Winged Girl

Chapter 11

The school bell went off and students poured into the hallway as if it were a bomb, desperately shouting across the the corridor, on their toes and looking for their dear friends. I sat at my desk rigidly, not reacting until Mary's cottony voice snapped me back to reality.
"Hey." She whispered. "What's wrong? Tell me! Something about your fever, isn't it?"
The next thing I knew was her grabbing my paper lunch bag and my hand, trying off and sitting me down on a bench in the playground. Seeing my blank expression, she did well to keep her mouth shut. She knew that I wanted some silence. Despite the distant laughter and shouting and all the joyful screams, I stared unseeing, forward, hoping that the appointment would be cancelled. Or whatever event that would stop it from happening to happen.
They say "if 'happily ever after' existed" and, unnecessary to say, of course it is correct. Everything I hoped for never comes true. Everything that comes my way goes wrong, as if I'm a robot made from flesh and bones with wrong programming, which was trapped in a situation when a technician is too lazy to re-programme it. But in that case, who is the technician? My brain? My heart? My mother? God?
Teachers everything that happen to you is your destiny. I don't see how I could have a great future then, with all this rotten luck and all.
"Hey Mal. What are these?"
Oh joy. Will Mary tell the others?
"Come on, you can tell me," she pressed, as if reading my mind and assuming that I could hear her. And of course she "assumed" correctly.
I sighed.
"In fact, I want to know as well, Mary..." I paused, placing my hand on hers.
"But when did it... wait is it even stuck to your back?"
Then I lost it. Anger got the better of me. I shouted. At her. Mary. My best friend. My only best friend in my entire life.
"YES!! WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
Fuming and blinded with acrimony, I stormed away, tears streaming, back to my classroom. I did not see how much harm it did to Mary. It all happened too quickly to be possible to.
   To my horror, my classmates, then still friends, I thought were all standing in the doorway, taunting grins stretched from ear to ear. Cold sweat poured down my face smouldering face as I glanced over my shoulder to my only escape passage way to be blocked by the gang. I looked around and opening my mouth, attempting to blurt out some words of confusion, but Edward beat me to it.
   "Look who has broken up with her dear friend? Awwww..." he mocked in fake sympathy.
   "Maleficent just broke up with her girlfriend!"
   "Sad, babe, so so sad."
   "Oh no, what is she going to do now?"
   "Oopsy-daisy."
   That moment, I remember, the only thing I wanted was to disappear into thin air, so nobody can ever find me again, even myself. Oh, the joy that would surround me, not a care in the world... so delightful. But fantasy stayed fantasfies, real life stayed realistfied and it never went off tracks. Hopeless, I fell onto my knees, face cupped in my clammy hands and tears ran down my wrists, like veins of rivers flowing down a hill from the snowy peak.
   "Oh, and lately, I've noticed the two mysterious hamsters on your back! What happened? Why do you wanna hide them there? To play with it during lesson time? Huh? Huh?" Edward taunted.
   That moment it felt like my insides were being torn apart by a cruel beast that no man would bear to picture. I gulped and hiccuped the words in a broken sentence, "the...y aren't...ham...sters..."
   "Then what the hell are they?" I felt his eyes piercing and slicing through my flesh with smelt blades of coldness.
   "Let's see what my doctor says. Please leave me alone." I pleaded.
   "Hey! What do you think you're doing?! Don't even dare to think about hurting my friend!"
   The loud sturdy voice sent vibration straight into my bones. With great efforts, I lifted my eyes and glanced at the direction of the lioness roar. And the moment I saw her, I was surprised. Very surprised.