HIBUBA

CHAPTER THREE

The new house was just like their old one, the only thing missing was the warmth that the former had. It was a simple white bungalow with a red roof and two chimneys on opposite sides of the house, the windows were blue and the door was white, such an ordinary granny looking house.

They quickly adapted to their new environment, unpacking all their stuff within a few days and even knowing the layout of the entire area. The area had two Wal-Marts, one Shoprite and three MacDonald's, there was a pizza place downtown, a Chinese restaurant and a Laundromat.

It was a fairly quiet place and soon enough Pers felt better. She skiped Malia and groupie and had long midnight talks with Ethan who wrote a song for her and sang it to her the last time they spoke.

All that was left to do now was to go to school and that was where the problem would begin. Being the new kid all over again was going to be a big bummer and she loathed it, but Pers could not put it off anymore because today was the day she had to go. She could still remember the last talk she had with Malia.

"You can't keep it off you know," Malia had told her for the fifth time that day.

"Well can't I just come back and be with you?" she whined, sticking out her lower lip like a child asking for candy.

"One I'm not into girls and two Ethan would probably kill me if he found out," Malia replied cheekily.

"Fine, it's not as if you're any help," she replied cutting off the call.

She was standing in front of her house, waiting for the bus to pull up and take her to school and as if on cue, the bus appeared round the corner and stopped in front of her. Pers took in a deep breath and climbed aboard the bus which caused everybody to stop talking, looking at her as if she was the singer of an opera show who had just got on stage, she seemed shocked as her tongue got stuck to the roof of her mouth, Pers stood there for a while or maybe it was just a second she could never tell, just staring off into space when someone farted and the spell was broken.

She smiled shyly and used her eyes to scan the seating arrangement and was pleased to see that it was the same as her last school. The cool kids and rock stars in the back, the jocks in the middle left and the religious people or as they were called in her former school the 'Jesus people' were opposite them, the geeks and ordinary people in the front either talking science or being their usual boring selves so she plunked down in front of the geeks in an empty space.

The bus took off and stopped in front of another street to pick up more students and soon enough someone came to sit beside her, Pers ignored them until the person nudged her gently. She pretended not to have felt it.

"Hi," the voice said and Pers looked up and was taken aback by her. She was pretty and had the clearest skin, almost milky white, her nose was so pointy it looked unreal but what really stood out was her moss green like doe eyes sitting atop high cheekbones, with black curly hair on her head.

"Hi," Pers replied after a moment of ogling her and then brought out her hand for a handshake; the beautiful stranger looked at the hand in distaste before gently brushing the tip of her fingers on Pers outstretched hands.

"I'm Sofia, and you are?" She replied with a fake smile.

"Persephone, well Pers for short," she said, mentally giving her the stink eye, so much for making a new friend today.

"Let me get this straight, your parents named you Persephone, what kind of name is that?" She  scrunced up her face as if she had been presented with dog poop.

"It's a great name," Pers defended as the tension between them began to rise; she wasn't ready to make new enemies on her first day of school and who in the hell was this rude stranger? "But just call me Pers."