Starlight and Shadows

Chapter 11: Hi Blake!

There was something magical about reading a good book.

Reaching over to take a drink of her tea Blake adjusted herself in her bed. Taking a sip of her tea, sweetened with honey, she gave a quiet sigh. The others were out today, making it a rare moment of quiet in their room where she could simply enjoy her book in peace and quiet. Mid-day light filtered in through the window, illuminating the room with natural sunlight.

A flash of white appeared at the center of their room.

"Hi Blake! Are you busy?"

Glancing over at the blue-haired girl Blake lowered her book. "Hello Zeffre... I was reading," she said. Looking closer at her Blake noticed her hair was disheveled, and clutched in her right hand was a well-worn notebook.

Zeffre gave her a strained smile. "Oh. Sorry. Uhh... Blake," she began, approaching Blake's bed, notebook still gripped tightly in her hand. "Blake... the numbers... they don't make sense..."

Marking her place in the book Blake set it down before giving Zeffre a half-lidded look. "What are you talking about?"

Zeffre's eye twitched as she flopped over onto her bed, lying face down on the comforter. "mhnnn mngh mnmghn!"

'She's in an annoying mood,' Blake thought. From the past few weeks Blake had learned that Zeffre liked to be dramatic sometimes. This was one of those times.

"I can't understand you," she said, her ears involuntarily twitching under her bow.

Zeffre lifted her head, disheveled blue hair spread out on the bed. "The numbers! They don't add up!," she exclaimed, throwing her notebook onto the bed. "I've been staring at these pages for the past two hours, and the math doesn't work," she whined. "I've got a meeting in thirty minutes. Please, can you look at it for me?"

Picking up the notebook Blake looked over the page that it was open to. "Zeffre, I have no idea what I'm looking at...," she said, eyes scanning the diagrams and arrows separated by complex formulas that had more letters than numbers. Whatever she was looking at, she was certain that it had nothing to do with schoolwork.

"Just... is there anything obvious that I missed? Please, I've gone over the steps, like, twenty times at this point. I have to be missing something," she begged.

Blake looked over the pages again. From what she could recognize, this had something to do with electronics. She knew enough to recognize the symbol for a resistor, but past that the writing quickly became an incoherent series of terms and numbers. However, she did notice something.

"Zeffre... on this page you define x to be equal to negative twenty-four, right?", she asked, holding out the notebook and pointing to the variable.

"Yeah?"

"Then why, on this next page, did you write x being equal to positive twenty-four?", she pointed to the spot on the next page.

Zeffre stared at the page for a long time before looking back at Blake.

"Blake... You're a genius and I love you," she said, staring directly into Blake's eyes before abruptly hugging her. Tightly.

"Uh... you're welcome," Blake said, awkwardly patting her on the back.

They hugged for a few moments in complete silence.

"Two hours of my life...," Zeffre muttered into her shoulder.

Blake rolled her eyes at her friend's antics. "You'll be okay."

Letting go of her Zeffre sat on Blakes bed and scanned the pages of her notebook. "If that is meant to be negative twenty-four, that means that this equals this, which means this is," she muttered flipping through the pages. "Okay, great. This makes sense now," she said, turning to give Blake a smile.