* * *
After class was over, it was lunch period. Alex sat beside Amy, both of them silent as they ate from a tray of green beans, boiled lamb chops (the vegetarians had tofu salad), and a side of marmalade. And because this was Elsinore, and not (heaven forbid) some public school, the students were required to eat with forks and knives. Silverware forks and knives of course, not plastic (unlike one would expect to find in one of those nasty public schools).
“I hate peas,” said Amy as she stabbed the said-not-cared-for object on her plate with a fork, and leered at it as though it were a dead insect.
She wasn’t alone in this belief. To those with active taste buds, the Elsinore lunch meals were always bland and flavorless. Even the lamb chops were cooked in such a way that it was sapped of every iota of taste, and was as less fattening as a lamb chop could ever be.
Healthy eating was among one of the highest priorities in Elsinore Academy. The headmasters did their best to provide nothing but the best of healthy nutrition for the growing minds of their students. The price of all this, was that the school meals, much like the school’s uniforms, were flavorless. The salads came with absolutely no dressing, and the meats were boiled and never marinated. So to Amy and those like her, the school meals were absolutely nil in taste.
On the other hand, to Alex and those like her (which, as far as she knew, was no one), taste was an entirely foreign concept. Being born without a soul had rendered her taste buds utterly stale. She was unable to determine what foods she liked and didn’t like, and as a result, she had never as a child had any trouble eating her vegetables. To her, everything tasted like nothing.
“So the school dance is coming up,” Amy said. “Are you going?”
“No. You?”
“You know, I just might,” Amy responded, as enthusiastically as though the only reason she’d asked was to give her own response.
“Who with?”
“I don’t know if you know him. But Tommy Hargrave invited me to go.”
“I do know Tommy Hargrave.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not actually thinking of going with him are you?”
“Why not?”
Alex sighed, recanted all the stories that went with the Hargrave name.
Incidentally, out of a pure act of happenstance, as if he’d been waiting for his name to be spoken, Tommy Hargrave, star athlete of Elsinore Academy, topic of their conversation, came from seemingly nowhere, and he approached Amy and her elusive friend without a soul.
“Well aren’t these the two prettiest ladies in all of Elsinore?”
“Maybe,” replied Amy.
“Can I expect you at tonight’s party?” Tommy to Amy.
Amy blushed a bright red smile. “We’ll see.”
“What party?" Alex cut in.
“A friend of mine,” Tommy said. “His parents are gone for the month, and he’s left all alone in their humble abode overlooking the Friar Peak Hills. And since we both think it unfair to be in such a nice place all alone, we feel it only right to share it with our good friends and classmates for the night.”
“Sounds like fun,” Amy said. “I’ll definitely think about it.”
Tommy smiled in approval.
“How about you Alex?”
Alex, who hadn’t quite expected him to speak to her, abruptly forced down her food, causing a bit of stiffness to venture down her throat.
“I can’t,” she said, sounding as though she truly wished she could.
“You can’t?” came a befuddled Amy.
“Well, I hope you change your mind,” came the urging voice of Tommy Hargrave. “It would be great to see you there.”
“We’ll see,” Amy said once more, losing count of how many times she’d given that same, ambiguous response.
“Alright,” said Tommy, kindly and understandingly. “Well, I’ll see you after school yeah?”
Amy brightened. “Yes you will.”
“Alright. Well ladies, if you’ll excuse me.” And with that, Tommy took his leave.
“Alex,” Amy jumped once Tommy was nowhere to be seen.
“What?”
“Why don’t you want to come?”
“I don’t really want to.”
“Why not?”
For Alex Frost, this was a difficult question to answer. For unlike her fellow schoolmates, Alex was a girl without a soul. And as a consequence, she wasn’t very much interested in people or ordinary things. And because Alex didn’t much fancy people or ordinary things, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that she wouldn’t much enjoy purely social events as the one Tommy had suggested just then. Alex gone to a few such parties before. Certainly more than Amy. But unlike everyone else that went to such events, Alex never found anything enjoyable about them. She simply could not bring herself to enjoy constant hours of loud music and dancing, nor was she able to appreciate the flirtatious eyes of boys, and she most certainly didn’t think too highly of the drinks that were served on such occasions.
But all of this was due to the fact that Alex simply wasn’t born with a soul. If she had, perhaps chances were high that she would have held an entirely different opinion about it and everything else in her life. But the truth was what it was. And so as Amy asked her friend why she didn’t want to come to Tommy Hargrave’s party tonight, she struggled to think of how to adequately say I don’t have a soul.
“I have to run errands and complete chores,” she lied, thinking that for both their sakes, it was a much simpler explanation.
“You don’t need to study. You get just as much homework as I do.”
“Except I do extra credit assignments.”
Alex had a point, though one that had only just come up as she thought about it. Amy was disappointed nonetheless.
“I want you to be there.”
“I wish I could. But my parents wouldn’t allow me anyway.”
“Fine,” Amy said, resigned. “But if you change your mind, don’t hesitate to call me.”
“I won’t,” replied Alex, and by I won’t, she meant she wouldn’t change her mind.