Chapter 21: Return

Sunday, November 30

Corrie arrived, late Sunday morning, to a quiet campus. After a busy—and early—Friday and Saturday working at the clothing store for their post-Thanksgiving sales, she’d decided to have a nice long sleep on Saturday night and then get back to school. She had too many things to do to stay at home.

Of course, one of the things she hoped to do when she got back to campus was chat with her friends about their holiday weekends, but no one was in the dorm that she knew—not even Lorelei. She quashed her impatience and sat down at her computer, knowing she had homework to do. After half an hour, six games of Solitaire and two emails sent, she finally got to work.

By the time she heard Edie’s key in the lock, she was feeling pretty accomplished. She’d finished her history homework for the next day and her biology homework for Tuesday, and started writing her English essay that wasn’t due until Thursday. She was going to have exams in those classes eventually, but she would start studying during finals week. Not having actual homework to do for magic class made her workload a lot lighter than she had thought it would be.

She got up quickly to hold the door for Edie, which as it turned out was useful, because Edie’s hands were full of bags. “Wow, you’re loaded down,” she commented, amused.

“Yeah, my brother couldn’t come carry things for me this time,” Edie said. She tossed the bags on her bed, except for the backpack she was wearing, which she pulled off more carefully and set on the floor.

“Black Friday shopping?” Corrie walked over to look at the bags.

“Yeah, I got a lot of stuff. I figure I have to give everybody at school their presents early. Hey!” Edie grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “No peeking!”

“Oh, come on. You know, it’s my birthday on Wednesday.” Corrie crossed her arms and grinned. The only thing she’d actually seen was a skein of shiny green yarn, and she didn’t think that was a present.

“Really? Well, then maybe you can get one of your presents early.”

“One of my presents? I get more than one? Wow.” She looked at the bags again. “I feel kind of bad now. I didn’t get you anything for your birthday and I don’t have any Christmas presents for you yet. Or Hanukkah presents.”

“It’s okay,” said Edie. “I mean, you don’t have to. I won’t be upset. I just like giving people presents.”

“Uh-huh, and are some of those presents for yourself?”

“Um… no. I mean, none of the bags have stuff for me. I did pick out some stuff when I was shopping with my parents, but they kept that for presents.”

Corrie poked her. “Come on, the only thing I saw was some yarn.”

“Oh, that doesn’t count!” Edie grinned, obviously knowing how absurd she sounded. “I’m going to make something for Leila with that. A scarf. So it is a present for someone else, it’s just not finished yet.”

“So she’s the only one who gets knitted presents?”

“For now, yeah.” Edie sat down on her bed and kicked off her boots. “Knitting nice stuff takes a while. Maybe next year you guys will get knitted stuff, when I’ve had some time to pick out the right thing.”

“Oh, that will be cool.” Corrie sat back down at her desk, but she was very much disinclined to get back to work on her homework. “So, any plans for the afternoon?”

Edie wrinkled her nose. “Well, I’d like to start knitting this scarf, but I actually have to do some homework.”

“Come on, that’s no fun. I’m bored, let’s talk.”

“About what?”

“Vacation! Yours had to be more interesting than mine. I do have a few stories about horrible screaming children, but those are the kind where you had to be there to find it funny.”

Edie laughed. “I don’t know, your vacation sounds a lot more interesting than being stuck in a cramped, stuffy house with relatives you don’t like.”

Corrie had to admit that it sounded worse than her vacation. “I actually like all of my relatives.”

Edie shook her head and made a shooing motion at Corrie. “I really need to do some homework or I’m going to start freaking out about not having it done. Roe came in at the same time as I did. You could try pestering her.”

“Okay!” Corrie jumped up. She didn’t really want to stop Edie from doing her homework, after all, at least not if she was going to get upset about it. “See you later.”

“Yeah, come get me before dinner.” Edie turned on her computer. Corrie skipped out into the hallway, looking for a friend.