Sean Beacon (On Hold)

Eloise Wey

The only tolerable person at school is Eloise Wey. She is a girl that just moved to Texas from Tennessee and the eighth graders make fun of her for her funny accent. She is a year older than me and taller than me and very skinny. She has a short mop of curly black hair that frames her thick glasses and sunny brown face.

She always wears colorful play dresses that are far too baggy to not be handed down from one of her three older sisters. She looks nice next to me I think; with my short stature, pale skin a sandy blond hair. That's one of the reasons I keep her around.

Another is that she is probably the second smartest kid in Hamilton elementary school, and Hamilton middle school next door. I'm the first smartest of course, but Eloise is not dumb. And that is why I let her keep me company some times.

"Hi Sean!" She yelled in her nasally voice as I strolled nearer to the dull, quiet campus. I watched her sprint clumsily to me looking like a new born greyhound, just learning to walk on her disproportionally long legs.

"How... How's your... Mornin'?" She asked, panting between words.

"fine." I responded bluntly.

"Are you excited for the Halloween party after school?"

"I'm not going."

"Why not?"

"Its only the seventh. Halloween's not even close. I don't see why they're having a party 24 days before Halloween."

"I love Halloween. I'm gon' be a bumble bee."

"That's stupid."

"No it isn't. Bumble bee's are important and cute."

"What makes them so important? And they're not cute. They're gross." I said with an eye roll.

"They are important. They're a big part of pollination and they make honey. My mamma put honey on my toast this mornin' it's my favorite."

"I don't like honey. It's messy."

"Oh."

Eloise looked over at me, clutching her journals and sketch book to her chest. She wore a sun-faded red and lavender dress with a bow around the waist, and bright shiny red ballet flats.

Her tangled black curls were held away from her boyish square face by a silky yellow ribbon with a sunflower print.

I guess I never really take time to look at her because I never noticed that she had a speck of green in her dusty brown eyes. Maybe that's why she wears the glasses, so that its hard to notice.

I looked away before I gave her reason to begin talking again. We finished the walk in silence.

~~~~~

School doesn't start until 6:00 and the building is locked until 5:15. Eloise and I always arrive before the sun is up around 4:30 so that we can go to the creek.

The creek is a drainage ditch in the shrubs behind the middle school. Although is not an actual creek, all the kids in the neighborhood call it that. It's the closest thing to a creek around here.

Some kids sneak out to the creek during recess or PE, and some of the middle schoolers go there to smoke after school, but Eloise and I go there before school to catch toads.

Like the creek, these toads did not live up to they're slang, as they were not toads at all, but gray tree frogs, or Hyla chrysoscelis according to ms. Livingston, our science teacher.

These frogs are most common in the eastern parts of Texas and are, again, certainly not toads. But for some reason, Eloise and I knowingly call them by the wrong name.

"Bring me the cup, I got one!" Eloise yelled from across a puddle of slimy green mud. I ran to her, skipping over the mud, carrying the paper Dixie cup Eloise brought to contain our catches. I held out the cup and Eloise gently placed a tiny grey-brown frog about an inch long inside with the two others I had caught early on.

"There. D'ya  think that'll be enough?" Eloise asked, taking the cup from my hand and peering inside.

"Yeah. That'll be enough."

We both stood up and I wiped my hands on my shorts. Eloise gently secured a quilting square of cloth over the opening of the cup with a rubber band and placed it in the mesh bottle holder on the side of her backpack.

I followed Eloise back towards the school, looking down to see another frog hopping around my feet. I lifted my foot as it hopped to me, and stomped down on it, squishing it.

I looked back up to catch up with Eloise. I don't know why I killed the frog. I just felt like it. I'm glad Eloise didn't see me. She probably would have cried. But it felt good.