Out of The Blue

Chapter 3

     Bright blue sky, cool autumn zephyrs. Alice and I ride our bikes every morning to school. We both enjoy the wind running through our hair and the bright orange, yellow, and red leaves on the ground crunching and crackling, and on the trees looking like balls of red and orange cotton. It was certainly a beautiful morning and day... but not for long, at least not for me.

     As I depart from Alice, I arrive to my first period class, Algebra, the one I hate the most. I don't get why we have to learn it unless I'm trying to be an engineer or something. It makes me dizzy; it makes my head spin. I'm starting to get it a bit now, but I still don't see the necessity for such mathematics. On top of being a very disliked subject, I have one of the most abrupt teachers in the school but, I won't get started on that. I go to sit on my hard, cold, and blue chair. I get shocked with three tiny whips under my thighs. I flinch hard and mumble in despair;

     "Ouch! Why does this always happen to me?" It's those little metal screws you find on your seat, they're quite shocking.

     The teacher begins class and as he begins writing on the whiteboard, the notes start flowing in my notebook. I'm very studious, and I enjoy getting good grades. Something about that satisfaction of an accomplishment done right really gives me delight. As I'm writing down my notes, I can't help to notice something from the peripheral of my left eye and I turn to the window. A tall man dressed in a long black coat, hat, and sunglasses staring straight at me. Okay? Goosebumps run down my arms.

     "Marie, so what's the answer to the example?" Interrupted the teacher.

     He noticed I wasn't paying attention. Does he really have to call me out like that? Still, I quickly glance at what's on the board and confidently say "Function A is not a function because it has two repeated x-intercepts." Haven't we been through this before, many times? I think to myself in suspicion. I got it right though, I give him a confident stare with a small confident smile. He gets caught off guard and stutters,

     "uh, yes that, that is correct."

    I look out the window again only to find nobody there. Chills run up and down my body. Why was that man outside? Why was he looking straight at me? Where did he go? For the next 30mins to an hour in that class, I sit cold on my seat, anticipating an alarm or shooting any minute. My palms are sweating, and I have to wipe them on my pants.

     After second period, I head straight to lunch and sit with Alice.

     "Alice, you won't believe what I saw!" I exclaimed.

     Alice - with her mouth full of a big bite of her sandwich - replies with; "what happened?"

     I tell her about the strange man I saw out the window. My gut twists and hides just by talking about it. It was creepy. I got so uncomfortable about that man I was so into the explanation. Alice sat there looking at me, not blinking once while eating her sandwich in slow motion. She assures me that it was probably someone trying to prank people, but I don't know. I hesitantly agree as I took a bite of my cheeseburger. Maybe Alice is right, I try to stop thinking about it but it was so engraving to my mind. Stop thinking, I thought to myself. 

                                                                                ~~

     I can't seem to keep myself focused because of the strange man I saw. Just as my science teacher, Mrs. George was passing out pop-quizzes, I tried to peak out the window again. Just as the black, Afro haired, brown eyed, dark chocolate skinned, average height woman - Mrs. George - passed by and out of the way of the window, I spot the same man I saw back in first period. My stomach churns and my chest flutters in a startle. I gasp and everyone looks at me as if I just fell from the roof and so does Mrs. George.

     "What is the matter? Pop-quiz surprised you? Well, I hope you studied," Mrs. George said. I wish I could disappear right now.

     "No, I - I just thought m-my eraser was a-a spider and I don't like spiders," I respond with a stutter.

     Everyone giggled and chuckled and gets going with their test.

     I hear a little vibration coming from my desk. I grab my phone and open a message,

     Alice: "I don't buy it, What happened?"

     I don't really want to have my phone taken away or get a zero on this test but, she'll scowl at me if I don't reply.

     Marie: "I saw the man again out the window!"

     I look back to Alice and her worried face looks back at me. 

     Marie: "We'll talk later."

     What if the man is looking at someone else in my direction? I don't know, all I know is that it's strange and I want him to go away.

     At the end of the school day, I meet with Alice at where the students park their bikes like we always do.

     "Marie, what's going on?" Alice asks desperately.

     "I don't know!" I exclaimed.

     "Maybe you're mistaking certain objects for a human," assures Alice.

     "Maybe, but it was a human being, Alice! It or he was staring straight at me!" I say in a desperate tone.

     "Did you get to see his face?"

     "No, the jacket's collar was up so I couldn't see the bottom half of his face and he was wearing black sunglasses."

     "You know what, let's just forget about it and go home. I wanna get out of here," I complained, and I did want to get out of here. When school ends, I always want to go home so desperately but today was another level of desperate. Alice is coming over to my house to do our homework together and off we went with our bikes.