The Girl in the Glade

Chapter 5

Chuck had managed to get me a sleeping place right next to him, even though one of the other boys had to change his place in exchange. I told Chucky this was not quite necessary but he, however, insisted. To be honest, secretly, I was glad about that. It wasn't a quite pleasant thought to sleep between a bunch of guys you hardly know. Or don't know at all. Chucky was the only one I really trusted. Besides Newt. But it was different with Chucky. He was only thirteen or something like this. He wasn't interested in girls so far. At least I thought so. 

"I'll be your watchdog", Chucky said giggling. The thought made me laugh.

"Thanks, buddy."

"You're welcome. Someone need to protect the only girl here. Although I think you already have a 'personal soldier' on the glade."  He was wiggling with his eyebrows.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Newt."

"What? No. It's not like that, Chucky", I explained, shaking my head continuously.  "He just want to be nice, you know. I'm the newbie... And, besides, I'm the only girl."

"Oh, come on. Please don't say you haven't seen the way he's staring at you all the time. It's so obvious."

"He's not staring at me, Chuck. Not more than the others anyway."  

"Yeah, everyone's kind of obsessed with you. But that seems quite normal, since you're the only girl."

"It's still annoying."

"But you can't blame them; most of them haven't seen a girl for years. Besides, it's definitely more pleasing to the eye to look at you than one of the... Shanks around here."

He hesitated at the word 'Shank' as if he was still not used to the slang in the glade.

"Can I ask you something?", I asked, reminded by Chuck that I still had no idea how I looked like.

"Always."

"What do I look like?"

He patterned me intensively. "You've got long brown hair - which I assume you've already found out yourself - and big green eyes. Nice figure. You're very beautiful, let me tell ya that. And not that 'you're the only girl we have seen so far, so you're pretty anyway-beautiful'. Even between a bunch of girl's you'd be one of the beautiful kind."

I could've kissed that little Shank for being such a sweetheart, but I decided not to. He would probably be scared of me - or girls generally.

"And how old do you think I am?", I asked instead.

"That's difficult to assess. I'd say you're 16. Maybe 17. Not sure."   

I nodded, processing the details, as suddenly a loud honking made me flinsh.

"What was that?"

"That's the alarm for lunchtime. Come on, you must be starving."   

Now that he spoke about eating, I noticed how hungry I actually was. Chuck led me to the kitchen. A lot of the boys were already sitting on the tables. All conversations stopped immediately the moment I walked in. I could feel all eyes on me as I followed Chuck to a big guy behind a wooden counter.

"Hey Frypan", Chuck welcomed him.

"Hey Chuck", Frypan answered, then turned his attention to me. "So, this is the famous girl I seem to be hearing no end of, he?

"If you're not hiding another girl from me", I answered. "then I assume so."

Frypan laughed. "I wish we'd have some more to hide."