The Prayer

[3 Months Later...] 

"Zee! Zee! Zee!" Mia came rushing in the classroom while calling out my name. It was still before 8AM so there's still some time left before First Period. 

I looked up to her. "What is it?"

"Oh my God! You guys won't believe what I just saw when I went to the bookstore!" She said dramatically.

"You go to the bookstore?" I was perplexed. 'Mia, who likes parties and sparkles, went to a bookstore. Is the world about to end?'

"Stop looking at me like that." She pushed my face sidewards to make me stop staring at her as if she just grew another head. "I went to buy a compact mirror."

"They sell that there?" I asked her.

"That's not the point! Let me finish!" Mia exclaimed in frustration.

"Okay, okay. Let's not get worked up." Katherine motioned her to sit down. "What's all the drama about?"

"Okay, here I go. Whew!" Mia took a deep breath and looked at me with a wide grin. "Oh my Gosh girl, you must be a seer!"

"Eh?" My eyebrow raised. 

"A seer? What's that?" Katherine asked. Then I looked at her and sent her a telepathic message. 'It's probably something edible.'

She nodded while patting my head and I grinned at her.

"Urgh!" Mia groaned in frustration. "A seer! You know, someone who can see the future!" 

"I am??" I asked Katherine and she shrugged. Then I looked at the notebooks on my desk and shook my head with doubt. "I don't think so. If I am that great, then I would have predicted that Ms. Maui will ask us to submit this Math assignment today."

"That's right." Katherine seconded then pointed at my solution for the second question in my notebook. "You missed copying the parentheses here."

"Oh! Thanks!" I drew the lines.

Mia slammed a magazine on top of my notebook. "This is more important than that Math assignment right now!"

"Seriously, Mia, let the kid finish copying first. You can disturb her later." Katherine clicked her tongue when Mia was about to protest. I was in the middle of copying Katherine's answers for our Math assignment because I totally forgot to do them over the weekend. 

But, unfortunately, my attention has already been taken by the magazine. "This is this month's edition of The Vermonde Era."

"You've seen it already?!" Mia's eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Katherine frowned. "You look at magazines? Since when?"

'Since someone I know started pestering me to help him out.'

"I just saw it by chance last week." I gave the magazine back to Mia and went back to what I was doing, but my heart was drumming in my chest. "I only skimmed through the pages. Not really interested."

"Then you didn't see it?" Mia asked defeatedly.

"See what?" Katherin asked and snatched the magazine from Mia which delighted the latter.

Then from the corner of my eye, I saw the page where Katherine paused and cursed inwardly. 'Damn. She saw it.'

"Craige?" Katherine's voice rose a pitch.

"Exactly!" Mia nodded at her enthusiastically. "That's him, isn't it? I almost didn't recognize him because of the styling and make up but that's our Craige right?!"

'Yep. That's definitely your Craige.'

Katherine, to my surprise, shoved the magazine to my face. "He IS a celebrity. You were right about it, Zee!"

I looked at the magazine and pretended to study it. "Wow. Unbelievable. Amazing. He really is a celebrity?"

"What's with that monotonous tone? Did you know about this already?" Katherine looked at me suspiciously.

"Nope." I shook my head, then I added, "Can I finish my assignment in peace now?"

Katherine nodded and I did my best to keep my head on the quadratic equations in front of me.

Five minutes later, as soon as he came, Craige was swamped by some of the girls and boys in class. Headed by Mia, they crowded him to get confirmation about his appearance in this famous fashion magazine. That was when they discovered that this was not the first time that he's modeled in it. And Craige had no choice but to confirm it and consequently, his school life was bound to change forever. 

*ding*

I took out my phone and saw that I have a message.

[Clinton: Did you tell them?]

[Haile: Why would I?]

[Clinton: How did they find out?]

[Haile: Try asking the publisher that paid you to print your face on their books. Why are you asking me?]

I placed my phone back in my pocket but it didn't take even a minute before…

*ding*

*ding*

*ding*

With a frustrated sigh, I checked my messages again.

[Clinton: …]

[Clinton: …]

[Clinton: …]

I felt like throttling my phone at the moment. I still had an assignment to finish. 'What the hell is his problem?!'

[Haile: WHAT IS IT?!]

[Clinton: Help me.]

[Clinton: Please]

[Haile: You're starting to have a bad habit of asking me impossible things. How do you expect me to do that?! ]

[Clinton: Sorry.]

That made me feel bad. Even if I wanted to help him, there really wasn't much that I could do in his current situation. We already talked about this before and knew that this was bound to happen sooner or later. He loved modelling as much as I loved acting. It's just a bit of a pity that even though we both didn't like attention, the things that we love doing would naturally attract it. They come as a BOGO deal and it's either we take it or we leave it.

And I've long decided to take it.

So I figured that I might as well give him a hand. 

[Haile: I'll help you out.]

[Clinton: How?]

I took a deep breath. My 'partner' was in trouble but there's no way that I could save him. So there's only one thing that I could do for him right now.

[Haile: I'll pray for your poor soul.]

[Clinton: Zee! T_T ]

'Dear God, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, but this is the only thing that I can do to help ease this friend's burden. I'll just put my trust in you.'

Later that afternoon, I waited for him to be alone in his seat. Then I took a deep breath and sent Craige another message. To my surprise, he suddenly stood up and turned to me with a huge smile on his face.

'Don't look at me! Damn it!'

He quickly turned around as if he heard my thoughts.

[Clinton: Thank you so much!]

"What was that about?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Katherine was looking at me inquisitively. 

"What?" I failed to control the pitch of my voice and I sounded too defensive even for my own ears.

She peered at my phone. "Are you texting with Craige?"

"No--" One look from her was all it took for me to drop my guns and raise the white flag. "Yeah."

Her emerald eyes rounded in surprise that I could practically pawn them for a high price if I took them out now. "Since when did the two of you become that friendly?"

"It's a long story." I answered honestly.

She grinned. "We still have 45 minutes for Self Study."

I was flabbergasted. Big word? I know. But there's no better word to describe what I felt at that moment. "Katherine Leomord will not study during the Self Study period?!"

"Just for today." She moved her chair closer to mine as if that one inch of difference would make a change. "So tell me, how did you two become close?"

'There's no getting out of this.'

I also moved my chair an inch closer to her to whisper. Silently praying that that mere inch would actually help so that no one else could hear what I was about to tell her. "You remember that I used to take acting classes right?"

"Of course, I do. I'm still wondering why you suddenly stopped going when you're so good at it."

We both talked in a very low and almost inaudible tone. It's a special skill that we acquired through practice over the years.

"Well, I went back to doing it and it's been three months since. Also, this time I'm planning to go at it for real." I studied her expression that soon turned to delight.

"OMG! You want to become an actress? For real?"

"I'll try. I'm aware that I'm not that pretty so I have to work extra hard."

Katherine hissed. "What are you talking about? It's not that you're not pretty. It's because you're not trying! Why don't you try putting half of Mia's effort and I bet that you'll be way prettier than anyone in this classroom."

I chuckled. "Prettier than you?"

She paused then showed me a very little space between her forefinger and her thumb. "Probably by just this much."

I nodded while trying to hold back my laughter. "I can work with that."

"So how is this connected to Craige?" Katherine's just too smart to be distracted and went straight back to the main topic. So I had no choice but to tell her what I could tell her. 

I covered the side of my mouth with the back of my hand and whispered in her ear. "My acting coach is his aunt. So whenever I go for classes during weekends, he would also be there."

"Seriously?" Her mouth formed a big silent 'WAAAAA' as she discreetly looked at Craige before she added, "Then you already know about him modeling for The Vermonde Era?"

I nodded quickly. That action must have shaken my brain pretty well because it made me remember that Katherine also used to model for clothes when she was a kid. "Kath!"

She flinched in shock when I suddenly grabbed her hand. "What? Why?"

"Do you want to try modeling again?"

"What?!" 

The smile on my face grew bigger. "Just this once. Please help me out."

***

Dear Dairy Milk,

When I die, can you please tell them to preserve my brain in the museum?

It's way too good to let it die with me.

I feel so proud of myself.

Haha! Hahahaha! Hahahahahaha! 

One crisis averted, one more to go.

P.S.

I think I really have to start going back to church too.

That prayer actually worked.