| @kivachriston | 627 words |

[attr="class","edreynolds"]Ed had been pretty nervous about his upcoming ballet lesson – terrified mostly that he would make a fool of himself in front of his classmates in such a way that would make them think he was just an idiot, rather than an amusing goofball. He was far too gangly and inflexible, which Ivy could testify to after trying and failing to teach him the basics of contortion, and it was a combination which would not serve him well in a class aiming to emphasise control and grace.

Ed had been so nervous, in fact, that he’d just completely forgotten about it. It was only when he looked at his timetable to check what he had for the next lesson that he remembered, and by then it was far too late to go all the way back to his room and change out of his skinny jeans into… what? Pyjama bottoms? Ed didn’t really do trousers that you could freely move around in.

So he set off for ballet (ugh) in his skinny jeans, fighting every urge to just bunk it entirely. Ed didn’t want to make a name for skiving lessons; it would draw more attention than he wanted from the school senior management – which was precisely zero, if he could help it.

He lined up with a group of boys, more out of habit than preference, but noticed a few friendly faces amongst the girls as they shuffled in. Ivy had already arrived, fully clad in appropriate dance attire and already stretching at the side of the room. Her roommate, meanwhile, was looking decidedly less prepared. Ed knew her name – Keke – but he hadn’t been properly introduced to her yet. Still, he smiled at her when he saw her, offering a small wave to both girls.

The beginning of the session was kind of amusing. Ed was partnered up with another guy and instructed to measure him up for their impending ballet uniforms. Neither of them were exactly thrilled about the prospect, and Ed spent most of the time reading out ridiculous measurements in the hope that his partner might actually be supplied with a sumo wrestler’s ballet kit. Somehow, he doubted it.

Then they had to line up in front of mirrors and follow her instructions. Yet another familiar face – Melody – had appeared. Just like Keke, she didn’t seem to be hiding a secret double life as a ballerina. In fact, she was even more upfront about her disinterest, and Ed couldn’t help but join her in sniggering at Madam Kia’s announcement that they would be making “music” with their “bodies”.

He stayed silent about it though, not wanting to cause a further scene, and proceeded to follow the class as best he could. Ivy, of course, was flourishing – maybe even a little bored by the simplicity of it. Keke at least managed to stay upright and, though she wasn’t a hidden ballet star, she looked cute as she tried to keep up with the teacher’s instructions.

Ed did not look cute – nor did he manage to stay completely upright. The skinny jeans were a true hindrance and Ed found himself gripping to the barre for dear life before he actually ended up flat on his arse. The ten-minute breather was a gift from the gods. Unsurprisingly, the majority of his fellow male students were feeling equally embarrassed about the whole thing. Such is the fragility of schoolboys.

He managed to make it through the rest of the class without total disaster and left as quickly as he could before anyone had the chance to mock him. Melody in particular would likely have a few amusing words to throw his way if she’d had the chance. She’d probably save them for their next science class.

| Melody Newton | 501 words |

[attr="class","edreynolds"]Ed hadn’t quite figured out how grades lined up with his own experience of the schooling system but he could safely assume that fifth grade was young. Huh, he should probably figure out which grade he was in now. The school wasn’t huge and had a pretty narrow age range so it didn’t seem to strictly limit classes by year group, but nor did it mix them all together blindly. Most of the people he interacted with seemed to be around his age – maybe a year either side.

Either way, he could tell that Melody’s experience of high school chemistry at an early age was somewhat impressive, and he could also tell that she was going to be a very useful carry- er, lab partner.

“Like, duh,” he responded with a grin, choosing to mock her accent rather than conjure any kind of witty response. He figured it would annoy her more – but not so much that she’d actually hate him. Ed couldn’t afford to have his carry bail so early in the game.

The smirk on Melody’s face as he returned with the chemicals was enough to prove that she had the perfect sense of humour to endure his attempts at banter. She even came up with some of her own.

“Yeah, turned out my masterful assassination attempt wasn’t so masterful after all.” Ed sighed dramatically. “What does this one do then?” He held it out at arm’s length with wide eyes, unsure whether to be afraid or if Melody was just messing with him.

It appeared that the reason Melody hadn’t already grabbed a Bunsen burner was because there wasn’t one left for them to use. The teacher – who just seemed to be permanently weary at this point – just told them they’d have to watch someone else’s experiment. Ed played it cool until he turned his back on the two of them, at which point he groaned.

“What’s the point? I could’ve just stayed in my room and looked it up on YouTube…”

Happily, Melody had other ideas.

Unhappily, those ideas were rather… explosive. He’d waited patiently as she mixed the solution – unsure as to what she was expecting from it without a Bunsen burner to kickstart things. She held it up as though she were admiring her handiwork, and Ed was just about to offer a sarcastic “Fantastic, now what?” when a blinding beam of light suddenly flashed in front of his face followed almost immediately by the sound of exploding glass.

He blinked.

There was glass everywhere – tiny shards coating his front like some diamante science diva’s costume of choice – and Melody’s safety glasses were looking more than a little worse for wear. The best she could offer him was “Whoops”.

So apparently those bright amber eyes were bright for a reason.

“Come on, what do you mean that wasn’t on purpose, that was so coo-”

The rest of Ed’s words were drowned out by their teacher, who was suddenly much more lively, and much more upset.

| @ivyannnelson | 428 words |

[attr="class","edreynolds"]Watch her swim? Ed had been kind of imagining a Mars bar or something, but he didn’t want to just shoot her down, so he guessed he could work with that. It would be pretty cool to see a mermaid in action – and not just flopping around on the canteen floor.

“Ha, ’course, that works,” he said with a chuckle. “You realise it’s inevitable though, right? As long as the dinner ladies let me, and as long as they’ve got some pepperoni in the kitchen…” He frowned. “Worst comes to worst, we make our own, yeah?”

When Ed had imagined whipping up his own snacks in an American dorm with all his new classmates, he’d been imagining maybe popcorn… or even s’mores. Definitely not pepperoni fruit salad, and yet here he was fully prepared for what was surely a sin in the culinary world. At this point, he’d actually managed to convince himself it would be an enjoyable feast, which was probably the weirdest part. Luckily Ed had long ago accepted that he was always going to be a little weird.

“Hot videos?” he exclaimed, without really thinking. “What kind of videos are you making?” he added with a laugh. “Maybe I’ll hold back on the on-screen performance for now.” Ed could try to be a lot of things, but ‘hot’ wasn’t one of them.

The comment about needing a pin made him laugh as he came back to the ground, despite his embarrassment.

“Yeah, I can definitely lie on the ground!” he said with mock enthusiasm. “It’s the role I’ve been training for all my life, in fact.”

Ed was not quite so sure that he would look ‘neat’ in a leotard, in fact. He was pretty sure that he was going to die of shame the second he was even within ten feet of it. It was almost certainly going to be a crime against fashion, maybe even an actual crime in some countries. (Or maybe, just maybe, Ed was being a tad dramatic).

He tipped his head in confusion, unsure as to whether he should feel amused or insulted. “A lanky puppy? You what?” And then she blushed and added that he’d be cuter, and he realised what she meant.

Ed looked away, rubbing his neck. “Er, yeah. You know, Ivy… I get the impression that lanky puppies aren’t exactly graceful… So just try your best not to cry laughing at me.”

He was grinning as he said it, however. Ed was happy to make others laugh, even if it was at his own expense.

| @ivyannnelson | 408 words |

[attr="class","edreynolds"]While Ivy didn’t seem to gag at the idea of Ed sampling some pepperoni and fruit salad, she also seemed to consider it enough of a challenge to be the worthy subject of a dare. Ed was quite happy to try it, in fact, but he was always willing to push his luck.

“Okay, I will – what’s in it for me if I finish it?”

He was happy to do it for free, but now that Ivy was daring him he might as well try and get some kind of profit out of it.

The talk about having to get written permissions for her videos wasn’t entirely surprising if Ivy was as famous as she seemed to suggest. Ed would have reassured her that he wasn’t about to sue her – Americans were way to fond of that, in his experience – but he was sure that she could already tell that he wasn’t the type. “It sucks you’ve had to learn that the hard way, but at least you know now. Feel free to recruit me if you want someone to stand in the background and look cool.”

He flipped his hair, looking decidedly not so.

Ivy seemed to think she could somehow extract a human with any degree of flexibility from him which, while admirably optimistic, was a fool’s game. Still, he did as he was told, standing in front of her and raising her hands up into the air. She simply told him to bend backwards, hoping for a miracle.

Ed’s body couldn’t betray its own physics. As he leaned back, she announced rather prematurely that he was in a back bend. Instead, Ed’s feet slipped out from under him, his spine refusing to curve back with any level of enthusiasm, and he shot downwards. His power kicked in, suddenly forcing him up, and Ed spun a little in the air as he rose 20 feet into the air before regaining control and floating sheepishly back down to earth.

“Nice try, Ivy, but I think I might have to sit this one out. Or take a much slower approach…”

He was sure he could do it in time, but definitely not like that. Ivy’s approach assumed a certain level of strength and flexibility that Ed’s years playing the bass and sitting at the computer just didn’t provide.

“Who knows, maybe ballet will whip me into shape.”

He pulled a face. That was certainly going to be… interesting.

| @ivyannnelson | 376 words |

[attr="class","edreynolds"]Ed raised his hands. “I see you’re clearly very passionate about keeping your tropical fruit and your Italian food separate. Which is fine. Now, me? I like a good Hawaiian every now and then to mix things up, but you can’t beat a classic meat feast for pizza toppings. Especially if there’s a bit of spice to it too – delicious!” He kissed his fingers with a flourish.

“So you’re still keeping up performances while you’re in school? What do you do, like, record them?” Ed could hardly imagine she could just casually leave the school grounds all the time.

He nodded enthusiastically. They could make it all the way down to the lake and back before the end of lunch, and it didn’t look about to rain. “Cool, yeah! But I hope you don’t fancy a quick dip because I am not carrying you all the way back to school!” His arms would probably fall off.

Ivy seemed delighted by the school grounds, particularly the lake. He was worried for a second as she drew closer to it but she held back from the edge so there was no risk of a sudden splash of water. Ed didn’t know how much it took to trigger Ivy’s transformation, but he wasn’t willing to test it out.

“It is nice,” he agreed. “Chilled.”

He wasn’t going to pretend that he’d be doing much studying by the lake. He wasn’t going to pretend that he’d be doing much studying, full stop.

It was one thing for Ivy to have told him about her career as a performing contortionist, but it was a wholly different kettle of fish to see her show off her strength and flexibility in the flesh. Ed wasn’t even sure he could touch his toes or hold a handstand, let alone do all this at the same time.

“Bloody hell, that’s so weird!” he exclaimed. “Doesn’t that hurt at all? I’m sure it’s not normal for a human to bend their spine in half.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any secret talents of my own,” he confessed. Unless you counted a knack for Mario games and a somewhat adequate level of competency at the bass guitar which, compared to Ivy’s tricks, didn’t seem quite the same.

| @ivyannnelson | 323 words |

[attr="class","edreynolds"]“That would be… yeah, incredibly awkward. Or imagine if they were really great but snored all the time!” Knowing Ed’s luck, that’d be exactly who he ended up with.

Ivy laughed at his retelling of his power discovery, evidently amused by the mental image of Ed’s skull colliding with the ceiling and his subsequent inability to get back down straight away. She seemed even more amused by the idea of it happening again.

“Oi, don’t stab me with pins!” he protested with a laugh. “I’ve figured out how to stop myself from flying away now, thankfully, but I’m glad to hear that your first instinct is to burst me like a runaway balloon.”

Ivy joined him in grabbing some pizza for lunch, entrusting him with the drinks while she took it upon herself to carry both their food trays. Ed decided to be very sensible and hold the drinks high up in the area, swaying his arms dangerously above Ivy’s head until he chickened out – aware that he could actually accidentally spill them all over her if he wasn’t careful. Ivy probably didn’t want to ruin yet another pair of trousers.

“Does your mum make her own pizza? That’s cool, my mum just buys the frozen ones, but there’s nothing like a good takeaway pizza, I think.”

This canteen pizza was definitely a good alternative though. Just greasy enough to be satisfying without leaving a puddle on his plate.

“How long have I been at EMBA? Only like… a week or so. No one here has been here very long and, yeah, nah, sorry, I think we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere from what I can tell.” Ed shrugged. “There’s games and TV and stuff in the common rooms but that’s about it, I think. Just a whole bunch of forest to get lost in! And the lake, of course, which might be worth checking out for you at some point.”