...It's last two states to be declared... João Neves is leading the elections by 10%... It looks hard for the second party to close up now, doesn't it?..

Wait, WHAT?! WHAT were they going to do?! João's head snapped up as if he'd just woken up. He had just woken up from watching Pualie's trousers, in fact. And he was still giggling to himself. He didn't know WHO had done it, but it sure looked good on the boy. He should tell that to him, sometime. Hehe.

When people started moving around, his smile was replaced by a frown as he tried to figure out the current activity. Oh. People seemed to be choosing stones. He got up hesitantly. They were definitely getting stones. So... he got up after Louisa--was she even here?!--and took a look at them. He probably shouldn't peek though. So, looking away, he got his hand inside in one of the bags--people looked to be taking from TWO bags--and counted 10 stones. He did the same for the other bag and counted 3, before returning to his seat. Once at desk, he lay them carefully and started examining each one of them.

Two of them were black. One of those were very smoot and thin-round, while the other was quite jagged, fat and more ball-like. He put them down, picking another one that was white and very light. It was also thin than thick and it looked more rectangular than the rest. He liked that stone but had to put it down to pick a grey one. This one was long and pointy, and also had a rough surface. It was almost like debris. Maybe it was a part of debris. He shrugged. He didn't really care. Next was a colourful one. It was of yellow and red. He liked the smoothness of it too, and it looked like he had picked more thin stones than fat ones. After that a blue stone, thin and round shaped again.

And then, he found it. The best stone in this whole 13. He wondered whether he would be noticed if he simply slipped it into his pocket at the end of the class. It was almost a perfect ball, and big too. It was half transparent and there stood a ray of redness stretching from one point to the opposite. He wondered if he was the lucky one to have found it. Hopefully, this would mean something good in his divination. Hopefully.

It was very hard to place the stone back on the desk and not in his pocket. But in the end, it was lying somewhere very un-attention-drawing. He didn't want anyone to find it. Instead, now he was holding a very regular, light pink stone. Big deal. He put it down, trying to ignore the urge to grab the previous one, and picked a light brown one that was long and pointing too like that grey one. He merely shrugged to himself. So did all these mean something? Hopefully. Next came a stone of yellow, and then green. All were thin and round in a way. He was surprised a little when he found another perfectly white stone. This looked like marble, in fact. It glinted in light. It was again ball-like and the surface was so smooth that he thought it was machine-produced. And the last stone, this one was grey again. And sharp at one end. And rough.

He hated grey.