Not Every Story is a Fairy Tale

“She is such a whore.”

“Summer, don’t be rude she can hear you!” Emmy Whitehead snapped as she frowned at her best friend.

“So, who gets pregnant during high school and doesn’t know who the father is,” Summer replied as she turned to stare at the object of her hateful barbs.

April Gaines, sat two rows ahead of Emmy and Summer in their Spanish 1 class. April was the town’s sweetheart until a day in July when she went to the town’s local drugstore and bought a pregnancy test. Within minutes word had gone around town that April was possibly pregnant. Her parents had confronted her before she even walked through the door. They weren’t that mad at her until she told them she didn’t know who the father was. That was when her father had snapped and kicked her out of their house. Luckily for her, her grandmother had let her stay with her. That was the only thing Emmy didn’t like about the small town of Redwood; how fast information traveled.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to be so mean to the girl don’t you think she’s been through enough?” Emmy reasoned with Summer.

“Yeah, but she’s still a whore,” Summer mumbled as she flipped open her Spanish textbook.

Emmy rolled her eyes as she too opened her textbook, her best friend was as stubborn as they come and she knew nothing she would say could change Summer’s opinion of April. Emmy began to scribble down the conjugated Spanish verbs, that she was supposed to be doing as part of her class work.

“So are you coming to the game with me tonight?” Summer whispered as she glanced towards their teacher, who sat behind his desk on his laptop.

“Yeah, I guess, do we have to take your little brother with us?” Emmy asked as she flipped the page in her textbook.

“Nope, he’s spending the weekend with our grandparents,” Summer replied with a grin.

“We should have a sleepover we haven’t had one of those in forever,” Emmy suggested.

“Yeah, my place or yours?” Summer questioned while she pretended to do her work as the teacher had decided to finally pay attention to his class.

“Yours since your little brother won’t be there but my little sister will be home and insist on spending time with us,” Emmy grumbled as she thought of her annoying thirteen year old sister.

“I think your little sister is adorable,” Summer told her with a grin.

“Of course you would, she lets you dress her up like a Barbie doll and you don’t have to live with her,” Emmy whined.

“Senorita Whitehead, Senorita Ellington is there something you would like to share with the class?” Their Spanish teacher, Mr. Perez, questioned trying to sound authoritative but failing completely.

“No sir,” the girls muttered in unison.

Mr. Perez opened his mouth as if to say more but the bell rang cutting him off. The girls burst into giggles as they gathered their things and hurried out the classroom door. Emmy and Summer headed towards the cafeteria as they had D lunch, the last lunch of the day. Emmy stepped through the open doors of the cafeteria first and headed over to the lunch line. Summer followed her reluctantly, turning her nose up at the school food.

“How can you stomach that crap?” Summer asked as she watched the lunch lady hand Emmy a tray with a chicken sandwich and french fries on it.

“This and cheeseburgers are the best meals our school gives us, the rest isn’t completely awful but it’s not amazing,” Emmy replied as she slid her tray down the line adding an apple to her tray before stepping up to the cashier to pay.