"So I'm sure you've all heard by now," Paige said as she glanced around at everyone present, "They're planning to reopen the school tomorrow. They had some exterminators in there Tuesday afternoon and all day yesterday, and today they gave the all clear."
Our club leader continued, "What they didn't share with the public is what they actually found. Which was nothing. No trace of a bee hive, no sign of a swarm, no evidence of bees in the building at all. In fact the only trace of any bees whatsoever were the multiple stings Mr. Sanderson suffered."
Brooke took over, "You all probably know this but just in case you don't, bees die after they sting someone. For every sting the teacher received, there should have been a dead bee somewhere in the gym. Nothing was found."
"Which pretty much confirms that this is a supernatural incident," Paige stated. "I don't know the exact spell or what kind of magic was involved, but my guess is someone somehow conjured or summoned those bees, and directed them to attack Mr. Sanderson. Then after the job was done and the spell ended, the bees vanished."
Everyone was quiet for the next few seconds. The wolfgirls were both frowning while Brooke and Kaylee had serious expressions on their faces. Melody and my little sister both looked uncomfortable, for that matter so did my parents. And Paige was staring at me for some reason.
It was Thursday afternoon, two full days after the incident at school, and we were having a club meeting at our house so everyone could share what they'd found out about the situation. And I figured we were going to talk about those two internet reporter guys too.
Then Paige spoke up again, and I finally found out why she'd been looking at me like that.
"Cass I hate to put you on the spot but as much as I doubt you had anything to do with this I have to ask," our club leader said as she watched me. "I know Mr. Sanderson's been causing you a lot of grief over the past month. Did you have anything to do with this?"
My cheeks went red and I cringed as I quickly shook my head, "I'd never do anything like that, I couldn't hurt anyone! Even if he was a bully and a jerk, there's no way I'd do this."
"You should know better than to ask that Paige," Kaylee added with an angry tone in her voice. "Cass wouldn't hurt a fly."
I mumbled, "I wouldn't even hurt a bee, they're cute. Like little fuzzy black and yellow flying panda-bears."
Paige apologized, "Sorry Cass. I had to ask though, all right? Everyone in our class sees how badly Sanderson's been treating you."
At that point my mom spoke up, with a dangerous edge in her tone. "Excuse me Paige, but can you elaborate on that? What exactly has this man been doing to our daughter?"
"It's nothing mom," I mumbled. "No big deal."
Mum replied, "Perhaps not Cassandra, but Julie and I would like to know the details regardless."
"Fine," I sighed.
It took me a few minutes to explain the situation, but first I had to tell my parents why I skipped gym so much. Like originally it was because of the dysphoria and everything, plus Mr. Sanderson really was a bully when it came to all the kids who weren't athletic. Which was part of the reason I was still skipping gym even after dysphoria wasn't an issue, I hated the way he treated the out of shape kids.
Then I told them how he'd given me that ultimatum at the end of March, and I'd been attending all his classes since then. Except I couldn't 'exert myself' without revealing my supernatural strength and everything. And finally I told them how he always gave me a hard time, then looked the other way when other students picked on me.
Paige chimed in with a few more details that I'd left out, and mentioned some examples of how the teacher was treating me. Like during the soccer game the other day, when Sanderson yelled at both Paige and me after another student tripped me and Paige stopped to help me up.
By the time we were done my parents were both obviously unhappy, but rather than comment on the situation they just thanked me and Paige for filling them in.
Then our club leader continued with the meeting, "The last bit of news on this topic is about Mr. Sanderson's condition. He's expected to make a full recovery, but he will not be returning to school any time soon. Odds are we'll have a substitute gym teacher for the rest of the school year."
"Normally this would be a pretty clear incident for Club Luna to investigate," Paige continued. "Some sort of magic was used to summon or conjure a swarm of bees which attacked a teacher. Odds are this was done by another student, and knowing what Mr. Sanderson was like there's probably a long list of kids who'd have liked to see him gone."
With a sigh she added, "Our biggest problem right now is we can't openly investigate this, because of those two reporters snooping around."
At that point my girlfriend took over, "I spent a few hours yesterday researching them online. They appear to be legit? Their podcast and video channel have both been around for almost eight years. They started out when they were in high school, researching cryptid sightings. Then they started doing ghost hunts, and gradually expanded to include other supernatural phenomena. In a way they're a little like Club Luna, except instead of trying to solve these things they're trying to expose them and make them public."
Paige agreed, "My digging turned up the same thing. Their social media accounts have been active for over a decade, and the past eight years they've been actively researching their 'really strange stuff' as they call it. In the last five years they've looked into everything from bigfoot to ghosts to magic to aliens. They have thousands of subscribers and followers, they even have a line of merch they sell to help support their investigations."
"So the good news is they're probably not council spies," Cerys stated. "The bad news is they're legitimately looking to uncover and expose anything supernatural."
Kaylee added, "That's practically their mission statement? To uncover and expose the strange, unusual, and paranormal, and inform and educate the public."
"That's pretty much exactly the opposite of what the council does," Melody pointed out. "I can't imagine they'd be very happy with these guys if they ever did uncover and publish proof of the supernatural."
My mom asked, "Have they ever uncovered anything legitimate? I suppose not, or we'd have heard of it."
Cerys replied, "From what I could see they haven't had any huge world-changing scoops or anything like that. I watched a few episodes on their channel, they do a good job presenting strange evidence and stuff like that, but as far as I could tell they don't have anything that a TV news show would pick up and run with as proof of the supernatural."
"I agree," Paige said. "Except they're treating this trip to our town as their biggest break, maybe the investigation that'll take them into the mainstream."
The tall brunette gave me an apologetic look as she continued, "According to some of their recent social media posts, and some 'sneak previews' they've posted in the last few days for their paid subscribers, they came here based on some leads about 'demi-humans living openly among us'. And as we all know, they've found exactly that. Two of those paid 'sneak previews' were short clips from their interviews with real live catgirls Sylvia Franklin and Kimmie Winters."
That made me cringe again, and I tried to sink down into my hoodie as everyone turned to stare at me again. Meanwhile my mum facepalmed, while mom frowned at me. And I just knew I was in for another lecture about dealing with the consequences of my actions.
Except instead of mom giving me a lecture, mum asked "What are their names again? Who are these two reporters, exactly?"
"Keith Wilson, originally from Arkansas," Paige replied, "And Chaz Varela originally of California. Both currently living in Illinois now, in a Chicago suburb."
"There's lots of information about them on their website. The link is at the bottom of their stickers," my little sister said as she handed mum the sticker Keith gave her the other day.
Brooke added, "Right now they're staying in a little motel off the highway, a couple kilometres south of town. I scried for them last night, using the sticker they gave Paige."
"Thank you girls," mum replied as she took the sticker from Nina.
"So what's our next step?" Kaylee asked. "Do we try and research the bee incident, or do we lay low and wait for the reporters to go away?"
Our club leader sighed and shook her head, "I honestly don't know. I'd like to think we have a duty to protect the public, which means we need to find out who's responsible for the bee attack and try to put a stop to that? But I really don't think we can afford to risk those guys exposing any of us."
Cerys added, "From the sound of it they're probably going to be digging into the bee attack as well. They posted about that on their social media, like they came here to research real live catgirls and stumbled onto something potentially a whole lot bigger."
"Which will make it even harder for us to deal with the situation," Paige sighed again. "So maybe we really should sit this one out? I hate to say that though, since it's basically the reason Club Luna exists. We're supposed to solve this sort of thing and protect people from getting hurt."
After she was finished everyone was quiet for a few seconds, like nobody really knew what to say or had any suggestions on how to handle things. Like she said it was a tough call, between investigating this stuff and protecting people, or keeping our secrets and avoiding any public scrutiny.
Then Brooke broke the silence, "I hate to be the one to say it, but I kind of wonder how May would have handled this situation. If she were still here, I think she'd tell us to back off and lay low? But I also think she might have tried looking into it herself. We still don't know what exactly she's capable of, or what sort of resources she has."
Paige and Brooke and Melody all looked to my parents, since they'd taken May's place as the club's sponsors. And they were the grown-ups in the room, the responsible adults we looked to for guidance. Meanwhile the two wolfgirls and my girlfriend all looked at me, since I was kind of May's replacement too. At least in terms of having access to divine magic and stuff.
I ended up blushing as I cringed into my hoodie again, but fortunately nobody outright asked me to do anything or make any decisions. Then my mum spoke up and got all the attention off me and onto her, which made me happy.
"I'm going to agree with at least half of your speculation Brooke," she said. "My advice to Club Luna is to stay out of this and keep quiet. Hopefully these reporters will finish what they're doing and leave, the sooner the better. Then perhaps you can start investigating the incident in the gym."
My mom agreed, "Your safety and security is the most important thing. And the best way you can ensure that is through secrecy."
It was easy to see the wolfgirls weren't happy with that answer, and both Paige and Brooke seemed conflicted about it too. Even Kaylee looked like she wasn't sure it was the best option. Melody seemed ok with it though. And me and Nina just kept quiet about the whole thing.
"All right," Paige finally responded. "Tanya, Julie, thank you for your input. That's what we'll do. We'll keep our eyes and ears open, watch and listen, make note of anything unusual. And we can do research from the safety of our homes. But we won't be doing any investigations, we won't be talking to witnesses, and we definitely won't be doing any magic. Not until we know it's safe and those reporters are gone."
Cerys was obviously unhappy as she grumped, "You may as well just put the club on suspension then, if we can't do what we're meant to be doing. Or just disband the thing. If we can't stand up to a couple internet snoops then what's the point?"
Our leader sighed, then she surprised a lot of us by responding "Actually Cerys that's something else I wanted to discuss. And since all ten of us are here, this seems like a good time to bring it up. Not suspending the club, but about the club's future over-all."
"Back when May was running things the club was tied to her and the school," Paige continued. "New members joined in grade nine, veterans left when they graduated grade twelve. There was turn-over every year, but the club itself persisted. Since May left we've taken the club out of the school, now it's tied to those of us here. But what happens in a year, or two, or three? What becomes of the club when we all drift apart one by one, and focus on our education or living our lives?"
"Julie, Tanya," Paige looked to my parents, "Would you still be sponsoring the club if Cass and Nina weren't part of it? After they've moved away to focus on their own lives, would you still be part of it? How would new members be recruited? And where will they meet? You mentioned the possibility of a meeting place in your basement, but I gather that's not happening after all?"
Mum grimaced and shook her head, "That was tentative at the time, and you're right it's not happening. We're holding off on our basement renovations, partially because of some of those questions you just raised yourself Paige."
"Tanya and I need to speak privately with Cass and Nina about some of these things," mom added. "Perhaps its best if we do that before addressing the rest of your questions? For now, why don't we go around the room and find out what other people have to say on the subject?"
Brooke responded, "I'm still hoping to become a teacher. I'd love to stay in the area, if I could get a teaching job around here after college that would be ideal. I'd probably be working with primary school kids, so definitely not potential club members. But as long as I'm local I'd be interested in remaining part of the club."
Paige went next. She sounded apologetic as she said, "I'll be out of town by September, and I have no idea if I'll ever be back. I'll be spending three years at UWO, then I'll be looking for work in the tech sector. I might find a good job somewhere here in Ontario, but maybe I'll end up moving even further away? I just don't know. Either way, it's a safe bet that this is my last year in Club Luna."
"I got accepted at UTM," my girlfriend said quietly. "It's about seventy kilometres away, and maybe I could commute if I had a car but it's not ideal. So I've got a spot in residence there. I'll try to come home on weekends, and I'll definitely be back for holidays. And uh, I don't know yet what I'll be doing after university."
"I'd like to stay here with y'all but I can't even say if I'll be here next month, let alone next year," Melanie sighed. She sounded grumpy as she continued, "The thing with our house is still up in the air. Dad's already talking about moving to Peterborough, he's got a line on a better job there. If he finds a place with cheap rent he might pack us up and move without much notice."
Cerys looked and sounded sad as she added, "If Melanie has to leave I'd want to go with her. If her dad won't let me then I guess I'll be with my aunt and uncle for a few months. Then when I turn eighteen I have no idea what'll happen. Mom's moving out east, but I don't want to go with her. So I guess I'm in limbo too right now, waiting to see what happens with Mr. Caetano."
"My plans are kind of up in the air too," Melody admitted when it was her turn. "This is my second year of college, then I'll be out looking for a full-time job. My boyfriends and I are all talking about finding a place together, but whether that's around here or someplace else I don't know yet."
Nina quietly told the others, "I like it here with Cass and our parents and all of you. I'm going to stay here as long as my new family will have me. I'll keep going to high school until I graduate, then I'll go to the local college. Then maybe I'll find something else to do here in town."
That just left me, and with everyone all looking at me I was tempted to cringe and hide in my hoodie again.
Instead I felt myself becoming calm and confident as my normal shy awkwardness faded. I sat up a little straighter and stated, "I'll be staying here in town for the foreseeable future as well. I might remain here with mom and mum and Nina, or maybe I'll want to move out on my own at some point. I won't go far though, I'll stay close by."
I glanced at Cerys and Melanie then added, "It also occurrs to me that perhaps a few of us could group together and become roommates? That way everyone who wants to stay here would be able to do so. We could find an apartment, or maybe even rent a house, if we pooled all our resources."
My words left both wolfgirls looking surprised but interested. My girlfriend and my family also looked a little surprised too, and for that matter I felt a little surprised myself. Nobody questioned me about any of my suggestions though. And that was pretty much the end of the meeting.
PurpleCatGirl A few explanations for folks unfamiliar with the locations & acronyms...
UWO = University of Western Ontario, aka Western, located in London Ontario. 150-200km west of where Club Luna takes place.
UTM = University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus. as Kaylee said, it's about 70km south-ish from their location
Peterborough = another small town in Ontario, approx 100-150km east of the Club Luna town
If you're enjoying our work and you'd like to support us, please consider joining our patreon & get early access to new chapters, bonus chapters, and more! Patrons have already read interlude 30 and you could too!
https://www.patreon.com/purplecatgirl
"So I'm sure you've all heard by now," Paige said as she glanced around at everyone present, "They're planning to reopen the school tomorrow. They had some exterminators in there Tuesday afternoon and all day yesterday, and today they gave the all clear."
Our club leader continued, "What they didn't share with the public is what they actually found. Which was nothing. No trace of a bee hive, no sign of a swarm, no evidence of bees in the building at all. In fact the only trace of any bees whatsoever were the multiple stings Mr. Sanderson suffered."
Brooke took over, "You all probably know this but just in case you don't, bees die after they sting someone. For every sting the teacher received, there should have been a dead bee somewhere in the gym. Nothing was found."
"Which pretty much confirms that this is a supernatural incident," Paige stated. "I don't know the exact spell or what kind of magic was involved, but my guess is someone somehow conjured or summoned those bees, and directed them to attack Mr. Sanderson. Then after the job was done and the spell ended, the bees vanished."
Everyone was quiet for the next few seconds. The wolfgirls were both frowning while Brooke and Kaylee had serious expressions on their faces. Melody and my little sister both looked uncomfortable, for that matter so did my parents. And Paige was staring at me for some reason.
It was Thursday afternoon, two full days after the incident at school, and we were having a club meeting at our house so everyone could share what they'd found out about the situation. And I figured we were going to talk about those two internet reporter guys too.
Then Paige spoke up again, and I finally found out why she'd been looking at me like that.
"Cass I hate to put you on the spot but as much as I doubt you had anything to do with this I have to ask," our club leader said as she watched me. "I know Mr. Sanderson's been causing you a lot of grief over the past month. Did you have anything to do with this?"
My cheeks went red and I cringed as I quickly shook my head, "I'd never do anything like that, I couldn't hurt anyone! Even if he was a bully and a jerk, there's no way I'd do this."
"You should know better than to ask that Paige," Kaylee added with an angry tone in her voice. "Cass wouldn't hurt a fly."
I mumbled, "I wouldn't even hurt a bee, they're cute. Like little fuzzy black and yellow flying panda-bears."
Paige apologized, "Sorry Cass. I had to ask though, all right? Everyone in our class sees how badly Sanderson's been treating you."
At that point my mom spoke up, with a dangerous edge in her tone. "Excuse me Paige, but can you elaborate on that? What exactly has this man been doing to our daughter?"
"It's nothing mom," I mumbled. "No big deal."
Mum replied, "Perhaps not Cassandra, but Julie and I would like to know the details regardless."
"Fine," I sighed.
It took me a few minutes to explain the situation, but first I had to tell my parents why I skipped gym so much. Like originally it was because of the dysphoria and everything, plus Mr. Sanderson really was a bully when it came to all the kids who weren't athletic. Which was part of the reason I was still skipping gym even after dysphoria wasn't an issue, I hated the way he treated the out of shape kids.
Then I told them how he'd given me that ultimatum at the end of March, and I'd been attending all his classes since then. Except I couldn't 'exert myself' without revealing my supernatural strength and everything. And finally I told them how he always gave me a hard time, then looked the other way when other students picked on me.
Paige chimed in with a few more details that I'd left out, and mentioned some examples of how the teacher was treating me. Like during the soccer game the other day, when Sanderson yelled at both Paige and me after another student tripped me and Paige stopped to help me up.
By the time we were done my parents were both obviously unhappy, but rather than comment on the situation they just thanked me and Paige for filling them in.
Then our club leader continued with the meeting, "The last bit of news on this topic is about Mr. Sanderson's condition. He's expected to make a full recovery, but he will not be returning to school any time soon. Odds are we'll have a substitute gym teacher for the rest of the school year."
"Normally this would be a pretty clear incident for Club Luna to investigate," Paige continued. "Some sort of magic was used to summon or conjure a swarm of bees which attacked a teacher. Odds are this was done by another student, and knowing what Mr. Sanderson was like there's probably a long list of kids who'd have liked to see him gone."
With a sigh she added, "Our biggest problem right now is we can't openly investigate this, because of those two reporters snooping around."
At that point my girlfriend took over, "I spent a few hours yesterday researching them online. They appear to be legit? Their podcast and video channel have both been around for almost eight years. They started out when they were in high school, researching cryptid sightings. Then they started doing ghost hunts, and gradually expanded to include other supernatural phenomena. In a way they're a little like Club Luna, except instead of trying to solve these things they're trying to expose them and make them public."
Paige agreed, "My digging turned up the same thing. Their social media accounts have been active for over a decade, and the past eight years they've been actively researching their 'really strange stuff' as they call it. In the last five years they've looked into everything from bigfoot to ghosts to magic to aliens. They have thousands of subscribers and followers, they even have a line of merch they sell to help support their investigations."
"So the good news is they're probably not council spies," Cerys stated. "The bad news is they're legitimately looking to uncover and expose anything supernatural."
Kaylee added, "That's practically their mission statement? To uncover and expose the strange, unusual, and paranormal, and inform and educate the public."
"That's pretty much exactly the opposite of what the council does," Melody pointed out. "I can't imagine they'd be very happy with these guys if they ever did uncover and publish proof of the supernatural."
My mom asked, "Have they ever uncovered anything legitimate? I suppose not, or we'd have heard of it."
Cerys replied, "From what I could see they haven't had any huge world-changing scoops or anything like that. I watched a few episodes on their channel, they do a good job presenting strange evidence and stuff like that, but as far as I could tell they don't have anything that a TV news show would pick up and run with as proof of the supernatural."
"I agree," Paige said. "Except they're treating this trip to our town as their biggest break, maybe the investigation that'll take them into the mainstream."
The tall brunette gave me an apologetic look as she continued, "According to some of their recent social media posts, and some 'sneak previews' they've posted in the last few days for their paid subscribers, they came here based on some leads about 'demi-humans living openly among us'. And as we all know, they've found exactly that. Two of those paid 'sneak previews' were short clips from their interviews with real live catgirls Sylvia Franklin and Kimmie Winters."
That made me cringe again, and I tried to sink down into my hoodie as everyone turned to stare at me again. Meanwhile my mum facepalmed, while mom frowned at me. And I just knew I was in for another lecture about dealing with the consequences of my actions.
Except instead of mom giving me a lecture, mum asked "What are their names again? Who are these two reporters, exactly?"
"Keith Wilson, originally from Arkansas," Paige replied, "And Chaz Varela originally of California. Both currently living in Illinois now, in a Chicago suburb."
"There's lots of information about them on their website. The link is at the bottom of their stickers," my little sister said as she handed mum the sticker Keith gave her the other day.
Brooke added, "Right now they're staying in a little motel off the highway, a couple kilometres south of town. I scried for them last night, using the sticker they gave Paige."
"Thank you girls," mum replied as she took the sticker from Nina.
"So what's our next step?" Kaylee asked. "Do we try and research the bee incident, or do we lay low and wait for the reporters to go away?"
Our club leader sighed and shook her head, "I honestly don't know. I'd like to think we have a duty to protect the public, which means we need to find out who's responsible for the bee attack and try to put a stop to that? But I really don't think we can afford to risk those guys exposing any of us."
Cerys added, "From the sound of it they're probably going to be digging into the bee attack as well. They posted about that on their social media, like they came here to research real live catgirls and stumbled onto something potentially a whole lot bigger."
"Which will make it even harder for us to deal with the situation," Paige sighed again. "So maybe we really should sit this one out? I hate to say that though, since it's basically the reason Club Luna exists. We're supposed to solve this sort of thing and protect people from getting hurt."
After she was finished everyone was quiet for a few seconds, like nobody really knew what to say or had any suggestions on how to handle things. Like she said it was a tough call, between investigating this stuff and protecting people, or keeping our secrets and avoiding any public scrutiny.
Then Brooke broke the silence, "I hate to be the one to say it, but I kind of wonder how May would have handled this situation. If she were still here, I think she'd tell us to back off and lay low? But I also think she might have tried looking into it herself. We still don't know what exactly she's capable of, or what sort of resources she has."
Paige and Brooke and Melody all looked to my parents, since they'd taken May's place as the club's sponsors. And they were the grown-ups in the room, the responsible adults we looked to for guidance. Meanwhile the two wolfgirls and my girlfriend all looked at me, since I was kind of May's replacement too. At least in terms of having access to divine magic and stuff.
I ended up blushing as I cringed into my hoodie again, but fortunately nobody outright asked me to do anything or make any decisions. Then my mum spoke up and got all the attention off me and onto her, which made me happy.
"I'm going to agree with at least half of your speculation Brooke," she said. "My advice to Club Luna is to stay out of this and keep quiet. Hopefully these reporters will finish what they're doing and leave, the sooner the better. Then perhaps you can start investigating the incident in the gym."
My mom agreed, "Your safety and security is the most important thing. And the best way you can ensure that is through secrecy."
It was easy to see the wolfgirls weren't happy with that answer, and both Paige and Brooke seemed conflicted about it too. Even Kaylee looked like she wasn't sure it was the best option. Melody seemed ok with it though. And me and Nina just kept quiet about the whole thing.
"All right," Paige finally responded. "Tanya, Julie, thank you for your input. That's what we'll do. We'll keep our eyes and ears open, watch and listen, make note of anything unusual. And we can do research from the safety of our homes. But we won't be doing any investigations, we won't be talking to witnesses, and we definitely won't be doing any magic. Not until we know it's safe and those reporters are gone."
Cerys was obviously unhappy as she grumped, "You may as well just put the club on suspension then, if we can't do what we're meant to be doing. Or just disband the thing. If we can't stand up to a couple internet snoops then what's the point?"
Our leader sighed, then she surprised a lot of us by responding "Actually Cerys that's something else I wanted to discuss. And since all ten of us are here, this seems like a good time to bring it up. Not suspending the club, but about the club's future over-all."
"Back when May was running things the club was tied to her and the school," Paige continued. "New members joined in grade nine, veterans left when they graduated grade twelve. There was turn-over every year, but the club itself persisted. Since May left we've taken the club out of the school, now it's tied to those of us here. But what happens in a year, or two, or three? What becomes of the club when we all drift apart one by one, and focus on our education or living our lives?"
"Julie, Tanya," Paige looked to my parents, "Would you still be sponsoring the club if Cass and Nina weren't part of it? After they've moved away to focus on their own lives, would you still be part of it? How would new members be recruited? And where will they meet? You mentioned the possibility of a meeting place in your basement, but I gather that's not happening after all?"
Mum grimaced and shook her head, "That was tentative at the time, and you're right it's not happening. We're holding off on our basement renovations, partially because of some of those questions you just raised yourself Paige."
"Tanya and I need to speak privately with Cass and Nina about some of these things," mom added. "Perhaps its best if we do that before addressing the rest of your questions? For now, why don't we go around the room and find out what other people have to say on the subject?"
Brooke responded, "I'm still hoping to become a teacher. I'd love to stay in the area, if I could get a teaching job around here after college that would be ideal. I'd probably be working with primary school kids, so definitely not potential club members. But as long as I'm local I'd be interested in remaining part of the club."
Paige went next. She sounded apologetic as she said, "I'll be out of town by September, and I have no idea if I'll ever be back. I'll be spending three years at UWO, then I'll be looking for work in the tech sector. I might find a good job somewhere here in Ontario, but maybe I'll end up moving even further away? I just don't know. Either way, it's a safe bet that this is my last year in Club Luna."
"I got accepted at UTM," my girlfriend said quietly. "It's about seventy kilometres away, and maybe I could commute if I had a car but it's not ideal. So I've got a spot in residence there. I'll try to come home on weekends, and I'll definitely be back for holidays. And uh, I don't know yet what I'll be doing after university."
"I'd like to stay here with y'all but I can't even say if I'll be here next month, let alone next year," Melanie sighed. She sounded grumpy as she continued, "The thing with our house is still up in the air. Dad's already talking about moving to Peterborough, he's got a line on a better job there. If he finds a place with cheap rent he might pack us up and move without much notice."
Cerys looked and sounded sad as she added, "If Melanie has to leave I'd want to go with her. If her dad won't let me then I guess I'll be with my aunt and uncle for a few months. Then when I turn eighteen I have no idea what'll happen. Mom's moving out east, but I don't want to go with her. So I guess I'm in limbo too right now, waiting to see what happens with Mr. Caetano."
"My plans are kind of up in the air too," Melody admitted when it was her turn. "This is my second year of college, then I'll be out looking for a full-time job. My boyfriends and I are all talking about finding a place together, but whether that's around here or someplace else I don't know yet."
Nina quietly told the others, "I like it here with Cass and our parents and all of you. I'm going to stay here as long as my new family will have me. I'll keep going to high school until I graduate, then I'll go to the local college. Then maybe I'll find something else to do here in town."
That just left me, and with everyone all looking at me I was tempted to cringe and hide in my hoodie again.
Instead I felt myself becoming calm and confident as my normal shy awkwardness faded. I sat up a little straighter and stated, "I'll be staying here in town for the foreseeable future as well. I might remain here with mom and mum and Nina, or maybe I'll want to move out on my own at some point. I won't go far though, I'll stay close by."
I glanced at Cerys and Melanie then added, "It also occurrs to me that perhaps a few of us could group together and become roommates? That way everyone who wants to stay here would be able to do so. We could find an apartment, or maybe even rent a house, if we pooled all our resources."
My words left both wolfgirls looking surprised but interested. My girlfriend and my family also looked a little surprised too, and for that matter I felt a little surprised myself. Nobody questioned me about any of my suggestions though. And that was pretty much the end of the meeting.
PurpleCatGirl A few explanations for folks unfamiliar with the locations & acronyms...
UWO = University of Western Ontario, aka Western, located in London Ontario. 150-200km west of where Club Luna takes place.
UTM = University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus. as Kaylee said, it's about 70km south-ish from their location
Peterborough = another small town in Ontario, approx 100-150km east of the Club Luna town
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