Dark Stars, Light Stars

Chapter 4 - Stone Walls

Be thankful for these walls. – James Dashner, The Maze Runner

                 

'Hey Alistair.' Justice said the next day as she sat down at the courtyard table next to her new friend. The boy smiled.

'Hey, you reading The Maze Runner today?'

Justice shook her head and pulled out The Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern. Alistair smiled again and Justice handed the book over so he could read the blurb.

'Oh! Is this the one where that boy always says, "As You Wish"?'

Justice replied with a yes as the boy flicked through the pages of the book, clearly interested in her reading choice.

'You mind if I read it after you?' He asked as he handed the book back. Justice took the book from his hands a placed it on top of her backpack.

'Sure! I have the hardcopy at home if you would like me to bring that instead?'

Alistair shook his head and dumped the contents of his own backpack onto the table. Today, the curly haired boy was wearing a plain baby blue shirt, the side of it tucked into his grey shorts. He noticed Justice looking at him and she quickly turned away to pull out her exercise books.

They didn't speak much for a while. Justice kicked herself underneath the table for staring at the boy and making him feel uncomfortable. She couldn't help it that he looked nice today! It was his own fault! He shouldn't have worn that stupid blue shirt, or brushed his hair the way he did so it fell over his eyes . . .

Okay, she seriously had a problem.

After about ten minutes of silence, Justice cleared her throat and looked sidelong at Alistair.

'So, are you still reading The Fault in Our Stars? I remember you were only a quarter through yesterday.'

She kicked herself in the shin again under the table. He probably thought that she was a creep now.

'Yes - well no. Well . . . yes I started re-reading it. I felt like I just zoomed through it and didn't have enough time to read it properly, you know?'

Justice tried not to laugh as he searched for the right words, but nodded her understanding when he had finished. Sometimes she read books in one sitting and forgot to process the story. It happened all the time to her. But, it gave her an excuse to read it again.

Actually - you don't need an excuse to read a book again, heck just read it as many times as you want!

Justice looked up from her work and nudged him with her elbow.

'You did well on your draft for our essay yesterday.'

Alistair shrugged and went back to his book. He was slowly starting to lose interest in their conversation, so Justice didn't push it. He could talk to her when he wanted to. It was his decision.

She went back to her work and started to write notes for her next Fiction Writing Class - one of her electives. And the only one that she really enjoyed. Her new assignment was to write a story based on the works of a published book, television series or movie. So basically a fanfiction. Justice had to keep herself from squealing when she had been told about the assignment. She had never written a fanfiction before, but she had read plenty of them to understand how to write her own.

She looked down at her empty paper and decided to list a heap of fictional worlds that she could write about:

o   The Maze Runner