Picture Perfect

'Beep! Beep! Beep!' my alarm clock sang through my newly painted room. I arose out of my bed and went straight for the bathroom to do my daily morning routine. This used to be such a drag, but now, having friends to look forward to seeing, it wasn't as bad.

After make-up, doing my hair, getting dressed, etc., I was surprised to see I was running late. I didn't think I took any longer than I usually did. Maybe on my make-up and hair a little, but I didn't think it was that much. I hurriedly grabbed a banana and my school bag and rushed through the door, throwing an 'i love you' to my grandparents and shutting the door behind me.

I made it into homeroom by basically one second and sat down to catch my breath.

"Hey, you're the new girl, right?" Some guy that I'd never seen before asked me. I wasn't really in the mood to talk, I was just waiting for the clock to strike 7:30 so I could leave and venture off to art with Mitchell.

"Yeah, I'm Harlowe and you are?" I wasn't exactly being the most polite, but I didn't really care. I mean, I wanted friends but I wasn't in the mood.

"Edward Lockly at your service," He said with a cheesy smile. I couldn't help but to let a little giggle escape my freshly plumped lips.

"Hey, I made you smile!" He exclaimed and my smile grew wider.

"I guess you did," I replied softly. 7:29, one more minute.

"Well, listen. You seem like a cool enough girl; I'm having a party tonight, you want to come?" He offered. I thought about it for the duration of the time until the bell rung.

"I guess I could stop by," I replied, trying to keep an aroma of mystery around me. I always wanted to be the mysterious kind of girl that all the guys want to figure out in movies. He handed me a card with any information I'd need and headed off to his class as I headed towards mine.

I walked straight in, eyes looking straight into Mitchell's vibrant ones. My smile that was supposed to be subtle must have been more blatant than I though because Mitchell immediately noticed.

"You're quite perky this morning," He said in a sleepy tone. I laughed and explained the exchange I had a few minutes ago.

"Ed Lockly? Really?" He said in a disapproving voice. I was curious now as to why Mitchell wouldn't approve of this kid. Did he have some sort of dark past?

"What's so wrong with him? He seemed nice enough in homeroom," I debated. He still had that questionable look on his face. It looked like he was picking out what to say in his head, perfecting what was about to escape his thin lips.

"To put it in the simplest form, he's not a good kid," Is what he had chosen from the possibilities of words swarming his head but it wasn't good enough for me.

"Not good enough in what ways?" I questioned further. Our art teacher then came by to see what we were doing. We were both not so successfully trying to multi-task and coming up with awful looking sketches. When I looked back from mine to his I actually smiled to myself, seeing the crazy things we were doodling. But out teacher being the, well not so normal one, still smiled and just enjoyed being with her students despite the fact that most of them did absolutely nothing.

"I don't really feel like getting into it. Maybe some other time," He ended the conversation just like that. I didn't push it any farther either, just because I knew he genuinely didn't want to talk about it. Although my mind was screaming at me to get more information, I just left us finishing our odd-looking drawings in silence.

The thing was, with Mitchell, sitting in silence like that wasn't awkward. or even uncomfortable. I felt totally natural just blocking out my surroundings beside my drawing and Mitchell and just concentrating on my art. I'm almost positive he felt the same way too because he looked relaxed and just doodled on his paper.

"Do you want to hang out today?" I asked him suddenly, wanting to start a conversation back up. My ugly little monster was boring me, so I figured bothering my new friend would be a tad more entertaining.

"Surely. Juanita will sure be happy. She keeps telling me how delightful she thinks you are," He started chuckling whilst a flush of red erupted on my cheeks.

"She's almost too sweet," I complimented. I really was very fond of his grandparents. They were such a joyful couple that it was almost impossible not to want to just sit there with them and talk for hours and hours.

"Leon does, too. Thinks you're 'a good seed' so he says," He chuckled again but this time I joined him. I could so picture Leon saying that, that I just had to laugh. The rest of the period went on with minor discussion; mainly just chemistry homework, pets, our weird-o teachers.

It was the same with the rest of the day, also. Although, I did find out that thanks to Mitchell's mad tutoring skills, I got a ninety-eight on my chemistry homework. That has never, ever happened before. It'd made me quite the happy camper.

The ride home to Mitchell's house was probably the best thing that happened, though. We found an old Spice Girls CD in his car and blasted it so loud, I think the car was thumping. Of course, us knowing all the words, sung so loud that by the time we were back to his house, our voices were raspy and we couldn't stop laughing.

We walked through his front door and straight to the kitchen to let his grandparents know we were here.

"Hello, Darlings!" Juanita cheerfully greeted us. I honestly loved that woman.

"Hey Juanita Panita. We're going to go hang out in my room," Mitchell informed his grandmother. With a loving smile formed on her frail, lipstick coated lips she waved her hand, signaling us to go on.

I plopped down onto Mitchell's bed as he took his computer chair. We chatted for a little bit about non-sense. As a couple minutes went by, I started remembering I had to ask Mitchell about Ed Lockly.