Thantophobia, Chris Schistad

Chapter 1

I walked into the cafeteria and saw a girl sitting by herself upstairs, by the way she was sitting I guessed that she wasn't waiting for anyone to join her, so I decided that I would. I walked over to her and smiled warmly, "Hi", glancing up up at me momentarily, she replied "hi" before she looked back down at her food. "I'm Maddie, who are you?" I asked, sitting down on one of the high chairs next to her. "I'm Eva" she said, looking up from her food again, a smile forming on her lips. "Are you new here?" she asked, her blue eyes taking me in properly for the first time. "Yeah! I'm an exchange student" I told her. I could see wonder fill her eyes. "Where are you from?" "Ireland". Eva opened her mouth to speak but before the question could pass her lips two people walked up to the table.

"Hi, we are from the theatre group," they said, "there's a party on Friday, are you coming?" Eva and I looked at each other, "umm I probably won't thanks all the same" I said, not wanting to get involved with parties while I was here. "I won't either" Eva said. The two from the theatre club stared at us in near shock. "You have to come, this party will set the social foundations for the next three years of your life". I didn't bother to point out that I wasn't going to be here for the next three years. Eva just smiled and said she'd think about it, the two people went away after that.

"How can you speak Norwegian so well?" Eva asked as though the question had been burning in the fore front of her mind. "Ammmm, I just kind of went to a teacher in the city near where I live" I said to Eva, "why" she looked at me curiously "why what?" I asked, confused "why did you decide to learn Norwegian and come to Norway?" "oh, well I watched this documentary about Norway and the landscape and it was so beautiful that I wanted to come see it, so I decided to learn Norwegian so when I came it would be easier for me" Eva nodded along with what I was saying.

 "How long are you here for?" she asked "just this year, then I have to go back to Ireland and finish school there" Eva's face dropped a little when I told her this, it seems like she was hoping that I'd stay for all three years of high school.

 "Where are you staying?" "With a host family here in Oslo, they aren't home a whole lot from what I can gather, they work a lot" Eva nodded as if she understood. "My mom works a lot too," she said, "she's hardly ever home." I nodded, I could see that this bothered her slightly so I didn't pursue the subject. 

 I had a Norwegian language class while Eva had an English one, we walked together to the door of my class room, on the way Eva kept asking me questions about Ireland and how I came to be in this school, I answered them happily and asked a few myself. We chatted happily until I had to go into class. 

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It was Friday evening and I was laying on my bed, I had been half considering going to the party that the students from the theatre club told Eva and I about, but my host family decided to be home on this particular night. I stood from where I lay on the bed and picked my phone up from the corner of my room, where I left it charging and plugged it into a speaker.

 I turned off the music and decided to call my friends back home, I walked back across to my bed which sits in the middle of my room, the head of it was pushed up against the wall, leaving both sides clear.

I plopped down onto it, and sent a text to one of my best friends to warn her that I was going to call. I put the phone on speaker and let it ring while I threw my hair up into a pony tail. My hair was very curly and kinda ginger, there was always a debate among my friends as to it's actual colour. Some say it's ginger, others say it's brown and still others say it's blonde, I say they're all blind and that it's clearly a mix of the three, my hair fell to just below my shoulders, so that when I tied it up it would tickle the back of my neck in the most annoying way possible.