Chapter Text
As far as entertainment for Luna Nova students went, weekend visits to Blytonbury were about as good as it got. Hannah and Barbara were on one such visit, relaxing at a sidewalk café with a cup of tea and a croissant each.
It was nice to get away from the school for once, but tea and a snack were hardly exciting on their own. Hannah needed entertainment .
"There aren't any boys around here," Hannah groaned. Well, sure there were boys in town, but she was looking for a gentleman. Like Andrew Hanbridge. It was such a shame that Appleton was so far away. If only she could go on a date with Andrew .
"Yeah, there aren't guys around who can compare to Edgar and Arthur," Barbara said.
"I was talking about actual guys. What would a couple of book characters do for me?" Hannah didn't mind Barbara's obsession with Night Fall (now that she knew about it), but it could get a little excessive.
"Why would I settle for a loser—or no boy at all—when I could fawn over two perfect boys who will never disappoint me?"
"I'm annoyed how much sense that makes."
That was one of the few drawbacks of attending Luna Nova, there was a criminal lack of boys to play around with. Plenty of girls around though. Of course, Hannah wasn't interested in dating girls—not that there was anything wrong with that! But, like, even if she did hypothetically want to date another witch, it's not like she was swimming in viable candidates. Diana had said multiple times that she wasn't interested in dating. If Akko tried to sweep Hannah off her feet, they'd both end up with broken bones. Hell, there was only one girl at Luna Nova who was openly interested in dating other girls, and she was not an option...
Amanda O'Neill was quite possibly the most insufferable girl at Luna Nova Academy. Akko was a close second, but there was no matching Amanda's sheer ignorance and cockiness. Who did she think she was, swaggering through the hallways like she owned the place? Hannah disliked Amanda from the tips of her weirdly-coloured hair to the soles of her stupid-looking sneakers. Every time that delinquent did some broom trick and winked at a crowd of admiring girls, she wanted to vomit. Like, she wasn't even hot. At all. Maybe if Amanda took her studies seriously, then maybe she'd have some merits to go along with all that attitude. Then maybe Hannah could understand her appeal...
Hannah idly looked down the road and almost spit out her tea.
"Look at him ," she said, pointing down her line of sight at a boy . The boy was dressed in a suit, which immediately put him leagues ahead of the other boys in town. His salmon-pink and orange hair slicked back in a way that Hannah found roguishly handsome. He swaggered down the street, oozing devil-may-care confidence. Hannah could tell that he didn't care what anyone thought about him , and that only made her want his attention more.
Barbara turned around to look, nodding in agreement when she caught sight of him. "He certainly looks good, but is that the Appleton uniform? Those guys can be, well, you know..." Andrew of course was an exception.
"Who cares, he's hot." Hannah set her tea cup on the table. "I'm going to go talk to him."
"You're going to just walk up and start hitting on him?" Barbara raised her eyebrows. "A girl of your breeding can do better than that, Han."
"You're right, Barb." Hannah surreptitiously took out her wand and her handkerchief. "How's this for a ladylike approach?" She waited until the boy got close and cast a spell on the handkerchief to make it fly from her grasp, as if taken by the wind. The handkerchief fluttered over the sidewalk into the boy's path, causing him to stop and pick it up.
He leaned over the decorative iron fence that enclosed the patio section of the café and held out the handkerchief. "Uh, does this thing belong to either of you ladies?"
"Oh, thank you," Hannah said, layering on the charm that had won her the attention of many a noble's son. She brushed her finger's against the boy's as she reached for her handkerchief. "Such a gentleman."
The boy's eyes widened as his gaze met Hannah's, his cheeks flushing as he pushed the handkerchief into Hannah's hand and retracting his own. "It was nothing."
Does he have a shy side? Hannah grinned at the thought. How cute. She pressed her advantage. "Your girlfriend is so lucky."
"I don't have a girlfriend."
"Would you like one?" She batted her eyelashes.
The boy spluttered. "Wuh-what!?"
Hannah giggled. "I'm joking." She wasn't, but a successful capture required a proper chase. "A guy like you must be tired of random girls throwing themselves at you on sight." Exactly the way she was doing right now.
"Uh, yeah," the boy said, leaning forward with his folded arms braced against the top of the fence. "It's happened a few times now." He chuckled and pushed his hair back. There was something almost familiar in the way he laughed.
Barbara seemed to think so as well. "Have we met before?" she asked, turning a critical eye on him
"I think I'd remember if we'd met," Hannah said, turning an uncritical eye on that body.
"Yeah," the boy said nervously. "Not a lot of guys running around in suits, right?"
"Do you... come around here often?" Barbara asked. There was something in the way she looked at the boy that felt off to Hannah, but it wasn't affection or attraction, so it wouldn't get in the way of her attempt to get a date with him.
The boy shrugged. "Yeah, sometimes on the weekends when I'm bored."
"What about next weekend?" Hannah couldn't pass up a guy this cute.
"Uh, maybe?"
"How about you sit down and have a cup of tea with us?" Barbara suggested. "By the way, you haven't said your name yet..."
The boy's eyes widened. "Sorry. I'm, uh, not into tea." He straightened up. "I, uh gotta go. For reasons. See you again sometime, maybe."
Before Hannah could ask him to stay, he raced off down the street with surprising alacrity. Something had cracked that dauntless confidence of his .
"I didn't even get his number," she said, watching the boy disappear down the street. When she turned back, Barbara was staring at her incredulously. "What?"
"You realize that was Amanda, right?"
Hannah blinked. "Amanda who?"
"Amanda O'Neill. Same eye colour, same hair colour, same height. She's made her voice a little deeper, but how did you not recognize the American accent in England? "
Having had the pieces of the puzzle assembled for her, Hannah couldn't deny the realization that the "boy" she'd been flirting with had been Amanda all along. Her dignity, however, desperately tried to recover. "That's not... I wouldn't... why is she even wearing a suit!?"
Barbara smirked. "I don't know, but I guess that's what you're into..."
"What!?" Hannah's started burning, her heart beating hard in her chest. "This was a fluke! I'm not attracted to Amanda O'Neill! Even if she's wearing a suit!" She fanned herself desperately. What's going on with me? she thought, panicked. I'm not into Amanda! She should be angry at Amanda for tricking her, not getting flustered over the revelation.
"So what if she looks good in a suit," Hannah mumbled. "She's still, you know, Amanda O'Neill." Even if Amanda could pass for a cool guy if she tried, she was still the same insufferably delinquent girl deep down.
"You're right, I suppose," Barbara said, taking a sip of her tea. "Such a shame. That was the most excited I've seen you since Andrew visited the school."
Hannah tried to hide her face behind her tiny teacup. There would be hell to pay the next time she saw Amanda. If she told anyone about what happened today, detention would be the least of her problems. The more Hannah thought about the entire affair, the more embarrassed she became, which in turn made her furious again.
The worst part is that she caught herself wondering what would have happened if she actually ended up going on a date with Amanda.