Loop Sided

CHAPTER 2

VOTE, COMMENT AND SHARE. 

“Ly is back.” It’s early morning and everyone is in the hallway, talking, gossiping and chit-chatting. And to disturb their talk for a sec, comes the yell which undoubtedly belongs to Alyson Taylor’s best friend Katie Kimberley.

Alyson shoved her books for the day and ran to the entry way to meet Katie. Katie has a goofy grin on her face and when she sees Alyson running towards her, she runs forward to meet Alyson. They both hug each other tightly, even if Alyson was on leave for two days, they both or I might say they three are uniting like they’re meeting after twenty or thirty years. After pulling each other from the hug Alyson asks Katie where Natalee is.

“I think she is late today. But she’ll come soon. Btw, you looking good today, Ly.” Katie said.

 Alyson is wearing an aqua-blue tee paired with simple black jeans. Alyson has chocolaty-brown eyes -- , when her eyes are in sunlight they look chestnut-brown, -- black hair with little strands of brown, she is not-so-tall girl and has a little pinch of brown in her melanin. Alyson’s mother belongs to India, so she is half-Indian. And about her name and surname, her father is a foreigner and her mother too insisted on naming her daughter Alyson. But her elder brother, who’s a sophomore in college in Yale, is named Samir, a Hindi language, which means wind. A plus point about the siblings – both of them know Hindi. Her father was an intern when he came to India, he met her mother, lived in India for two years and he loves India and Hindi. So yeah, he taught his children Hindi too. And Alyson loves Bollywood too.

“You too, K.” Alyson passes a small smile to Katie. Katie is wearing a black round-neck cartoon-printed top with denim jeans.

“Hey, Lys. You back!” Natalee comes in view from nowhere. Natalee calls Alyson – Lys, while Katie uses – Ly, both are weird, I know.

“Munchkin.” Alyson shouts. They both hug each other and the bell for the first class rings.

“Oh no.” Alyson sang.

“Lys, K, you both go to the homeroom. I’m coming in a minute.” Natalee said tap-dancing a little on her heels.

“Ok.” Katie and Alyson both say in unison. Both of them rush to their homeroom for the first lecture of the day, Algebra. Natalee comes after a few minutes. Alyson is a math lover, so she doesn’t like to talk during Statistics, Algebra, Physics, etc. Btw, Alyson loves books and study, so she doesn’t like to talk much during their classes.

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“How was your trip, Lys?” Natalee asked Alyson in the cafeteria. They’ve taken their meals, all same, Wolf Canyon’s special ‘Burrito’ with spicy sauce and coke.

Alyson rolled her eyes and shook her head, she said “It wasn’t a trip munchkin. Trip is when you go somewhere you haven’t seen before. And I’ve seen my dad’s hometown hundred times. It was great, I would say.” Natalee hums.

Katie nudges Natalee shoulder and points with her eyes to Alyson. Alyson is busy eating her burrito. Natalee narrows her eyes and then furrows her brows to mutely-say what. Katie mouths something like let’s tell her. Okay, now Natalee gets what she wants to say, she wants to tell Alyson about yesterday’s incident. After Alyson finishes her burrito and starts on her coke, Katie and Natalee begin telling her about the mysterious Ford Mercury. What Alyson does when they fill into her is just a slow nod, a blank stare, wide eyes and an I-don’t-believe-you smile.

“Me too. This is just a hallucination. Or it’s just Katie fooling us.” Natalee said after they tell Alyson all about that.

“Katie.” Alyson sings in warning tone and waves her index finger towards Katie. Katie bangs her hands on the table in irritation, which in turn owns her the stare of two hundred teens (sorry, if I am exaggerating). Alyson and Natalee aren’t surprised, they would be surprised if ‘Katie’ hadn’t done anything like this, sarcastic and energetic. They are used to Katie’s nature, her reaction over little things is very-very big, over-reactive, you might say.

“I am not fooling you two. I am just telling you what I saw.” Katie keeps her trigger fingers on her eye bags and stretches them and continues her statement, “with these two perfectly working pupils. Got it.”  

“Okay. Take a chill-pill K.” Alyson said, waving her hand just like SRK did.

Katie ignored Alyson, instead she checks her watch, smiles goofily and says “Let’s go now. It’s almost the time when we saw it first.”

They exit the school together and head to the Longing Bridge. One can say, that all of them are curious, that Katie isn’t the only one who believes in this or Natalee and Alyson do not want to believe this. Let’s see what happens next.