Betula Academy/Cara

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Just Cara
Grownups always envy children, and I'm a little girl who never grew up. Of course, the reason for that is I died when I was five. I was hit by a car. Cars scare me. Planes scare me. Lot's of things at Betula Academy scare me including those two witches down at the end of the hall on the fourth floor of Greene dormitory where I live. They're not really witches. One of them is even a revenant like me. I could feel it, but she was so sad and angry. How do people get that way?

Anyway, my name is Cara and I will always be five. I've never even figured out how old I'm supposed to be, but my older brother is now a grownup with kids of his own. I'll always stay five because that is how the people who loved me and whom I still love will remember me. Well, I'm not really five any more because to be a revenant, I had to be high school age, but I'm not sure I like that, not with those witches at the end of the hall.

There are so many bad people here at Betula Academy that you have to look out for. Well, there's that wearhyena, Thalia. She even smells real bad, and then there's Jetta, Ariana's evil twin sister. Ariana says she'll do everything she can to protect me from Jetta. She says if Jetta succeeds here, she'll take over the whole world. I sure hope Ariana finds a way to defeat Jetta, don't you?

Anyway, I spent most of my first afternoon at Betula playing in the hall. Ariana unpacked my things. I had to show up with suitcases and clothes. I got to skate in the hall with my heelies. Ariana says tomorrow we'll play on the grass.

Then when I got done playing and Ariana got done talking to two other friends who are real angels (There really is such thing!) we all went to supper. Dinner here in a boarding school is in a huge building called a union. On the top floor of the union is the dining hall. It is a cafeteria. I don't remember ever eating in a cafeteria except once or twice going to Picadilly.

Picadilly is just one line though. This place had no lines and six or seven lines at the same time with different counters and a big self-serve beverage area and coolers with ice cream treats and bottled drinks and self serve ice cream, frozen yogurt, and tofutti as well as candy and cereal machines.

Aunt Ariana said I should have a good dinner as if I were home with my mom and dad. Thinking about mom and dad always makes me sad. I've gone back to them and talked to them many times. I knew they could hear me. Well, now I can't go back until we defeat that evil Jetta. Aunt Ariana says she needs me because I have a good heart.

Well, I looked around and got on a line where it looked like there was hot dinner. I got meatloaf and mashed potatoes and even had a glass of milk. That way I could have ice cream for dessert.

I brought my food over the table and said grace and when I looked up I saw her, the sad black revenant girl who yelled at me for wearing heelies. Well, I'm just a kid, you know. This revenant was an old dried up grownup inside. She had a large tray and on it a big bowl of spahgetti with some kind of clear sauce with bits of pinkish meat in it. She also had a dish of string beans and another dish of cherry tomatoes with some kind of creamy dressing. I thought I smelled fish.

I could see the girl had a brown soda too. I thought it was a Coke but it was a root beer. I sniffed again. "What are you eating?" I asked her.

"Linguine with white clam sauce, string beans, cherry tomatoes, and root beer. I'll go back for dessert." The sad revenant gave me a sharp smile of small teeth.

Everyone at the table greeted the sad revenant and the revenant introduced herself as Urielle Swanson from a city called Kokorobelli. Where was that I wondered. I told Urielle I was from Minnesota. She raised her eyebrows as if I'd said something wrong.

"Well ladies," Urielle began. "Do we talk business at dinner or do we meet somewhere else and do it later?"

"What do you mean?" asked an angel sitting at Ariana's right.

"You know what I mean."

"First we enjoy ourselves and get to know eachother," spoke Ariana. "Now why don't we all tell each other about ourselves." Urielle winced and twirled a forkful of linguine with fish.

"I'm Sharon from the Sixth Celestial Circle," began the angel to Ariana's left.

"I'm Kateri the weredove," said a solumn girl with black eyes and a bowl of lentil soup on her tray.

"I'm Susan. I'm a revenant. I'm sixteen. A drunk driver killed me as I was coming back from volunteering at a church."

"I'm Uriell Swanson from Kokorobelli. Before that I lived and was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. That was pretty country. I was born in 1912 and when I was eighteen I contracted the Spanish Flu which went around after World War I. I did my growing up such as it was on the other side. I'm back here for the same reason that most of you are."

Ariana cleared her throat. Sharon shook her head. I got to introduce myself next. "I'm Cara. I'd be a grownup if I were alive, but I'm not so I've stayed a kid. I've had to grow up a little to come here, but I hope I haven't grown up in any bad ways. We can't worry about Jetta. We are good and goodness always wins. Didn't they teach that to you?"

Urielle did not reply. The rest of the group made their introductions and the talk moved to all the choices of food and how it was almost too many and suddenly something brown and goopy fell down from the ceiling.

It didn't really fall down from the ceiling. The dining hall had a balcony, and that balcony was right over our heads. Seated right above us was Jetta and her evil friends and....

Urielle picked up her tray. "Let's find a new table. The next shot gets the food."

I looked up in time to see a blond woman in a black sweater leaning over the balcony rail and sticking her finger down her throat, meanwhile next to her a plump woman with reddish brown hair was also preparing to do the same.

Ariana rose and took aim at the balcony. "No," Urielle said. "Decorum" I thought and I could not resist giggling as Ariana shot a bolt of white light at the two offending girls sealing their mouths with several layers of gauze and tape.

Just then Jetta herself leaped over the balcony rail. Urielle set her dinner on a nearby table and prepared to fight just as Jetta landed in the center of our table and kicked all our food off. Then she made a leap for Ariana.

I dove under one of the tables. I don't think I'm a very good fighter. I was surprised to see Uriell following me under the table. "Big people are supposed to fight," I told her. "Go get campus security," Urielle hissed.

"I don't know what that is."

"Go to the big counter on the first floor of the union and tell them there's a big fight in the cafeteria upstairs."

I scrambled out the other side of the table and ran out of the dining room and down a flight of stairs and somehow I got to the front of the union. A man with a blad head and thick bushy eyebrows tended the counter which was a news stand selling magazines and candy and sodas. He asked me what I wanted. I told him about the food fight and told him that the big people told me to call campus security.

The man in the news stand called campus security and I asked him for some candy. He said it was free for the taking. I took a Milky Way bar and sat eating it slowly. After a time, a big man in a green robe and several police and security guards arrived. They went upstairs. I giggled. Jetta was in trouble now.