The Virtue Of Silence

WRITTEN IN BOLD

After the little guy fiascto with Lukas and Ted in the hallways, I managed to get Ted to his locker and Lukas absolutely nowhere but trailing at my feet to my locker so that he can "protect me from the bad people" and so that I don't get beaten to a pulp again.

By the time that it was lunch hour and I was slamming my locker closed, I remembered that the bozos took my lunch with them when I had a run in with them. Great, just GREAT!

"Hey, you ready?" I heard a voice behind me that made me jump about three feet in the air.

Whipping my head around to find Lukas doubling over in laughter nearly made me want to whack him with my bag.

"You should've seen yourself jump," he wheezed out between breaths of laughter. "I should have gotten that on tape."

When he looked up to see that I wasn't impressed, he straightened himself, still choking on chuckles.

Maybe they didn't take my lunch. Maybe I was just imagining things because of how bad I was beaten. Is that possible from something like that?

"hey, are you okay? You look a little glum if not ticked off about something," Lukas observed.

I shook my head and I pointed a tentative finger to the place that we always eat. I have to hand it to the guy, he sure knows how to throw away his ego.

"yeah, you're probably right. We should eat something before those bozos catch you out here."

Walking to the orchard and having a seat under the one that had the view of the courtyard, Lukas began to dig into the lunch that he got from town while skipping second block.

I just sat there quietly, staring into my daydreams. I was thinking about how it would have been like if Lukas wasn't here to save me every time a guy says something along to lines of "Gimme your lunch, punk!".

I felt a tap on my shoulder and I snapped back to reality.

"Hey, where's your lunch? I thought you had one," he states.

I shrugged. I didn't want to tell him that they stole my lunch. come to think of it, all that ever happens when he does that it always ends up with somebody getting beaten to a peach.

"Did you forget to make one or did somebody steal it?"

I didn't answer to that.

"Come on, I know you had a lunch now where is it?"

Taking out my note book that I stole from Gwen at the orphanage and a pen that I found on the ground, I quickly jotted down in a sentence in my chicken scratch and handed the note to him.

"I can't read this. So what happened?"

Writing in a neater form, I jotted down "Sorry, I can't read it either" just to bug him. In truth, even in my position, I am not a good liar so when I was writing down my answers and questions about what he was saying to me I had to hide my face with my curtain of black hair when he was reading my responses.

It was silent after a while. I was doodling in my notebook that only had about five pages left when Lukas broke the silence that was ever so almost intoxicating.

"Someone stole your lunch, huh," it wasn't exactly a question, but in the end of that, I nodded. there was no use trying to lie to him and we both knew that and I couldn't keep my trap shut, either.

Nodding with me, I was suprised that Lukas didn't jolt up and sock someone in the face, not that there was much people to do that.

"You know you could have told me,' he mumbled. I knew that he was upset for my sake, but I didn't thinkk it was that much of a big deal.