MORTALS

/04: Meet the New Girl

I watched the eleven-year-old girl make her way across the busy cafeteria. No one paid any attention to me, even though I clearly wasn't a student there, and I didn't pay any attention to the others. I had my sights set on the one girl. She had my long, dark hair, my pale yet determined face, even my cloudy aura.

The girl wore her favorite shirt, the one she'd been saving for her first day of sixth grade. It was the one she'd worn to her best friend's birthday over the summer. It was black and had neon paint splatters scattered about. I saw her sigh as she remembered the feeling of moving away from everyone she knew.

The small girl scanned the cafeteria, looking for a place to sit. She took her tray to a table near the back. The table was long, half of it already taken by the school's football team. Wanting to avoid any personal interaction, the girl parked herself on the end of the table with no one there.

She started digging into her salad when someone stopped her.

"Hey."

When the girl looked up, I could see the boredom evident in her eyes, even from halfway across the cafeteria. It was that What do you want? look. The one longing for entertainment... and here it was.

"You can't sit here." The jock said.

"Well, you guys have the other half of the table and that's enough room for you guys." The girl said in a plain tone, her English accent so discernible. She smiled sweetly. "I really don't see the problem there."

"Yeah, well, we don't want you here." He grinned. "I don't know if it's because you're new, or maybe you're just ignorant, but no one can just waltz over to this table, our table, and sit as they please. Whoever does that would have to be really brave," He leaned down to her eye level, and being the tall guy he was, that was a lot. "Or really stupid." The rest of the football players laughed. I clenched my fist, longing to get back at Nolan Allard for so many years.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I really should have asked you whether or not you were using the empty table space, you're Greatness." The girl said, earning snickers from the nearby tables.

"Again, bravery, or stupidity." The older guy growled. "When it really comes down to it, you're dead meat."

"You really are just a big jerk, you know that?" The girl said loudly. The entire cafeteria stopped and time seemed to slow. Even the lunch ladies seemed to hold their breaths. All eyes bounced between the twelve-year-old seventh grader and the captain of the football team, as if it was a really intense game of ping-pong.

"What did you say?" The football player said quietly.

"Wow, dumb and deaf?" The girl feigned surprise. "Are you trying to set a record? Like, how stupid a person could before seventh grade?"

"I'm graduating this year!" The boy roared.

"Oh, I'm sorry, with you brains, or should I say, lack of, I thought you were in sixth grade. Or else, you know, held back."

Quiet giggles filled the room.

"And why would you assume that?" The boy snarled.

"Well, you stereotyped me as the girl you could bulldoze out of your table and humiliate, in which case, you are gravely mistaken." The older boy paused. The girl smiled. "What? Too many syllables in that sentence for you?"

More snickers and laughs.

"You're dead meat!" The boy made a lousy lunge and the girl quickly ducked out of the way, prancing off to sit at another table.

"Bye!" She sing-songed, waving. Eventually, the silence over the cafeteria lifted and everyone was all smiles and chatter.

I kept my eyes on the girl, watching her make her way through the crowd and to another table.

"Uh, hey."

The girl caught herself before she bumped into the other person. The other girl smiled. "Oh, sorry. Um, I heard what you said over there to Nolan Allard. Well, everyone heard you. It was awesome." The new girl rambled.

The first girl beamed. "Thanks. Kids like him, the ones that think they own the school, need a little verbal beating from time to time. Preferably where they can be humiliated. He needs to learn to pick the right battles."

"Well, he picked the losing one as soon as he started with you." The second girl said. She had blonde curls that tumbled down her back, and her smile glimmered. "Hey, uh, you wanna come sit with us?" The blonde nodded her head over at a table on the opposite side of the cafeteria.

The dark haired girl broke into a small smile. "Sure. Uh, thanks."

The two girls walked over to the table and set their trays down. There were two guys, both of whom seemed to be about the dark-haired girl's age.

"Guys, meet the new girl."

The dark haired girl paused. "How did you know I was new?"

The blonde shrugged. "Even though we're just starting this year, it's a pretty small school. All the sixth graders here, we know everyone from fifth grade. I know for a fact that you didn't go to our elementary school, so you must be new.

"Anyway, my name's Addy Dawkins." The blonde shook the other girl's hand.

"No it's not." One of the guys spoke up. He had dark, blond-ish hair.

Addy rolled her eyes. "Fine, my name's Adessa, happy?"

"It's a nice name." The guy smiled. He turned to the dark haired girl. "My name's Daniel Allard." He reached out and shook the girl's hand. "Dan for short."

"Allard, like Nolan?" The new girl asked.

"Yeah, my brother's a jerk, but so what? I don't let him get under my skin." Daniel said. The girl cracked a smile.

"I'm Leo Reyes." The other boy said. He had curly, dark brown hair and tanned skin.

"And your name?" Addy asked curiously.

The dark haired girl smiled tentatively. "My name is Everly Bell."