Still

Chapter Five

I walked into school, assuming the worst. I mean, I was pretty sure that was what all kids did, since worst case scenarios always seemed to end up happening. If a kid forgot a pencil to a test, he imagined that the worst thing that would happen was that his peers didn't have any pencils to give him, so he would have to use pen on the test, which he'd end up failing, because he became stressed about not being able to erase on his test. This exact scenario would come to life, because that's just how life works.

I went into Top Peak that morning, assuming Noah told people that I had visited the hospital. I didn't know why, but I could imagine everyone must want to know about Harry. How was he? What exactly happened? Was he still alive?

There was talk about Harry, but none of it was ever directed towards me. It was mostly quiet mumbles here and there, although occasionally I'd hear someone shout about him. These people were mostly just the school's student body officers and Dance Company kids who thought they had strong influences on everybody. They kept shouting, "Be nice!" in the halls, as if that would help at all.

Often times I never went to my locker, mostly because I hated having to pull out my combination from my binder, and then try three or four times to get it right. But today was the day when my dad snuck a whole box of fruit snacks into my bag somehow, probably in hopes that I wouldn't come home just to devour everything in sight. I was not going to going around carrying a whole box of food with me, a binder, and two textbooks in my bag, so something had to go.

I got into my locker easily enough, took out the things I needed, and was on my way to leave in a matter of minutes. I looked around, mostly for a way out of the hall, but spotted something else instead. A few lockers down from me had a group of boys anxiously shuffling near a locker to see what was happening. Totally not weird or suspicious at all, especially when they kept shoving each other and looking behind them anxiously.

I walked towards the boys, hoping to know what was so exciting. One kid was on his toes so he could see over the kid in front of him, but his best friend shoved his head down, and smacked his arm. The two began to wrestle right there in the halls. At least they moved so I could get a better view of what was happening.

"You sure you've got the right combo?" One guy asked. I was pretty sure I had him in my Biology class. He was the one who was constantly scratching things into his desk, and blaming it on whoever was in class before him.

"Yeah, it just keeps jamming!" The other guy said, narrowing his eyes as he tried at the lock again.

The brunette at the locker fiddled with its lock, which kept getting stuck near the twenty, so he had to push on the dial harder. The larger numbers on the locker were gunky with what looked like dried-up red paint, although it could have been anything. There was no way they'd be able to get it open without damaging that thing. It was, dare I say, even worse than my locker. (No, that was impossible!)

I turned to leave, but one of the boys clapped his hands together. The whole clump began to cheer, so I looked back at them again. The brunette one had managed to open the locker, and stood back to look at his work. The locker was fairly empty, except for the little stack of white paper on the top shelf. Brunette boy picked up the pile, and began to flip through the water colored drawings. Most of them were landscapes of cities, and the occasional forest.

"I never knew Connolly's an artist," the redhead from Bio said, whistling.

"You shouldn't be here!" I blurted out. Everyone turned to look at me, and my whole face flushed. I didn't know what came over me just then...

"Who are you?" The redhead asked.

"Just because Harry isn't here doesn't mean you have the right to go through his locker," I said. "Shouldn't that be against the rules or something?"