Flame Touch

Chapter Four-Knox

I walked to the lunch hall, eager to get away from Social Studies. Mrs. Cassio was going on and on about Kentucky! Kentucky! Who the heck cares about Kentucky?! They always talk about how it’s the Great West, It’s not even west! It’s smack dab in the middle of the country! Worst of all, Mrs. Cassio seemed high on coffee today (she doesn’t drink water, she told us that she has an aversion to it, whatever that means.) and was bouncing up and down and then, somewhere in the middle of class, she had a mood swing and got reeeaaallllly depressed and gave us a five page essay on Kentucky.

I really hate Kentucky.

                I got to my table and saw Sunny bouncing up and down in her seat. She looked at me like she was about to burst. I sighed, “Alright Sunny, what amazing thing do you have to tell me this time?” She continued with her bounce. Up and down and up and down. Finally, she took a breath, “Today…” she paused for dramatic effect. “I will eat…”more pauses,“ with CHOPSTICKZ!”  She held out two sticks of wood in front of her like they were the sun and the moon. I laughed, “Good luck with that,” I retorted, “So how do you eat a burger with chopsticks?” She looked confused for a second, and then her eyes lit up. “Like this!!!” she picked up her chopsticks and started stabbing the burger, “Why. Won’t. It. Pick. Up?!” Just then, Melody came over with an equally confused look on her face. “Uhhh... Knox? What exactly is she-”I stopped her, “Don’t ask, just pretend you don’t know her.” I tell Melody. She laughed the way a three-year-old did.  It was totally happy and carefree. I wish I had a laugh like that, mine is so shy and quiet. In fact, someone had said “bless you” to me because they thought I was sneezing, not laughing.

I really wanted to smack her right then.

Melody sat down next to me and took out a pencil and started drawing, which wasn’t unusual, she was an amazing drawer (unlike myself) and usually drew in her free time. What she didn’t usually do was show me her pictures, something about preserving the uniqueness of her drawings. Like I’m going to try to attempt to draw what she did, yeah right. So I was abominably surprised when she passed me the piece of paper she was drawing on. I looked up at her with my eyebrows raised.

“Have you ever seen this before? Does anyone in this school have a laser point pen shaped like this?” she asked worriedly. I glanced down at the paper. It looked like two fish circling each other. I immediately recognized it as the symbol at the nearby Japanese shop Oiyshi, Sushi! What was it called?

“Uhhhhh… I think it’s called… pieces?” I said dumbly. Melody shook her head at me and frowned at her drawing, “Not pieces, something else.” She continued to set a serious stare at the drawing. I shrugged and set a serious glare to something else. My Italian grinder. I hated how the lunch lady always put way too much lettuce on the sandwich and not enough meat. Was she trying to say that I’m fat or something? Like she wasn’t about fifty pounds overweight herself and why is it always a lunch lady, what about a lunch man, huh? Not that I would want some sweaty mustached man saying “Have a nice day,” every time he handed me my lunch. I glanced up in time to see Mrs. Cassio bounding up towards us, probably a coffee overdose. She smiled really big at Sunny. I could see a look of confusion pass through Sunny’s face, but then she smiled real big too.

“Why are we smiling Mrs. Cassio?” Sunny asked through her teeth.

“Honey, why don’t you put your burger out of its misery and actually eat it? It’s my job to make sure that students don’t try to kill their meat a second time.” Mrs. Cassio replied.

Sunny’s smile vanished as she noticed she was still stabbing her burger without her noticing it, like an involuntary action. She gave a sheepish smile and stopped her arm from bouncing up and down. Mrs. Cassio nodded her thanks and then looked at Melody, then at the picture that was set out in front of her.

“That’s a very nice drawing of Pisces dear.”

Melody looked up in surprise, as if she didn’t know Mrs. Cassio was there.

“Uhh.. yeah, that’s what it’s called right?” Melody barely whispered.

I turned back to eat my sand which when I heard a loud smack. I looked back up in alarm and saw Sunny looking at Melody. Melody was holding her head and groaning.

“STOP LOOKING SO SERIOUS!! WHY YOU MAKE ME KILLZ MY SAMMICH?!?!” Sunny was yelling. Melody was still groaning and muttered a response, “Owww…… I didn’t know you could hit that hard.” Sunny smiled and said in a sickly- sweet voice, “Oh, I can hit a lot harder.” “Ok dear, why don’t we calm down okey?” Mrs. Cassio reasoned. Sunny looked back and smiled, “Okey!” she said as she sat back down. Mrs. Cassio smiled a worried smile and walked away muttering to herself. I finally turned and faced Melody. I opened my mouth to say something wise, but then I realized I had nothing to say and turned back to my grinder.

Stupid grinder.