Paris Radioactive

Chapter 2

School was always the worst part of my week. It stifled creativity with constant testing, and grading, and comparing each student to another. Who is the smartest? Who can do math faster? What about chemistry?

Without the presence of any friends, I quickly came to dread it. However, today I had pep in my step. A friend. Such a weird thing to think. I have a friend.

As if she was cued, Adly popped up beside me at my locker.

“Bonjour mademoiselle Paris.” I glanced over at her as I got my things for the next hour. “You do know I’m not French right?” Her response was a simple, “Oui Oui.” I rolled my eyes as I closed my locker. She started speaking in french again, “Je suis assez bon en français.” I must have looked dumbfounded because she leaned towards me to whisper, “ That means, I am quite good at French though.” I grunted a sound of understatement as I shut my locker.

“So you ready for chem class?” she asked.

“How’d you know I was in chem class. I never told you that...are you some kind of stalker?” I glowered at her and watched her response. She chuckled, “of course not silly. Your schedule sits inside of that folder.” Her eyes squeezed shut as her toothy smile spread across her face.

“Oh…” was all I could muster.

“I meant to talk to you before but you were always so intimidating. I got scared and wussed out to be honest. But I'm glad I spoke to you today! You are super cool. I can’t believe I never talked to you. Man was I a chicken.”

She continued to ramble as we walked into the next period. Mr. Jones, our chemistry teacher, sat at his large wooden desk and was scrolling on his computer. The board at the front of the class must have been frozen, since it wasn’t showing what was really on the computer. It announced that we were having a new seating arrangement. I quickly found my name on the board, it seemed I was sitting next to Adly. What a coincidence. 

“Oh wicked! We get to sit by each other now! And I thought Mr Jones was a le pire professeur jamais!” I, once again confused, glanced at her. Though she didn’t translate because the bell rang, announcing class.

We rushed to our seats that sat along the furthest wall. Mr Jones began class and monotonously spoke about kinetic and potential energy. I began scribbling notes down but halfway through class was interrupted. 

Adly was tapping on my shoulder. I glared at her through the corner of my eye, attempting to relay a  simple warning that if she didn’t stop she was gonna lose her finger. Without saying anything she put a crumpled piece of notebook paper on my desk. To hide the obvious note, I slid it into my lap and let my limp hair fall on my face.

It was a simple note that read:

Hey what are you doing after school?

I grabbed a pen and wrote on the same paper.

Homework probably.

Wanna hang out?

Depends on what you have in mind…

We can come up with what to do later… 

Adly’s last note was followed by a stick figure drawing of her giving me a thumbs up. Along with a bunch of badly drawn emojis. I drew a sketch of me making a funny face and wrote:

Fine

She seemed to be drawing another thing on the note but the school bell rang. 

“So I was thinking maybe we can go get frozen yogurt at the new froyo place. It’s called Fro-Yo for the Go-Go. Cool right?”

“Such a cliche name. And I also don’t like froyo.”

“Ok, so froyo is out. How ‘bout pizza?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I honestly didn’t care much about what she was going on about. I still have a lot of homework to do so maybe this was a bad idea.

Adly must have sensed that I was emotionally somewhere else. “Hey we don’t have to decide right now. There are a lot of things we could do. We can decide later.”

I mumbled an ok as we turned to enter the lunch room. The aroma of schoolfood filled my nose. Some of it smelt fine but the other smells were disgusting. I let out a sigh as I set my things on a chair and moseyed to the lunch line. Adly still close behind me. Why was she still here? I’m obviously being cold and distant. Ugh accepting the friendship might have been a mistake. I glanced back at her. Her smile was bright as she spoke to the person behind her in line. Her arms absent mindedly swinging like she said they would.

The girl Adly spoke to looked familiar to me however. She had long dark curls that framed her slim face. Her tanned skin makes her emerald green eyes pop. I swear I’ve seen her before, I hummed to myself.

Eventually, I got my food from the lunch lady and made my way back to our booth. What I didn’t expect was the girl to sit down next to Adly.

“Hey Paris, this is Ericka. She is new here so I told her that she could sit with us,” Adly announced. I gave her a small wave and continued to munch on my baked ziti. “This is Paris. She’s not good with people, but is pretty nice.” 

“Oh” was all I heard her say. Ericka perked up a bit and her hair bounced against her shoulder as she turned to Adly. “Hey can my friend Andrew sit with us?” She asked. 

“I don’t see why not.” Ericka then slid out of the seat and went off to find her friend. Great...more people.