Chapter 34 - Fade Together

Fade Together



The school year was drawing to an end and Kaede's teachers were talking to them about what the final year would involve and how much they would need to study to pass their exams that year. Kaede tuned out for most of this because she wasn't coming back to school, and was busy doing something else.

Wanting to have something to remember her days at school with her friends, Kaede, with Sakura's help, began to compile a year book. She brought a camera into school and made the whole of her year line up for photographs. Then she brought in a huge notebook and told people to fill out some general details. Then she got people's friends to write a page about them and then she and Sakura spent an entire weekend at Sakura's computer.

`What else can we do?' Sakura said, leaning back in her chair.

`I dunno, we could have a huge collection of photographs, some people can draw stuff and put in little jokes and things they say loads or whatever,' Kaede said, writing stuff down on a piece of paper.

`Oh, we could have some special words by all the teachers for our year!' Sakura grinned.

`Oh yeah! So we need some pictures of the teachers!' Kaede laughed, writing it down.

`Oooh, and we can get the arty people to paint a nice picture and put a photo of that in there, and we could make the music people compose a song or something!'

`Yeah! That's brill,' Kaede said, looking down at her list. `Yumiko will do the first one. And I'm sure that the music people will just be desperate to show off.'

`Totally,' Sakura grinned. `Oh, in the pictures of everyone, we need one of us all at the beach!'

`Oh yeah! Where Seto had to wear my clothes!'

`Yep!' Sakura roared with laughter. `I'm so glad I brought a camera with me that day!'

`Ha ha!' Kaede grinned. `Totally! And the van and the kombi together!'

`Dude! And then we could have a picture of the school.'

`And signatures on everyone's photo.'

`How many pages is everyone going to get?' Sakura leaned over.

`Quite a lot,' Kaede, looking down at her notes. `We need a whole page with the pictures we took on Thursday, that's the place people are gonna write their signatures. We also need a general info page, which could be the next one, and on that can also be their opinions of their time at this school. After that we could have the friend's opinions of them, and what they think they'll be doing in ten years time, what job they'll have etc.'

`Okay, that's three pages, what about any drawings or saying or other random stuff they want to put into it?'

`Okay, that could be the next page,' Kaede said, scribbling all of this in another notebook. `So four pages in all.'

`Sounds awesome!' Sakura grinned, leaning back in her chair. `So how many people are there in our year?'

`I think about seventy five, there's like twenty five people in each class and three classes, so yeah, that's about right.'

`We gonna count Ana and Honda?' Sakura asked suddenly. `We gonna get them one each?'

`Definitely,' Kaede grinned. `I'm gonna call Ana and ask her to send us a photo of her and Honda. I think we'll be able to sort out the rest. And we all know the weird things that they say!'

`What about Seto?' asked Sakura. `Isn't he still a member of the school, even if he never comes.'

`I spose,' Kaede sighed. `I'll get all his stuff when he comes over.'

`This is going to be so cool!'

`I know!' Kaede grinned and jumped up. She ran to the phone and dialled the phone number Ana had left them when she had gone to France. She spoke to Ana quickly and ten minutes later she received all the information she needed from them.

It took them the best part of the next day to sort out all of the information and create the book. They set it out like a proper book, with a contents page, and shoved everyone's information in, putting everyone in alphabetically.

As they were doing this, Kaede suddenly had an idea.

`Hey, how about we have nominations?'

`For what?'

`You know, like, funniest girl and cutest couple and weirdest hair,' Kaede was grinning now. `That would be so cool, and everyone can nominate two people and then the person with the most votes is announced in the year book. We can have a whole list thing with the award and then we can have a winner, a second and a third place. How cool is that?'

Sakura agreed it was indeed a great idea and together they wrote down a list of possible awards and Kaede, having taken everyone's email address, sent it to everyone, suggesting at the bottom that people can make their own awards.

The next couple of days Sakura and Kaede were running around school trying to sort out the stuff they needed for the year book. They cornered the art and music people who agreed after some persuading and then they lined up all of their teachers and took pictures of them, taking down what they said about the year and how “pleasant” it was to teach them.

They managed to bribe the school office to give them a photograph of the school for them to put on first page and then ran around collecting the drawing and other things that people wanted on their random pages. They got so many they shouted at everyone to put them in envelopes so that they could keep them separate from other peoples. Kaede also began chasing up people to send her their nominations for the awards and by the evening when Kaede and Sakura sat down at Kaede's laptop they had everyone's nominations.

By the end of that week they were finished. Everything had been handed in and they put it all into the book. They put everyone's pages first, alphabetically, and then there were a couple of pages of photographs. After that they had the teacher's section and then the song written by the music students and the picture by the artists. After this they put the awards and then on the very last page was a photograph of their entire year, taken at the start of that school year.

Kaede and Sakura took it to the photocopying shop and ordered copies for everyone in their year and a copy for the school library.

`Alright everyone, cough up!' Kaede announced as she and Sakura gathered their year in the school gym. `We need 2,200 yen from all of you (about £11) for the year books. And all of you have to pay because you all agreed to have one! It is so expensive because it is so amazing, seriously, it's gonna be good, so come on, give us your money!'

Everyone complained that they didn't have that much money with them and would bring it in the next day. So the next morning Sakura went around with an envelope collecting the money from everyone and glaring at people who didn't bring it.

A few days later, a day before the end of term, the books were finished. Kaede and Sakura collected them and paid the shop who were just too happy to be able to take all that money off their hands.

The next day they took them into school. Their whole year was excused from lessons because they wouldn't have learnt anything even if then had been in them. Once again they gathered in the gym and everyone's year book was pasted around to be signed by everyone. When everyone had signed their page in everyone's book they were returned to the owner.

As soon as the books were opened Kaede heard laughter and she grinned. She saw most people looking at the awards. She flicked to the back as well and grinned when she saw them.

Awards:

Best looking boy

Best looking girl

Fittest boy

Fittest girl

Funniest boy

Funniest girl

Weirdest boy

Weirdest girl

Best hair (boy)

Best hair (girl)

Weirdest hair (boy)

Weirdest hair (girl)

Cutest couple

Weirdest couple

Biggest failure of a couple



`Why,' Yuula demanded, `am I with Duke as the second cutest couple of our entire year?'

`Because you were cute, and it was a majority decision,' Sakura said, jabbing her in the side.

`Ha ha ha, Yugi has the worst hair out of all the boys in the year!' Tea laughed. `And Honda is second!'

`Yeah, but look who the third place was for the girls weirdest hair!' Kaede said, and ducked as something heavy was thrown at her. `What! I didn't nominate you!'

`Why are we the biggest failure of a couple?' Joey asked Kaede, looking up from his book.

`I thought that would be obvious,' Kaede raised her eyebrow at him. `We both cheated on each other, so that was kind of a failure, wasn't it?'

They were all chatting about the year book when the doors opened and Seto walked into the gym. Everyone was so surprised there was immediate silence, but Kaede grinned and tossed him a year book, that they had got everyone to sign for him. Suddenly everyone surged forwards and demanded he sign their books, and Seto looked as though he was being attacked by thousands of slugs, and grudgingly began signing.

At the end of the day their entire group headed towards the mall, happy and exhausted. Their school shirts had been signed by everyone in their year and so had Kaede's satchel. They reached their favourite café and collapsed into a closely huddled group of sofas. When their teas and coffees and hot chocolates and chocolate cakes and everything else was brought over they sat back and spoke of the fun times they'd had together and everything that would come.

Soon it got too much for Tea and she burst out crying. Everyone leaned towards her and asked her what was wrong and she choked out, `It just won't be the same without Kaede.'

Kaede was alarmed but then grinned at her. `It's not like I'm never going to see you again! You guys are coming to the wedding, and you're always welcome to stay with us!'

`They are?' Seto muttered, alarmed.

Kaede ignored him and they carried on talking, and then stood and left the café, and all the girls, even Yumiko, linked arms as the boys walked behind them, as they left the mall together for what seemed was the last time.

Thousands of years before, Hebeny and Seto loaded a cart and set off, disguised as travellers, into the desert, with only Herya and Isis watching them leave.

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