The Hurting Girl

Chapter 6

That lunch, I sat with Cato and his gang. I had always been quite a lonely child before, but it felt really nice to have some friends. I felt untouchable and fearless.

Lunch flew by quickly; afterwards, for our last lesson of the day, we had Survival Skills: Food, which basically meant that we were taught how to make food out of almost anything. I was hoping to maybe be paired up with Isobelle in this one, but I had no such luck. The name, printed in black ink next to mine was none other than Amy Stone.

I sighed, and made my way over to station 4, which was the station we had been assigned. Unfortunately, Amy had already arrived. Scattered all around the station were different kinds of herbs and plants. Amy had already started making a meal out of them, and didn’t even acknowledge my presence as I entered. “Oh there you are, Clove.” Said the teacher, Mrs Moss as she bustled into our station. “Now I just want to see what you already know, so do what you can with these plants. Amy will taste it at the end of the lesson, and you will taste hers.” I sighed, sat down and got to work. I had never been good at all this homey cookingy type of stuff, but Amy looked like she knew what she was doing, and I couldn’t bear to be humiliated in front of her. I took a quick look, and began to copy what she was doing, crushing up plants, and moulding them together. Luckily, she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to me.

The hour went by excruciatingly slowly. I could barely feel my hands when Mrs Moss finally announced “Right. I want you each to eat your partners. Make a meal of it, guys!” She clapped her hands, and steadily, the babble of chat went round the class again. I quickly passed Amy my bowl of mushy plants, and in return she gave me hers. I could have sworn I saw a flicker of something in her eyes as she passed it. Revenge maybe? Her gaze didn’t hold mine long enough for me to tell. I sighed, gritted my teeth, grabbed a spoon, and shoved the first spoonful of mashed up leaves into my mouth. I choked almost immediately. Something tasted funny…something didn’t taste quite right…But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I grabbed the table top in an attempt the stay upright, but a wave of nausea passed over me. I felt my body collapse on the ground as I disappeared into a long, black hole.