Dear Dad

September 13th

September 13th,

            In between classes we were given fifteen minutes to wander the halls.  It’s awesome.  At my last school we were only given five which meant running down the hall as fast as you can to get to your locker and not be late for class.  But here you can casually stroll down the hallways, take your time avoiding fights while trying not to bump into couples making out, and have the daily fight with your world’s crappiest locker on whether it’s actually going to close today or not.  Today, apparently was a not day.  I kept slamming my locker door and it kept flying open again.  I tried holding it closed but it kept opening.  I grabbed the door with my hand and slammed it as hard as I possibly could.  It backfired horribly.  All my notebooks and papers fell out on the floor.  I looked up at the celling in frustration and asked “Why me?” to the world.  I guess the world had no reply.  I bent down and started piling all my papers in one gigantic stack.  Someone ran over and bent down to help me.  It took no notice to who it was until I had all my things picked up and I looked up to say thanks.  The kind person who had ran over to help me was absolutely the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.   She was shorter than me, maybe 5’ 3” with long red-brown hair that curled perfectly and fell halfway down her back.  She had big green eyes that glistened as she looked at me.  Her face was covered in freckles and she had a smile that could light up the world. 

            “Thanks,” I muttered.  She smiled bigger.  “I’m Rhyder” I said trying to make conversation.  She pointed to her name tag which read “Anabella Risome”.  I tried to find something to say and the first thing I could think of was “I’m pretty convinced that my locker’s trying to kill me.”  She smiled and shook her head.  I was lost for conversation again.  I tried to think quickly and sputtered, “So, are you a freshman?”  She nodded yes.  I said with excitement, “Yah so am I.  How do you like high school?”  She motioned her hand to signal iffy.  Why wasn’t she talking to me?  Was it something I had said or done? I had to think of something that she had to answer with words.  I asked, “So, what classes do you have today?” She pulled out her schedule and handed it to me.  I read over the code and tried to decipher its meaning.  I handed it back and said, “Oh look we have writing together, I didn’t notice you in my class the other day.”  I thought I had her on that one.  “You don’t talk much do you?” I questioned.  She shook her head no.  “Are you able to talk at all?”  I questioned with a puzzled face.  She shook her head no again.  That’s why she wasn’t talking to me, Anabella was a mute! “Oh,” I said back, “I’m sorry.” She waved her hand signaling that it was okay.  “So, do you use like sign language?” She motioned her hands in a way that was obviously sign language but, I had absolutely no clue what it meant.  “That’s cool!” I said to her enthusiastically.  “Do you text?”  I asked, trying to look for any form of communication with her.  She shook her head yes.  I tore a paper from my notebook and wrote down my phone number.  “Here, text me sometime,” I said handing the paper to her.  She shook her head yes and then waved bye.  I waved by back and watched her walk away in awe.  She’s amazing and beautiful and, and…wow.