40fandoms: fandom 24
Mar. 24th, 2009 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgs[Title] The Pass List Is Out
[Fandom] Enid Blyton's Malory Towers
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Set post-series, when Alicia and Betty are at the University of St Andrews.
"Damn, damn, damn!"
Alicia never cried. Hadn't she been famous for it, back at Malory Towers? She hadn't cried when Betty had accidentally slammed her fingers in the classroom door and she hadn't cried when she'd been too ill to study and she hadn't cried when she'd left the place. So why was she struggling to get the key into the lock of her room door because everything was blurring too much?
She sniffed, breathed in sharply, forced a cool smile onto her face, but she could still feel the tears wriggling down her skin. They didn't feel like anything to do with her. It was as if someone had splashed water in her eyes.
The key sank into the lock, and she wrenched it open and stumbled inside. The blind was up, and the room was filled with dry, bright sunlight. Dust hung in the light and Alicia walked through it to open the window. The room smelt too musty.
She should do some laundry. She should take out some of these dirty plates. She should tidy up the crumpled papers and return some of the library books, a lot of them were probably overdue, it wasn't as if she had been using them, she'd stopped thinking of them as things to read, they were just things to put a teacup or a photo frame on, how could she have been so stupid?
She wasn't doing anything; she was just standing, staring at the books and at the clothes hanging on the back of her chair and over her wardrobe doors. She hadn't realised things had got this messy. Last night she and Betty had been sitting in here, her on the bed, Betty the wrong way round on the chair, both of them eating toast and talking about today, about the results being posted, about where they would go after this ended, what they would do. They'd stayed up until three o'clock in the morning and the room had just been homely, safe, familiar. Now it seemed to be a clear sign of how much she'd let things slip, and she couldn't believe she'd never noticed. It looked like, like how she imagined Irene's bedroom must be. If someone at school had lived like this - if one of her brothers had lived like this - Alicia would have commented, asked them how they ever managed to find anything, if the inside of their head was as untidy as their surroundings.
Stupid.
There was a knock on the door.
"Alicia?" Betty's voice drifted through the sunlight. "Are you all right?"
Smile. Rub a hand across her eyes. Swallow.
"Of course I'm all right."
"Well, are you going to let me in, or do I have to stand out here?"
Alicia glanced over at her mirror. Bother. Her eyes were red. (Why did she keep letting herself down like this?)
"Give me a second?" she said at last, and her voice was very small.
A sigh. "I suppose I could. At least your place doesn't stink of cabbage as much as mine does."
Alicia didn't bother to reply. Betty was clever (cleverer than you, evidently). Betty had probably guessed that right now Alicia was burying her face in her hands and letting her mouth crumple at last and trying to ease the tears from her eyes without actually making any noise. And closing her eyes and blocking out the chaos around her because she'd seen it for what it was too late.
[Fandom] Enid Blyton's Malory Towers
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Set post-series, when Alicia and Betty are at the University of St Andrews.
"Damn, damn, damn!"
Alicia never cried. Hadn't she been famous for it, back at Malory Towers? She hadn't cried when Betty had accidentally slammed her fingers in the classroom door and she hadn't cried when she'd been too ill to study and she hadn't cried when she'd left the place. So why was she struggling to get the key into the lock of her room door because everything was blurring too much?
She sniffed, breathed in sharply, forced a cool smile onto her face, but she could still feel the tears wriggling down her skin. They didn't feel like anything to do with her. It was as if someone had splashed water in her eyes.
The key sank into the lock, and she wrenched it open and stumbled inside. The blind was up, and the room was filled with dry, bright sunlight. Dust hung in the light and Alicia walked through it to open the window. The room smelt too musty.
She should do some laundry. She should take out some of these dirty plates. She should tidy up the crumpled papers and return some of the library books, a lot of them were probably overdue, it wasn't as if she had been using them, she'd stopped thinking of them as things to read, they were just things to put a teacup or a photo frame on, how could she have been so stupid?
She wasn't doing anything; she was just standing, staring at the books and at the clothes hanging on the back of her chair and over her wardrobe doors. She hadn't realised things had got this messy. Last night she and Betty had been sitting in here, her on the bed, Betty the wrong way round on the chair, both of them eating toast and talking about today, about the results being posted, about where they would go after this ended, what they would do. They'd stayed up until three o'clock in the morning and the room had just been homely, safe, familiar. Now it seemed to be a clear sign of how much she'd let things slip, and she couldn't believe she'd never noticed. It looked like, like how she imagined Irene's bedroom must be. If someone at school had lived like this - if one of her brothers had lived like this - Alicia would have commented, asked them how they ever managed to find anything, if the inside of their head was as untidy as their surroundings.
Stupid.
There was a knock on the door.
"Alicia?" Betty's voice drifted through the sunlight. "Are you all right?"
Smile. Rub a hand across her eyes. Swallow.
"Of course I'm all right."
"Well, are you going to let me in, or do I have to stand out here?"
Alicia glanced over at her mirror. Bother. Her eyes were red. (Why did she keep letting herself down like this?)
"Give me a second?" she said at last, and her voice was very small.
A sigh. "I suppose I could. At least your place doesn't stink of cabbage as much as mine does."
Alicia didn't bother to reply. Betty was clever (cleverer than you, evidently). Betty had probably guessed that right now Alicia was burying her face in her hands and letting her mouth crumple at last and trying to ease the tears from her eyes without actually making any noise. And closing her eyes and blocking out the chaos around her because she'd seen it for what it was too late.
