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Choosing The Unkown | Shook Chapter 2 Part 2
Dyan's on the run. Meanwhile...
“Finally! WOOO!” A girl stretched and smiled, letting the sun beam on her face as she left the long brick building she had been in for eight hours.
While Dyan was running away, a girl up north named Maya was walking home. After a day of note-writing, locker-visits, and packet-drudgery, Maya Blue had made it out of the prison called middle school.
A strand of coily blue hair fell in her face. She quickly pulled it back into the rest of her hair and re-did her ponytail. For the most part, people had already gotten used to Maya’s ‘freaky blue hair’. She walked past the carpool lane, for she usually started her journey home with a long walk.
At the start of the school year, Maya had made herself a goal. This goal was to make friends by the end of the first school semester. Though winter break began after this very Friday, Maya would not give up on her goal. She was determined to make a friend, at least one.
The kids ahead of her walked in clumps. With first semester coming to a close today, everyone already had their own social bubbles figured out.
The herd of kids directly in front of Maya were keeping their conversations short, someone saying something and getting one short reply. Perfect time for Maya to strike up a conversation on a fun topic.
“I loved the field trip we took to the art museum last week. I mean, they had a pool with all those statues surrounding it. Some of the statues were people in their underwear, but still! It was so cool!”
Silence.
Maya stared down in embarrassment as her only answer was shoes crunching against concrete.
Then some boy mentioned a show Maya had never heard of, and the group began to laugh and talk and make hand gestures of things Sky didn’t understand.
“Have you watched that before, Maya?” one boy asked.
“Uh… yeah, of course!” Maya said, faking confidence.
“Remember when they burst into song!? That was so funny!” the girl beside Maya said.
“I know! He went crazy at that point!” Maya faked a knowing smile.
Everyone went quiet again, staring at Maya.
“The singer was a girl.” one boy said after a while.
“Oh.”
“You ain’t watch that show!” someone said, and then everyone began to laugh really hard at Maya.
“Well, I’ve heard of it!” Maya said, avoiding everyone’s gaze.
The kids began to talk about the show even more. Maya found herself slugging behind them.
Welp. no use standing around on the side. She walked ahead of them to two girls. One girl had her metal lunchbox opened and was sharing a brownie with a girl who had a head of weave twists.
“Hey guys!” Maya slowed down to match their walking speed.
The lunchbox girl smiled. “Oh, it’s you, Blue Hair Girl!”
Maya laughed. “Uh, yeah, but my name is Maya,”
The lunchbox girl’s eyes slid to her friend’s and then back at Maya. “oh, okay,” she laughed. As she bit her piece of brownie, one of the rainbow candies on top fell to the ground.
“Mm! That reminds me of the time I got this Brownie-flavored ice cream at a shop called Nice Cream. The ice creams there are uh-mazing. You’ve got to try them!”
“Yeah. Sure,” Answered the lunchbox girl, crumbling her brownie rapper and stuffing it in her lunchbox. Want to race to my house?” the lunchbox girl asked her friend. The friend nodded, and off the girls stomped, farther and farther away from Maya.
Maya huffed. Friends were hard things to get. She was tired of eating lunch alone, or being the only kid without a work-partner in a room filled with chatter, and kids having a good time.
“Well, whatever,” Maya said aloud. “Time to head to Papa’s truck.”
Maya broke into a skip, then a run, as she ran down the sidewalk to phase two of her journey home. She wouldn’t make a detour this time. She promised.
Okay, maybe she’d make just one. But it would be quick. She promised.
Find out what happens next in the next part!
Hey there! I’m Shila! I’ve loved books since I could read, and decided I would write books I wanted to see written for others! Check my children’s book Imagination on Amazon!
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