Fun Summer

Wednesday

Tale awoke the next day, feeling happier than ever. Not knowing why, she padded downstairs after changing her clothes and brushing her teeth.

"Hey Tale." Noah called from the kitchen table, sipping a glass of cold lemonade.

"Morning Noah." Tale grabbed a muesli bar, not feeling very hungry that morning.

"There's someone here to meet you. Said he's a friend from school." Noah nonchalantly continued, giving Tale THE LOOK.

Hearing the word "he", Tale went cold, and nearly fainted when Zoran ambled into the kitchen.

"Hurry up Tale. Dude," he turned to Noah, "was she always this ugly and slow?"

"Zip it ya little-"

"No actually, she USED to be quite cute."

"I USED to be cute huh?" muttered Tale, and allowed the two to go on their chat as she hurried back upstairs to grab her school bag.

Upon entering her room, she felt something zip past her. One might have thought it was a slight gust of wind from her open window, but Tale had caught the glimpse of incredibly pale pink.

Turning, she didn't see anything. Looking back inside her room, everything seemed in place.

"See Zoran this morning sis?" Zeke appeared from his room donning a yellow shirt with denim shorts.

"No kidding. Why don't you join him and Noah?"

"I might just do that. It's fun...having SUMMER for a friend."

When Zeke had disappeared, Tale smiled slightly. Zoran was Zeke's friend. That was enough for Tale to know that Zoran was a good person...under all the scowls, sneering, teasing and mean hearted jokes the jerk face always put on air for only her to bear.

Grabbing her bag, she realised it was way to heavy. Peeking inside her bag, she was surprised to find a heart shaped box. Gently reaching in to pick it up, she found a whole lot of other things that were placing extra weight in her bag.

She slowly opened the heart box to find a large heart shaped cookie iced with pink frosting and decorated with edible silver balls. She slowly lifted it to her mouth and took a bite.

Delicious caramel filling flooded her mouth. Wiping the sticky substance from her mouth, she placed it back into the box and closed it, placing it on her desk. She then picked up the large snow-globe...more like leaf globe. Instead of white snow inside the globe, green leaf shaped items fluttered around a ornamental tree surrounded by white flowers. Then a book.

Curious, Tale opened the untitled and anonymous book to find it was handwritten. Loopy, swirly, wave-like writing flooded the pages. She placed the globe and the book alongside the box on her desk carefully.

But as she was leaving, something took her back to the desk to pick up the book and place it in her bag.

Finally, she trekked down the stairs to meet a grumpy Zoran and beaming Zeke.

Noah waved them goodbye from the door.

'Zoran huh? Seems alright.' though Noah, before closing the door to the house.

He didn't notice the figure examining Zeke's collection of old bike parts, before lifting their head to watch the trio walk away.

When Tale got to school, she was delighted when Gaia ran up to her, smiling cheerfully.

"So, you've finished that book you were reading yesterday?" Gaia inquired as she walked Tale to her locker.