Lecture

When this long, sanctimonious speech finally came to an end, Ivy was deprived of speech for a long time before finally making a boring gesture in response to this advice.

- You know, you really do sound like Mom!

- Well, since two different, normal people, I insist on that, are wisely offering you the same advice and telling you that you're overreacting, maybe you should take their recommendations and go have more fun.

- Yes, yes, then you must know in turn that I have been following your advice all along, only neither of you wanted to admit it. Admit that without wanting to offend you of course, that's what amuses me", she exclaimed passionately, pointing to the center with an eloquent gesture. "I love it here. I love these creatures with all my heart. So I think spending my time here is the one thing I enjoy the most. It's so natural and obvious. You have to understand that, all of you. She smiled and finished. I don't feel any regret.

Cole shook his head at the words, which were so overly passionate and extreme for his taste, but then stopped as a thought flashed through his mind and made his face look even darker. Ivy looked at him very suspiciously.

- I see, well I understand," he mumbled, putting on a sympathetic face.

- What is it? Asked the young student, eyes narrowed, more and more intrigued by his expression, but guessing in advance that what she was going to hear would not delight her, but that did not prevent her from inquiring all the same. And besides, her interlocutor was the kind to do only to his head, and to say all that he believed to be said.

- In fact, all this, these words as well as these gestures so exaggeratedly inflamed were simply in order to hide to the others as to yourself, especially to yourself, the bottom of the problem.

- Which is?

- You have no love!

- What is it? What exactly do you mean?

- It is clear, isn't it? You don't have a boyfriend.

- What....

- Just a guy, a man!

- And you think that's what I'm trying desperately not to recognize?

He looked at her eloquently. A look that said more than all the words in the world. A look of desperate compassion and encouragement of the most humiliating kind. The girl pinched her lips violently, more vexed than she had been for a long time.

- I see, she replied, sulkily. And first of all, how do you know I don't have one?

- It's more than obvious," he said, staring her down. That you would ask that question already reveals everything, not to mention your more than abnormal behavior.

- Well, thanks. But you know I can have one as quickly as I want if I don' feel like it!

- That remains to be seen, miss. But between us I doubt it. And probably the others too, starting with your parents.

Then, after a last significant glance, he shrugged his shoulders with a falsely sorry air and finally resumed his activities, leaving the young girl totally haggard and furious.

With an expression very open to her true feelings, Ivy finally shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her friend Groul.

- You heard my friend, he said I'd have a hard time finding a man. He said he wouldn't believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. Ah, I swear to you. I can get one anytime I want. It's just that my studies of rare breeds like you, my handsome rascal, take up all my time, that's all!

But in front of the Groul's gaze, as septic as the indiscreet guard's, Ivy wore a shocked expression and rebelled.

- Oh, no, not you either. She warned him, pointing this time of a real severe finger at the mocking creature. "Spare me of this disdainful glance. I am as much capable as any young girl, to be with somebody, it is clear?

But the Groul persisted in looking at her with irony.

- Besides, I don't have to justify myself to you or Mr. Cole who will never win the male beauty pageant. Now be cute and let yourself be admired again. Ah finally! She exclaimed with a professional seriousness while hastily taking out her camera from her bag.

The coat of the Groul was changing, it shone slightly without however blinded the sight. Leaves and petals were plucked from the branches, then flown all around the little beast before enveloping it entirely like a huge cocoon before falling off in a mass a few minutes later revealing the new body of the endearing little creature.

His coat had become a warm brown, covered with spots of different brilliant colors, and his forehead was now marked with a slight black line that looked very much like a crown.

- Very handsome Groul! the young Kaltan commented softly in wonder.

She carefully put away the camera that had recorded this wonderful development. But as the girl busied herself, she couldn't help but think back to what the chief janitor of the center had said to her a moment earlier, and which her traitorous boyfriend Groul had supported with an eloquent gesture, that she was lonely, with no deep attachments, and that just not feeling any desire or will to be with anyone in this period of great youth, seemed perhaps even worse than having a broken heart. Ivy knew that she was a serious, idealistic, and very upright girl, qualities that were considered rare and indispensable in an increasingly permissive, hypocritical, and artificial society, whose magical presence did not help matters. But that for many people and especially for most boys, she had to represent the most annoying and repulsive kind of woman. At that moment, Ivy bit her lips, feeling terribly wavering between the desire to know someone intimately and the desire to continue her path alone to achieve her goal - to be a recognized specialist in rare creatures.