Second Arc: Sixteenth Chapter

"Right then, let's begin our hula hoop workshop!"

Yaaay— clap, clap.

At my signal, Georg snapped into position with his hoop.

"Everyone, please copy Georg, all right~?"

We all took up our hoops and fixed our eyes on him.

"The key to this is the hips," said Georg. "Like so — you snap them, keep a good rhythm. That's the trick."

With a "hup," he set his hoop spinning.

Whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.

"Wh-what in the world…!"

"The hoop… you can't even see it!"

A spin so fast the eye couldn't follow — and to the rest of us it just looked like Georg wiggling about!

Lady Julia and I and the others tried to copy him, but after a few turns our hoops dropped straight to the ground. His Highness and Remias — whether from regular exercise or plain good instincts — kept theirs going easily enough, though even they were no match for Georg's speed.

"Hmm… fix a blade to the outside of this hoop and it'd make a weapon, offense and defense in one."

His Highness, watching Georg, said something ominous.

A blade around the rim of a hula hoop. What is that. Terrifying.

"Take this!"

His Highness threw something at Georg, who by now had become the very incarnation of the hula hoop.

That's… a hula hoop! Wait? Why?

"Hup."

As though he'd turned himself into the peg in a ring-toss game, Georg slipped right inside the flying hoop.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

He sent both hoops whirling at high speed.

"Take this!"

This time it was Remias who threw.

"Hup! Ha-ha-ha! I can take as many as you've got! All right — bring 'em all!"

He caught that one without trouble too.

"Here."

"And this—"

"Have one—"

"Take thaaat!"

One after another, hoops went flying at Georg.

"Hup, ho! Urgh! There!"

Around his neck, his arms, everywhere — seven hoops in all went whirling.

"Uwaaaaah! Nothing is impossible for meeeee—!!"

Spinning hoops with his whole body, Georg was like a street performer. We watched the spectacle with bated breath…!

And then.

From Georg's hands, from his neck, the hoops sprang up and came flying off with real force.

"Kyaaa!"

"Look out!"

His Highness, right beside me, shielded me on reflex, and the hoop that had come at me shot straight on past behind us.

"Cosette, are you hurt…"

"I'm fine, thank you…"

"Gyaaaaah—"

A scream went up behind us, and the hoop came boinging back.

"Huh?"

The four of us said it as one. I turned around to find Ed, for some reason, splayed out flat like a frog.

"Ed…? Why are you here?"

"You'd said you were going to have boots made, so I called him in over the lunch break…"

I felt a pressure from the side. I know this feeling. This is the kind you must never, ever turn to look at.

But the pressure only mounted. Unable to bear it at last, I turned my head with a creak, creak, creak.

"Now how did it come to this, I wonder? Hmm, milady…?"

And there she was. A vein bulging at her temple, a hula hoop around her neck, Sissi stood there smiling. An unbelievably terrifying smile.

Ha-ha! To think such a frightening smile existed in this world! I'd never seen anything like it!

"S-sorry…"

I apologized on the spot. But after that, Georg and I got nagged and scolded until Sissi had gotten it all out of her system.

Why me too?!