The Classix

(OLD) Chapter 10

Note: IMAGINES IS OUT! PLEASE PURCHASE A COPY AND TWEET ME ABOUT IT (my twitter is @kassandra_tate). MY IMAGINE IS CALLED "MICHAEL CLIFFORD TAKES YOU TO PROM," AND IT STARTS ON PAGE 527 OF THE BOOK.

I already found it at Barnes & Noble as well as Target. I got very emotional.

I am so sorry for being so late with this chapter. College decisions have been much harder than necessary (the deadline to decide is in, like, 3 days and I haven't decided at ALL). Even more, all my teachers have been like, "I know you guys want to slack off since you're seniors, but TOO BAD. This next chapter is the hardest one yet!!!!" and my grades have been struggling. The last thing I wanted was to view updating Classix as another chore in life. That's not fair to you.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: I'm not even sure. Um. Emeray's birthday happened and somehow she isn't engaged to Cartney. Yet. (???!??!) Also, Norax didn't show up to her birthday at all. This is obviously a pressing issue in this very melodramatic soap opera of a novel.

emeray

    A whole week later, and Norax has yet to show up since vanishing the day before my birthday. Today I hoped I might find an indication that she's back, perhaps one of her coats hanging in the mudroom when I came back from my walk with Cartney. But like every other day this week, the spot for her coat is empty. Like every other day this week, she's no where to be found.

    Wherever she is, none of the Famoux staff will tell me. I consulted Angad, but he made clear to me wasn't given any specifics. When I checked with Mel, Callan's nanny, she only shrugged off the question and offered me a few drops of her favorite Roman chamomile oil, gushing about how stressed I looked. Her father Johnson, the head of most Famoux research in the Metropolix, has been mysteriously unreachable. One of his assistants dismissed me with a smile and half-hearted explanation that he has SO many meetings this week, that Norax ought to be home soon enough.

    If anybody actually knows where she's gone, they aren't telling me. I feel dismissed, like Callan whenever he asks where his uncle Foster has gone. Everyone turns their heads, offers a vague reply, diverts the conversation.

    Putting up my own coat with a sigh, I consider the evening. There's not much of anything for me to do other than check the Analytix. In Norax's absence, I've been having to do my own fieldwork with my image. As far as I heard in the Analytix the morning after my birthday, the general public consensus regarding the whole occasion was mixed. Most people saw right through the surprise party at Ace and called it for what it was––a halfhearted set up to make us appear to be a functional Famoux family. Any frown or quick scowl captured on film was globally scrutinized: Why was Kaytee glaring at Emeray? Why was Till so quiet all night? Did Cartney and Emeray seem distant to anybody else?

    This last rumor, as anxious as it might've made Norax if she was actually around to discover it, is the one I'm the most relieved to hear. People think we're having issues, after all those complains that we're getting too close too fast? Perfect.

    Best of all, the rumors mean that against all odds, Cartney and I somehow alluded DEFED's grand plan to have us engaged by the end of the night.

    I'd call that a victory.

    "But is it really a victory?" Cartney asked me a couple days following. Another day, another afternoon walk with Cartney and Emeray. The ones this week have been a little longer than usual, since Buchan insisted we needed to let everybody know just how totally not distant we really are. Even they seem a little perturbed to be dealing with this all alone, sans the help of Norax.