CHAPTER XII – MARCH, THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR CALENDAR
By the end of February, Lily had got bored with household duties and had shaken her terror of the loss of their parents.
At least as far as possible. She was sincere in thinking she had overcome it. Besides, she had tired of playing adult. She wanted to be back at school, sit at her lessons and listen to real adults who could instruct her in some ways. Lily did not know how to put it, but the constant tension she felt while she was making decisions about how to approach this or that, was getting on her and slowly, as winter was getting cold as cold was possible, Lily realized she was freezing in this unnatural state of skipped loose spirit.
"The teenage spirit, do you mean?" asked Orange one evening cuddling next to Lily on the couch.
"Yeah, that's right. It's like I am trying to skip a whole portion of my life and I'm not ready for the next one."
"How could you be? I suppose, one age prepares you for the next step." said Orange musing. She looked at Lily with dreamy eyes. Lily's look was not so sharp as usual. Recently, Orange would see her elder sister sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes fixed on a coffee cup in front of her. Orange was sad to see this grim change in Lily. At first she was secretly delighted when Lily seemed tortured with family duties and obligations, because from time to time, her elder sister had treated Orange with condescension, and she considered some nemesis was in order. But then, Lily grew duller and duller, and Orange did not find it so funny anymore. Finally, she knew that Lily had to go back to school and back to her normal self.
So, it was arranged, that Lily would go back to school at the beginning of March. She received an official letter from the school, in which was her "special" programme. She had missed so much, that catching up was hardly possible. Yet, she was supposed to follow the normal school schedule and go to classes with her old group. The Headmaster had decided against a "special" schedule for Lily, for he did not want to prolong her isolation. So, with some difficulties, she was to join school life again and have separate criteria for her examinations. She received the schedule for the football matches as well, accompanied by a special note from Professor Baramova, which said, "The month of March used to mark the beginning of the new year with the ancient Romans, as it celebrated Mars – the god of war. Welcome back to a new year of conquer!" It was so flattering.
Aunt Leonora and uncle Elijah came that weekend to see Lily off. The week before her trip Lily lost her sleep. She had not written back to her friends with the news of her coming back to school. Her only letter to them was right after she had received theirs and it was rather short and impersonal. In fact, Lily was not sure what to say, as all the time she was wondering how to ask about Buster, and not daring to do it. So, her tone was more businesslike than she would have it. In her heart, Lily hoped the school would have notified them and they would be waiting for her. In her mind, she was afraid that might not be the case. In her soul, Lily was in total stupor and dared nothing.
Orange, Leonora and Elijah were at the station and Lily was alone in a compartment. She had all her stuff transported to the school the night before, and had just her purse.
And so, again, they stood at the platform waving and waiting. Starting to regret that she had picked an empty compartment, Lily put down the window and told her family to go.
"No need to wait. The train will leave for sure. Go about your business."
"No, I want to wait." screamed Orange in sheer terror. Lily could see the tears in her eyes.
"I will write to you every Sunday and post the letter on Monday." she promised smiling. "Thus, you will be able to follow my life week by week."
Lily pulled the window closed and sat down on the seat farthest from it. She looked in the other direction intently. The train made a slow motion, jerked and then started accelerating smoothly. Her life as a house-sister-keeper remained behind and her life of a football team captain and girlfriend of Buster was ahead.
She had told them all about the captain thing and nearly all about Buster. She knew no one understood. Of course, her aunt and uncle cared. It was just different. Her father would have cared in a different way. Her mother, too. Even Orange would have reacted differently. But then, to be honest, Orange DID react differently. She did not pay much attention to the football details, but she wanted to know all about Buster. She was trying to imagine him. She was making plans to see him, maybe invite him to a visit, or contrive a complex plan to get into the school herself to get a peek at him.
"Oh, come on!" was Lily's answer. "I don't even know if he remembers me. Maybe I'm still his girlfriend, but he is not my boyfriend anymore."
"What do you mean? How can he not remember you?" Orange gaped again. Lily looked at her sternly and she checked herself.
"It's a good thing you told me that, you know. Otherwise, I would have continued doing it and making a fool of myself." And, forgetting all about Buster, Orange ran in front of the mirror to practice making faces.
So, Lily was sitting in the train, remembering her long and weird Christmas holiday and trying to think ahead. By and by she dozed off. She woke when they were nearly half the way, and she felt difference in the air. She sniffed in suspicion. Then she woke fully and realized the change was not in the air. It was in her head. The football team was getting closer and she could almost feel the harsh wind that was probably sweeping at the football field right then. She craved for the yells of the audience, the drizzle during winter games and the fire in her heart when she touched the ball, the whole team looking up to her for instruction, inspiration and more. More...? What more?
Before the trained stopped at its final station, Lily had put all the housekeeping behind and completely forgotten it. It was the 1st of March, the beginning of the new war year.
Lily in the Moonlight Page 11
