Little Weirdos

Chapter Four: Blue is a Boyish Color

It was craft time in the classroom of Mr. Phillips, and Zoey, the newest hero in our story, had no interest in what any of the other children were doing.

Zoey had no time at home for recreation, so she used her time in her classroom to make things she might need. For instance, a staff with several beads hanging from it just for show and to make her look like the real deal, although she was more of the real deal than she realized.

But she sighed deeply as she dug in her bag, and found no glue sticks.

"Where are my--" She muttered, practically her whole upper body inside her backpack. "Ugh!"

Popping her head out, she rearranged her bangs, flapping her hands down. She thought about recess an hour ago, and figured if she went over to Mrs. Pepper's classroom, that Benny or Mason would happily let her borrow one. But Zoey didn't want to do that just yet.

So, she stood up and snapped into action.

Zoey checked the craft bin. Nothing.

Zoey checked the chalkboard. Also nothing.

Zoey checked the bookshelf. Absolutely zilch.

Zoey even double, triple, and quadruple-checked her backpack. Zero.

As she stepped away, preparing to ask Mr. Phillips to ask Mrs. Pepper for a glue stick, she noticed a boy over by the coat racks holding several sticks of glue.

The boy was bald, wearing a green and yellow striped shirt. He had very pale skin and, from what Zoey could tell as she approached, bright green eyes.

"Excuse me." She stepped over, hands behind her back cordially. "What's your name?"

The boy, facing the wall, turned around as if he was guilty of something. "...Luke."

"Luke, my name is Zoey."

"I know. You're the magician."

"Yep!" Zoey smiled. "I need one of those glue sticks. Can I borrow one?"

"I'm using them." Luke turned back around.

"There's no way you're using all of them!" Zoey exclaimed incredulously. "Hand me one, please. If you need it that bad, then I'll return it."

"No."

"Luke!"

"Nuh uh."

As one rolled away from Luke's stash, Zoey snatched it up from the ground. As she opened it, she noticed the top looked like one giant bite mark. "Oh. Ew." Luke stayed silent, looking away from Zoey, so she passed it back, fearing she embarrassed him. "I mean, sorry. Didn't realize."

"It's okay." Luke shrugged, taking the glue stick back. "I know it's weird."

"No, it's not weird." Zoey shrugged, sort of telling the truth.

"Oh, come on. It's definitely weird."

"Trust me, I know all about weird." Zoey laughed softly. She didn't usually like to think of herself as weird, but one must face facts eventually. "Here. Come help me with my staff."

"Okay."

Luke returned with Zoey to the place where she was building her staff, holding a few of the glue sticks he brought from home and that he didn't want to lose. The staff seemed to typically be made of popsicle sticks, which held together very well if you were careful with it. Strings of yarn and beads were scattered around the area, and Luke was immediately enraptured.

"Is this why you needed the glue?"

"Yeah," Zoey said, sitting down. Luke followed soon after. "Well, I was hoping I could use this to make myself look cooler when I do stuff for people. It's just a little thing, I think."

"It's cool," Luke said, passing Zoey a glue stick. "You might wanna rub it smooth first."

Zoey, rubbing it smooth just as Luke proposed on a piece of scrap paper, gave a small laugh before adding support to the popsicle sticks. "Thanks. Hey, how did you know who I was? I've never helped you with anything."

"Uh, you're pretty popular, so..." Luke couldn't find much of a reason other than word of mouth.

"I'm popular?"

"Yeah. Everyone talks about how you can do anything."

"I can't do everything, silly." Zoey smiled. "It's just little things."

"You brought Bryson's cat back today. That's not a little thing."

Zoey shuffled. "It's not bad, is it?"

"Well, I think it's really awesome that you have magic. But it's bad like your mom wouldn't be happy about it."

"My mom wouldn't be happy about anything. And I don't have magic, I do magic."

"Was there a difference?"

"Yeah. I'm just a normal kid who knows how to do magic. No biggie."

"Even just that's really cool." Luke strung together a few beads, tying the ends.

"You should hang out with us." Zoey proposed without even thinking about it.

"Us?"

"Oh. Me, Benny and Mason."

"Benny and Mason from Mrs. Pepper's class?"

"Them's the ones."

"Oh. Sounds fun. Maybe I will."

"Yeah, they're really cool. They like me for me and not what I do."

"I like you for you, too." Luke turned his head reassuringly.

"Well, that's nice of you. You didn't have to do that."

"You invited me over to help you, remember?"

"I guess I did." Zoey lifted what would be the top of the staff up to the light, trying to examine it better. "Oh, man. There's marker on this."

"Hey, that's a good idea!"

"Huh?"

Luke grabbed some dry-erase markers of every color and set them in the middle of the two. "We should decorate it!"

"With runes and stuff?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess we can draw rooms on there. But also, you know, little doodles. And when we're done, we can write our names on it."

"Oh. Yes, sounds good!" Zoey grabbed a blue marker, and started drawing little pictures on it.

Luke took the bottom of the staff, and also doodled on it.

Within a few moments, the entirety of the staff was a cacophony of colors, ones that didn't quite go together and ones that did. But even so, it looked great. Better than anything the two of them had ever made before.

"It looks so good!" Zoey beamed, squealing.

"Now we write our names. I left a space for that."

"Oh, did you?"

As Luke turned over the bottom end of the staff, he pointed. "Yep, there."

And so, Luke and Zoey engraved their names forever on the staff, in blue and green dry erase marker. But Zoey seemed troubled.

"What's wrong?"

Zoey set down the blue marker. "My mommy says blue is a boyish color."

Luke's face scrunched up, reflexively inhaling. He took a glue stick, twisted it out a bit more, and took a small bite. As Zoey laughed, he did too. And he put his hand on the staff.

"I say it's a Zoey color."