Runaway Man

Chapter 4: Preparations

Chapter 4: Preparations

The door swung open and there was Linda. She was staring at us. Her nose was still a little red from where I had bashed her with my locker but it wasn't broken or anything stupid like that. As I looked at her face more, I realized that the corners of her thin lips were curled. I gulped and shifted closer to Mr King.

"Mind if I come in, sir?" She had one of her hands on her hip and the other was running through her straightened hair. Mr King glanced at me wanting me to give him approval but I stared back at him blankly.

"Go ahead, Miss Patterson," he sounded a lot less confident when he had been alone with just me. I watched Linda swan over to her seat, which luckily wasn't really near mine, and take out her graffitied up pencil case and planner. I would have done the same with my stuff however; I was frozen stiff.

Our beloved teacher had already returned to his desk when the rest of the class emerged from the door. My eyes shifted over to Linda. She was doodling on one of the pages in her book but because of the distance between us, that was all that I could make out about it.

Mr King coughed before speaking about the Cold War. He was pointing to maps that were displayed up onto the board and everything. Whatever he taught, he always found a way to make it interesting. Alongside that, his caring nature made him my favourite teacher. History was actually one of the only lessons I enjoyed and it was probably all down to having him as my teacher.

Halfway through the presentation, I felt a pinch at the back of my neck.  I looked down to see a carefully folded paper aeroplane that must have been made by Linda. Shaking, I unfolded the creases to see a message that was written in barely plausible handwriting.

Florence. Are you sure these Halloween groups will work???

Love from Sophie xxxxxx

I sighed in relief. A message from Sophie was a lot better than a death threat from Linda. Just to make sure, I harshly whispered her name as I leaned on the two rear legs of my chair. The three people between us shot daggers at me for distracting them.

"Did you write this?" I mouthed silently, holding up the sheet of paper once I had caught her attention. Reluctantly, she nodded her head like a puppet.

I turned over the crumpled lined paper and wrote my reply, which was basically just asking why she was asking about the Halloween groups. I did attempt to fold it into an aeroplane but it turned out to be a complete mess so I scrunched my message into a ball and chucked it at her.

I had intended to aim for her chair or maybe the floor below her but instead, it hit her right in the eye. I cringed thinking whenever or not I could have given her a paper cut right below it. How painful would that have been?! She didn't seem annoyed at my poor aim because she was smiling back at me so much, her dimples were visible on her rosy cheeks.

A minute or two later, I had another delivery. I made sure that Mr King wasn't looking when I unravelled her letter.

I want to go with you and Diana!!! (Besides me and Rachel don't really like Linda.) SHHHHH SECRET!!!! xxxxx

I couldn't help but laugh to myself.  Linda had obviously been stirring with others as well as me so I felt relieved that I wouldn't be the only one with hatred dripping off of their tongue. I supposed that maybe I was the leader of our group of fourteen and perhaps with that authority, I could kick Linda out for her cheek.

Or maybe not.

Diana would never agree to it. Before I had come into the agenda, Linda and Diana were inseparable childhood best friends. I remembered the story about how all the 'bros' had been cutting the palms of their hands open and smearing the blood against each other's. They called it something like 'Blood Brothers' because some of each other's blood would go into in the other's system. Well, the boys had done it so Diana had once blabbered away to me saying that she and Linda did it to copy the boys. I thought that it was beyond stupid as even if any of the blood got into the other's stream, it would be pumped out sooner or later.

I peered over at Linda. Her iPhone was laid down flat on her desk and she was browsing through it like the daily newspaper. I had the impression that she was scheming something to mess what I wanted with the mystery man because her expression on her face was supernatural. Argh.

At the end of the day, I met up with Diana in the school's canteen. We had both planned to go costume shopping straight after school (via bus) before all of the good stuff became out of stock. It was surprisingly really how fast stuff could run out, especially when it was Halloween and Christmas season.

In fact, the only event in the course of the year that didn't get many sales was Valentine’s Day. That was either because everyone was a forever alone sod or because everyone was eagerly waiting for the chocolate to go half price. I admittedly was one of the people who did snag sugary foods on February 15th. Most people who were single did the same too!

When we arrived at the mall, it was pretty much deserted. I figured that people were either at work still or tired from a long day at school. To be fair, going to town straight after school wasn’t exactly the best thing ever so I expected it.

"Do you think I should be a slutty vampire or a kinky werewolf," Diana held some cheap face paint in her hands.

"Slutty vampire. You sure did do a good job at that at your house party," I tugged on my brunette braid, "I think I'm going to go in this gorilla suit." I pointed at a quite realistic gorilla outfit, which price rested at $20. Diana burst out laughing.

"You... y-you... can't go as that," she said in-between breaths, "You need to be slutty.  Not scary. One day out of all the 365 days in the year when you will be constantly judged for wearing too much lipstick or winging your eyeliner too far, you want to be dressed as a hairy ape?!" I nibbled on my bottom lip anxiously.

"Why not? I hate my body?" I crossed my arms together before peering down at my reflection. My neck was waaaay too long, my boobs were overdue a growth spurt and I had scars from falling off my bike when I was younger.

"Don't start this again," Diana rolled her eyes, "Your figure is amazing. There are plenty of girls who would die to be in your body." I crinkled my nose at her compliment. I'd rarely be complimented and when I was, normally it was to help feed my small ego whether it be true or not.

"I'm getting the ape suit." I declared after a few silent minutes. Diana sighed and followed me to the checkout where I was given some free chewing gum for spending $20 or over.

I was munching it when Diana wandered into another shop that had fake, gory, torn limbs displayed at the shop window. We even spotted a head that went with the collection when we got inside but it was damn right creepy. That ended up on our shopping list along with a black cloak, fake blood and some face paint for Diana's costume.

After some more visits to numerous amounts of shops (and Subway), we both had our completed outfits.  Even though I thought that Diana's wasn't that scary and Diana thought that mine wasn't slutty in the slightest, we were pleased with what we brought and we were ready for Halloween.