Walking the Wire | PETER PARKER [1]

| 7 |

Peter and Eloise walk home everyday after school together for the rest of the week. Ned usually joins them when he's going to Peter's house, too. The two are really close friends and it's honestly kind of endearing to Eloise. They've been best friends since pre-school, they tell her. Although she's glad they have such a strong bond between the two of them, Eloise can't help but feel left out. It's not when they say inside jokes or tell fun stories, but she feels left out in the sense that she wasn't given a childhood like theirs. Hers was structured and academic; theirs was fun and adventurous. She finds herself imagining the adventures they describe, mentally placing a younger Eloise with them. She imagines making a mess in the art room of their old first-grade class. Running around with them at recess.

Ned notices the faraway look on her face a few times, and asks her once if she's okay. His query draws Peter's attention, and suddenly Eloise has both of their attention and concern.

Eloise smiles at them, a little nervous with all the attention, and says that she's perfectly okay. Because she is—she's just feeling nostalgic for a childhood she never even had.

On Friday at lunch, Eloise ends up talking about her new friends to Elena, Lucy, Cliff, and Alev.

"Be careful," Cliff warns her with a smile, but his tone is serious. "Those Midtown-ers like to cause trouble with people like us."

"Was one of them that boy you were talking to at the library the other day?" Elena asks as she nibbles on a handful of carrots.

Eloise fishes the last chip in her bag of Doritos out and eats it. "Yeah, that was Peter. He's actually my neighbor." Wiping off her cheesy hands on her jeans, she changes the subject. "Anyways, how is your mom, Alev?"

She smiles sadly. "Better."

"Still sick?" Lucy asks, stealing a carrot from Elena.

"Yes. But better."

Eloise makes a mental note to swing by a mart to get a flower bouquet and a fruit bowl to give to Alev's ill mother after school.

The group of friends chat casually for the rest of lunch until it's time to go to their next classes. The remaining afternoon classes go by quickly and soon Eloise already out the front doors, backpack on her back and jacket tied around her waist so she doesn't have to carry it.

She takes her usual route home, but a few streets before Midtown is a family-own mini mart with candies and flowers in the front window. She stops by.

She steps up the small concrete step and walks into the store, bell jingling overhead.

A middle-aged man from behind the counter looks at Eloise from behind his wiry glasses. He grins. "How ya doin', Miss Jones?"

"Great, how about you, Mr. Johns?" The girl replies friendly, walking past the counter straight to the refrigerator towards the back.

"Could be better."

She frowns as she pulls out a fresh fruit bowl, glancing at the man. Every time she stopped by for groceries, the two always exchanged the same friendly words. She always said that everything's great and would usually receive the same reply from Mr. Johns. His words cause her to grow concerned. "Why's that?"

"Have ya heard of that deli that got attacked the other day?"

"Yeah." The bank across the street from one of Eloise's favorite deli spots was being robbed, but there was some freak attack by some alien weapon and caught the deli on fire. No one was hurt, thank God.