OTHERBORN: GRANITE HIGH

EPISODE TWO

TABITHA

I've got to get back. My breathing is easy, rhythm steady as always, as I dash from the bus. It's half a mile through the parking lot. I've timed it and I know my pace. My run isn't hard but I fear my school's principal now, since my mishap.

On the way to the school, I see a group of kids lurking round one corner as I pass, but I pay them no attention.

Why do they always seem more like gaggles than groups?

I control myself and slow to a walk, so as not to attract any gazes to what I am doing.

Then, there's a guy on his own. He glances back and walks to get ahead of me now. He's only a shadow in black.

Paranoid, Tabitha. He's just going this way. And he's gone through the doors.

But when I round the corner inside, he's waiting for me.

Donny! He used to go here, but he switched to Fairbank, after "the naked incident."

This is the third time he's tried to get close to me without people around, since our far-too-intimate cliff dancing event. It is tense. I only can distance myself from him. Why is he here?

"Need to talk to you. Come 'ere—"

"I doubt it," I say. "Not, 'please come over here' or anything better. Sounds like an order."

"Nah. Come 'ere," he says again.

"Arrogant much?"

"Look. I'm sorry, all right? Now would ya—?"

I sigh and raise my eyebrows and stare at him hard.

"I just wanna talk."

"Yeah, what? I've got an appointment."

"I know. So maybe like, later?"

"I'm not free right now!" But I lower my pitch as I see another gaggle enter the hallway at the far end. "You were in on that—"

Oh, gosh ... Gracie's among them.

She hasn't seen me.

"Jeez! I just owe you a thank you." Donny is begging?

"And that's all this is, right?" I say.

I think the group is noticing us. They're walking this way. Donny's the cool kid and I'm like the nerd. There's nothing between us, but the bad vibes here are mounting. I can feel them and so might the group.

And then I see Gracie's face. It is priceless. Wow. This fiasco might kinda work out, after all.

Donny does owe me a really big favor. And I wink at him but do not say a word.

I'd never take advantage of course, but I do enjoy this little moment somehow. The gaggle's in whispers. They are all shocked to see us together.

"How 'bout Thursday, parking lot, right after school?" Donny says to me.

Did they hear that?

"All right." And I run to locate the door that I needed a whole hour ago, to find Mr. Hendricks.

"Dress warm," Donny calls.

And I know they heard that!

But, what the heck? Dress warmly?

I look through a classroom and out through the window I pass on my way. It's summer out there! What is he planning?

* * *

I see a sign that says, Simon A. Hendricks, Principal. Bad luck portal right here.

I'm so confused after my run in with Donny, and I'm still focused on speed, however all my skill and grace are forgotten on the way through the door.