Chapter 6: Darcy and Theresa

A girl with bobbed brown hair and a pink dress with a full skirt grinned and waved back at Edie. She took a step toward them, but then another girl, who had long brown hair, put her hand on the first girl's arm and stopped her. The second girl looked upset. They turned to each other and started talking, their lips moving rapidly, though Dawn couldn't hear a word they were saying over the noise in the dining hall. If only she'd learned to read lips.

"What's going on?" she asked Edie in a low voice.

Edie shook her head, obviously confused. "Those are Darcy and Theresa... remember, I told you about them, from the Circle of the Goddess?"

Dawn nodded, turning back for another look at the two girls. Theresa was the girl, apparently transgendered, whom Payton and Elena had kicked out of the club. Darcy was her friend. They had talked about inviting those two to the new pagan club, which was probably what Edie was trying to do now, but there seemed to be some problems with that.

However, when Dawn turned around again, the two were walking toward them. The shorter one with the pink dress was smiling, the other one not so much. "Hi, Edie!" said the first when they reached the table. "How are you?"

"I'm good, thanks," said Edie. "These are my friends Annie, Dawn, Rico, and Duncan. Guys, this is Darcy and this is Theresa. Come on and sit down."

Darcy took the seat next to Annie, across from Duncan, and Theresa took the seat on the end, though she pulled it a little toward Darcy and away from Duncan. "Theresa has something she'd like to say to you, Edie," said Darcy primly.

Theresa glared at her friend, then sighed and turned to Edie. "Darcy told me about how you stood up for me after I left the Circle of the Goddess meeting," she said reluctantly. "Thank you."

Edie blushed slightly. "You're welcome. I felt really bad for the way they were treating you. You didn't deserve that."

"But you didn't walk out on the meeting, did you?" said Theresa, scowling.

"Um, neither did Darcy," said Edie, obviously taken aback.

"Hey, from what I heard, those two have a lot of charisma," said Dawn. Edie looked like she was getting upset and Dawn wanted to prevent an argument. "It's hard to just leave a group like that. But everyone here has left the Circle of the Goddess club now."

"Really?" asked Darcy. Theresa perked up a little.

Edie nodded, taking a deep breath. "That's why I called you over, actually. Corrie and I are starting a new pagan club. We were hoping you would be willing to join."

Darcy stared for a moment, then slowly, her lips spread into a happy grin. "I'd love to. I know you guys won't run a club full of prejudice and snobbishness."

"Definitely not. We want to welcome everyone."

"You'll come too, right, Theresa?" asked Darcy.

"I don't know..." said Theresa.

"If you're interested in paganism, you really should join," said Annie. "I'm only vaguely interested and I'm going to join anyway." She blushed a little--that seemed odd, Dawn hadn't though Annie was that shy--but continued anyway. "It'll be fun, and Edie has a ton of books."

Edie laughed. "Actually, Corrie's mom lent me those. But given her attitude about it, I bet she'll be happy if I let other people read them too. We'll ask Corrie. But I promise you, whatever we end up doing in this club, it will be nothing like Circle of the Goddess."

"At least give it a shot," Darcy urged.

Theresa finally laughed and nodded. "Fine, I'll go to the first meeting, at least. With all this enthusiasm, how could I refuse?"

"Great!" said Edie. "We're planning to meet on Tuesday in the Gilkey common room... though you know, I don't think we ever agreed on a time."

"Well, here, let's exchange email addresses." Darcy opened her purse--which was white with pink trim that matched her dress--and pulled out a little notebook and pen. She wrote something, then handed Edie a piece of paper and a pen. Edie wrote down her email address and handed it to Dawn to write hers, then they swapped.

"Okay, great," said Dawn. "Now we have a real club. And Corrie didn't think people would join."

"Actually..." Edie pursed her lips, staring into space. Dawn stared back at her, wondering what she was doing. After a moment, she grinned. "I just counted, and it's what I thought. We outnumber them now. There's only six of them, now that Corrie, Darcy and I have left, and there are nine of us."

"Awesome!" said Annie. Everyone laughed.

"Well, I'm glad this has all worked out so nicely," Rico said, pushing his chair back. "But I'm ready to get out of here. Dawn, won't you join me?"