Finding Opal

Chapter 2

          On the bus home from school I sat in an empty seat, waiting for my friend Clara who always sat with me on the way home from school.  Maggie sat with my on the way to school.  Clara’s dad drives her to school in the morning since he passes it on the way to his work anyways and Maggie has cheerleading in the afternoon.

          Trying to tune out the chaos that was going on around me I leaned my head on the cold, frosty window to my right.  My eyes wandered to the people passing by my bus.  We were your regular, every day junior high school.  The popular girls walked by and laughed louder than they should.  The boys stared after them.  The geeks studied for finals coming up soon.  The jocks dribbled basketballs and threw footballs across the main lawn.

Finally I saw who I had been looking for. The football captain, Marty, walked by, I followed him with my eyes.  I saw a cascading mountain of curly blonde hair jogging, or at least trying, to catch up with him.  I rolled my eyes to the back of my head.  Kimberly was only the most annoying girl ever, but she was a blonde and that made guys love her.  I’m pretty sure she’s dated about every guy in the school, and in the school the next town over.  When I first moved here she welcomed me with open arms… only to choke me later.  She caused me to be the laughing stock of the school for about a week.  Which is a long time considering how quickly things come in and out around here.  My life was like a scene from Mean Girls that week.

          Watching the couple reunite, I gagged.  They looked as if they had had to cross deserts to see each other.  Why did Marty have to be so cute?  He’s nice though.  That’s what I’ve heard at least… admittedly I’ve only talked to him twice.  Once about our science homework, and another for him apologizing for him closing my hair in his locker.  The only good thing that came out of that scene was I got to look into his deep blue eyes.  There was something odd about his eyes though, there was another color mixed in with the gorgeous blue.  It was almost like a brown on the outside.  I only found this so interesting at the time because my eyes are two colors- hazel in the middle and brown on the outside.  At the time I thought I was in a romantic movie and fate had brought us together.  Alas, no, I’m still single and he still doesn’t have a clue who I really am.

          Before I realized it, Clara plopped down next to me in the seat. “Hey!” she said cheerfully as she gave me a grin.

           I jumped.  “Hey.” I responded with less enthusiasm.  I couldn’t help it; I had other stuff on my mind.  And no way was I going to let her know I was watching Bella and Edward reunite.  She was the only one that actually thought I was an abnormal 8th grader and wasn’t into that kind of crap.  Quickly racking my brain I found something that actually was important that I needed to discuss with her.  “Did you hear about the girl that was kidnapped over the weekend?”

          Her blue eyes turned sad. “Yeah,” she answered softly, the pep in her voice from just moments earlier was gone. “Opal was her name?”

          I nodded. “It’s just so crazy to think that it happened here in Betty Valley, where nothing happens! Good or bad…”

          “That’s really sad, especially since she just moved here!  How old was she?” Clara asked.

          “Don’t say was, Clara! She’s still alive!  And she IS our age, and she lives a few blocks away from my house so she would have started at our school today.” I answered.

          “Sorry!  And you don’t really know she’s still alive… or if she ever was! This ‘Opal’ girl could be a made up story the news made up to get more views!” Clara looked very proud of herself that she came up with the great theory.  I sighed and decided to check her back into reality.  This girl sometimes…

          “If the news came up with this ingenious ‘plan’, than why are ALL of the local news channels doing the story? And she is alive! She hasn’t been gone that long.”

          The conversation continued with me filling her in on all the remaining details that I knew.  Well, almost all of the details, I had to save some small amount of stuff I’d figured out for myself!  We were so engrossed in the story that I almost missed my stop. Clara and I waved goodbye and I walked to my house, deviating from my usual route, I went the longer way.  I needed time to think.

          I reached for the blue dolphin necklace I always wore as I ran across the first street I came to.  It was my grandmother’s when she was my age.  Then it was my mom’s, and it finally worked its way down to me.  As my fingers enclosed around it I had reached the end of the street.  Turning the next corner, I still held onto the necklace; it was something I always did when I had a lot of thinking to do.  This was definitely one of those times. 

          Opal’s picture flashed through my head again.  I began to think.  Why her?  Why the new girl in town? Did the kidnapper follow her when she moved here?  Did she do something in her old town that made her a prime victim for the taking?  Did she move here to get away from someone?  All these questions rolled in my head.  All these questions that I had no answer to.

          Another question remained in my mind.  A question even I had no answer to.  A question I should know how to answer.

Why do I care?