Just off the Key of Reason

When the first class was over, I walked out to my locker, leaving Pete behind for Mr. George to talk to.

I dialed the combination on my locker and swung the door open, pushing some books inside and talking a couple out.

I turned my head to watch a girl come whizzing by. She tripped over her own fucking feet and pushed into my locker, making the door slam shit, narrowly missing my fingertips.

She looked at me with wide eyes as I glared at her before she thundered back down the hallway towards her class she was obviously a little late for.

“What a fucking cretin,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

“You’ve been reading the thesaurus for fun again, haven’t you?”

I turned my head to see Pete walking up to me, his grin on his face.

“Did you see that mental defective? She almost fucking disabled me!” I gaped, turning to my locker and opening it again. Pete moved to the other side of me to avoid being hit in the face with the metal door and laughed.

“What did your mother tell you about being mean to the defectives?” He smirked.

“I wasn’t mean to her face,” I said, as Pete reached in and pulled a yellow hacky sack from the shelf and started bouncing it on his sneaker. “Besides, she almost took my phalanges!”

Pete smiled at me. “Play with me?”

I rolled my eyes, “Why not? You pulled me into my parking lot and wouldn’t let me leave until I could hold it on my chest.”

“I just wanted to see your boobs better.”

“Well, thank you, Pete, but if you wanted to see them, all you had to do was ask.” I smiled back at him. “Let’s go get the guys.”

I shut my locker and walked with Pete to the outside of the school, where Patrick, Joe and Andy were seated under the oak tree. I took a seat in the grass next to Patrick, who was chewing on a Twinkie. I reached over to his second lunch box and pulled it towards me. “What’d you bring me today, Patty?”

He glared slightly before pointing things out. “A brownie, a Capri-Sun—wild cherry flavour, I remembered—and a turkey sandwich.”

“Awesome,” I smiled at him, pulling out the Capri-Sun. “You know me so well, ‘Tricky.” I pulled off the straw from the pack and took the cellophane wrapper off, putting it in Joe’s hair. He didn’t seem to notice.

When I looked up, I noticed the girl from Calculus with a tray in her hands, looking around nervously. The preppy table was snickering, looking at her. I shielded my eyes against the sun with my hand, before looking back down and pushing my yellow straw into the designated hole and sipping at my drink as I stood and walked over to her.

She was fairly short, with long black straight hair and a little bit of blue. She gave a small lopsided nervous smile when I stopped in front of her, my eyes squinted as I watched her, still sipping the Capri-Sun.

I stood there, watching her, for a good three minutes, before I finished my drink and blew the empty package back up with the straw; I set it on the ground as Pete came over and stood next to me.

When I looked back up, the girl was smiling at Pete and Pete was smiling at her. I blew my bangs out of my face and gave her a nod of my head. “I’m Kenzie. That’s Pete.”

She gave us a closed mouth smile, “I’m Maya.”

“Nice to meet you,” I smiled at her, before positioning my foot over the blown up empty drink packet and stomping down on it.

The drink packet straw flew out of the packet, and the air still left in it made my foot slip and I fell backwards. Pete caught me and we both laughed, Maya joined in as well.

“It didn’t work like the commercial did,” I giggled.

Pete smiled down at me, from where he held me up. “What? Did you think all your clothes would fly off?”

“I was hoping my clothes would turn into a princess outfit,” I said, standing up fully. “But oh, well. Where’d the straw go?” I asked, looking around.

Pete started laughing really hard, looking over at the prep table. Susie sat there, her long blonde hair draping around her shoulders as she held her eye.

I stifled my giggles, putting a hand over my mouth. Maya was snickering.

I waved her to follow as me and Pete quickly ran back to our tree. She sat down next to me and Pete, and the guys stared at her with blank faces.

“Guys,” I started, “This is Maya. She’s new.”

“Hey,” Patrick muttered, tipping his head up.

“Sup?” Andy smiled, holding out his hand, which she shook with a small smile.

“…You’re Asian.”

“Welcome aboard, Captain Obvious,” I told Joe, taking two of my fingers and saluting him.

Joe rolled his eyes, “Hi.”

Maya gave us a genuine smile, looking down at her food.

Patrick shook his head, reaching over and taking the tray from her, and chucking it over his shoulder. “You don’t want to eat that.” He told her, reaching into his backpack for his spare paper sack lunch, which he kept for two reasons: I was usually hungry again, and just in case I didn’t like what he packed me. It was usually only used for the first of the options.

“I hope you like don’t mind meat.”

“I don’t really care, thank you,” Maya smiled at him.

“So. Do you play hacky sack, Maya?” Pete asked.

Maya shook her head, slowly.

I smiled at her. “I’ll teach you.”