Almond Boy

Almond Boy - 4

Emma plops down on the bench and slouches till her shoulders are against the backrest, her butt almost off the seat. Her hips are raised and her back is curved into a crescent. This is the position that for some reason takes the cake of most comfortable, even though it's not by much.

Her back is killing her, and she has shifted into a thousand different positions the past two classes to try to ease her pain, but nothing has really worked. 

The kids start running and doing warm-ups and Emma looks around to see Elliot is still not there. 

Is he out running?

That's a silly thought. 

Finally the gym teacher, Ms. Shipman walks by, and Emma stands up on her wobbly knees and tries to get her attention. 

"Where's Elliot today, Ms. Shipman?"

Emma has never seen Ms. Shipman so close before. She didn't talk to Ms. Shipman when she needed to be benched for gym, her mother sent her an email, and while in gym she never needed to be close to hear the woman's bark of orders. 

But now that Emma sees her, she finds Ms. Shipman rather frightening. With a large nose and sunk in narrow eyes, she resembles a bird. She even has wrinkles that drape down her neck that make her look like a turkey. She seemed a lot younger from far away, her bright blonde hair put up in a ponytail and her face shadowed by her various colored visors that she wore in the hot Florida sun. 

It makes Emma's heart jump, looking into the woman's narrow eyes. 

"Doctors appointment," is all she says, still retaining that whip-crack way of speaking without being so loud. 

Emma frowns and plops back down on the bench and fiddles with her fingers. 

I guess no Almond-Boy to talk to today.

It's not like they ever talked a lot, but for some reason Emma finds herself extremely bored, whereas when he's there she's pretty comfortable with sitting out in gym. She's used to exchanging little comments, and every now and then getting an almond, but they never had very long conversations. 

Why is this so different to when he's here? God, I'm so bored. 

Emma begins flipping a pencil up and down on her binder, and making a little percussive beat to herself along to the tunes blasting through her headphones. 

Emma stares at her iPod for a moment before realizing, she'd never used it before when Elliot was around. 

And even with music she's still bored. The most exciting thing of her gym class is when she has a coughing fit and has to go to the bathroom, thinking she might throw up from how hard the coughs are hitting her. 

She decides that maybe being bored isn't so bad after that, and besides, hopefully Elliot will be back tomorrow.