Finders Keepers

2. I'm Being Stalked

     "No, I don't care if magenta is better than fushia." After breezing through her Latin class, Marianne had made it to lunch. Every day she sat with her two best friends Tanya and Elijah. At times she envied them, as they were both honors and were in the same classes, though it quickly dissipate as she remembered that higher classes got more work.

     "Frankly, neither do I. Explain the relevance of this to my life again?" Tanya had always been smart as a whip, but she was also quite to-the-point. That was probably what Marianne liked most about her. She admired her can-do spirit and her sassy personality. It reminded her of, well, herself. Except for the can-do part.

     "Well, I used magenta for my dragonfruit plant in Ms. Roosevelt's class, and she said it didn't look close enough to the real thing. She said next time I should use fushia. I don't even know what the difference is!" Elijah ranted.

     "I remember that project. The prompt was picking an exotic plant to illustrate in vibrant color. I chose Chinese gooseberry, more commonly referred to as kiwi. I totally got an A for creative thinking."

     "Oh yeah? Well, in Mr. Davidson's class, I got an A on my around the world project. We had to take maps and pictures of places around the world and use them to make one very big, very detailed map." Marianna pointed out.

     "Oh yeah! I remember that project! It was the first one we did this year." Elijah stated, not catching on to their friend's annoyance.

     Elbowing Elijah in the ribs, Tanya rolled her eyes at her male friend. Sometimes, she really did wonder where their species came from.

     "What Elijah meant to say...is that we're totally understand your situation and we'd like to help in any way possible." Tanya gave her friend a meek smile, knowing she had already moved off of the subject.

     "It doesn't even matter. Elijah can say what he wants. I'm so not his mom." With that, Marianne grabbed the remainder of her books and stormed out of the cafeteria, literally only moments before the warning bell rang.

     The rest of her classes were a bit more difficult, but she tried her best to ignore her teachers. All they ever did was yell at her; in math, she got yelled at for getting up, which was pretty lame. In history, she got yelled at for tearing pages out of a school issued book. And in science, she may or may not have been guilty of letting the school's pet snake out of his cage. On that note, science had been let out early and Marianne had been free to start her homework. And by start her homework, I mean, pretend to do her homework while texting a distant friend who had been blessed with the joy of no school for the day.

     After a while, she decided she'd had enough. Science had been a double period, and so far, she'd only used up 1 and a half of the 2 blocks she had. Eventually, she got up and signed out of the library. Unfortunately for her, her locker was once again placed on the opposite side of the building. Feeling no need to hurry, Marianne slowly trudged towards her destination.

     When she reached her locker, the bell rang. Marianne sighed as a wave of kids and teens entered the halls, all with the goal of getting out of their horrid jailhouse. Instead of unlocking her locker and exchanging the books necessary, Marianne simply stood against her locker in a sort of cool kid-biker type way. She waited until the crowd dissipated till she opened her locker.

     "You've got a strong arm, you know." Marianne jumped and almost screamed. She had been positive no one else was in the room when she had looked. As soon as she looked at the speaker, she wished with a passion that she hadn't. It was Matthew of course, coming back to harass her a bit more.

     "You would know."

     "Yeah...I guess I would."

     "So, is there a reason you're taking time out of my life to talk to you?" She asked, looking at him impatiently.

     "Is there a reason you're always so uptight?"

     "I'm not uptight. Everyone's just annoying." Marianne pointed out.

     "Yes, the because that logic makes sense." He spat. By this point Marianne had gathered all of her books and she closed her locker.

     "Yes. Yes it does. Now stop stalking me."