confident in her next remark.

"That's probably for the best, you know. We all know Atlas is far more eloquently spoken than you, girl."

She spat the comment at Harper with such a harsh sting to her words, but it was all in good jest towards her friend. Harper responded with a grin and a sip of her coffee. Alas, it was the cold sip that Ricky had warned her of. Her expression soured slightly.

The harsh comment from her friend sat in the back of her mind and she knew it was truer than they could imagine. Atlas certainly had a smoother way with words than her.

"Not to mention", Georgia piped up again, "He's got a much better voice than you too.”

Harper frowned in frustration at the girls as they mocked her willingly and without remorse. She was a bit upset that they would even consider the thoughts they expressed. However, she supposed that couldn't be avoided, hanging around a group of girls known for vicious gossip.

"Well, it's not like he's a pitch-perfect singer either! And I'm certainly not tone deaf-"

She was swiftly interrupted by Felicite, who gently began patting her on the back as a show of pity.

"It's okay Harper, you don't have to admit a fault everyone already knows about. It’s just a waste of your precious voice."

Harper rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at the girl, garnering yet another mocking laugh from the group. Although she had been taunted, she smiled at them genuinely. Friendship was all about banter for her, so she enjoyed these types of conversations, somewhat.

"Despite all that,” She started her rebuttal, “You can't kick me down before you've even heard my speech. It's just a silly little thankyou and acceptance thing for the teachers to feel happy about anyway. It can't be that hard to write a script for. Perhaps, maybe I'll do something creative and turn it into a stage play."

She added the last comment jokingly, raising her eyebrows at the mention of a stage play for a speech of all things, but her friends lit up at the sound of her wacky idea. Their expressions lightened with winsome smiles and Patty was the first to approve the idea.

"You know, that could actually be super cool! The ceremony won't be as bland as last year's, then!"

The other two agreed, nodding intensely. Harper could only give a confused expression in response, along with a shrug of her shoulders; there was no way the teachers would pass an idea such as that for a ceremonial speech.

"Yeah, oh my goodness if I have to hear another financial success speech, I'm going to neck myself. I didn't even know we had a finance crew!"

Felicite made a morbid rope-tying action around her neck and laughed with the group, poking her tongue out as if she were choking on it. Seeing their reaction to her idea, Harper continued, making a dramatic stand to her feet, and reciting a script from the top of her head in a very theatre-like manner.

"The scene goes as follows!" She began, with a gentle bow and a wink of her eye.

Swiftly whipping her hand up to her forehead, she struck a pose as if she were about to faint, closing her eyes to the morning sun above.

"My dear partner, vanished into the wind, a leaf in the breeze! Oh, if only I could see him again, if I had the chance to dance with him again, my life would be complete!”

She stepped around the table as she acted out her dramatic play, obviously overexaggerating her performance beyond anything believable. Tapping each of her friends on the head as she hopped around, she poured her heart into her words. It was much like a game of ‘duck, duck, goose’ between four very excitable children.

“Each and every single one of you, you’re worth nothing to me!”

Her friends sighed in fake disappointment, playing along with the narrative. Patty showed her sign of appreciation by forming an ‘L’ with her fingers towards Harper and poking out her tongue. Harper grinned, loving the response.

“But perhaps, you can become something to me, something… important, I shall say. Oh, and if only I had someone to help me find my dear partner, oh perhaps, I may just appreciate them a bit more! The concern they would show, the effort they would put in…”

She paused to take Georgia's hand as a prince would to a princess in a fairy tale. Georgia faked a flustered expression.

“Oh, it could be just charming enough that I might consider replacing my dear doting partner!”

Georgia jumped to her feet also with a loud exclamation.

“I accept, your honour! Your majesty! Your highness!”

The other two jumped up, wanting to get in on the fictional story that was unfolding before them. A few onlookers in the cafe began to turn their heads to the scene, finding it rather amusing.

“You’ll never find him!” Felicite roared in imitation of a villain archetype. “He’s lost to the void now, another plane of existence, worlds apart!”

Harper put on her most professional offended expression and wiped a fake tear away. At the same time Patty squeaked out her contribution, as she did in her normal peppy way.

“Hey, I know where he is! I think I saw a little blue-tongue lizard near the gum trees behind the building! It looked a lot like him!”

The whole group laughed in unison, and Patty grabbed hold of Felicite's arm to drag her over to the trees out the back. Felicite protested at first, taking a final sip of her coffee before she ran off with Patty.

"Oh goodness…" Georgia sighed with a smile, placing her palm to her forehead.”

"Do you have time for an adventure, Harper? We should probably go follow them."

Harper shrugged and laughed lightly, she knew this was all her fault, it was too funny to not follow through to the end.

"I mean, sure, I have a bit of time. I've got some things to do this afternoon but in the meantime…"

She linked arms with her friend and skipped after the other pair as they hurriedly ran around the coffee shop.

"Let's go find that lizard!”