Friend or Fiction

Friend or Fiction — page 1 — 1 The Blank Page OPPSERVATION You can love something but not really like it very much Questions for further research Why lunchtime why I tucked my oppservation journal into my bag and scanned the cafeteria This was supposed to be the best part of the day At least for most people it was Most people grabbed their lunches as fast as they could and went to their tables with their best friends to laugh and talk and make plans for after school Most people got to forget about anything bad and just relax and hang out and eat Sometimes during the time it took me to get my brown bag out of my locker and sit at my table I got sad 1

Friend or Fiction — page 2 — But then once I sat down I remembered I was going to have lunch with my best friend too just like everybody else Only my best friend wasn’t like anyone else’s She was better I sat in my usual spot took out my cheese sandwich sandwich and my yellow notebook and waited Sometimes she showed up right away Other times she took a little longer Today must have been one of those other times because it felt like she was taking forever I thought about what we might do when she finally got here After eating maybe we’d share my headphones and listen to music the way Nia and Zara always do Or maybe we’d purposely give ourselves ourselves milk mustaches and take really funny selfies like Molly and Casey do We could even do some things that other people around here couldn’t too like make plans for the weekend And next weekend And next year People in Tiveda Colorado moved away all the time I’ve heard adults call this place a transient town which must mean it’s not good enough to stay or something because you never really knew who would be at school on Monday and who would’ve moved on to a new town But Zoe was always a sure thing Not only did we have today together together we had all our tomorrows too 2

Friend or Fiction — page 3 — Still there was a pang deep down in the pit of my stomach as I watched everybody else having fun For a second I thought Nia and Zara were going to invite me to come sit with them but then they looked away I frowned at my notebook What was taking Zoe so long Mrs Yang my English teacher always says that the hardest part is starting No matter how long you’ve been writing or how much you love it she says sometimes the blank page can be the scariest thing there is She says that you should just put a word on it Any word Then put another one I opened my notebook Zoe and Jade and the Best Lunch Ever I wrote at the top Eight words Take that blank page I stopped staring at Nia and Zara and Molly and Casey I took a deep breath I wrote more I took a bite of sandwich I kept going until the warning bell rang and when it did I barely even noticed In my story Zoe and I had just finished taking our milk mustache selfies and now we were making origami napkin birds for each other She was drawing funny faces on them and pretending hers were talking and I was trying to make mine talk back but I couldn’t because I was laughing too hard 3

Friend or Fiction — page 4 — When I finally closed my notebook and gathered gathered my stuff I noticed all the faces looking my way As bad as blank pages were blank stares were even worse My pale skin felt as red as my hair Yeah I wrote during lunch So what It was pretty obvious by the looks I got that people thought it was weird that my nose was always buried in my notebook But the one thing they never did was ask That was fine though I didn’t want to tell any body what I was writing anyway Out of the corner of my eye I peeked at Gresham Gorham or Clue as everybody called him It was bad enough that he knew my secret As if he could feel me looking Clue turned and stared me right in the face His dark serious eyes dropped to my notebook Then they flashed back to the one in his lap My heartbeat quickened so I took a few long breaths I pushed my purple glasses up higher on my nose and hugged my notebook to my chest That calmed me down right away same as it always did Forget Clue Forget other people Forget everything I had Zoe And that was all that mattered 4

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