The Fountain Girl

Chapter 12

We had agreed to go to the mall the next week, on Saturday. There weren't a lot of malls in South Hampington, as far as I could remember from all my fourteen years of living in this urbanized town.

I got through the week pretty well, taking optimum care of Anna and I had actually brought her to the clinic for a dental checkup. She rolled a little toy ball around in her hands as she and I waited for what seemed like an eternity in the dull and completely white waiting room. Uninteresting posters of teeth and human jaws lined the walls, adding to the misery of the patients in the waiting room. Anna and I were the only ones there.

About half and hour into the waiting, the dentist opened his door and invited us into his stereotypical dentist room, with a reclining chair and many teeth-drilling tools, accompanied by a bright yellow light from above the chair, and many boxes of antibacterial wipes lining the sink. I could feel Anna trembling against my shoulder, making a soft but high-pitched whining noise.

"Don't worry, Anna. Don't worry," I comforted her, patting her on the back and setting her on the dentist's chair.

"Don't want, don't want..."

In ten minutes the dentist had done his checkup and told me that Anna's teeth were perfectly normal and healthy. Anna and I walked out of the dentist's room happily. We almost forgot to pay.

And so it came to Saturday, which had arrived earlier than I had expected. To be honest, I felt a funny feeling in my toes and weird sudden cold in my hands even though I was wearing gloves. This sense of nervousness grew larger and larger as the time for Katie and I to meet came closer. I had no idea why I was doing this, for Katie and I had gone to the very same mall umpteen times, and I didn't find any reason for my fingers and toes to feel funny this time.

I had tried to make myself as attractive as possible (which I never did unless I knew that Jess was taking the same class as me that day), testing many different kinds of hoodies and shirts and pants.

An hour later I was waiting at Starbucks, patiently shaking my foot around under the table and tapping my fingers against the warm cup of coffee in my hands. I glanced from left to right occasionally, checking the many corners that Katie could come walking put from.

Soon she arrived, exactly on time, holding a thin novel in her hand and she had on a comfy-looking orange jumper and really short pants. Her brown hair ran down her back and she swept most of it to one side. She actually looked more attractive than Jess on a normal day. I tried to shake the thought out of my mind. Katie was my best friend. Not my crush. Best friend...

"Hey!" She said jubilantly. "I wanna go check this bookstore out downstairs. I think it's a new bookstore... I want to find the sequel to this one," she held up the novel in her right hand, her middle and ring finger clasped around the side of it.

"Um, sure, yeah, I'll bring my coffee along," I said as casually as possible, holding it with one hand and following Katie to the escalator. "You look great today, by the way. Did you know that?" I told her. I regretted it as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

"Yeah, I know that. My boyfriend told me," she said, walking straight on. I almost spit out my coffee onto the escalator steps. But I managed to hold it in. I swallowed, and asked, "You have a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, sure."

I just stared at her with wide eyes. I blinked once and rubbed my face with my hand, shaking myself out of the little sleepiness in my system. And then I just looked at her with a weird face.

She started giggling the cute way she does. "I'm just kidding!" She was giggling so hard that she was clutching her stomach with both hands. She looked at my face and pointed an index finger at me, bending over and laughing again.

I sighed and walked with her to the bookstore. I treated her to the 'Fallen Keepers 2', the book that she wanted. I thought that it was one of the many things I could do to repay her for taking such good care of Anna.

"Thanks for coming with me, Ryan," she said after we had walked a few rounds around the mall.

I nodded and smiled at her, and the she put her hair behind her shoulder, turned her body and skipped away.

She didn't just walk away. She skipped.