As the bus was rolling, Sophia kept looking through the window, marvelling at the strangely tall buildings that seemed to be touching the clouds with windows instead of rocky walls.
On the side-walks, she could see a lot of people in different clothes who were walking to their destination without even greeting the person by their side or with whom they crossed paths as if because there were so many people, no one knew the other. And that was strange to her because, in her City Amberstar in Crosslot, everyone knew each other. But of course, there were fewer people in her home City.
Emma Pearson noticed how distracted Sophia was because she was trying to talk to her and could only get simple words for an answer.
After her third attempt to start a conversation, Emma asked, “Are you listening to me? Hey, I was talking to you, you know? What are you seeing outside to be like that?”
“Sorry, I… I was looking at the people. There are so many! Oh! What is that?”
Emma looked to where Sophia was pointing and said, “That is a coffee-house. They have cakes, juices, tea, and, of course, coffee. You never saw one, or what?”
“I… think I did, but I can’t remember if I was ever in one.” She answered while looking back at the strange shop that was disappearing by the curve.
Thinking that her friend looked a bit off, Emma was about to ask something, but the bus stopped in front of their school, and she got up, exiting it with Sophia right after her.
As they were walking to the entrance among the other kids that were also on the bus, they were pushed to the side when Eliza Francis and her two friends came running, seeming to be trying to enter the school ahead of everyone.
Sophia cleaned her school bag that fell to the floor as she mumbled something about being rude that Emma didn’t quite get, and she followed her distracted friend, who was once again looking around the schoolyard at the students that were in there, as if it was the first time she saw it or as if she wasn’t in school for a very long time, which Emma knew wasn’t true because they were both at school on the previous day.
With Sophia stopping occasionally to look at the students or the buildings, they were the last ones to enter the main building, and as they were walking along the main corridor that led to their lockers, Sophia kept on looking around her, amazed by the lights in the ceiling, the numerous windows that would let the sunlight in, and at the rush of the students, who were walking along the corridor to get to the lockers as well or were going to their very own classrooms.
Upon arriving at the lockers, Emma went straight to hers and noticed that Sophia was in front of her locker, staring at the padlock as if she wasn’t remembering the code.
Before Emma could ask, Sophia grabbed the padlock and quickly rotated the numbers to open it. Then she heard her distracted-looking friend ask, “What the heck? I think someone opened my locker!”
Emma looked inside and grimaced. There were a bunch of earthworms inside, still with dirt all over them.
From behind them came laughter, and a girl’s voice asked, “You brought a strange lunch for today, Sophia! Ahahaha!”
Without even hesitating, Sophia grabbed a small plastic container from a corner of the locker, and after opening it, she put the worms inside one by one and closed it with the cover.
As she was cleaning her fingers with a tissue she took from a box in her locker, Sophia looked behind her and asked with a smile, “You put this for my pets? Thanks! You are so sweet, Eliza! I wasn’t sure if you were attracted to me or not, but it seems you really are! No wonder, I am a very sexy girl! But I don’t like girls! I am flattered, but I am afraid you must look for another girl to be your girlfriend! I am sorry for breaking your heart like this, but I still appreciate your gift. Thanks a bunch!”
Puzzled, Eliza Francis said, “I… I am not attracted to you… Who said such a thing? I thought you were going to puke! You like worms? You even grabbed them with your bare hand!”
“I don’t like worms, but my fish do. I will need to cut the worms into tiny pieces for them to eat, but that won’t be the first time I prepare live food for them! If you are not sad because I just rejected you, all is well. But if you are, I can’t do much to ease your pain because you are not my type!” Sophia said as she closed the locker and grabbed Emma’s arm to go to their classroom.
As for Eliza Francis, she was still in shock, and she couldn’t even say anything to stop the mockery. Even with the other students laughing at what Sophia said, she couldn’t think about a comeback, and her two friends were surprised to see her so silent, looking at Sophia and Emma, who were walking along the corridor as if what had happened was nothing unusual.
As they were entering their classroom, Emma asked in a whisper, “You know she is going to go after you, right? What is wrong with you today? You keep insulting or annoying her! She will beat you up again!”
While sitting at her desk right next to Emma’s, Sophia said, “I remember something about her and her two friends beating me. That is probably why I am poking her so much. I want to see how far I can go before she tries anything, because that will give me an excuse to split her head open.”
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“You… are joking, right?” Emma asked, looking confused by the way her friend was smiling, just to see her shrug and answer, “Maybe, or maybe not…”
The class started, and Emma went silent, still wondering if her friend had gone mad or if she was actually serious.
Sophia opened her book and stared at it for a while and mumbled, “At least I can read this… I think I remember some of these subjects, but I might need to read everything from the beginning… darn it...”
...
The middle-morning break came, and Sophia followed Emma to the cafeteria, looking around at all the students.
She stood in line while Emma was nervously looking around, trying to see if Eliza Francis and her friends appeared from somewhere, aiming to take Sophia by surprise.
She only stopped looking around when she heard Sophia asking the cafeteria lady about the several cakes and sandwiches up for sale, thinking that it was weird that Sophia didn’t already know what the filling inside the sandwiches was or what cakes those were, considering that was not the first time they went to the cafeteria to buy a snack to eat in the middle of the morning.
After buying a sandwich and a juice each, and as they were walking along the yard to find an empty seat, suddenly, two girls grabbed Sophia’s arms and took her to behind the nearest building, with Eliza going close to Emma’s face and warning her, “You saw nothing, you hear me? Or next time, it will be you!”
Emma froze in complete and absolute fear. She saw Eliza going to the back of the building, and some minutes later, she heard screams, and forgetting how scared she was, she rushed to the back of the building.
Upon going after the corner, she stopped, not believing what she was seeing.
Sophia was grabbing Eliza’s hair from the back and hitting her face against the wall over and over. Blood was spilling down the wall, and Eliza seemed to be completely knocked out, but Sophia wasn’t stopping.
At her feet, one girl was crying while holding her broken nose, and the other had one hand covering her mouth while holding her front teeth in the other open palm. Blood was going down her neck and spoiling her shirt, and she was looking in terror at the dreadful scene in front of her.
Seeming to have had enough, Sophia let Eliza go and watched as she fell like a rag doll and laid on the floor in a weird position.
Sophia then turned to the two crying girls and warned them, “I tried to be nice. I tried not to be bothered by your constant mockery and bullying, but enough is enough. You thought I didn’t react because I was afraid of you three, when in fact, I was afraid of hurting you too much. The next time one of you or any of your friends comes after me, I will squeeze your necks until your eyes pop. I will kill you, and I will take your still-beating hearts from your chest, and I will eat them raw. Did I make myself clear, bitches?”
The two girls looked at her with dead eyes, and without even realizing it, they both slowly nodded. Sophia grabbed the hair of the two girls and pulled them up while saying, “Just to be sure you both understand what I said, take a good look at Eliza over there. I just rearranged her ugly face, but I will do so much worse to both of you if any of you annoy me again.”
With one sudden movement, she threw both heads against each other, knocking them out.
Emma gulped as Sophia leaned down and grabbed Eliza’s shirt to clean all the blood and hair covering her hands.
She then got up, turned back, and frowned at the surprised Emma while asking, “Do I need to hit you as well, or are you going to keep your mouth shut about what happened here?”
Seeing Emma vigorously nodding, she said, “Good, because I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You… wouldn’t hit me, right?” Emma asked with a pale face.
While putting her arm around Emma’s shoulders and returning to the yard, Sophia answered with a big smile, “Of course not! You are my friend! What about if we gulped down our food so that we could go back to class? I like school, and the classes are pretty interesting!”
“You… you changed, you know? You used to hate school, you have always complained about how dull the classes were, and you hardly ever studied... But today you are paying close attention! You didn’t even yawn once!”
Trying to figure out an excuse for her odd behaviour, Sophia answered as she was munching her sandwich, seated on the empty seat nearby. “I guess Eliza and her friends were distracting me way too much. I kind of got enough of them annoying me, and I started to focus more on the classes. I also want to learn as much as I can so that I can get good grades and make my father proud. He wouldn’t like it if I flunked all the classes!”