Blue Violet - By Abigail Owen Page 0,15

she gathered her books and then started walking with her to the lunch room.

“Would you like to sit with us?” he asked in a friendly, yet casual tone as he pointed to a group seated in the far corner.

As she approached the table, Ellie tapped into Griffin’s mind reading and quickly picked through the minds of those already seated. She grimaced inwardly. She’d somehow been befriended by some of the most popular people at the school, and while this wasn’t a bad thing by itself, it could be tricky given her situation. It would put her in a more public spotlight, which made it harder for her to just blend in. Most normal people—people without abilities—never suspected her or Griffin of being anything other than ordinary. But she’d learned through experience that they were less likely to suspect anything if she just remained in the background, unnoticed.

As she listened, a very subtle strain caught her attention.

“…Lila better be right, that this girl is nice,” from one girl.

“…Man, Nate was right. She’s hot,” a boy was thinking.

“…As long as she doesn’t hit on Brian, she’s cool,” another girl mentally decided. In fact several of the girls at the table had feelings along that line.

“…I wonder why Adelaide’s acting so weird. She’s too shy to approach someone she doesn’t know,” was a final train of thought Ellie picked up on.

Adelaide, Lila, and Nate clearly belonged in this high school clique. In fact, based on a few passing thoughts of the people at the table, it seemed as though Adelaide had orchestrated Ellie’s invitation to join them for lunch. Ellie silently gave Adelaide top marks for skills of subtle manipulation and decided to play along.

Ellie turned to Brian and grinned. “Sure, I’d love to join you. Thanks!”

After grabbing their food, she and Brian sat down at the table.

“Hey, guys, this is Ellie,” Brian introduced her.

Ellie sat down next to a beaming Adelaide, pulling out her homemade lunch. School lunches somehow still managed to be atrocious. “Hi, Ellie, welcome to the table.”

Ellie spent the lunch hour being good-naturedly grilled about anything and everything. She didn’t need Griffin’s mind reading skills to know that several of the girls in the group weren’t thrilled with her joining them. They already saw her as competition rather than as a potential friend. Ellie confined herself to a mental eye roll. This was nothing unusual for girls. The boys—other than Nate, who only had eyes for Adelaide—all vied for her attention. Some overtly, some more subtly. Ellie avoided talking about herself as much as she could, preferring to turn the conversation to other topics. She knew the cardinal rule when trying to get into any clique –Always make friends with the girls first. And the best way to do that was to not appear too interesting to the boys, or too interested in them.

“So what do you do around here for fun?” she asked as she popped the top on her Coke can.

“Oh, there’s a ton to do,” a boisterous girl named Kayla answered. “Especially in the summer.”

“If you can manage to avoid all the tourists,” a boy named Mark grumbled with a smirk.

“Hey, Mark, don’t knock ‘em.” Brian grinned. “Didn’t you date a tourist girl last summer?”

Mark gave him a dark look in return.

Lila continued. “In the summer there’s all the outdoorsy stuff. You know… hiking, biking, camping, white water rafting. There’s lots of shops downtown… if you can afford them.” Everyone groaned at this. The shops had great stuff, but weren’t exactly priced for the average teenager.

“What about in the winter?” Ellie glanced out the window. Snow covered everything outside. Today was particularly cold and windy, the air snapping crisply. Ellie actually enjoyed this weather after many years in the heat of Texas. Snow was a rare thing in Austin.

“There’s not too much skiing close by,” Nate explained around a large bite of his sandwich. “But there’s still other outdoor stuff, snowshoeing, that kind of thing. Mostly we hang out indoors during the winter.”

“Ellie, you should come with us to the movies this Friday,” Brian suggested. He named a recently released movie with one of Ellie’s favorite actors, and she decided that she actually liked the thoughtful boy. Using Griffin’s power, she could tell that the invitation was friendly and genuine.

“Sure!” she accepted happily. “Sounds like fun.”

After her last class of the day, Ellie suppressed a flash of disappointment when she saw that Alex wasn’t in the parking lot like he’d been the day before. It was