The Boy with Hope

The Moving Vans

  I'm walking to George Washington High School, where I've attended school since the Kindergarten. The shivering cold stings me, leaving red and pink blotches on my arms, where I forgot to wear a jacket. I fold my arms close to my body, preserving the body warmth that I'm generating, but it's not enough to stop the cold from biting my body. It's so quiet outside; quiet enough to hear an aggressive "Splotch!" as the bottom of my raggedy jeans drag through the puddles on the ground. I hate jeans. My mother doesn't believe in modern medical care, and she knows darn well that her crystal magic doesn't work, so she often forces me to wear jeans so I don't get sick beyond her ability of healing, which is basically level zero.

  I'm a senior in high school-- just an ordinary seventeen year old. Decent grades, but not enough to get me into a good college. Decent appearance, but not good looking enough to get a boyfriend. Not fat, but certainly not slim. Quite normal, right? Well, being a stupid, normal girl would fail to get me into Harvard in millions of different lives. People look for the extraordinary, the unique. They want somebody with potention to represent, something more than just good grades and, on a good day, a decent appearance. They look for somebody especially intelligent, someone with a knack for creativity. Somebody who they know will get far enough to slap a good name on their school.

  Enough about my troublesome life. You're not here to rant, are you? Because if you're a certified therapist, I'd be ever in your debt, just put me on some medication or something. But not something to strong, or people will begin to believe that I'd be a psychopath without a prescription medicine, which I'm not. Well, I really hope I'm not, anyways.

  "Abigail Lewis," somebody squeaks in the most high-pitched, ear-piercing tone I think that I have ever heard in my entire life, "Abbie Lewis, if you are not going to pay attention to my teaching, then leave my classroom!" suddenly, it hits me, it would've knocked the wind out of me if it were a real object and not just a metaphore. It's my teacher talking, Ms. Mendosa. She's my English teacher, and for some reason, she loves to punish me for the most stupid reasons. We have a double-hate kind of relationship. You know, where we mutually hate one another?

  I glare at her, hoping that my piercingly gray eyes are having at least a small effect on her. They're shooting daggers, and if the daggers were real and that wasn't a metaphore, they'd be blood-stained. I never miss when I practice my knife-throwing skills. Nobody knows that I do knife-throwing, because I keep that talent private. However, I keep a small pocket knife inside of whatever handbag I'm using to ensure that if things get out of hand, I'm the one who will be standing over a dead body.

  That sounded scary, but I promise, I was trying to refer to something that represented the idea that I know the knife-throwing would be my self defense tatic, and that I trust my uncomprehendable abilities to win me my life. Does that clear some things up? What's that? Oh. You still find me to be psychotic and believe that I need to be in a mental hospital. It's alright, not like I haven't been told worse things.

  "Abbie," my best friend, Bridget, whispers from the desk behind me. "Pst! Ms. Mendosa is still glaring at you, she stopped teaching." she continues, making a hand signal that is clearly thanking me. I can't help but laugh, and next thing I know, I'm sitting across from Mrs. Handy, George W. High's very own high school principal, get screeched at once more for being 'disrespectful to the English Language Arts teacher.'

  My mom picks me up, disappointed about my seventh suspension of the year. Last time, they threatened that if it happened again, they would expel me. Of course, they didn't, because they knew that the school board would be enraged if they sent a straight A student away for one of the dumbest reasons in all of history. I should know, because I have an A in my history class, where I have an actually respectable teacher. His name is Mr. Watson, and he has never yelled at a single student the entire time he has been teaching at George. W High, which has been almost fifty-five years, according to his stories.

  I love Mr. Watson's stories, they date back to 1965, when he first started teaching here. He was 22 at the time, and is now, like, two thousand years old. He was basically teaching the dinosaurs, because I doubt that children even existed back then. They probably didn't, he probably was even depressed when the dinosaurs turned into fossils. I bet he could tell us what actually happened to the dinosaurs, considering if an asteroid did hit, it's seriously questionable how he is still living.

  I just realized that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, not two thousand. Oops, I guess I don't deserve the awesome grade that I have in history, but who cares? A good report card is a good report card, and a good report card means that I have nothing to worry about. Well, besides the finals, I have nothing to worry about.

  My mom is still shouting at me as we drive to our house. She's never understanding about my education. I'm only human, and I think that she thinks I'm some sort of legitimate superhuman, but I assure you that I'm not. We're only a few minutes away from arriving at our house, when I see a two moving vans. One is pulling out of the driveway, one is pulling into the driveway.

  "What's that?" I ask, pointing at the vans. Her expression and tone seems to lighten a bit, which is relieving.

  "Oh, glad you asked!" my mom says with a big smile. "Mr. Brown moved out of the house, and there's a new family moving in!" I can tell that there's a catch to this as soon as her voice cracks with excitement. "And they have a son your age!"