“Your breath smells like grass,” Thalia accused. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at her friend, who was making it a point to stare at the ground as if it held precious knowledge.

“You’re weird,” Nayah retorted. Wow, this grass was scarily green… Either the groundskeeper was breaching the drought restrictions, or they were practising magic. There was no way this grass should be that green.

“Have you been eating grass again?” Thalia’s question hung in the air like a persistent mosquito. Nayah did not appreciate her tone.

An accusatory finger entered Nayah’s view. She watched, silently outraged, as the finger poked the shirt of her uniform.

“Nayah…” her partner teased. “We’ve talked about the whole ‘eating grass’ thing.”

“Wha - I - You -” Nayah sputtered indignantly. After taking a deep breath to centre herself and untie her tongue, she continued, “I do not have an ‘eating grass thing!’ That fact that you think I do is weird - maybe you’re the one with a thing!”

Thalia remained unimpressed and unmoved. She responded to Nayah’s petty tantrum with the silent raise of a perfectly manicured eyebrow.

After a tense moment of silence, she finally spoke, “You realise that is the most childish and ineffective retort you could’ve produced, right?”

Nayah cast her gaze to the lush turf in shame. Yes, she knew. She’d take back the primary-school insult if she could. It didn’t represent the best of her neurons firing. Quite the opposite, actually. But, at this point, it would be easier to admit defeat.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Fine. I’ll admit it. I may have had a nibble at a few specimens SIMPLY to make a complete and accurate judgement about the quality of the sample. It was far too green to be following water restriction regulations!”

Thalia’s eyebrow remained raised. She dared to allow a small smirk to occupy her face. Rude....