Journey to Psitharis

Chapter 19

            It was a strange morning. I was heading back to a school where the principal hated me, the student body thought I was a crazed lunatic, three girls could resort to their old tricks and make me miserable and I was hiding secrets from every member of my family to protect my neglectful mother. But I shocked both my mom and my sister as I jumped out of bed, took in another quick shower and took a little care in fixing my hair. And, as I fixed a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I hummed the song I had danced to when I was stuck in the music box. They sat there, staring at me as if I had changed into an alien from another planet overnight. I didn't care. For the first time in a long time I was happy. It didn't matter what happened at school, it didn't matter that my new class was the refuge of the dead, it didn't even matter that, should I put a toe out of line, I would be expelled in a heartbeat.

Roland was safe, and I had a feeling we had done more than agree to an uneasy truce that night. I honestly thought we might have ventured into the unfamiliar territory of friendship. I had a friend. It didn't matter that he was imaginary; a figment that only existed in my dreams. It felt like someone out there cared for me. And if I could ignore his blind sense of justice, I could have a respite from my loneliness for a while.

The day started out normally. I still sat alone on the bus, despite my new look. No one noticed the care I had taken getting dressed, nothing had really changed. Mr. Daniels was still standing at the door as I came in, but I bounded so happily past him I know I saw him frown. He was sure he was going to find a broken girl walking by, and instead he got the new me. It took all the wind out of his sails. I sat down in first period, all ready to learn about complex equations. Mrs. Craft for one was happy to see the change in my demeanor. She smiled at me, and I smiled right back instead of looking down at a book like I always did. I think I frightened my classmates more by being in a cheerful mood. Maybe this was the calm before the storm, my final joyous episode before I set the joint ablaze.

The day didn't trudge by like it usually did. I got the work in my other classes done before everyone else, leaving me enough time to sketch Roland's face from my memory. It was so ridiculous, but this guy who tried to arrest me on several occasions had suddenly become a damn good reason for surviving the real world. It didn't hurt that he was uncommonly good looking. His shoulder-length brown hair, his beautiful blue eyes, his very masculine body; everything just fit together to make him perfect. And I found myself longing to be back there in that cold wilderness with him.

At lunchtime it occurred to me I still have unfinished business pertaining to one of my classmates. After I retrieved a tray with limp French fries and a slice of greasy pizza that resembled a colorful piece of cardboard I walked out to assume my place at the end of one of the long tables, with no one sitting around me for at least five seats or so. As I made myself comfortable at the last seat down the long stretch of stool-like seats, I spotted her.

She sat at the corner table all alone. All of the other tables were set up in long lines in the cafeteria so many people could congregate together at once. It got crowded sometimes, and if you wound up sitting beside someone who decided a shower after gym was a complete waste of time then you spent your entire lunch in an odoriferous misery. That girl, on the other hand, sat at the only table in the entire building that was small and round, four real honest-to-goodness chairs spread around its perimeter.

On any given day a sane person would have considered the small "visitors" table to be a little bit of paradise, what given the crowded nature of the long bench tables. And since parental visitors were unheard of at the high school level and other visitors usually wound up having business lunches with the faculty at the downtown mall, the table was open to anyone who wanted to sit there. Problem was, nobody ever sat there. Those who dared to plant their behinds in one of the cushioned seats risked complete ostracism. But if you were already ostracized, what did it matter?