Miss Naughtie Two-Shoes and the Rebel

Chapter 11

This morning, she comes to school earlier than usual.

Uncle Chris was surprised that she woke up before him and had already made coffee and fried some bacon and eggs.

“Why are you leaving so early?” Uncle Chris asks. “Do you have the key to your classroom? Are you the gatekeeper now?”

She left giving Uncle Chris her eye-roll-cross-eyed combo.

After conducting a brief recon, she finds the perfect hiding spot – behind a heavily-graffitied storage container van partially concealed by a fully-grown katmon tree at the far-end of the campus.

It is just a few yards away from where the scuffle between Trae and Roy took place. And she remembered it as she was weighing her options last night, if she considered commuting to school an option at all. Uncle Chris would have suspected, interrogated and water-boarded her into telling the truth. And lying is not one of her best talents.

There was no way Trae could not have lured Roy into this place, because basically, it’s a no man’s land. She finds an old tarp beside the piles of broken folding chairs and old props leaning on the doored side of the van. A pool of stagnant water gathered into the greenish, moldy crook that formed in the center of the tarp as it was left haphazardly about. Her nose automatically crinkles at the revolting smell of stale urine wafting in the morning breeze and it almost makes her gag. On a second thought, it offers an additional layer of protection because it will surely put off the scoundrels – the reason why she is going through all this trouble. Holding her breath as she circles around the rusty stockroom, she drags the tarp by the tips of her fingers, relieved that the underside is not as bad as the exposed topside. She then lifts it over her bike, draping it fully – and cautiously, so that the makeshift covering only touches just the bare centimeters of the tip of her fingers. She left her helmet hanging from the handle bar of the bike beforehand.

Her day has not even begun and she’s already sweating profusely. But she comes fully prepared. She takes out a two-liter water jug from her bag and chugs a third of its content. Boy, was she thirsty. Her internal temperature instantly drops several degrees and she feels so much better. She uses the remaining water to clean her hands. She shakes the moisture off her hands and rubs the lingering dampness over her silky hair. It makes her smile. Her crowning glory, indeed. It’s her favorite part of her body. A full head of thick, long, midnight black strands that just soak in all the fragrance of whatever shampoo she uses. And she uses just about any kind of shampoo; she doesn’t have a single favorite brand. When it comes to shampoo, she’ll splurge and skimp and try everything. One time she ran out of shampoo, she used Uncle Chris’s Head and Shoulders for Men. And it's not so bad either.

Uncle Chris will always say she got her beautiful hair from her mom. And it’s pretty much the only mommy-and-daughter memory he can tell her since he and her mom had been estranged for a very long time. Uncle Chris only learned he has a niece after her mother passed away when she was just five years old. It was fortunate that Child Social Welfare was able to track Uncle Chris. If they hadn’t, she could have ended up in an orphanage or a foster family. Worse, she could have ended up in the street. And her life would be so much different. And she wouldn’t be in the back-alley of their school looking like she’s hiding a dead body.

She pulls out a scrunchie from the back pocket of her jeans. The front pockets of women’s pants are so small they’re practically non-existent. It’s totally useless it’s so frustrating, tailors should not have bothered themselves putting them in. There should be a revolution specially dedicated to that; it’s an affront to all the women in the world. Women also have things to put in their front pockets just like any other man.

She ties her hair in a tight pony tail and begins her power walk toward the main buildings. But with every powerful stride, she can feel and hear water slosh around her belly. And only a few seconds later, she suffers from one of those god-awful stitches in her side. She winces in pain and regrets having drunk all that water. Taking one tentative step after another, she glances at her watch. If she continues in this pace, she will be locked out of her first-period class. And it’s math and she doesn’t want to miss math. Math is sequential, lessons build upon previous concepts. Miss a lesson and you’re done. She groans as she practically drags herself to walk. Whenever she’s having a side-splitting episode like this after having a full tummy, it’s as if her appendix has just been removed and the anesthesia has just worn off. Not that she had an appendectomy before, it’s just how she has always imagined it would feel.

Miraculously, the pain has subsided and she can walk her normal walk. She passes by the parking lot and surveys the place begrudgingly. For two days in a row, she came to a flat tire. And twice in a row is too much of a coincidence. Someone is purposely doing it. She had to run flat those two instances to the nearest vulcanizing shop and risked damaging her rims. Yesterday, it was alternating between running limp and walking. It’s impossible to walk her bike all the way to vulcanizing without contracting a heat stroke. And calling Uncle Chris for rescue is totally a no-go.

The parking lot is filling up with vehicles and she scans the surroundings for any suspicious-looking loiters. Skinny guy, wearing a reverse-length outfit – low waist pants that look more like elongated shorts and an extra-long shirt – and a bonnet with a fluorescent green Monster logo patch, wanders around on a skateboard as though the whole area is his playground. Typical. Teeny-bopper girl perched on top of a car trunk makes out with a boy standing in front of her. Cute. A professor – he looks old to be a student – puffs billows of cigarette smoke inside his car with a half-rolled window, running a fairly decent chance at an early end-stage lung cancer. Typical. Tall, attractive guy with an enigmatic expression on his face leans against a wall with one foot up and hands stuffed in his pocket and is also called Trae. Very cute.

Her chest tightens and she almost trips over her feet because her knees start to wobble as his dark, brooding eyes scrutinizes her. She clutches the strap of her bag pulling it higher on her shoulder. Her feet do the cha-cha as she contemplates between moving forward and backtracking. The urge to do a U-turn is strong. But follow the Force, she must. Because the Force dons a vintage Star Wars t-shirt that showcases his immaculately defined arms, chest and abs. And the Force awakens in her feelings that she could only describe but not identify.

Spine-tingling.

Heart-stopping.

Mind-numbing.

Inflating her lungs with air, she continues to stroll forward. He stands perfectly still like a statue near the archway but his gaze is unrelenting. Even if she’s not directly looking at him, she knows he’s staring. She can feel his eyes on her. Burning her skin and sending color to her cheeks.

When there’s only a meter of distance between them, Trae leaves his post and marches toward her. Their eyes meet. His darken further. Their arms brush. Her stomach does a somersault. He draws his breath. Her hair cascades about her shoulders.

As they sailed past each other, she felt a tug and then her hair came undone. She runs a hand over her hair and finds that her ponytail is gone. Trae’s light chuckle makes her spin on her heels. She can see him walking backwards as he plays with what looks like… her dusty pink scrunchie. His eyes dance in gleeful mischief as he slides the scrunchie down his wrist and saunters away.

By lunchtime, she catches a glimpse of Trae with his male friends in the cafeteria. When their eyes lock, his full lips forms an impish grin. Deliberately, he twists her scrunchie around his wrist. And then he lifts it to his nose and gives it a sniff, fluttering his eyes close as if to relish the smell.

She purses her lips to one side then rolls her eyes. God, what a man-child! He can have it. She has a drawer full of them: velvet, silk, lace and just about all the colors in the color wheel. He can have her fabulously shampoo-smelling scrunchie and shove it up his thumb-sucking baby a**.

Thankfully, Trae does not bother her and Nikki and they get to eat their lunch in peace. When Trae and his gang leaves, he clamps his hands together behind him for Andy to see. Which Nikki also sees.

“Is that a girl’s hair tie Trae is wearing like a bracelet?” Nikki asks incredulously.

“Yup. Mine,” Andy replies without lifting her chin, her tone expressionless.

Nikki mouths an O, then says, “Maybe if he wears it long enough, he can turn it into a fad.”

“Imagine.” Andy snorts, shaking her head. “I can make a small fortune. I’ll sell them my millions of scrunchies.”

“Exactly. Imagine, if it cost one peso apiece and sold one million of them, then you’ll have one million pesos easy. Make it three pesos apiece and that's three million. That’s not a small fortune. Fastest way to become a millionaire.”

Andy laughs harder. “You have a convoluted idea of entrepreneurship.” She raises her glass to her mouth and drinks.

“I’m a sav-ant.” Nikki enunciates every syllable with a breathy flourish from air coming out of her nostrils. Reminding her of Donkey from Shrek when he makes one of those faces to show his swagger, it makes Andy spit her drink in her face and howl in hysterical laughter.

Andy quickly grabs a wad of tissue paper and reaches over to wipe the water off Nikki’s face. “I’m sorry, Nikki.”

Nikki laughs too and repeats her facial expression a few more times, eliciting guffaws from Nikki. When her sides begin to hurt from laughing too much, Andy clutches her middle and holds up her hand in surrender. “Enough, enough,” she begs Nikki, out of breath.

And then they both fall perfectly silent. Andy appears to be lost in thought.

After several seconds of awkward silence, Nikki asks, “What are you thinking?”

Andy lets out a deep sigh. “I hope no one finds the body.”