ringgggg
First class of the day on the second day of school and Zira’s head was already racing
Aika, her new friend, was seated in front of her.
Truthfully she was trying to focus on the icebreaker worksheet in front of her: list five fun facts about yourself, but her eyes kept wandering up.
Aika’s hair was bright and impossible to ignore making it hard to focus unless Zira stared straight down and hunched over; It was a very embarrassing position to be in.
With her mind on the girl in front of her she hadn’t been paying attention to what she’d been writing for the past five minutes.
A paragraph describing Aika…?
Zira audibly sighed causing Aika to turn around
“Zira are you okay? And why are you sitting like that”
All of a sudden Zira felt her face heat up and her palms start sweating. She dropped the pencil she was holding and shot upright.
“I’m okay!” Was all she had to say with an awkward smile and a thumbs up.
“Okayyy?” Aika gave her a questioning look not really believing her, but turning around anyways.
Zira was done with being weird! This was her first friend since like forever and she wasn’t going to mess this up. Her paper, which she had erased all writing from, was empty and she was ready to start anew.
Zira didn’t really think she had anything fun or interesting going for her. At least nothing normal and not totally nerdy. She settled with basic answers. Books, shows, tennis, rollerblading, and art were all parts of her life she could vaguely write about.
She finished up her sentences and waited for further instruction. Her eyes of course trailed straight ahead to Aika’s figure watching her body move slowly as she breathed.
When Aika finished she set her pencil down and looked around the room eventually turning around and smiling at Zira.
Zira immediately looked away as she was caught in the act of staring. Slowly she looked back at Aika furrowing her eyebrows in a sort of apologetic way. Aika saw this and opened her mouth to say something but before she got a word out the teacher started to speak. Aika turned back around and focused on the teacher.
“Now that you are all done with your sheets I’m going to draw names out of a bin. Whoever you get put with is your partner and you will discuss what you wrote down. I know you all don’t want to be here but at least try to talk, okay?”
The class responded with a mumbled “ok” and Zira started to get nervous. What if she was pared with one of the popular boys? Or maybe she’d be partners with a mean girl… Zira could not handle talking to either of them at 8:00 in the morning.
As she was lost in thought her name was called. And as the teacher pulled out another stick she saw Aika hold her breath.
“Aika!” The teacher called out.
“Yess!” Aika smiled and turned towards Zira expecting a smile but instead found the girl daydreaming about going home early.
“Zira we are partners.” Aika said halfheartedly
“Wait WHAT” Zira snapped out of her gloomy daze and felt a smile creeping onto her face.
“Yeah weren’t you listening?” Aika stood up and turned her chair to face Zira’s desk.
“Uh no I wasn’t listening” Zira suddenly looked ashamed dropping her grin and this made Aika laugh as she sat down and grabbed her paper.
“It’s not that big of a deal Zira, do you want to go first?”
“Uhh you go first” Zira said while adjusting her glasses nerd style.
“Okay! I’ll just share three of them” Aika looked at her paper trying to decide which were the most important.
“I’d like it if you’d share all of them” Zira mumbled under her breath.
“What was that?” Aika looked up and tilted her head
How was she so cute?
“Nothing” Zira was profusely sweating at this point so she just stared at her paper and pretended to think about anything except Aika.
Little did Zira know Aika heard her little mumble and decided to read her paper from top to bottom.
“Okay! First on the list!” Aika gave Zira a smile even though she was folded over.
“I’m a magical girl…”
“Aika are you serious”
“Jeez I thought it would be funny calm down” Aika rolled her eyes.
“How would you explain that to anyone who wasn’t me?”
“Well I knew my partner would be you because my intuition is always right” Aika covered her face with the sheet and giggled guilefully.
While Zira blushed over the thought of Aika manifesting their partnership into existence, Aika finished reading off three more fun facts.
“Okay last one!”
“Already?!” Zira sat up straight.
“Zira you were zoned out”
“Okay just get on with it” Zira cleared her head and focused on what Aika was about to say.
“I really like Slushies”
“Oh cool me too”
After a few seconds of silence Aika started to explain in detail how she had one for the first time and experienced a freezing chill in her head. Zira diagnosed her with a brain freeze and was shocked to find out Aika had enjoyed it?!
“I guess it’s your turn to share” Aika said with grin.
“Uhh” Zira looked down at her sheet consisting of single sentences and drawings.
“Okay, my first fun fact is-
ringgggg
-are you kidding me!”
“That’s your fact?” Aika asked
“No the bell Aika. we have to go”
“That’s what that means?”
Zira crumpled the sheet of paper without a word. How did Aika get through a school day without knowing that? And she didn’t even get to share what she wrote. What a useless class period. Her facts were committed to memory at this point but it wasn’t like Aika wanted to hear the-
“Don’t throw the sheet away! You can just share at lunch” Aika said while walking out the classroom door.
Zira flushed again and slowly walked out of the classroom. Aika was too sweet.
“Also do you know where my class is” the list of her schedule was nowhere to be found…
“No Aika I don’t”
“Oh, Okay bye! See you at lunch!”
“Bye Aika” Zira gave her an awkward wave and walked to her next class with her head down.
She sighed a breath of relief and looked down at the crumpled sheet that Aika made her keep.
Maybe this school year wouldn’t be so bad after all.