Scarlet Discovers True Strength (10 page)

“Keep your stars up,” said Vega. She reached out and gave Scarlet's arm a squeeze. “If we see Lady Cordial, we'll ask her about your reports….I'm sure we'll have some good news for you by the time you're done helping here!”

“Well?”

“Starf
!”

“
Scarlet!
Moon and
stars
!”

“You scared the light out of us!” Vega gasped.

“Star apologies.” Scarlet stepped all the way around the column she'd been standing behind and pulled her hood back from her face. They were in the hall outside Lady Stella's office, where Scarlet had been lurking for a starhour, or quite possibly longer. She could have waited for Vega and Cassie to holo-call or text her, but waiting had never been Scarlet's style.

“Why were you hiding?” asked Cassie.

“I wasn't
hiding
. I was just trying to stay out of sight…” Scarlet explained.

Cassie and Vega wrinkled their glittery foreheads.

“Anyway,” Scarlet went on. “What happened? Who got the mission? And what did Lady Stella have to say about
me
? I didn't see Ophelia come out. Have they already told her about the mistake?”

Vega's cheeks flashed ever so faintly. Cassie's lip slid beneath her teeth. Scarlet couldn't tell if they looked more like they'd eaten too much zoomberry cake or like someone had stolen cake from them.

“What's wrong?”

Vega's and Cassie's eyes met and something passed between them. Scarlet felt her glow dim as it did.

“Tell me.”

Vega took a deep breath. “The Wish Orb was Ophelia's.”

“The Wish Orb…the Wish Orb was
what
?”

“The Wish Orb was Ophelia's,” Vega said again, letting her breath out as she did.

“Wait…so what are you saying?”

“The Wish Orb was Ophelia's,” Cassie patiently repeated.

Scarlet's glow returned in a flash, this time hot pink. “I get that,” she muttered. “But are you saying…Are you saying a
Star Darling
Wish Orb chose Ophelia? Are you saying the next Star Darling mission is
hers
? Are you saying…” Scarlet closed her eyes and opened them slowly. “Are you saying Ophelia is going to go to Wishworld to grant a wish instead of
me
?”

Vega nodded.

“Or at least almost there,” Cassie said.

“Star apologies, Scarlet. For what it's worth, we believed you…but you were wrong, I guess.” Vega reached out to touch Scarlet's shoulder, but Scarlet stepped away.

“I wasn't
wrong
,” she snapped. “There was nothing to be wrong about. Scores are scores. I saw what I saw. Tell me…Lady Cordial…what did she have to say?”

Vega and Cassie responded with shrugs.

“Not much,” said Vega, “as usual. She just wished Ophelia lucky stars.”

“That's all? She didn't mention the holo-records? Did she at least look starprised?”

“
Everyone
looked starprised,” said Vega.

“Especially Ophelia,” Cassie agreed.

“Actually, Lady Cordial probably looked the least starprised,” added Vega. “Maybe she'd already looked into your theory, Scarlet, and all the holo-records, and didn't see what you think you saw.”

“No one's saying you're lying, Scarlet—or that we were happy to see you go….And we're definitely not saying there aren't weird things going on….”

“But I don't think your leaving the Star Darlings is one,” added Vega.

“You can still help us get to the bottom of the flower mystery!” said Cassie brightly.

“
Flowers?
Are you shooting my stars? I don't give a crater about your flower mystery,” Scarlet fired back. “I hope whoever sent them sends you a hydrong more, in fact!”

The rest of the day
passed in a haze of bitter disappointment for Scarlet. She skipped lunch in the Celestial Café and filled her stomach with cocomoons and gloranges from the Starling Academy orchard instead. Since Starland fruit grew back, full and ripe, as soon as it was picked, Scarlet didn't have to worry about taking too much—or getting in trouble for it.

Skipping class was another story. That wasn't as easy to do. So Scarlet sat through hers, hood pulled down, in the farthest back corner of each room. She barely listened to the lessons, though, since what did they matter to her now? Did she even want to go to Wishworld to grant wishes? The more she thought about it…who
cared
?

So as Professor Andromedus Galapas droned on about the Enlightenment and the lighterature of the day, Scarlet drafted a holo-message to her parents, begging them to take her…
somewhere
, since they didn't exactly have a home.

She read it over…raised her finger…

She sighed and hit
DELETE
.

“You'd like to go, Scarlet?”

“Huh?” Scarlet heard her name and looked up.

Professor Galapas was staring at her. So was the rest of the class. Open holo-books hovered in front of everyone but Scarlet, their text projected into the air.

“You raised your hand? You'd like to read aloud next?”

“What? No, sir. I mean, I didn't mean to.” Scarlet looked at her finger, which was still in the air, then back at the teacher in the front of the room.

His bald head gleamed like the ice-covered summit of the Crystal Mountains. His face was as round as a star ball and just as bright. When he wore dark robes, as he usually did, it was almost as if the moon was up there teaching the class.

“‘
Mean
to.' A mere technicality. Some things are written in the stars. Please, Scarlet,
enlighten
us. Just pick up where Leona concluded, if you don't mind.”

Scarlet panicked slightly, and her eyes cut to her old roommate, whose seat was always front and center in every room, like she was a curly-haired sun for the world to orbit.

“Um…” She opened her holo-book and projected a page. She had no idea if it was the
right
one. Before she could read, though, and know for certain, the image in front of her blinked. The page changed, and Scarlet sensed Leona looking at her with a half smile on her bright gold-flecked face.

“You owe me.”

Scarlet had barely escaped from Constellation Classroom 315 when a voice behind her made her stop.

“What?” She knew the voice before she turned. Still, she hadn't expected Leona's expression, which was somewhere between “Please, don't leave me” and “Gotcha!”

“You owe me,” Leona repeated.

“Uh…star salutations…?” Scarlet said. Leona had been unexpectedly generous in giving Scarlet the correct page number, she supposed. She bowed and reluctantly worked to soften her permanent frown.

But Leona shook her head. “I don't want your salutations.”

“Then what do you want?”

Leona crossed her tawny, sparkling arms over her gold mesh tunic. “I want you to come back to the band.”

“Oh.” Scarlet jammed her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. “Star apologies. No can do. Besides, have you happened to notice you have a new roommate?
Ophelia?
” She could feel her cheeks glowing hotter and hotter. “I'm not a Star Darling anymore.”

Leona shrugged. “Who said you had to be one?”

“Uh, you did, I'm pretty sure.”

“Did I?” Leona squeezed one eye shut, trying to remember. “Well, if I did, then I changed my mind.”

“Great. Then find one of the other hydrongs of students here to be your drummer, because I'm not interested,” Scarlet said.

“Oh, come
on
,” Leona groaned. “Stop
pouting
already and just come
back
. At least until Starshine Day, so we can win the battle of the bands.”

Scarlet laughed. “You're hystarical, you know that, Leona?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Do you honestly think I care one proton about some Starling Academy battle of the bands? Or if the Star Darlings win?
Especially
after the way you wrote me off the moogle you found out I wasn't a Star Darling anymore? How about I put this in your own words, the ones you said when I came to you then: ‘I don't give a star.' How's that? Hmmm? Now you know how it feels.”

Leona stood there, her glow visibly faded. She clearly didn't know what to say. Scarlet would have been happy with a simple “star apologies,” but that was a lot to ask, she guessed.

Or was it?

Leona's golden lips slowly opened and a word began to form.

Beep!

She jumped at the sudden sound of her Star-Zap and quickly pulled it out. Whatever the holo-text said, it made her eyes pop, and whatever word she'd had primed disappeared.

“Gotta fly!”

“What happened?” asked Scarlet.

Leona paused. “It's Ophelia…” she began. Then she checked herself and turned away.

“What about her?” Scarlet went on.

But by then, Leona was gone.

If Leona had any idea Scarlet was following her, she didn't let on. When it was clear that she was heading to Lady Stella's office, Scarlet hung back a little more. She hugged the cool marble wall at the end of the corridor and watched Leona and the other Star Darlings file over the threshold….Then, just as the door started closing, Scarlet silently slipped through.