Walk With Me

3

"Welcome," I said, "to my humble garage."

He rolled his eyes, a smile on his face. "Thank you for the welcoming committee, but where are the balloons?"

"Ollie used them all," I replied, kicking aside a basketball. I began to move some boxes. "Mind helping me out? I'm clearing out the garage for my dad."

"Sure," he took a bigger box from my hands, and set it by the garage door. "Mind telling me another story?"

"You really like to hear about my pain, huh."

"I do."

"Alright," I turned away to hide my smile. "So. I have a few." I brushed my hands on my jacket. It was a chillier day, the leaves had started to change in hue. But somehow it was still summer. "Three, to be exact. Pick a number, one through three."

"Three." Of course.

"There's a teacher I like," I said. "Her name is Miss Bush. She listens to me when I speak, and doesn't interrupt me. Let's me talk for as long as I want." I dropped a box by the door. "And a bonus, she actually seems interested in what I'm saying."

"I had a teacher like that. His name was Mr. Mei. Always listened to what I had to say, even if it was something not so nice, and he helped me out with homework." He sighed. "He left last year though. To ditch us for some other school that kids are literally leaving to come to ours."

I snorted. "Same thing happens to us. Only, we've lost a lot more teachers and gained a lot more students from that school than you. You're talking about Saint Faustina's?"

"Duh." He glanced down and tensed, giving a small gasp and stepping back. I walked up to him, and looked past his shoulder to see a spider. It was brown and white with very very long legs, and was scuttling across his shoe. I gave a short laugh and bent down to pick it up. It willingly crawled onto my hand, and I grinned holding it up for him to see.

"Look," I said, examining its legs. "It's just a daddy long leg."

"It's terrifying," he replied stiffly. "Absolutely terrifying. Please get it away from me."

I rolled my eyes and walked outside of the garage, flicking it onto the grass.

"There," I said. "It's gone now."

"Bug girl," he said, grinning.

"Don't call me that."

"Everyone else does."

"You're not everyone else."

He stared at me blankly.

"Back to work," I grumbled, refusing to give him time to say anything. "Anyway, like I said, I talked to Miss Bush about a lot of things. People, for example. I hate people. I absolutely hate them. They're so selfish, and greedy, and nosy. They know it too. And they choose to keep acting that way despite how awful it makes them."

"I see," he said quietly, moving aside a few shovels. "Also, I'm just gonna put things where I think they'll go nicely.."

"That's fine," I said. "I'm doing that too. Anyway, I walked around with her during break. I avoided the other kids, so I had nothing else to do. But times when I was surrounded by them, it was scary. I couldn't go anywhere to be alone. They were all around me. Eventually I just decided to stick by her side, and I followed her around the whole time. She was," I stepped on a black beetle, "and is, the second best thing to ever happen to me."

"What's the first?"

I smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know."

He gave me an annoyed but playful look before turning around again.