Curious.

She was staring at me. Again. I don't know why. I've never said two words to the girl, yet here she is, staring at me.

She does this a lot - sometimes it's every day, other times it's only one glance for the week. Yes, I have noticed how many times she has stared at me. How can I not? Wouldn't you start taking notice if a random girl from your school was watching you so much for no reason?

And it's not just school. We both work at the Marseilles Mall, and coincidentally, the store she works at is right across from where I work at. I catch her looking at me when I go on my lunch break. I don't think she ever leaves the store until her shift is over, so I don't know when her break is.

I'm seriously creeped out by this. I mean, she looks like a nice person, kinda quiet, nothing else out of the ordinary about her, but the constant staring is ridiculous. What the hell is so interesting about me anyway?! I have dull long brown hair, well brown and blonde now that I added some streaks to it, and I always wear a hat over it. The only make-up I wear is eye shadow and my eye-lashes already look like I have mascara on them (I thank my mother for that), and the rest of my features are average. Average face, average chest, average height and weight. Not that I don't like my appearance, I think I look nice, just not really attention-getting. So this whole having-a-stalker thing is really confusing me.

"Quit glaring at your number one fan, Kendi."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "I can't help it! Why is she so fixated on me?!" I slammed my hands onto my desk, causing most of the class and the teacher to look up at me. I sunk into my chair and pulled our reading book, 1984 by George Orwell, up to my face. Even though I had buried my nose into the book and avoided any eye contact, it still took a minute for everyone to look away. Jamie's snickering did not help at all.

I elbowed my best friend in the arm very hard. "Why must you been so unhelpful?"

"Hey, it's not my fault you just naturally draw attention to yourself."

"I do not." I huffed, glancing over at my stalker. She had definitely looked at me a little longer than everyone else had after my outburst, but now she was looking down at her desk, taking notes.

"Whatever. So are you coming over tonight?"

"Duh. Since when do I not?"

"I thought you had to babysit your brother some time this week."

"Fuck! I forgot!" Again the class looked at me. The teacher was glaring.

"Do you have something to share with the rest of the class?"

Now, I have this weird mental problem that doesn't tell me when to shut up. I mean, usually, I can control myself so that I don't spill any secrets or embarrassing facts about myself, but when it comes to people asking me questions, I tend to blurt out the answer that is on my brain instead of really thinking about what I say. That gets me in trouble. A lot.

"No, I don't have anything to share with the class."

"Then why do you keep disrupting the lesson?"

"Because I forgot I had to pick up my brother today. Is that such a big deal? Does the whole school need to know about it? Do I need to say it over the intercom - "Attention students, I am a forgetful dumb-ass. That is all."

The room filled with giggles and laughter, even from Jamie. Gee, thanks best friend. Like I said before, she is of no use to me.

Mr. Kumquats - that's what I like to call my teacher, but that's not his real name. I've been calling him that for so long, I can't even remember his real name. He shook his head and started writing on his clipboard. I know for a fact that he keeps a pad of pink slips clipped to his board. Why do I know this? Because he gives me one of those pink bad boys every other week.

He didn't even have to tell me to go to the principal's office. I just grabbed my backpack, wiped everything off of my desk into my bag, snatched the pink slip from his hand, and headed out of the class room.

Was I proud that I got so many detentions? Not at all. I actually like school, and I try to do well. I just can't help that I have a smart mouth. My parents already know that. My dad gets kinda pissed about it, but my mom just shakes her head and laughs under her breath. My mom is a total bad-ass. She doesn't care if I get detentions or if I curse or am a smart mouth. We laid down the rules when I was just hitting puberty:

-don't break curfew
-don't use violence
-don't give up because of small problems
-don't violate any laws
-and don't lose my self-respect.

It's a little bizarre to tell these things to a 12 year old, and so bluntly too, but my mom has always been upfront and honest with everyone. That's where I get my smart-mouth from. :)

The pink slip says to head straight to the principal's office, but I never do. I always stop at my locker or the vending machine. This time I chose the vending machine, trying to exchange my dollar for RAVE Soda. I feel like I am the only human being at our school that drinks this soda, but I guess not since they always supply it. They wouldn't bring in a ton of cases of soda for one girl. They should, but they don't.

The machine was rejecting my dollar. I tried to remove any folds and wrinkles by rubbing it against the corner of the machine and tried again. It still wouldn't take it. Hmph. I laid the dollar flat in my textbook, then set it on the floor and stood on it. Hey, I am persistent. After a minute, I took out the dollar and tried it again. Double Hmph. Now I was going to be stubborn. It didn't occur to me to use another dollar or try putting quarters into the machine instead or just forget about my soda - I was determined to get this dollar into that machine and get my freaking soda.

I made sure to flatten out all corners of the dollar, rubbing it between my hands, inspecting every possible crease. It was then that I realized that I had the dollar facing the wrong side.

I am stupid.

I sighed and inserted the dollar, this time it accepted it. I pressed the button for my soda. The machine made a whirring noise but nothing dropped down. I pressed the button again. Then I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Then I stopped waiting.

I kicked the machine. That was a stupid idea, seeing as I was wearing Converse, not boots to cushion my toes. I swore under my breath and held my foot, throwing me off balance. I fell forward and hit my back against the machine before falling to the floor. More pain. But then I heard the machine rattle and then multiple cans rained down from inside the machine, including my soda.

Success. Painful success, but success.

Was it worth it?

YES! It's good freaking soda.

I reached in and grabbed my soda, along with a can of orange soda, grape soda and cola, picked up my bag, and ran off to the principal's office. Slamming the doors wide open, the desk lady didn't even flinch. She must have heard my footsteps. Either that or she's used to me doing this by now. She pointed to the row of chairs, indicating that I would have to wait for him to get out of some meeting or whatever. I sat in my favorite seat and kicked up my feet. Believe me, when you are here as often as I am, you start to make yourself at home.

I was sipping my soda as some boy came out of the principal's office. I'm pretty sure he's never been sent to the office before in his life. I have never see him in here before, but he doesn't look nervous or pale like most of the noobs that come in here - he looks almost... relieved. He also looks like shit. His face was bruised right below his left eye and his lip was bleeding, and his shirt was torn so his shoulder was out and showing red scratches.

"Geez, somebody must really hate your guts." I sucked in a breath.

He looked over at me. "Pretty much."

"Well hey, who cares what they think? I think you're pretty awesome to come out of that with just a couple of scrapes and bruises. And I'm sure your face was pretty before they messed it up."

He laughed and flashed a toothy grin. "You bet it was."

I tossed him the can of cola. He held it to his bruised cheek. "I meant for you to drink it."

He shrugged. "Maybe later. Right now this is the perfect ice pack."

I rolled my eyes as the principal escorted him out of the main office. Then the principal looked at me, shook his head, and pointed to his office door. I stood up and tossed him the orange soda can before marching in and sitting in his desk chair. He didn't even bother fighting me over it anymore, he just let me sit and pretend I was in charge. He still held the can in his hand.

"Why are you in my office today, Kendi?"

"First name basis, huh? Cool - so tell me your first name."

"Answer my question."

"I'm here because Mr. Kumquat asked me a stupid question, and he got mad when I gave a stupid answer."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Kendi, please try to stay out of trouble. You're a terrific student, you just have to watch that mouth of yours."

"How can I watch my mouth?" I looked down but could just barely see the tip of my nose.

"Ugh." He groaned, then muttered something about hating his job. "Just promise me that you'll serve your detention."

"I always do, sir." I saluted before marching out of his office.

I felt bad for Principal Bates, or as I liked to call him, PB & J. Technically he has no J in his name, but I just know one day he's going to find a girlfriend with a J in their name, and he's going to marry her, and I'll plan the wedding with a PB & J theme. I think purple and brown would look hideous together though.

I had planned on going back to class, but the bell rang just as I left the office, so I turned the opposite way down the hall to my locker to get my lunch. Jamie would meet me at our regular lunch spot in the courtyard anyway.

I dumped the contents of my backpack onto the floor, putting away things I didn't need for the rest of the day into my locker. I took out my lunch and some books for my next few periods. Then I stood up and closed my locker and turned around.

I saw my stalker again, right behind me, but this time she wasn't staring at me. She was yelling at that dude from the principal's office who got in a fight. Apparently he was stupid for hitting some dude named Ryan, and that he shouldn't have provoked him. Then she yelled at him for some other stuff, but it all amounted to him being a dumb-ass. She ended her rant with a sigh and asked if he was okay. I'm pretty sure he said yeah, but he was kinda embarrassed because she just caused a scene in the hallway. She looked around and saw all the eyes that were on her. Her cheeks turned pink, but when her eyes landed on me, it was as if she saw a ghost.

She froze. For a minute, it was as if we were the only ones who existed at that moment, and as soon as one of us blinked, the rest of the world would come back.

The bell rang. We were snapped out of our little world and transported back to reality. I blinked, not even realizing that we had been staring at each other for so long. I wasn't sure what compelled me to keep eye contact with her, but it felt refreshing to stare at her for a change, have her feel embarrassed under the scrutiny of someone else's gaze. This time, I mapped out her appearance, her features, her flaws. I noticed every strand of hair was a rainbow of brown roots, blonde lengths, and tips dyed blue. I saw every curve of her body, the shades of pink still evident on her face, he short stature - a good five inches shorter than me. I analyzed every part of her being, and now her image was permanently etched into my mind. Even after I had found Jamie sitting in the courtyard with her lunch and she started blabbing about who knows what, I couldn't focus on anything else but my mysterious fan girl.

"Hello?! Kendi?! Are you there?"

"Hm?"

She sighed, slightly irritated. "I was asking you if you wanted me to help you babysit tonight."

"No, I've got it. I won't really feel like hanging out much after detention anyway. "

"Okay then."

My mind flitted back to her. Why was she still on my mind? Sure, her constant staring sometimes turned into a puzzle that I would keep trying to solve for a long time, but I wasn't trying to figure out why she was staring. I was just picturing her, in my mind. She looked nervous, scared, and happy. Further proof that I would never understand this girl, or why she's pushed her way into my life.