Dig Up The Hatchet

@ Seeker

"As you've all been told by rumor, we have a new student today! So before we begin, let me introduce Lo... is this a typo? Lou-ly?" It sounded awfully harsh on the tongue.

A young, smudgy eyed girl trotted in with an armful of books, mouth pressed thin in a line of irritation. "Said as it's spelled, ma'am. Louly-" the way she said it, the flow of it eased the teacher, who repeated it under her breath a few times.

A few jitters of laughter rose from the room, enough to send the auburn-haired girl slamming into a seat, setting her books down noisily. Her thin, kindly arched brows rose as she heard a faded whisper of her name somewhere behind her. "I ain't deaf, fuckwit. I can hear you." It would've sounded harsh fro, anyone else, but the laid back tone of voice even left the offender, a scrawny wisp of a boy, red in the face.

"Yeah, Blake, leave her alone. She can't even talk right with that many brain cells lost." An unfamiliar, harsh voice cawed.

"...Enough!" The teacher interjected, frazzled by the amount of noise coming from her teeny AP Psychology class full of bright-eyed girls and boys. Having such a disturbance widened her eyes. "Louly, if you're going to cause a disturbance, you've been put in the wrong course. Now quiet down or go sit in the hallway-"

Funny thing; although Louly was as kind as a kitten to authority, they'd never given her grief on the rare occasion she stirred up a scene. "Sorry, ma-am," Her eyes twinkled, and the corner of her mouth lifted in something close to a smile. Her dark, almost-too-brown-to-be-auburn hair swam down her back in heavy, untamed waves. The chestnut locks drooped around her delicately cur face that held so much mischief.

She perched her feet up in the desk in front of her, pinching her lips again. 'Keep your head DOWN. They'll find you. Ignore the stares. Don't look around. Keep your mouth shut.' She thought, her mind swarming her with reactions.

It was so unlike her to stand down when someone snarked something her way. Any pass of her job through mouth was more money in her pocket, anyhow.

She adjusted the knit gray infinity scarf over her neck and pushed up the sleeves of her oatmeal colored, oversize, heavy cardigan just to give herself something to do. She blinked slowly to clear her mind. Her movements were jittery to her peers.

"I think she's tweakin'," She heard the whisper, and her mouth twitched, a vein standing out tautly against her forehead.