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Shook Chapter 4: Coincidence
Maya and Dyan run into each other at the book store. There's something about Maya that makes her feel so...familiar...
Her eyes widened as she realized what she had just thought. Now Dyan couldn't stop staring at the girl. The blue hair, the overalls, and did she just say her life was… boring!? All this matched up to Spirit to an impossibly accurate degree! Could this blue-haired girl be… Spirit in real life!?
“I know why you're staring,” the blue-haired girl turned her attention to Dyan. She pointed to her head. “It’s the blue hair, isn’t it?”
If only it were just the blue hair, Dyan thought.
“Uh… yeah, uh-huh.” Dyan made herself nod even though it wasn’t true. “Um, I just never knew any kids whose parents let them dye all their hair blue.”
“Oh, please! My parents wouldn’t let me dye my hair, period. My hair is just naturally blue. It’s been that way ever since I was a baby.”
“Oh…” Dyan had managed to play off the real reason for her staring, but she was still curious. “Hey… weird question, but is your name Spirit?”
“Nope. I was named after the shade of blue my hair is: Maya. Since my Dad’s last name is Blue, it fits perfectly. Maya Blue.”
“I’m Dyan.”
“Funny, I just found an author named Dianne on one of these books!” Maya turned the rack until she found the book she was looking for. She pointed to it. “See?”
Dyan looked at the book. “Well, it sounds the same as that, but I spell my name d-y-a-n, not d-i-a-n-n-e.” Dyan explained.
“Oh!” Maya laughed. I’ve never heard it spelled that way before.”
Dyan picked up the book and began to examine its colorful, hardcover. Now that you’ve shown me this book, I wanna read it badly, but I just don’t have the money!”
“I’ve got a copy of that book at my house.” Maya told her. She looked out and saw the sky fading from blue to yellow as the sun began to set. “I can give it to you to borrow after Thanksgiving break if you want. Do you live by here?”
Dyan’s stomach swirled as she began to think about her current situation again.
“I…I don’t have a home.”
Maya gasped. “You don’t!?”
“No. I’m a foster kid. And my foster home just burnt down.”
Maya was shocked into quietness. A whole minute passed before she suggested something. “Then why don’t you stay at my house!?”
“Seriously!?” Dyan asked.
“Uh-huh! It makes me sad you’ve got nowhere to go. I can’t imagine where you'd stay at night when this place closes! The streets can be dangerous! You could stay at my house while you find somewhere else to stay. I’m sure my parents will be okay with you staying over for a while. They have a bunch of mouths to feed anyway.”
Dyan smiled at Maya’s kindness. Looks like she wouldn’t be trying to find a way to sleep at the bookstore without the staff seeing her!
“Cool! Where do you live?”
“Oh, a long ways away. I’ve gotta get to my dad’s truck in five minutes if I expect to get home by seven!”
Dyan’s smile melted into a confused face as she raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah! First we have to take a little walk by the highway!” Maya yelled.
Dyan’s heart began to beat faster.
Maya was busy talking about sunsets, a silver leopard, and her dad’s truck. Dyan wasn’t paying attention, as the scene of cars rushing at high speeds and ramming her in the face played out in her head instead.
Dyan shook her head and returned her focus to Maya, who was beginning to back up. “-And then he’ll drive us home from there. We have to go now though, ‘cause the suns almost set and Dad’s going to throw a fit if I get there late.”
“Uh, are you crazy!? I’m not walking across a highway! What if we get lost!? Or worse, what if we get run over!?”
Maya’s eyelids lowered. “I’ve done this millions of times and nothing has ever happened! I can’t get lost if I know where to go. Plus, we’re not going to be walking literally on the highway. We won’t even be really going on the highway. The sidewalk leads down to the place where the Silver Leopard is, just before you get to the highway. That’s where my Dad is waiting for me. We won’t take one step onto I-40.”
Now Dyan was confused. “Eye-forty!?”
Maya huffed. “Yes, I-40. It’s the name of the highway. Look, it’s not as bad as it sounds, plus the truckstop is really close to here. Think of this as an adventure!”
“But this isn’t an adventure!”
Maya's face straightened and she stared Dyan in the eyes. “Anything can be an adventure! You just have to have the guts to go through with it!”
No way. No way did Maya just say that. Unbelievable. There must be a glitch in real life, because Dyan was pretty sure she’d just written that same phrase down not more than two weeks ago.
Dyan quickly snatched her notebook off the ground and frantically flipped the pages until she got to the squiggly drawing she made of Spirit, a speech bubble put right next to her mouth. Written in the speech bubble was a phrase. ‘Anything can be an adventure! You just have to have the guts to go through with it!’
Dyan then looked back up at Maya, the blue-haired girl who was still staring at her with a serious look. The same serious look Spirit had right there in her notebook. Dyan gasped. No way. There was just no way this was happening. Was Maya actually Spirit… in real life!? Had Dyan created Maya?
“Um, girls, the store’s ‘bout to close up,” said an old woman at the door. She turned the sign at the glass door over so that the ‘closed’ sign was facing outside.
“If you’re coming, I suggest you follow me.” said Maya, already pushing open the first glass door.
Dyan had to make a choice. Luckily, it wasn’t really a hard one. Either follow her real-live book character on what could be the beginning of an adventure, or run around on the streets with the risk of being snatched. Dyan had just one question.
“Um, so where are we going again?”
Find out what happens next in the next part!
New to Shook? You can find the chapter archive in this post.
Maya and Dyan run into each other at the book store. There's something about Maya that makes her feel so...familiar...
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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