Element Academy

Socialize?No...Page

Page would have liked to do anything other than socialize, but the one-too-many-tans girl insisted that they all go to the boardroom early so they could “chat” with people. If Page wanted to “chat” than she would “chat”, but she didn’t want to and no one could make her go to the board room early to socialize…

“I can’t believe I let her make come down early.” Page grumbled.

“Well make the best of it then. Go talk to the spikey haired kid who keeps looking at you.” Crystal suggested playfully nudging Page with her elbow.

Page groaned like the idea made her want to barf. Secretly though she was excited, like her he wore baggy faded clothing and the same look of being rough but also kind. Acid fear filled her mouth. She shook her head in surprise, why was she afraid? She wasn’t afraid of walking down her street even if it meant she might get jumped. She wasn’t even afraid when her mom brought home that man, when her dad was at work, who she had to knock out a few of his teeth when he tried putting the moves on her. If she wasn’t afraid then, why was she afraid now?

Page swallowed down her fear trying not to choke on it. She smoothed out her fading black jacket and walked over to him.

“Hey.” She greeted meekly.

The boy smiled, “Hey, name’s Demetri. What’s yours?”

“Me?” she squeaked. She quickly cleared her throat and ran her hand through her spiky blonde hair, “The name’s Page.”

He eyed her for a moment. Page held her breath. He totally thinks I'm a freak. Then suddenly, he started laughing. Suspicion and hurt rushed heat to her cheeks. Before she did anything else stupid she briskly turned and stomped away.

As she walked away she heard Demetri call after her, “Hey wait!”

He ran up to her and fell in stride with her stomps, “Where are you goin’?”

“Back to my room.” She huffed without looking at him.

“Why?” The sadness she heard in his voice caused Page to stop and look at him. He shifted uncomfortably and rubbed his neck. Without looking directly at her he said, “Come on…look at all those people in there. We don’t exactly fit in…you’re like…the first real girl I’ve met here.”

The last bit came out so fast and jumbled that at first Page didn’t think she heard him right. Then it dawned on her, he was right; besides Crystal, the moment most people saw her hair or rough clothes they steered clear of her…still he seemed too perfect. Hastily, she pushed those suspicions aside.

Both of them jumped as a gong rang out. Someone from within the room announced that lunch was served. Page took Demetri’s hand, they felt coarse, but Page didn’t mind.

Demetri smiled, “Come on, let’s go face the world together.”

True to his word, Page and Demetri walked into the conference room hand-in-hand. Page saw Crystal smile and wave them over from across the room before she returned back to a conversation with the red head Jane. When they sat down, Page heard Crystal make a comment that “she is totally insane and honestly she couldn’t stand her sometimes…”. Crystal turned toward Page and told her that her mom could sometimes really get under her skin. Page nodded in understanding, but underneath she was relieved when she found out that Crystal wasn’t talking about her.

The gong rang again and all the talking died down. Everyone at the very long conference table turned toward the sound of the gong. At the end of the table Cooper held a mini golden gong in his hand and one of those sticks with the black marshmallow pads at the end in his other one.  He cleared his throat to make sure he had everyone’s attention. While he waited for two girls to notice they were the only one’s still talking. Page looked around. The large light blue room was long enough to hold one hundred people easy. As Page looked, she was shocked to find that there must have been one hundred or more people in the room. This camp must be really big if they were letting this many kids come to stay for two weeks.

Finally the girls fell into an awkward silence as they realized everyone was waiting on them to stop so Cooper could talk. Cooper cleared his throat-again- “Anyway, I’m sure all of you have a pretty good idea of why you have been brought here to our little slice of heaven here in Montana. If you don’t I would ask around to figure that out and fast. We ask that when you refer to camp when you talk about it, as its public name; Camp. After lunch you can roam the hotel until eight p.m., when its lights out, there is plenty to do with a full arcade in the basement and a movie lounge down the hall. If I were you, I’d take the eight o’ clock curfew seriously, the buses head out at six-a girl raised her hand-yes a.m.-the girl lowered her hand while the whole room groaned- Hey, come on, it’s part of the camp experience. Now let’s eat!”

Page wasn’t sure which “camp” he was talking about, but she didn’t care. Page would get up at three a.m. if it meant becoming a bender. Either way, none of that mattered, it was lunch time.

Page stood up with all the other ravenous teens and attacked the buffet style layout of food. She piled it high with sandwiches, chicken tenders, French fries, strawberries, potato chips, and eggrolls. She grabbed a bottle of orange pop and sat down. Crystal and Demetri followed after her both laughing at her stock pile of food.

“Wow Page, that’s quite a meal.” Crystal laughed, her own plate had on a turkey with cucumber sandwich, a pear, and a bagel with cream cheese.

“And that’s an interesting meal.” Page countered with a laugh.

“That’s nothing compared to mine!” Demetri said, his plate was full of bananas, grapes, and chicken tenders.

Page eyed him curiously. “You can’t find this kind of fresh fruit where I come from and the chicken, I just like them.” He explained. Page laughed.

“Gosh you guys are weird.” Jane laughed; she only had two slices of pizzas on her plate.

“Very original,” Page said with a smile. From the corner of her eye she saw Talula shaking her head like they were acting like a bunch of animals, Page’s cheeks filled with heat.

For an hour straight they all just talked and laughed and joined the nice hot and never ending food. Page had never eaten so much good food, but she couldn’t stop! For the majority of her life cold pizza and burgers were basically all she had to eat, to her this was heaven and she was not letting it go anytime too soon.

“Ok, I’m going to go check out the arcade.” Jane announced.

“So soon?” Page asked.

Jane laughed, “We’ve been in here for an hour. Basically everyone’s gone already and I want to check out that arcade before the hotel is smart enough to realize that an arcade plus about one hundred and fifty teens is a bad idea. Do you want to come Crystal?”

Crystal looked up from her half eaten chocolate chip waffle, “Huh?”

“Go on, we’ll be fine.” Page said, noticing Crystal look over at them.

“Yeah I want to show Page the roof.” Demetri added in a whisper.

“But the roof is off limits.” Crystal said.

“They never said that.” Demetri said with a mischievous smile that made butterflies swirl around in Page’s stomach.

“Okay.” Crystal said slowly clearly not okay with the idea of Page and Demetri sneaking up to the roof.

“Come on Crystal,” Jane said, “Let’s let these two love bugs have some alone to actually get to know each other.”

Crystal laughed and got up and left with Jane to go to the arcade.

Page turned toward Demetri, “Are we really going to the roof?”

Demetri smiled, stood up, and took Page’s hand, “Come on.”

…