Amber's POV

After Caleb left, saying he was going to go look for Zenery to find out what happened, me and Gareth decided to turn into a little corridor neither of us had seen before. At least, I knew I hadn’t seen it, and I knew better than to ask Gareth. He’d just look disdainful and not speak one word. It’s maddening! Anyways, I wanted to explore, so we turned down the little corridor. There weren’t any doors down the hall at all, except for one at the very end. It was completely plain metal, which should have made me suspicious, especially in this weird school. But I never really think before doing things, so I opened the door. I shouldn’t have been surprised to have been sucked into what seemed like an enormous tornado just then, but somehow I was. Me and my 2-second attention span. Anyways, before I got really freaked out, Gareth did something that froze the tornado (and me with it). Not froze like ice, but froze as in stopped. Completely. I peered suspiciously at him from where I was suspended.
“Is your element space?” He ignored me. It probably wasn’t anyways. I sighed. I’d just have to find a book that told me what all the elements were. But for now…
“Can you at least get me down from here?” Gareth gazed at me, tilting his head to one side (by like a centimeter). He picked his way across the debris scattered on the floor (it really was like a tornado contained in a room- why didn’t they have a sign or something?!) and sauntered until he was standing just under where I was floating. Floating, by the way, isn’t really as comfortable as it looks. Anyways, he stood right under me and I expected him to do something interesting. But noooo. That would be too conventional of him. He just let his hand hover about an inch over my arm (evil tall person) and I floated down.
“… Let’s not explore any more for today…” Gareth nodded (again, by like a nanometer. God. It wouldn’t kill him to have actual facial expressions or to actually nod once in a while) and we left the room. I made sure to close the door really tightly when we left. However, once we reached the end of the corridor, I realized that it had moved. Like, the entire thing had moved to somewhere else. I had no idea where we were now.
“Umm… Gareth? Do you know how to get back to where we were before?” He ‘nodded’ (I’m just going to add quotes because that doesn’t count as a freaking nod) and tread quietly down the unfamiliar hall. Wow. He really looks like a human version of a cat. He’s just as irritatingly mysterious as one too! Just as I thought that, my tiger, who I’ve decided to call Ermengarde (that’s a name I got out of a book! Yes, I actually read a whole book!) materialized and drifted lazily over my head.
‘I approve of that boy,’ she commented. I rolled my eyes at her.
‘You would. Just because he’s all mysterious and cat-like.’ She did a slow somersault.
‘Also because he looks like he’ll keep you out of… trouble,’ she said. I stopped dead.
“WHAT??” How could that… that feline know about that?! I thought it wouldn’t be a problem here… maybe I was just overreacting… Meanwhile, Gareth had stopped and was looking back to see why I was yelling.
“Will you continue conversing with your spirit or will you come?” I stomped over, grumbling about stupid upstart animals. We walked about three more corridors, finally stopping at a pretty big one. Apart from it’s size, it looked exactly the same as all the other ones. I grinned happily at Gareth, and we walked through the doorway, only to halt when Zenery, who had been sitting against the wall with a book, looked up and gleefully pointed out,
“The mistletoe is still there from Christmas. Oh, and there is a New Years’ party next week for all the first-years. Milaek and Azami said it was, ah, mandatory.” I was pretty sure those weren’t the exact words they used, but I had other things to worry about. Like the mistletoe. And the fact that if Azami and Milaek were throwing a party, it was for a reason. And that reason was almost definitely to sow as much pain as possible. So there would be alcohol. And we would definitely all have to drink it. I was so screwed. Hastily, I stood on tiptoe and pecked Gareth (who had been standing there stonily the entire time) on the lips (to his apparent surprise, although I could hardly tell due to his LACK OF ACTUAL EXPRESSION) before rushing off to see if there were any things I could use to kill myself.