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“Yeah … it’s my first day. I got transferred here from George Washington. My parents moved here. So…”
“So, they made you change schools, huh?” Her icy blue eyes almost penetrate me. It’s like she can read my mind, but not in an intrusive way.
She seems to care about me—like she’s genuinely interested and might even feel sorry about the changes in my life.
“Something like that … To tell you the truth, I was so nervous this morning that I forgot my lunch at home,” I confess.
“Ah, that’s not a problem!”
She reaches inside her backpack and pulls out her own lunch—a bottle of water and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She takes it out of the wrapping, tears it in half—expertly, as if she’s done it before—and hands me half her sandwich.
“There you go, Evan.” She smiles. “You can have half. What’s mine is yours!”
“Umm … thanks so much. I—I wasn’t expecting this…”
Instead of an answer, she waves her dainty hand through the air and blows out a raspberry. For a moment, I can see her tongue poking out in a very childish and funny way.
“We’ll have to share the bottle of water, though. I only have one,” she adds.
“That’s alright, there’s a drinking fountain over there,” I tell her, pointing to the other side of the schoolyard. “Thanks, though.”
“Oh, no, no! Don’t drink from there!” she says. “The older boys throw stuff in there. Dirty socks, chewing gum … you’re not one of them, are you?”
“No, not really. I’ve never thrown a dirty sock into a drinking fountain,” I tell her in all seriousness; although I find the topic to be quite funny.
Her blue eyes pierce me. “So, you’re one of the good ones, huh?”
“I guess so?” I reply, not knowing what she means.
“Those are hard to find,” she sighs like a much older and wiser woman.
I’m fascinated with this girl who came out of nowhere to come and sit with me, share her lunch, and have this … weird conversation.
Whatever I thought my first day of school would be, it wasn’t this.
We finish our shared lunch and continue to talk. She fills me in on everything there is to know about the school, the teachers, and some of the students. According to her, I should stay away from the bathrooms on the second floor and I should definitely take Miss Clark’s history class.
Before we go, Emmy pulls out a chapstick from her backpack and starts applying it with slow and confident moves. “I’m thinking about starting to wear red lipstick. What do you think?”
“Red lipstick? How old are you? Ten?”
She turns to me and shoots me an extremely dirty look. “I’m eleven. And how old are you, a hundred? Are you my dad?”
“No, I didn’t … I’m sorry. I think red lipstick would look great on you, Emmy.”
“Anyway … my parents won’t let me wear red lipstick. All I got was this Burt’s Bees cherry one. It has a little color to it, but I have to really work it in to make it show. See?”
She continues to apply it, layer after layer. I can smell the strong aroma of cherries enveloping us—enveloping the entire world, it seems.
“What do you think?” she asks me.
“Huh? Umm … yeah. I think it looks … great.”
Behind us, the bell rings loudly and absurdly, filling the air with a piercing sound. The students start to move toward the entrance of the school, leaving behind the autumn sun and their last seconds of freedom.
“Let’s go in, then. I have Algebra,” she tells me.
“I have Chemistry. See you after, during the break?”
