Disney High

Chapter 9- Pocahontas

I sit at the picnic table, checking my watch every minute or so. She should be here soon. Tiana was never late. Where could she be?

"Pocahontas!" an accented voice calls from the other side of the park. Tiana runs towards me and plops down on the bench across from mine. Her hair is disheveled, and sweat beads the top of her dark chocolate forehead. "I'm sorry I'm late!" she says quickly in her Southern accent.

"No, it's fine." I say. "Work again?"

"Yes." says Tiana. "I'm working double shift to get stuff done quicker. And for more salary."

"Tia, you really shouldn't work that much." I say worriedly. It had been Tiana's dream ever since she was little to open her own restaurant, but her family couldn't afford it. She's been saving ever since she was thirteen, when she did odd jobs for her neighbors.

"If I'm to open that restaurant, I have to." Tiana insists. "Anyway, did you hear? Eric and Flynn were involved in a boating incident yesterday."

"Really?" I say. I didn't like social media- I thought it was stupid. Of course, Tiana and others had insisted on me getting it. "I hope they're okay!"

"Look." Tiana says, holding out her phone. A video appears onscreen, showing a boat blowing up. I can make out the images of my classmates Eric and Flynn. "I'm going to see if they're okay."

"Yeah." I say, opening up Instagram. I comment on the post, which was sent by Shang Li, another one of my classmates. He was there at the beach that day, I remember.

Hope u all r ok! I text.

A message pops up almost immediately.

We're all good! No big injuries! Flynn texts back. Flynn was one of my closer friends; I didn't have too many of those. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

"Scary, right?" Tiana asks. I nod. "Anyway, I called you here to see if you wanted to help set up for homecoming."

"Like, be on the committee?" I ask. "I don't know. I've got Gardening Club every day after school."

"Well, no. Just if you wanted to help set up without being on the committee. We need volunteers." Tiana explains, holding out a flyer.

"I can do it this Friday- the day of the thing." I say reluctantly. Decorating wasn't my strong point, but Tiana was my friend.

"Sweet!" she says. "The theme is fairytales. Who are you going to be?"

"I don't have a date yet." I say. Tiana grins and nods, implying that she didn't either. "But if I did, I'd like to be a girl from a Native American story. She had stopped a war or something. But it was a cool story."

"That's cool." she says. "I don't know what I want to be."

"We don't have dates so we don't need to worry." I say, smiling.

Tiana's face crumples into a thoughtful frown. "We'll find dates by Wednesday, agreed?"

"Fine." I say, groaning. The truth was, I really didn't want to have a date. Because dates lead to boyfriends and boyfriends lead to controlling men. I didn't need any more men in my life.

"Don't be such a downer." she says. "What do you say we go to Duke's?"

I smile. "Duke's sounds good."

...

I look down from my perch in the willow tree by our house. I visited here so with my grandmother when I was little, and when she passed away, I started calling this tree Grandmother Willow fondly, just to keep a bit of my grandmother with me.