Closed Turn it Upside Down

[Malachi Ryu]

Malachi had made an unlikely but assured ally in Emmy. He should have been happy. He would have been happy, if his old friends would leave him alone, but they'd resolved to make his life miserable ever since their falling out. They couldn't understand how he'd moved on so quickly; it annoyed them that he no longer had to rely on them to have fun. Just last week Alex had ambushed him on his way out of class and pushed him into the girls' bathroom, which wouldn't have been so bad, except that he'd fallen straight into Leonie at the sinks, who kicked up such a fuss that a letter was sent home to his parents about learning to respect girls and their privacy. Explaining himself hadn't helped. His mum believed him, but she was less than pleased to hear that Malachi was being bullied. She told him to toughen up.

He wasn't feeling very tough today. He was angry, though, and in no mood to endure another day of these muggles. Soon enough he would be off to Hogwarts, and he would probably never need to know to add and subtract fractions there, anyway. So during morning break, at the bottom of the playing field, he said to Emmy, "I'm not going back in. I'm going to climb over the fence. Do you want to come with me?"

 

[Emmy Cooper]

Emmy was struggling to be friends with her old group of friends and Malachi. They didn't understand why all of a sudden, she had started hanging out with him, and why he was sitting with her in classes. She tried to understand it, but they were still at the stage of boy germs and girl power. Emmy understood girl power, and she was incredibly loyal to her friends still, but Malachi needed a friend, and she loved hanging out with him; it was sometimes more fun than her old friends, but she wouldn't tell them that, they'd be so upset. Besides. Emmy wanted to hang out with Malachi, especially seeing as they would be going to Hogwarts together. Would her old friends still be her friends after a few months away at a boarding school? If she couldn't tell them what she was even learning about?
The young girl quickly found herself hanging out with Malachi more and more. They were chilling at the back of the field when Malachi turned to her and dropped a bomb. Emmy's eyes went wide when Malachi said he wasn't going back in. She let out a laugh and then stopped, realizing he was serious. "What!? No, we can't Malachi! We're not allowed to!"

 

[Malachi Ryu]

Emmy probably thought he was joking. As a rule, he tried to avoid trouble, not create it. He'd certainly never flouted the rules - or the law - so flagrantly. But he was in trouble anyway, and he was bored of school, and, most of all, he just couldn't face Alex and his gang again. Malachi thought Emmy would understand that. "Please," he said. "Please come with me. I don't want to go back in there! You know what they're like. You know what they'll say. We don't even need to go to school, anyway! We're wizards. Please, please please please?" He didn't know if he could go by himself. The thought of getting caught was too scary. With Emmy, though... he was sure they could get away with anything.

 

[Emmy Cooper]

Emmy watched Malachi, her heart hurting when he said she knew what they were like. She knew who he was talking about. His old friends were horrible people, and Emmy wished that he never had been friends with them. If only they had become friends when they first started school. Alex and the gang...they were evil, nasty people. The fact that they had made it so bad for Malachi that he wanted to skip school showed Emmy how much Malachi was hurting, and it made her so sad. She cared for her new friend more than she cared for getting into trouble, but she was still scared. Emmy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, knowing how disappointed her father would say he was, before looking back at Malachi as he pleaded with her. Emmy looked behind her where the other kids were too busy to pay attention to them before back at her friend again. Letting out her deep breath, Emmy nodded her head. "Okay. I mean, I'm scared to do it...but I'll do it for you. You're right. We're wizards! We can do anything, right?"

 

[Malachi Ryu]

Kai held his breath. He wasn't going to force Emmy to do it, not if she really didn't want to, but he desperately hoped she would say yes. "Yes!" he said, splitting into a grin. "We'll be OK. I'll look after you, OK? I know loads of places we can hang out, and we can come back whenever you want." He turned to the fence. It was chain-link and not very high, but Malachi didn't have a lot of fence-climbing experience and he didn't expect Emmy to either. "Can you climb over, or do you want to stand on my hands? I think I can get over by myself."

 

[Emmy Cooper]

Seeing her friend's grin made Emmy grin as well. They were really going to do this! Emmy felt her stomach lurch with butterflies, but she smiled when Malachi said he'd look after her - just as she had looked after him. But he just seemed so genuinely happy to be getting out of there, Emmy knew there was no backing out, and he apparently knew where they could go to hang out. "Let's just be home before my dad finds out." Emmy replied with a grin, definitely not expecting the school to inform him that she had been missing - surely if she just turned up at home at her normal time, he would have no idea! Emmy looked up at the fence when Malachi asked if she could climb over. She had climbed plenty of trees and done a lot of hiking with her dad, so she grinned at her friend. "I can do it." She said with a grin, carefully placing the tip of her foot in the tiny hole to give her a launch and reaching to the other holes with her hands. It was sore on her hands, and hard work, but she managed to pull herself up and over, falling down the other side, but managing to land on her feet, grinning at her friend in a quiet celebration.