Bear Child (Book 1)

Chapter 9

            9. Distracted

          The day was passing by very slowly, and history wasn’t making it go by any faster. Eighth period is always the slowest class. Sonia, Alex, and I had eighth period together, so I thought that it wouldn’t be so bad. But Alex and Sonia were already partners for class, so I had to sit by myself in the back. There was nothing to do and there weren’t any windows near me. I didn’t even want to listen to Mr. Walker’s lecture. I didn’t even know what the heck we were learning about. I think something about homo sapiens or I don’t know what.

          I grabbed my blue ink pen and I began to draw random swirls on the palm of my hand. All of the sudden the bell rings. “Yes!” I hiss to myself. I was happy that I was finally able to escape from this classroom. I grabbed my back pack, flung it over my shoulder and speed walking towards the door. “Finally!” I said quietly to myself. “Now I can go home and—”

          “Clair! Wait up.” I heard Sonia say. Shoot! I thought to myself. “Clair, can we walk with you?” Sonia asked. “Uh-huh.” I said as I nodded. “So, Clair, what street do you live on?” Alex asked. “I live on Marrow Boulevard.” I replied. I heard Sonia gasp. “I live a few blocks away from you! The reserve is about five or six blocks south from Marrow Boulevard. Maybe we can walk home together.” She said in excitement. I smiled and nodded in agreement. “What kind of reserve is it?” I asked. “It’s a wildlife reservation. Very tranquil and beautiful. We just have to watch ourselves around the wildlife. The only reason we’re aloud to live on it is because my grandfather’s cabin was built there before the reserve was made.”

          As soon as we were exiting the building, I saw a much unexpected surprise outside. Small specks of white were on the floor and even more falling gracefully from the sky. “It’s snowing.” I heard Alex say, mesmerized. Then a gust of air blew, making my hair and Sonia’s hair flap around in the air like orange and black flags in the wind. Sonia laughed as she held out her hands to catch snow. My teeth began to chatter as I rubbed my arms.

“It’s freezing!” I exclaimed through my chattering teeth. “Nah, it’s been colder.” Alex said in reassurance. Sonia nodded. My hair began to have white specks on it as the snow continued to fall. Then a flake falls on the very tip of my nose, making it tickle. I laughed as I shook my head to get the cold snow flake off my nose. “Stupid snow.” I said with a happy tone in my voice. I didn’t know if I was happy to be out of school, happy to be with my new friends, happy that it was snowing, or happy that I would be able to go back out into the woods.

I put on my hood and moved the hair of my ponytail to the front. Sonia laughed with me as she sat down on a bench and took out some green rubber boots. “Give me a minute.” She said as she took off her moccasins and quickly put on the boots. Standing up from the bench, she put the moccasins in her messenger bag. I stood there and caught snow flakes in my hand. I loved snow. The one thing that was disappointing was that they weren’t star-looking, unique flakes and looked more like the fluff of Q-Tips.

“Okay, I’m ready.” She said. “A-and exactly h-how d-d-do we g-g-g-get home?” I asked, my teeth still chattering. “D-d-do we actually h-h-have to w-walk?” Alex came up to me and touched my hand. “Dude, your hands are cold like ice!” he said in shock. I nodded. “I know.”

“Then allow me to help.” I heard someone say.  A guy came up to us. He had dirty blonde hair that was almost up to his eyes his eyes and muddy brown eyes like Darcy, only they were lighter and warmer. Darcy’s eyes were cheap, cold, and hard.

He wore a baggy, green sweater, black jeans, and green skater shoes that were the same shade of green as his sweater. “I brought these for my sister but it looks like you need them more than she does.” The guy said as he handed me a pair of grey gloves. “She has another 6 pairs at home.” I took the gloves and smiled gratefully as I put them on. “Thank—” I began to say, but Alex cut me off.