Mythfits

9-Steve

To the discontented muttering of the librarians, Kevin, Jake and I pushed open the door to the library and walked in, laughing loudly as Jake re-enacted a conversation Kevin had with a girl named Emily at a recent soccer game, all the while trying to fend off Kevin's frantic attempts to get him to stop talking. Under the death gaze of Mrs. Wilson, the head librarian, we hushed somewhat as we made our way to the nonfiction corner of the library, where we searched for our 3 genealogy references we needed for our essay on family history.

While we skimmed the shelves in relative silence, (broken only by Jake's quips about the unfairness of homework) I was jolted out of my search by a bony elbow to the ribs. "Hey, Steve, who's that?"

When I looked over my shoulder at the racks behind us, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion when all I saw was Mrs. Wilson shelving books. "Who? Mrs. Wilson?" I ask Kevin, not understanding who he was asking about.

He sighed, "No, her." He pointed over to the wall largely dominated by beanbag chairs and low tables. Seated silently in the corner was Ella, leafing through an old book with yellowed, brittle pages, occasionally glancing back and forth between several library books spread out on the table. Her dark brown eyes glinting sharply through her short black hair, she sat half-turned away from us, a visible reminder of her general disdain for others. "Well?" Jake asked, leaning forward, "Who is she? She kind of just appeared in math class on the first day of school."

"That's Ella." I murmur, guessing that it would not be good if she overheard us talking about her, "She's in my homeroom class."

"And she's new?" Kevin guessed, lowering his voice to match mine.

"Yeah," I responded, remembering our conversation in the hallway, " She moved here this summer from Canada and she really didn't like it when I asked her questions about herself, something about a dead mom."

"Oh."Jake winces- his aunt had died when we were in 6th grade and his cousin had stayed with him for a few months, so Jake had witnessed his cousins grief in the way that only the person down the hall can.

Finished, we grab our books and head back outside. But as we leave, I glance at Ella's book, which was open to a page covered in some sort of writing and small drawings of kitsunes.

Once outside, Kevin bikes off, no doubt to whatever game or performance his family had lined up for tonight. With an older brother and two younger sisters, as well as an insane amount of cousins, Kevin always has something going on after school or on weekends.

Jake's older brother picks him up in his beat up red Volkswagen, leaning heavily on the horn and filling the air with the sound of a strangled duck. Instead of catching the city bus home like usual, I head back to the library, but not before checking my buzzing phone, which lit up with a text from Christine.