Calling Carter.

That night, when I went back up to View Hill, I was surprised to see both Kala and her brother there. I stopped short at the sight of them, almost exactly the same as I had done the day before. But, I refused to leave my recluse just because these new people made me a little uncomfortable. If they were uncomfortable, they could leave.

But, as I had soon found out in maths, Kala was very energetic. She was like a social butterfly on speed. At the sight of me in my red and black clothing (yes, I wear red a lot) she jumped to her feet, waved like her arm was having a seizure, and ran over to me.

“Hey.” She said breathlessly. “C’mon. I want you to meet him.”

Him. Reduced to a single syllable word that couldn’t come near to explaining how frustrating he was. I didn’t even know his name and yet, by intruding on a place I once called my own, he had irritated me more than most people I had known all my life.

Shaking my head at her exuberance, I followed Kala as she took my hand and tugged me over to her brother. He watched me with his very strange eyes. They were grey, with dark royal blue rings around the pupils.

“Carter, this is Silah. Be nice. She’s my first friend and maybe if you are nice she will be your friend too but –”

“Okay, Kala. I do understand. I must play nicely.” He drawled slowly. His accent was stronger than hers, as if he deliberately strung it out to be heard and admired. He watched me the entire time as he spoke, his quiet voice melodic, like Kala’s.

I shrugged. “Hi.”

I was not good around new people. I never really knew what to say. I was fine having a conversation with them – most of the time – but until then…

“What were you doing here last night?” I suddenly asked. I could have kicked myself for asking as he narrowed his eyes slightly.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He answered, after flicking his eyes to Kala.

“I asked first.” I answered almost immediately. He smiled slowly at my immature comeback.

“True.” He admitted. “I was exploring. You?” He asked. His eyes were intense. I wasn’t sure if it was because of their strange colouring or the fact that he seemed to have forgotten Kala was there, and was focussing entirely on me.

“I was… escaping.” I muttered.

He looked as if he was about to ask, 'what from?' But Kala interrupted.

“So, Silah was the girl you saw last night?” She asked him. He gave her a look that said, ‘yeah, duh.’ She smiled slowly. “Good.”

I glanced at her, once again letting my puzzlement show. She was a strange girl. Just a little too … happy.
“Silah, can I ask you something?” Kala said quickly, and didn’t wait for my answer. I had opened my mouth to say yes, anyway. “How come you don’t get scared when you’re climbing all the way up those trees? They’re so high!” She exclaimed.

Carter grinned wryly. “She’s gonna make you teach her how to do it, now.” He turned away and wandered closer to the edge of the hill.

“Hey! I wasn’t gonna make her…!” She yelled after him. “But, Silah, would you? Please?” She wheedled, looking as cute as she could.

“Of course,” I laughed, not looking over at Carter. “Come on, I’ll take you to my tree.”

“Yay!” She chirped. “Thank you,” she said, almost shyly. “You have no idea how hard it is to make friends in a new place.”

I laughed softly. “You seem to make friends just fine.”

“Oh, no,” Kala said sadly. “Sometimes, Carter will say or do something that ruins it. They don’t want to hang out with me, because he’s weird.”

“It’s just ‘cause they don’t know how to handle ‘weird’,” I said. “I’m weird too, so maybe it cancels out. And anyway, he seemed pretty nice back there.” I added as we reached the tree trunk.

After a moment, Kala laughed. “Yeah, he did. That’s the strange thing. He’s never that nice.”

I just looked at her. “Never?” I echoed.

“Never.” She punctuated this with a firm nod of her head, and a sly smile. “You know, I think – ”

“That we should get climbing if we want to see the sunset,” I interrupted with a grin. I was learning that with Kala, you needed to butt in if you wanted to get a word in edgewise. It didn’t take her long to get the hang of climbing securely to the higher branches, although she was a little nervous of being up so high off the ground.

For some reason, I said, “Don’t worry. Being higher off the ground only makes it easier to fly.” Kala laughed and agreed, not questioning the origin of that comment.

I laughed as well, pleased to find that my usual spot in the tree could easily fit two sixteen year old girls. I had never known that before.

I found myself looking forward to maths tomorrow, and another episode of “Kala versus Mr Louis” as to whether his diagrams were correct.

And wondering what Carter was doing, over at the top of the hill, looking down over the valley.