Once

Thirty Five

The next morning Elle overslept.

She woke up slowly, groggily, the way you wake up after you've fallen asleep napping and have accidentally drifted into a very deep sleep. She rolled over, her whole body aching all over, and lifted her phone to her face.

Five missed calls, twelve messages. 8:32 a.m.

Shit.

In three minutes she was downstairs, desperately yanking on her shoes in the hall. Footsteps padded down from the kitchen - she didn't look up, but a loud slurp of coffee told her that her dad was standing over her.

"Hey, Elly-belly! What's all the rush?"

"I'm late, dad. I was meant to meet Russell five minutes ago."

She felt her phone buzzing in her pocket again. She let it keep ringing as she finished tying her right shoe and began pulling on the left.

"I'll give you a lift, if you like. It's your last exam today, isn't it? Can't have you being late for that."

"It's fine, dad. I'm meeting the guys, anyway."

"But -"

"I said it's fine."

He didn't answer her for a second. He gave another slurp of coffee that went through her like nails on a chalkboard.

"Y'know, I feel like I haven't seen you all weekend, Elly-belly."

"I've been busy. And I've said not to call me that."

"Sorry. I guess you've been out with your friends?"

"Yep."

"Everything alright at the minute?"

"For god's sake!" She shot him a hard glower. "I've told you I'm fine. Like I said, I've been busy."

He looked hurt. He bit his lip a little, then said quietly:

"Elle, you might be all grown up now, but you're always going to be my little girl. I'm sorry, but you're not going to change that. And you can't blame me for worrying about you."

Elle stared resolutely down at the shoelace she was tying. She said:

"Maybe you should find yourself something else to worry about."

It was a low shot, and she knew it. But she was late, she was exhausted, and she was in the middle of a battle against dark magical forces that were threatening the lives of everyone in town. She didn't need her dad piling in on top of all that.

She leapt to her feet, throwing her bag over her shoulder.

"Bye, dad."

"Best of luck today, Elly-belly."

She gave an exasperated groan as she pulled the front door shut behind her.

*

David was waiting at the corner of the street. He didn't have his bike today - he'd left it locked up at school when they went to the Collection the day before. He made a show of tapping manically at his wrist as Elle jogged up to him.

"I know, I know!" she said. "I'm sorry. I overslept - my alarms didn't go off -"

"Let's just get going. Our English exam starts in twenty minutes."

They plunged into the woods, beating a hastier-than-usual step along the path.

"So," David said, "have you recovered from last night?"

Elle looked away. She didn't want to go over all that again - another occasion when her friends had to haul her off the floor and bring her round, the hours afterwards when they'd sat at Jax's house trying to unpick everything. It had been exhausting and embarrassing enough to live through it all. She didn't need a post mortem on it when she was already having a bad morning.