Elyar and I

Chapter 13 - Nicknames have to be earned

As we walked into the mess hall, my cheeks were still bright red. I looked down to the floor, dragging my feet with every step I took.

"Thanks" I smiled up at zigzag, as he smiled back at me. His radiant smile glistened like a sunset touching the horizon.

"For what?" We walked over to the food counter

"For listening to me. Nobody has ever listened to me the way you did. Not even Elyar" I said as I picked up a metal tray and a spoon. I looked up to see my worst nightmare. Chelsie Black. Just peachy. I knew it was her, when I was on the bus and I saw her bleach blonde hair on the desert.

As I slowly went down the queue, food - if you could even call it that, it looked like chewed up cat food - was put onto my tray. I looked down at my tray in disgust. Looking up only to see the horrid face of my mortal enemy.

"I knew you'd end up here one way or another, Nicole" Her adenoidal voice rang through my ears like a fire alarm.

"Oh shut up, Chelsie!" I replied. Just seeing her made me want to writhe her hair out of her prissy little head. I looked around for Elyar.

"Hey, over here Nikki" X-ray said as he pushed his tray along from the end of the table. "You sit here now." I reluctantly put my tray down on the table and sat down. All I wanted to do was go back to the tent. To my left there was Ziggy, then Squid then Caveman. Across from me was Armpit. And to my right there was X-ray, Magnet then Zero.

As I ate, X-ray was looking at me. I didn't know why - could he tell that I had been crying? He was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable. I began to look around the room again, trying to avoid the awkwardness of the look that X-ray was still sending in my direction. I slowly moved to my right to see if his eyes would follow. They did. I just decided to try and ignore it and eat my dinner.

"So, where were you, Chica?" Magnet asked as I began to play with the unappealing food that was placed in front of me.

"Just in the tent" I replied as I dropped my spoon and began to eat the slice of bread which was next to the green glop on the tray. Was the green glop meant to be spinach? I made a face of disgust and looked down at my tray.

"We were looking for you for ages" Squid replied "We thought you might have ran into the desert or something"

"Well,you obviously didn't look hard enough then" I had finished my bread and I picked up my spoon again.

"What were you doing?" Magnet asked. I went quiet for a minute. Trying to think of a suitable answer. I didn't want them to know about what happened.

"I-I um... I was sleeping." I finally replied in the hope that nobody would have any follow-up questions.

"If you were sleeping, what's that red thing on your arm?" Caveman pointed to the red blotch of blood on my the sleeve of my jumpsuit. As soon as he said that I dropped my spoon onto my tray, took my tray to the pile of dirty trays and cutlery in the corner and walked out. I heard Stanley say 'was it something I said?' as I passed the table on my way out. I didn't dare look at him - I knew that I would say something I would end up regretting as I almost always did.

I don't like people asking me loads of questions. Especially when it's none of their business. Stupid stanley better learn to keep things to himself or i'll shove him in one of the holes in the desert - okay I don't know what I would do, but if I did do something to Stanley (i.e. punch him) it would be a spur of the moment sort of the thing. All I know is that, in my mind, Stanley has lost the right to be called 'caveman' by me. Nicknames have to be earned.