Star-Crossed (Hold)

Chapter Twelve~S'plainin' to do (part one)

Copyright 2011 Lindsay Covington

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Chapter Twelve

~S'plainin' to Do~

(part one)

~Accacia~

The cafeteria was just as I was expecting for a small-town school: not very impressive. 

A few of the various high schools that I’d gone to in bigger cities, such as New York, Chicago, Seattle, and the like, tended to be larger and also have little carts from various fast food restaurants popular in the the area. For example, one school that I’d gone to in Dallas had a huge thing for Chick-fil-a, let me just tell you, people in Texas love their Chick-fil-a. But this was a small town, and this particular small town was so small-town that it didn’t even have Starbucks. So the cafeteria in Leadville High School was basically two lines on a buffet style, serve-yourself concept with a small salad bar near the cash register. And judging by the smells coming from the buffet, most of the food was an over-cooked mystery.

I wrinkled my nose slightly and continued to make my way to the nearest line, grabbing a styro-foam tray in the process. By the looks of things, today was Italian day. My choices were pretty much limited to extremely greasy pizza-cheese or pepperoni--or bow-tie noodles with overcooked alfredo sauce, or calzone. I went with the calzone simply because I couldn’t see the orange tinted grease on it like I could see the grease on the other options. 

My tray slid down the metal shelf as I followed the tired-looking student in front of me. I passed a large set up of stacked rolls and grabbed one for myself. The kid in front of me picked up his tray after grabbing a cup of brown pudding and headed over to the cash register. I picked my own tray up and walked it over to the small salad bar which offered dressing-drenched caesar salad or wilted iceberg lettuce with my choice of Italian, ranch, or Long Island dressing. I took the tongs and put a pile of iceberg lettuce onto my tray, forgoing the dressing.

“That’ll be three-seventeen.” The cashier’s voice was deep and throaty like that of a person that’d had one too many smokes in her life. I dug around in my bag until I found a five and handed it to her.

“Just put the change into my lunch account please.” I told the woman with a smile. The gray-haired lunch-lady nodded her head gruffly at me.

“What’s your I.D. number?” She croaked.

“Um...excuse me?” My eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“Your I.D. number.” The woman repeated, “What is it?”

“I’m not exactly sure...I’m a new student.” I informed her.

She harrumphed, “Typical,” the woman grumbled to herself, “what’s your name.” It was a demand, not a question.

“Rose Jones.” Her fingers flew across the outdated keyboard.

“Eleven, ninety-two. Don’t for get your number.” She barked at me, pausing and then repeated slowly, for my benefit I assume, “one one nine two, got it?” I nodded hastily and she dismissed me with a curt nod.

I blinked and walked away from the cranky woman, but came to a pause just before the first row of tables. It’s a real shame that there is three or so feet of snow outside...guess that I’m gonna have to find a table. My eyes scanned the small lunch-room, taking in the details. It was square in shape with the double-doored entrance to the rest of the school and another metal and glass door that led outside. The wall with the outside-door also had four or five sizable windows giving the teenagers inside something to look at besides the ugly brown tile and brick that dominated the room. Not to mention that they’d make a good escape route if the need aroused itself. The room had about twelve round lunch tables with roughly eight or nine chairs to each table. The school was small, with only one hundred students or so.