“Carnie…” I whispered. “Carnation…. Rose and Carnation…. She’s your…”
“Sister,” he finished for me. “She’s my sister, and I’m her tag-a-long. And I think Jumé and Fame are… half tag-a-long, if there is such a thing. We all entered the game at the same time; it’s why our names sound so similar: Jumé-falio, Fame-jujio, and Mají-jalio.”
“Fame has a second half to his name?” I asked.
Mají nodded, “Yea, his full name is Fame-jujio, but it sounds better with just the first half.”
“Not to mention that it stops the three of you from sounding like triplets,” I giggled.
“It’s a mouthful,” he agreed. “People can ignore it when it’s only Jumé and I. The names here are strange enough that having something slightly similar isn’t so bad. It’s the last names that will kill you.”
“Like my brother and I,” I breathed. “Red and Scarlet.”
“Rose and Carnation,” Mají added. “At least your last name sounds cool. You could pass yours off to someone who didn’t know Red very well. With you having fire as a power the name Scarlet actually sounds amazing. I got a flower, and there’s no way I could pass that off. I’d be emasculated the second the other pirates found out.”
“Even Carnie hides her flower name,” I realized.
“She didn’t like it either,” he laughed. “Don’t get me wrong. She loves flowers… she grew all sorts of them as a kid, or tried to. She could never tell the flowering weeds apart from the real flowers, so she took care of them all…. But here? She said she didn’t want to seem weak. You’ve seen how this world is toward girls. She didn’t think a flower could survive. Carnie sounds more…
“Eccentric,” I finished. “It makes her sound mysterious and unpredictable…. That’s how I’ve always seen her anyway.”
“And you don’t even know her properly,” he said, sighing. “She isn’t even like this, or she wasn’t… before the game.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
Mají sighed again, reaching up and pulling down two pillows from the bed. He sat on one, tucking the other behind me.
“It’s a long story,” he warned. “And I don’t need you interrupting with questions… I’ll answer those at the end I guess. But I want you to know… You need to know what happened to us… what I’m afraid will happen to you if you and your brother don’t make peace between you.”
I nodded, unable to resist making a sarcastic comment to relieve the serious atmosphere. “Should I hold my applause until the end too?”
He decided my question wasn’t worth an answer.
“Jumé, Fame, and I are all from the same city,” Mají began softly. “We thought we were clever, pulling pranks and running before the cops could show up. It was innocent fun most of the time; we didn’t see any harm in glittering the air vents or putting the principal’s car on cinderblocks. I think we would have been left alone, but I started skipping classes, Fame got into fights, and Jumé never seemed to come home at night. It was Fame’s mom’s idea originally, to send him to Effugere. She was worried that if Fame didn’t buckle down and get an athletic scholarship that he would lose all hope of getting into any college. We guys didn’t care of course, we hadn’t even entered eighth grade yet, who thinks about college that early? But my mom thought it was a great idea, ship all the boys off to straighten up a bit, teach us a lesson. So they conspired to bring the three of us here, to Effugere.
YOU ARE READING
FireSweet
Fantasy"My name changed before my eyes, the paper before me read "Welcome Gittoran Scarlet", I felt a searing pain in my left shoulder and the world spun around me. I dropped to the floor, and blacked out." Gittoran was your average party-girl with attit...
