Lily in the Moonlight

by Mariya Koleva

CHAPTER XV – MUSIC IN THE AIR

  Before the Easter holidays, Lily sent a letter to Orange. In it, she wrote, "I'm staying at the school for the holidays. Have too much work to do. Go to aunt's. See you in June at the station. Take care!"

  For sure, Lily had a lot of work to do, as well as many assignments to prepare. Yet. her true reason lay beyond school matters and into the House of Flowers. She stayed at the school with Mark. He would usually go home for all holidays, but this time he wrote to his parents that he would like to spend this one at his school with his friends of the fourth year, for they would be saying "Goodbye" to it in a couple of months. The truth was that a lot of fourth-years chose to do that, for exactly that reason, whileas nearly all first-years preferred hurrying home to their parents.

  This was the first letter Lily had written to Orange since the beginning of March. In spite of her promise to write every Sunday with news of the passing week, she had completely forgotten it, so Orange received no letters, but this one. She obeyed, of course, though with some discomforts and was sure Lily was right. Orange was sure her sister had enough difficulties having to catch up with all the lessons and assignments.

  Meanwhile, Lily was having a great time with Mark. It turned out that he only seemed to be obscure, while in fact he was quite interesting. Professor Roxie Timoteo, the music teacher, was really thankful to Lily because her affair with a choir boy caused a lot of interest towards choir singing and students would go to the club to enquire how could enlist. Among those students there were boys, who finding Lily Lemonpie "one hell of a hot chick", wanted to be characters she would fancy; or girls, who thinking that, if everybody chose Lily who chose Mark, then Mark must be hot, hoped to find other "hot" boys in the choir, whom they might have oversighted. Lily enjoyed that general excitement sincerely and, also, rather sincerely, believed she had found a real treasure. Mark was cute and intelligent. He was very clever and rather strong-built, too. That last quality came as a surprise to Lily as early as their first real kiss, and ever since she was infatuated by this charming boy who was, in addition all else, a great kisser. Which Buster was not, honestly speaking. So, Lily was very happy that Buster had dumped her! In her thoughts, she would thank him numerous times for rendering her free to choose Mark. Well, she also blamed Buster for the time she has wasted in the first place, because she remembered very well that Mark had come to her on the day she had won the captain's elections. Of course, Buster, the football team star, Carl's brother, that same Carl Lily had been in love with, the strong and big Buster, had diverted her attention from the choir-boy all to himself. And, of course, the fact that Lily would see Buster at every practice both in the changing rooms and on the field, on the way to the bathroom wrapped only in a towel, was also quite decisive. Now, she could see Mark without his school uniform and could see that he was not worse that Buster. She learnt that, in addition to the choir, Mark was also in the water polo team under Professor Baramova. Unfortunately, all the boys in it were in their fourth year and there were no new recruits, so the water polo of the school was about to get retired, in Mark's words. He put a word with Professor Baramova to let Lily into the mineral bath when the holidays started and the school emptied. Lily and Mark used to spend the whole morning in the mineral pool. Lily was fascinated. First, with Mark's body in a swimming suit. He was so well-built that she felt awkward herself and every time she put on her swimming suit, she hurried into the pool, so that he would not see her body well enough. The pool itself was pure magic. There was a nice fountain in its centre which renewed the hot water and glittered in various colours. Periodically, the valves at the pool sides opened and let a jet of bubbles that smelled so sweet and enchanting an odour that it made Lily close her eyes in dreamy dizziness. Mark would swim close to her, he always came in the pool after her, and they would let the water sway them gently for a long time. Professor Baramova was on duty that holidays and she would come at some prearranged time in the mornings, having warned them all at breakfast, just to make sure nothing "weird" was going on in the pool. As Lily and Mark were not the only students in there, nothing much too weird could happen. But then, who would know what might happen when you have several love couples inside the warm sweet-odoured pool, amidst the romantic dusk created by Professor Suthern's magic lamps in the vast hall? None of the couples would tell you, that much is for sure.