The Tale of Tara and Emiko

I. Tara

I was never one of the popular kids.

None of the things I do are over-the-top, or better than everyone else. I don't excel at any sports, I don't play an instrument, I'm not in any extracurricular clubs or taking any AP classes. Heck, I'm not even sure I have friends here.

However, one little piece of information named Emiko Naga was about to upend my simple world and change my life. For the better or the worse, however, was yet to be discovered.

In the eleventh grade, I was still a wallflower, the quiet kid in the back of the class, but even I knew about Emiko. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a student, teacher, or other faculty member who hadn't. According to the rumors I've heard (and no, I will not be ratting out my sources! Even a kid in the lowest of the low situations wouldn't do that), Emiko not only got into Elite by taking the entrance exams the summer before, but she also passed with flying colors-110%, to be precise. And on top of that, she's filthy rich.

Most of the kids here (including me) were only here because we'd been in this district our whole lives, and therefore had a higher (but not certain!) chance of ending up in Elite instead of Advanced. Elite and Advanced were the two high schools in my district, and you can probably guess which one is better.

Most kids who transfer into our district at Emiko's age end up in Advanced since they haven't been subject to the harsh ways of our school (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but still!) and therefore don't know the stuff on the entrance exam.

Which brings the question everyone's been asking: how did Emiko score into Elite?

No one's come up with a substantial or believable answer yet, and I was determined to be the first to figure it out. I expected praise and popularity once I would share my discovery with the school, or maybe at least for kids to stop calling me emo and depressed.

I don't think I could have been any more wrong.

The first and only time I saw Emiko the summer before 12th grade, I knew I had to act. She was sunbathing, limbs precariously sprawled over the rooftops of a playground structure made for kids much younger than her with her black-pink-purple-blue hair fanned out behind her like a mystical peacock's feathers.

When she saw me approaching her, she sat up, nearly falling off in the process. "Who are you and what do you want? I'm trying to get a tan here!" she said, propping her sunglasses on top of her head. She slipped a little further down the rooftop slope but didn't seem to care.

This girl really lives life on the edge.

"Hi," I managed to squeak out, along with a feeble wave. "I'm Tara, from Elite. I was wondering...if we could be friends? Please?"

She looked at me and wrinkled her nose in disgust, hopping down from the roof and crossing her arms. "What makes you think I'm going to call you a friend just because you asked nicely? You're not popular, athletic, smart, anything! My answer is-"

I cut her off, which was a very dangerous thing to do. You don't just go around to the "queen" of the school and interrupt her in the middle of her sentence. "My locker's right next to the teacher's office, and their door is the exact opposite of soundproof. Either that or it's wide open. Plus, they've got the best gossip about both students and faculty members, a secret mini fridge with candy and soda, and maybe some test answers if you know who to ask." If there was anything I knew about Emiko Naga, it was that she was a sucker for good gossip.

Emiko stared at me. "Fine. You're in, for now. But just because I consider you a friend doesn't mean you're any bit as safe as the rest of the school. Got it?"

I gulped. "Alright."

Stage one: complete.

However, as the new school year started, I got so swept up in the crazy, incredible world of popularity that I didn't even think about trying to investigate. It felt like everyone in the whole school wanted to be my friend, and as twelfth graders, we were at the top. One of my teachers even bumped my grade from an A- to an A since her daughter recently joined our little clique. I stopped caring about my looks, or what people thought of me because the only thing that mattered was the fact that I was friends with Emiko, the best of the best. We even had matching bags!

One breezy evening in early May, when my parents were out, I heard a sharp rapping on my front door, followed by a text from Emiko that read, "I'm at your house". Suspiciously, I opened the door to see her standing on my porch, tapping her foot impatiently. "Get changed into something nicer, will you?"

"Huh?"

"I'm going to a huge party and since the others can't make it I'm dragging you along with me. About half of the school's gonna be there, and if you came with me, everyone will have a lot more respect for the both of us. You in?"

"Uhm...okay? Gimme a minute, I gotta change." I hurried to my room, throwing on a simple light blue dress with short bell sleeves. The soft, fluffy skirt hung just below my knees, creating a wispy, cloud-like effect whenever I twirled.

When I got back to the front of the house, Emiko smiled. "You look beautiful!" She jerked her head towards the pink convertible I should've guessed was hers with a smirk on her face. "Hop in, let's go."

...

The next morning, I woke up on an unfamiliar couch. I smelled like smoke, my dress was covered in a fine layer of ash, and the tip of one of my sleeves was gone, replaced by a charred, black mess. Any memory of last night was a blur.

What the-

"Oh good, you're awake. That party was brutal, I tell you. We have an hour before school starts. You can borrow some of my clothes, I left them in the bathroom. The shirt might be a little baggy, but you can tie it with a scrunchie, it's becoming the new thing now anyway. No questions for now, I'll answer them later."

"Okayyyy," I murmured, trying to get off the couch to regain my bearings and nearly falling on my butt in the process. My head felt like it was being used as the dance floor for a herd of tap-dancing elephants.

After cleaning up and changing into my new (slightly itchy) clothes, Emiko and I were off to school.