The glasses went back on, and the armour went back up. The vulnerable, anxious girl who Georiga Lee had gotten a glimpse of disappeared, and with her went any hope of this conversation going anywhere worthwhile. There was the sound of heels in the corridor outside, as the supervising teacher made he...

Georgia Lee felt a little unsettled, seeing Fiyori take off her glasses. She seemed so much more human without them. No longer behind the lenses' distortion, her eyes were pleasant and shapely. It was like she'd pulled a plug, when she'd taken them off, and everything about her had drained away. All...

Georgia Lee made a gesture, a combination of a shrug and a nod, that served to draw her shoulders and head together, shrinking her. It wasn't the effect she'd wanted, and it annoyed her. She folded the tissue over the bread, then tucked in the sides, so it was wrapped in an enclosed package, and tuc...

Their was something about the way Fiyori said that which filled Georgia Lee with a sense of horror. Out of anyone else's mouth, said any other way, it would have been ridiculous, like something out of some comic book. From Fiyori though, it was so matter of fact. There was no emotion, no affect, no ...

Fiyori ate, Georgia Lee realized, exactly how she would have expected her to. The girl held the bread in two hands and then tore at it with her teeth. Like a praying mantis would. A fountain of crumbs showered down onto Georgia Lee's desk, and all over her work. A sweep of her forearm pushed most of...

Georgia Lee took the bread, wary. Peace with Fiyori? It sounded too good to be true, and in her experience things that sounded too good to be true, tended not to be. Georgia Lee considered. It seemed ridiculous that Fiyori would be carrying some sort of poison bread around, and Georgia Lee was reaso...

[Georgia Lee Day continued from The Library is the Powerhouse of the Student ] It was the unfairness of the whole thing that really got to Georgia Lee. The scrape on her cheek was ugly, but it hardly hurt and it'd heal. Her ribs were tender from where she'd hit the ground, and her elbows skinned fr...

Fiyori was up in her face. The girl was so close that Georgia Lee could see herself clearly reflected in those enormous, coke-bottle glasses. The eyes behind them were cold, and malice almost seemed to shine out of those storm-coloured pupils, as if they were little evil torches. Georgia Lee stared ...

Georgia Lee returned to her book, fanning the pages along the spine, as one would a deck of cards, feeling the gaps where pages had been torn out, like open wounds. She'd gone to the librarian after discovering the vandalism, outraged. There'd been only one another person who'd checked the book out ...

[Georgia Lee Day continued from Go Home, Georgia Lee ] People were yelling in the library. It wasn't even that people weren't trying to be quiet, which in and of itself was frankly inconsiderate. People were actually trying to be louder. They were going out of their way to disturb their fellow stud...

There was a saying about stick, stones, names and bones, and Georgia Lee despised it. Names would hurt you. Of course they would, that was the whole point of them. There was nothing to be gained by simply being numb to them, or trying to close yourself off from other people's opinions. Once, Georgia...

[ Georgia Lee Day , starting pregame] A lot of people underestimated the importance of Junior year. People thought that as long as you kept your head above water academically, you'd be fine. Some considered it a "social year". At least once a week, people with new accounts and inconsisten...

"You're smart not to eat them, you know." Tessa's comment was addressed to her friend, but she gave a little wave to Colleen and Trav as she approached. "Any Californian produce, really. None of the water out there's natural, you know. They don't get any rainfall or anything, so all o...

She nodded her goodbyes, keeping her eyes on Fiyori as the older girl strode away. Even her walk was like a praying mantis, all long legs and jutting head. Georgia Lee felt a faint revulsion. She liked mantises on the whole. They kept to themselves, they didn't bother her, they ate flies. She was mu...

Robert Day was frugal to the point of miserly. This had served him well, raising four daughters on what was basically a starting salary, but even now with three of those daughters left home he hadn't abandoned the habit of penny pinching. Spending money seemed to almost physically pain him, so much ...