Fly Like a Bird

The Camera

My hand shot in the air, knowing the question that Mr. White was asking was obvious. "Yes, Gwen?" The rugged man pointed his long jointed finger towards me.

"Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet, sir," he gave me a nod, and went on with his day. My last and probable favourite class was next, our elective. With five minutes left, my vision slowly scanned towards the window as I sat there staring until the sound of the bell startled me back into reality. I collected my books, and headed out the room into the world of craziness and people full of shit walking about. Being the new girl, I was picked on like any other nerdy girl, I was born and raised in Illinois and moved to New York.

"Hey, new girl, ready for your first whirly?" A towering blue-haired girl asked me as I looked up to meet her gaze of pure evil.

"Fuck off," I replied trying to dodge her gang, but of course I didn't reach the other side of the heaven light that called to me. Two of her bubs lifted me up by the shoulders and dropped my bag, they were holding me high, dazed in mid-air while laughing as I yelled dirty words at them.

"I guess the noob knows her way around, huh? What's your next class, virgin?"

I struggled, trying to pull away from them, and a girl's voice came from nowhere, "Put. Her. Down."

"Oh, what's Miss Michelle going to do? Bite me?" The other girl replied with a few snickers following.

"I can, but you probably taste disgusting..." Her voice trailed off in thought before returning. I couldn't get a good look at her from the moment. "You know, your parents are overprotective- besides the blue hair, and my dad works with yours." I could sense the girl smirked, and the blue bully's eyes widened.

"Shut up- shit. Shut up!" She yelled motioning for her friends to drop me. I mean literally, drop me. I thought in that moment what her parents would be like... Well, her loss.

As I landed on my feet the mystery girl came into my vision, "Thanks, I'm Gwen. Gwen Stacy," she nodded and smiled. As the girl helped me gather my items, she also picked the paper for her elective as well. Located in the library, we finally made our way through as the others were choosing a paper out of the hat for their topics. I introduced myself to Ms. Hartwing as she explained how everyone would have a correct grammar article according to their topic, and no one was aloud to switch, which a few groaned.

Michelle introduced me to her best friend, Liz Allen. She pointed to my left and I had to lean in, because her whisper was barely anything at all. "That's Peter Parker and Ned- Ned something. They're wierdos." Her voice grew louder as she and Liz started laughing, I smiled and turned towards them in which I guess Ned, the larger one, gasped,

"Are you new?" I found his voice to be extremely squeaky, and it was probably just in this situation as the boy embraced me in a bone-cracking hug. As he let go, I turned towards Liz and gave a corn-faced smile.

The three laughed, and I turned towards the boy who was cackling with a grin, "Thanks. My name is Gwen." I could tell my smile included a hint of fear.

Ned scooted his chair backwards a few times, and I met the gaze of Peter Parker. I was lovestruck, he had silky brown hair and he probably had abs under his shirt from the outlines. The Filipino boy pointed towards Parker, "He's better than Harry Styles with style- no, no, he's better than One Direction!" He looked up. "In your face Niall, Harry, and whatever your dreamy British names are." We all couldn't handle ourselves and Ms. Hartwing's voice became louder than ours,

"Alright, so I will pass around a bag that will have your topic in it." As the bag of failing or passing was being tossed and jostled, a few folks groaned and others were so happy, they almost couldn't contain themselves. The bag finally came to me, in which I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. I pulled, passed the bag on, and opened my slip of paper, HEROES OF NYC, was printed on the white piece. I didn't know what to think, should I be happy or sad? I thought for a bit, then realised my brother, Lucas would love it. Of course I totally forgot during my hectic day to tell anyone about him, but his seven year old self would love to meet Spiderman.

The last person that took a slip groaned, and Mrs. Hartwing made everyone say what they picked, apparently I wasn't the only girl with a boyish topic, some girls had sports or skateboarding in such ways I thought were no better than mine. I saw in my peripheral vision that Michelle was making a certain eye language towards Peter, which made me wonder in thought until everyone was told to buy a camera, luckily I was given one the year before. As the bell rang, we all said our goodbyes before heading home.

I felt a shadow following me, and turned to see Peter with his headphones on, skateboarding down the opposite sidewalk. I waved to get his attention as he looked around to see if any cars were making his way over.

"Hey," he jumped off his board and placed his headphones around his neck. "what's up?" he asked as if I hadn't seen him in a while which made me smile.

"Nothing much, you?" I played along, glimpsing at his perfectly made features. He smiled in return which made my insides melt, and it felt like I knew the boy so well, and I saw him everyday of my life.

"Well, see that white building over there?" I looked and nodded, of course that was where my apartment is. "That's my home." He smiled approvingly and I looked at him and the building back again grinning,

"Same!" I laughed, looking at the boy.

It turned out that Peter lived a story below me, and we talked all the way to his stop, "Bye, Parker," I said smiling while waving.

"Bye, Stacy," he called waving as the door shut.