Determined not to be late, I make the rest of the trek back to Aphrodite Hall in record time. And though I’d hoped to go to my room to change and maybe even braid my hair before the meeting—my mother reminded me when we FaceTimed this morning that Athena girls always look neat and presentable—Fifi meets me at the front door, her big brown eyes gleaming with excitement.
“She’s here!” she shouts over her shoulder as she grabs my hand and starts tugging me down a long, winding hallway while Arjun follows along behind us. “Finally!”
“I’ve still got eight minutes before the meeting,” I tell her as she pulls me through the lobby to the elevator. Butinstead of pushing the button for our floor, she hits the LL button so we go down. “Wait a minute, where are we going? I want to redo my hair—”
“Your hair looks great,” she answers. “Doesn’t it, Arjun?”
My eyes meet Arjun’s sympathetic ones as he comes up behind me. “I think it looks great messy,” he tells me.
“Messy!” My hand goes to what was once upon a time—i.e., this morning—a very neat, slicked-back ponytail. And I realize that ship has definitely sailed. Somehow during the course of the day, my (very) unruly hair has managed to bust out of its restraints and is now half up and half down.
No wonder PT kept looking at me so strangely.
“I can’t go to the meeting like this!” I try to dig in my heels, but we’re walking on tile, so that doesn’t work. Also, Fifi keeps dragging me along like she doesn’t even notice my resistance.
To be fair, maybe she doesn’t. In the week I’ve known her, I’ve learned that Fifi is a force of nature. A benevolent one that gives instead of destroys, but still a force that will disrupt your plans and your life whenever she whirls by.
Because that’s also the best part of her, I give up on trying to stay my own course and just follow along. I do tug my wrist free from her grasp, though, and try my best to smooth my hair into another, better ponytail as we wind our way down two more halls.
But when we make our way down a fourth hallway—this place really can be confusing if you aren’t paying attention—I notice something move out of the corner of my eye. I turntoward it just in time to see a bunch of the tiles slide around on the wall.
“Did you see that?” I ask, stopping dead in the middle of the hallway.
“See what?” Arjun asks, looking baffled as he tries to figure out what I’m staring at.
“The tiles—” I start, but break off because they aren’t moving at all now. They’re just staying where they belong, making up another abstract mosaic—this one filled with lots of reds and oranges and yellows.
“I don’t know. I thought I saw…” I trail off, not sure what to say.
“You’re probably hallucinating from low blood sugar,” Fifi tells me as we start walking again. “And I know exactly what will fix that. The can—”
“There!” I stop in my tracks because several tiles just shiftedagain. “Tell me you saw that!”
But Arjun and Fifi both look baffled. “What are we supposed to be looking at?” my roommate asks.
Arjun steps closer to the wall. “What do you see, Ellie?”
“You really don’t see it?” I move closer too, so I can trace my fingers over a couple of the small, colored tiles. “The mosaic keeps moving.”
“Moving how?” Arjun asks, stepping closer as well. He sounds more curious than doubtful, which I appreciate, considering how strange I must sound.
“I don’t know. I usually catch it out of the corner of my eye, and then when I turn to look, everything just looks normal.”
“That’s so cool!” Fifi says as she narrows her eyes at the abstract mosaic we’re all standing in front of. “Do they spell out words or make a pattern?”
“I can’t tell because it happens so fast. And right now they just look normal, but…” I shrug. “It’s happened a few times now, so I can’t believe I’m imagining it.”
“Of course you’re not imagining it!” Fifi slings a supportive arm around my shoulders. “Maybe Aphrodite is trying to tell you something. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Beyond cool,” Arjun agrees as he, too, studies the mosaic, waiting for something to move.
Surprise, surprise, nothing does. Maybe I’m imagining things after all.
“We should get going,” I finally say. “We’re just wasting time.”
Arjun and Fifi exchange a look I don’t even try to decipher as we start walking again. “What?” I ask.
Fifi sighs. “You know, Ellie, just because something doesn’t work out the way you think it should doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time.”
