A Different Descendant: Freshman Year 1

Chapter 15

     The next day after mom dropped me off at school, Clyde’s mother gave me an apology, finally putting an end to her rather immature feeling of hatred towards me. Clyde, my siblings and I agreed on keeping our relation to Clyde a secret. We most certainly didn’t need anyone knowing about it.
    ***********************
    Just before I headed for lunch, I stayed in a classroom to write into my book a little. As I wrote, Elizabeth came in.
    “Hey Henry,” she greeted.
As soon as I heard her voice, I closed the book very normally and looked at her.
    “Hey,” I replied and innocently placed the book into my bag.
    “I wanted to ask you something. It’s really important to me.”   
It seemed important, so I took my mind off the book and gave her a listening ear.
    “I’m listening.”
She walked closer with her bag slung over one shoulder. She couldn’t quite seem to look me in the eye.
    “D-do you think Blake likes me?” she stuttered.
    Blake had told both Clyde and I that he might have developed feelings for Elizabeth. He called her Betty once and she got mad and flustered. She didn’t seem to like the name.
We asked why he called her that and he said he thought it might give her some sort of signal. I had no idea she felt the same.
    “Yeah. You’re a good person. Of course he does,” I responded, pretending not to know what she was talking about.
    “Oh. I meant does he like me like that, if you know what I mean,” she whispered.
Just as I was about to respond to that, Freya walked in.
    “Oh Henry, I finally found you.”
    “Why were you looking for me?” I asked.
She hurriedly walked towards the both of us and leaned over the table. Just a little further and our noses would be touching.
    “I want your opinion on this,” she requested and showed me some pictures on her phone.
    “Which is better in your opinion? Everyone says this one, but I’ll use the one you pick.”
    They were two pictures of her in two different blue dresses.
    Both had the same shade blue but were sewn differently. The first dress had spaghetti straps attached to a tight bodice and a short flared skirt a little over her knee. The second was quite similar, but it had no straps.
    I had to admit to myself that she looked incredibly stunning in those dresses
    “Well?” she asked eagerly, leaning closer.
    “I’d go with the first one,” I concluded, handing her back her phone.
    “Alright then, if Henry has declared it, then so shall it be,” she said with a giggle.
    “Why are you picking a dress though?” I asked.
Just as she was about to respond, someone came in and said;
    “Freya, they’re about to pick.”
    “I’ll be right there.”
    Without a moment of hesitation, she picked up my bag and dragged me by the hand, leading me out of the classroom. As soon as we got out of the classroom, I forced my hand out of hers and stopped.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
I noticed everyone in the hallway was headed towards the cafeteria.
    “Please tell me you know about how we celebrate MFHS founding,” said Freya.
    “Oh that.”
    Alexis had once explained it to me. Few weeks to the celebration of the founding of MFHS, a box would be placed in the center of the cafeteria. Inside the box were four pieces of paper. Written on each piece of paper were the four grades in high school.
    The Principal would select at random, and the class selected will pick a student to select from another box what we were going to use to celebrate that day. It’s either charity or a dance and our decision would affect not only our school, but Mystery Falls Middle School as well.
     I always thought of it as rather playful, but who was I to castigate an ancient tradition. For a while now it’s been charity.
    We got to the cafeteria and I Freya had me sit on one of the tables with her and the rest of the gang.
Mrs. Powers, our principal came in and the atmosphere went dead silent.
    “Alright let’s get this over with.” she said in a half-dead tone quite similar to Mr. Hickery’s
In seconds, she dipped her hand into the box and pulled out a piece of paper.
    “The freshman class,” she said with almost no emotion.
    “Alright!!”
    Everyone in the freshman was happy to be given the honor of selecting how the school would celebrate its founding. But that happiness was cut short as the event would be selected at random.
    “Ninth graders, you have about one minute to select one representative to select the event,” said principal Powers.
    For about thirty seconds, students in the freshman year discussed amongst themselves. Then;
    “I think Henry should do it,” Daphne said out loud.
    ‘Just great,’ I sighed.
“Yeah, let Henry do it,” another person across the cafeteria said in agreement.
In seconds, my name echoed from different parts of the cafeteria.
    “Henry Collins, please step forward,” said Principal Powers.
I got up and walked towards at a steady pace.
    “Inside this box are two pieces of paper. Written on them are two events written by this year’s student body president. Whatever you pick will decide how this year’s founding will be celebrated.”
    The student body present, Cassidy stood a few steps away from principal Powers. From the look in her eye, I could tell, just like the other students, she didn’t want charity.
    I dipped my hand into the box and felt two different pieces of paper. Everyone wanted something fun to celebrate it. For a while, it’s been charity and no one wanted charity again. But that wasn’t up to me but mother luck.
    As I gambled on my choice of paper, I noticed something that one piece of paper had a different feel. The slight sharp feeling spread out on that piece of paper.
    ‘Glitter?’
    ‘Glitter meaning something shiny and shiny meaning something other than charity.’ Then my head flashed back to the pictures Freya showed me.
    ‘A dance.’
I selected the piece of paper, shook it a little to dust off the tiny bits of glitter on it and brought it out.
    “What does it say Mr. Collins?” Principal Powers asked.
I looked at the paper slowly and read out what it said.
    “A dance.”
    The whole cafeteria went wild with cries of joy.   
“You’ve saved us!!!”
The wild and loud cafeteria went silent when Principal Powers raised her index finger.
    “All right then. On the night of the twenty-fifth of October, there will be a dance. Blue will be the color for that day. Blue with a slight touch of white. Enjoy your day.”
    As everyone clapped, Principal Powers walked out of the cafeteria and Cassidy took her place.
    “All right MFHS, corsages will be shared during the course of the day so start thinking about the angel you’ll be bringing on the night of the twenty-fifth. And as student body president, I promise you all that this will be the best Founder’s Day celebration we’ve had in forever.”
    “Now can we eat?” Blake asked playfully.
We dropped our bags, got food and settled down.
    They were all talking about the dance and what they would wear and how the dance was a great start for them in high school.
    “Henry, you seem rather uninterested,” said Daphne.
    “I don’t go to dances,” I said.
    “Why?!” Daphne exclaimed.
    “I don’t know. It’s just not my scene.”
    “You have to come for this one Henry. It’s Founders Day,” said Erica.
They all pleaded with me, begging me to come. If I said no, then I’d have to face the pressure that my mother, Alexis and my dad would place on me.
    “Fine, I’ll come to the dance,” I said with a tiring sigh.
    “Great!” said Daphne.
    “I can already imagine Henry in a blue suit,” Erica teased.
    “Please tell me I can wear black instead,” I sighed.
    “Must you always go with dark colors Henry?” Freya asked.
    “Yeah, if you’re not in black, you’re in super deep shade of blue and sometimes grey. Once in a while white,” Elizabeth added.
    Black was a color I fell in love with after my dad’s passing. When he passed, I stayed cooped up in my room after school and on weekends.
I wore black all the time as a sign of grief. Before I knew it, all I wanted to wear was black. Mom wouldn’t let me wear black all the time so I demanded she got me deep colors.
When I was twelve, I started to buy my own clothes myself. Deep colors only and I never wore any other color of jeans but black. For joggers, I wore grey.
My friends dressed differently.
    Elizabeth was casual and simple. Jeans and a T-shirt, jean shorts and a fitted T-shirt and sometimes over-sized T-shirts and cute cardigans over them.
    Freya was quite similar except she wore accessories. She always wore her gold butterfly pendant and another regular thin gold chain that was shorter than the butterfly pendant. She also wore a really thin gold bracelet with a heart attached to it.
    Erica’s dressing was grungy but reduced to a minimum. She had three rings on each finger with one finger serving as spacing. She wore only one silver pendant which had some sort of ancient carving on it. I had seen that same pendant on Blake, but his was a ring and also on some other people in Mystery Falls.
    Daphne’s dressing spelled ‘rich girl.’ Clyde was simple. Shirts or T-shirts on jeans and sneakers. He and Blake dressed quite similarly.
    “Principal Powers declared blue. It’s best if you don’t go against that Henry,” Freya added.
    ‘Oh well, deep blue it is,’ I said to myself.
An awkward silence followed, until Blake broke it.
    “Well, I’ll just rip the band aid off,” Blake began.
    “Liz, would you like to go to the dance with me?”
To my surprise, Elizabeth gave no reaction. She just asked me few minutes ago if I knew if Blake liked her. This was a good sign and she gave no reaction.
    “Oh Blake, get a corsage and maybe I’ll say yes,” Elizabeth replied.
    “Maybe?” Blake asked nervously.
From the looks of things, she wasn’t exactly certain about how Blake really felt about her, and so she didn’t want to sound like some desperate girl.
    “Yeah, maybe,” she replied.
Immediately, she picked up her tray and left the table leaving us to wonder why sweet Elizabeth didn’t blush or stutter in a situation like that.