Other Friends

Chapter 8 - The Problem

"So, let me get this straight... You," Windy points to her brother, "found a... thing that sort of looked like a pollywog but wasn't a pollywog and decided to not only bring it into our home, but brought it to school; where you... lost it?"

Dustin, who was hiding behind Lucas and Will, "Yeah pretty much."

Windy sighs and looks to her friends, "Either one of you want him? I'm selling a defective brother." she says glaring at the boy who ducks down to avoid her gaze.

"Nope." Both girls say with arms crossed, not pleased with this news.

"Why didn't you boys go to Hopper?" Bella questions the group.

"We suggested it, but Dustin wasn't having it." Mike explains.

"Question, does she know what's going on?" Lizzie cuts in, pointing at the red head that she shared a ride with earlier this morning.

"Sort of?" Lucas answers with a shrug.

"Great." Lizzie mutters with a sigh.

"Okay. First things first, we find... Dart?" Bella says unsure but gets a nod of confirmation from the curly haired boy, "Then we'll talk about what we do with him after, got it?"

"Got it!" All the boys agreed and Max just nodded, half confused and amused by the fear all the boys seemed to have listening to each teenage girl.

"Good. Grab your walkies and let's go. This place is huge. We need to find it before we get kicked out. Now go!" Bella instructs and the boys all but scramble to get their walkies out of their bags and rush out of the room. Max laughs but follows after them, skateboard in hand. "This is going to be annoying. Come on, we split up, it'll be better to cover more ground."

"Uh, you're forgetting that I didn't go to school here." Lizzie brings up making the other two pause at that realization.

"Right. Well, you can stick with one of us and we can start." Windy brings up.

"Great idea. Stick with Windy." Bella says before exiting the AV club room.

Lizzie looks to Windy who was already staring at her, "What?"

"You still think she's not mad at you?" the elder Henderson girl questions.

"Shut up, let's go." Lizzie says, not wanting to talk about this again, pushing her friend out the door.

As the teens and pre-teens split up within the middle school, everyone underestimated how easy it would have been to look for a pollywog looking creature. "So, are you going to talk to her?" Windy broke the silence.

Lizzie groans, "Are you still on this?"

"Yes! She's annoyed with you and you are refusing to acknowledge it."

"Me acknowledge it? What about her?" she questions, crossing her arms as they make their way down a hallway.

"If I talk to her then maybe she will, but you're the one who fucked up Liz." Windy reminds her as they enter an opened yet empty classroom to look for Dart.

Liz scoffs, "I don't get what I did wrong. You both mentioned before the party that I am prone to accidentally leaving you two. I don't get why it's such a big deal this time around."

"I-" Windy pauses in thought, why was it such a big deal? Why was Bella so angry? What happened? "I actually don't know the answer to that."

"See! You are proving my point." Liz says with a huff as they look inside the last cabinet.

"No, I'm adding to my reasons as to why we need to talk about last night because clearly we're missing something." she argues back.

Liz smirks, "Which may or may not involve Steve Harrington."

Windy groans, "Don't remind me."

—--

While those two were chatting, Bella was all lonesome, annoyed that there was possibly a creature from the upside down casually in the middle school. "Just had to keep it as a pet, didn't you Dustin." she mutters to herself as she exits a girls restroom finding nothing.

As she rounded a corner, she stopped herself from nearly running into a girl. "Oh." El barely says as she stops and stares at Bella with wide eyes.

Bella just gives her an awkward smile, "Sorry, didn't see you there." she says before moving to walk around her.

"Bella!" El calls out, making the older teen look back at her confused. Did she know her? Well, she was the babysitter, probably had to watch her at some point. But she didn't look familiar.

"Yeah kid?" she answers, not wanting to make the awkward situation any more awkward.

"Have you seen Mike?" she asks, her eyes having some hope in them.

"Uh, he's still somewhere around here. We're... on a scavenger hunt, so I don't know exactly. But don't worry you'll find him." she reassures the girl.

El gives her a small smile, "Thank you." she says before turning around and continuing around the corner.

Bella stares after her confused, "Strange." She whispers to herself but shakes her head and continues on her mission to look for Dart. Little did either girl know that when they were chatting, they had missed Mike crossing the hall that El would have gone down if she had not run into Bella.