Recent content by Liesel Besemer

As far as Liesel was concerned, they were having a perfectly ordinary conversation. "It was," she said. "But I'm not sad any more." She could have bought a new rat, but she'd decided not to after she'd realised they were supposed to be kept with others of their kind. Hm. Penelope's second...

"Why?" Liesel asked. She didn't sound upset, did she? There was nothing to be sorry for if she wasn't upset. She put the headstone back in her pocket as they continued to walk. At least Penelope had had a nice break. She deserved it, after the stressful one she'd had last year. "Good. I'm glad...

Liesel was looking for the perfect spot on the grounds when she heard the gentle thump of footsteps catching up with her. "Hi Penelope," she said. She liked Penelope. Or at least, she didn't have any reason not to like Penelope, which, to someone with no real friends to speak of, was more or...

"Yeah, but there's polite, and then there's-" Liesel sat up straight and put her best Kate voice on- "'Ooh, quite, yes, quite. I don't want to lose any flake.'" She laughed, suddenly inspired to reach for another sausage roll. "You're weird. Maybe that's why you don't have any friends?"

Up in the stands, Liesel almost felt as if she was flying. It was mesmerising, watching people soar through the sky on their brooms, held up by nothing except magic. As soon as Liesel knew how to fly, it would be her up there - nothing and nobody would be able to keep her feet on the ground...

Lemons

Liesel wasn’t worried about losing a few flakes of pastry. She polished off the sausage roll and licked her fingers clean before drying them on her robes. ”Why are you so polite?” she asked. ”You’re like an old woman. Are you OK?”

Well, that was true enough. But Liesel had only ever made it up the stairs when she'd been following someone else. There was going to come a day when there would be nobody to follow, and then what would she do? Sleep in a broom closet? How embarrassing! The stairs did not yield to the...

"Oh," Liesel said. "Well, we can work it out together. Smile... be kind... buy them a present... That's four things. Although being kind is a bit vague, isn't it? I'll take that one off. Buying someone a present is kind, anyway." She struck a line through Katherine's suggestion, then turned her...

Liesel tapped her biro against her notepad rhythmically, resting her chin on her hand. There had to be something she was missing. Nobody else seemed to have difficulty making friends. She suspected, deep down, that she wasn't trying hard enough. At primary school, she had floated from group to...

Liesel wiped her face, though trying to dry it completely was futile. She didn't think she would ever be able to stop crying. A valve in her chest had opened, and the only thing that would shut it off was Genna coming to take her home. "The great hall," she said. It wasn't quite time for dinner...

Well, Liesel hadn't been trying to imply that Katherine had never read a book in her life. And what was she smiling like that for? Did Liesel have something on her face? "Uh... I like the Shadow Vale books," she said, wondering how the conversation had moved so quickly from Hogwarts textbooks to...

Mate

Liesel lifted her head, startled by the closeness of the girl's voice. Oh, thank God, or Merlin, or whoever she was supposed to thank! Someone had come to rescue her. That was, if they didn't both get stuck on this flight of stairs forever. "I can't get - down," Liesel said mournfully, gripping...

Liesel was stuck. It didn't seem to matter how many times the staircase turned; it never connected to another descending flight. The only way she could go was back up to the towers. Even if she took another ascending flight and tried a different route, the staircases above never aligned to any...