Once Upon A Dime (hiatus)

8. Friends and Family

"It affects the muscles and their movements, right? So each time a Huntington's carrier fidgets, it's like a miniature seizure.."

"Precisely." Ariel smiles warmly, pushing his reading glasses further onto his nose, giving him a textured, moderately sophisticated quality. In a sexy kind of way. I guess I've stared too long, cause he lets loose a miniature set of giggles, and I blush a deep rouge color. "I must be that attractive for you to stare at me for more than 20 seconds."

"N-no!" I stammer, unsure of what my mouth will say, but completely aware that it will most definitely not match with what my brain is saying. "Y-you have an eyelash on your eye."

"Oh?" His eyebrows raise, and he rubs his eyes vigorously with his aged knuckles. He looks down at his hands with a questioning, sleepy look to his face. "Is it gone?"

"Y-yeah." I smile shyly, and try to focus back down on our work.

"You know what they say," Ariel yawns, draping a slinky arm across my shoulders. "When you find a stray eyelash, you have to make a wish."

I've heard of that, sure, but I refuse to give Ariel the satisfaction of knowing that. I nod solely, and find myself more interested than I'd like to be. Damn you, Ariel!

You cursed again, Jenny.

Gah, well, I'm used to it now, no thanks to Kenny.

"What do you wish for?" Ariel smiles coming closer to inspect my face.

"I can't wish on your eyelash." I counter him mischievously.

"Ah. The girl knows the rules." He holds his hands up in defeat, and crosses his legs under the table.

"Still. What do you wish for? In general."

What do I wish for?

"I guess… For uh…. Heck, I don't know! The cure to Huntington's?" I babble insanely, crinkling the corners of my lab sheet.

"Good choice. That's what I'd wish for." He curls his lip into a tiny smile, scribbling something down on his crumpled piece of paper.

"Really? You wouldn't wish for like, a sports car or a million dollars?"

"Nope. Huntington's plagues one in every ten thousand people, but considering how many people are in the world, it really adds up." Ariel scrunches his nose up for a second, before leaning back in his chair, and turning to me. "I wish diseases like that didn't exist."

"Wow. You seem to know a lot about it." I let my eyes fall to the pencil tucked behind his ear. "Your family doesn't have it, do they?"

"Oh, God no." His eyebrows crease in the middle, proving to me that he's growing concerned. "That'd be awful. I just... knew someone a while ago that had it. They're okay, now."

"Oh. Were they a friend?" I tap my lip with my pencil nub against my cheek.

"I guess you could say that."

"Attention! Attention! I hope you all are doing well; I know I am! Just a little reminder; today is December 14th, one week from the due date! You all should be well gathering the information by now. You have all this week to organize your project, and turn it in by next Friday. The bell was supposed to ring a few minutes ago, so push in your chairs and have a nice day!" Mr. P announces from his desk, not bothering to spare any of us a glance up from his lightened computer screen.

"Didn't we like, just start this?" I groan, scribbling down 'due 12/21' on the top of my sheet before shoving deep into my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder.