Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

“Ellie!” Aileen’s voice snapped through my semi-conscious state. My head whipped up to face her, my eyes blinking the heaviness from my mind.

“What?” I questioned, coughing a little to clear my throat. Everything seemed a little fuzzy, like there were bees buzzing in my head. “What’s wrong?”

“Were you sleeping? Just sitting at the kitchen table?” She looked slightly amused, staring down at me with her arms crossed and a smirk playing across her lips.

Right when she suggested the idea, I knew that was what had happened. “No, of course not,” I lied smoothly, as if she didn’t know the answer already, as I leaned back in the chair and stretched. My back popped a couple of times, along with my elbows and shoulders.

“You sound like an old person,” Aileen laughed. “But here, let me get that for you.” In front of me was a nearly untouched bowl of cereal, the little pieces of Cap’n Crunch getting soft.

If that wasn’t a clue that I was sleeping, then I didn’t know what was. After all, who just leaves a bowl of Cap’n Crunch in front of them, uneaten?

“Umm…” was the only thing, however unintelligent, that could come out of my mouth.

“You just better sleep tonight,” Aileen warned, “that’s all I’m saying.”

* * *

“Guess who!” an easily recognizable voice exclaimed loudly in my ear, slapping both hands over my eyes.

“Uh…Callie?” I suggested, as if it wasn’t obvious, as I turned around to face her. “Wow, I was right!”

“Good guess,” she laughed, brushing a piece of purple hair from her face. “So are you ready for class?”

After grabbing my book out of my locker, I slammed my locker shut and started walking forward. “Am now,” I responded. “So how are you doing on this lovely Wednesday morning?”

“I am absolutely fantastic,” she replied emphatically, hitching her bag further up on her shoulder. “And how are you?”

“Fine.” Fine sounded so bland next to her answer, but I wasn’t ‘absolutely fantastic’. I don’t think I ever felt ‘absolutely fantastic’.

“You,” Callie pointed out, poking me in the stomach, “have to brighten up a bit. Just smile a little. Like this.” She plastered a huge smile on her face, shooting it at everyone who walked by. Though she received nothing but scowls and confused looks in return, she didn’t lose her spirit.

That was one of the things I liked about her: she had an infallible spirit. I wasn’t sure that anything could break her, ever. No matter what anyone said, she had her beliefs, and she stuck to them.

More people would be better if they followed her kind of thinking.

* * *

“Heeeeeello there,” I greeted creepily as I slid in next to Callie at lunch, plopping my paper bag on the table in front of me.

“Hey. Did you know that, back in the day, they thought that paper bags carried polio?” Callie replied, taking a large bite of her sandwich.

“Um…no. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. After all, I’ve been using these things for eleven years, and I’ve yet to contract polio.”

“You never know. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.”

“Huh,” I shrugged, “true. But hopefully…wait, do people even get polio anymore?”

Callie paused, suddenly not having the answer. “I have no idea.”

“No idea about what?” Puck questioned as he sat next to me.

“Not like you’ll have the answer,” Callie jabbed before taking a big gulp of her water bottle.

“Ouch,” Puck slapped a hand to his chest, pretending to be seriously wounded. “That hurts.” He turned to me for some moral backup, but I just kind of snickered. So much help I was.

I unwrapped my sandwich from the plastic wrap, placing it on top after taking a bite. When I looked over at Callie, I saw that her lunch was completely gone, even though lunch had only started a few minutes prior.

“Holy crap,” I chuckled, “Did you inhale your food? Just like air?”

“No, filter feeding,” Puck chimed in. “Like on SpongeBob.”

“You watch SpongeBob?” I questioned. I had to admit, I didn’t really take him as the type.

“Sometimes,” he admitted, “you know, with Ariella.”

“SpongeBob,” Callie voiced, grinning, “is amazing. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“’Kay,” I responded, turning back to Puck. “Do you really? Since when do you do anything with your sister?”

“Since…I don’t know. I didn’t have much of a life over the summer, so what else was I going to do?”

“I swear, I can almost feel the love you have for your family.”

“What can I say? I guess I’m just a bundle of love.”

Pausing, I replied, “Yeah…let’s pretend that’s true. Hey, I’m gonna be right back. I have to urinate.”

“Uh…thanks for the info.” As I was walking away, I noticed that he stole the pretzels from my bag to help himself.

Thanks for asking first, I joked inside my head, though I was already too far away from the table at that point to call it to him.

Once I entered the bathroom, all I heard was gagging and retching, followed by a toilet flushing loudly, the sound echoing off the walls of the bathroom.

Then, a stall door swung open, Callie emerging from inside. Her face had a slight sheen, but other than that, she looked exactly as normal.

“You okay…?” I questioned slowly, suddenly forgetting about the fact that I had to go to the bathroom completely. “You need to go to the nurse?”

“Oh, no,” she shrugged off. “I think I might just have a stomach bug or something.”

“Well, then maybe you should go home.”

“No need,” she smiled, starting to dry her now clean hands with the air blower thing before giving up and just wiping them on her jeans. “I feel fine now.”

She patted my shoulder as she walked out of the restroom, but something still settled wrong with me. And although I knew what the probable answer was, I didn’t want to accept it.

But something told me that Callie was not absolutely fantastic.