Puzzle Pieces

Chapter 4

After math and chemistry, two of my worst subjects ever, I met up with Xavier at lunch. We always ate in the center of the quad. Other crowds gathered at tables around ours. Xavier always waited, so we ate our lunch together. He smiled at me as I made my way to him.

"Hey, your brother wasn't in class today," he said before taking a drink of his Gatorade. I practically spit out my water.

"What do you mean he wasn't in class?"

"What I just said. He was a no show."

"What?" I asked rhetorically. Xavier shrugged.

If Noah wasn't in school, where the heck was he? He wouldn't have been up so early for nothing. We were alike in the wanting to wake up sometime in the afternoon. I mean it kind of made sense as to why he left me behind this morning, but still. Where would he have gone? I was all the more curious now that I have detention because of him! Freaking buttface!

"Well, he is going to hear it from me later. I have to miss practice to go to detention because of him! An hour and a half spent doing absolutely nothing," I said, opening my fruit cup. Some of the syrup spilled over the edge in my effort.

"You could do homework," Xavier stated without looking at me. I pursed my lips at him and lowered my eyebrows.

"That’s not the point. This point is, in getting detention, I get a demerit and if I get five, I get kicked off of the cheer squad. School rules," I said, shaking my head.

“Yeah, but that’s all sports. It’s not like they carry over from sophomore year, so you should be fine. How many demerits do you have right now?"

"Three," I answered. His eyebrows rose before he burst out laughing. He shook his head, raising an eyebrow.

"Wow. So, if Noah is to blame for this one, who's to blame for the other two?"

"Well, one was during debate and Mr. Murphy got mad because I made a case he couldn't argue against. You should remember that. Even other students agreed with my point. Since I wouldn't stop, even after he allegedly gave me a warning, he gave me detention. The other time Ms. Lawrence caught me and this really cute guy in the hallway during class.”

"Oh yeah. Good times. Well I blame the girl who wrote the note telling me to meet her in the hallway and not the janitor’s closet," he said with a laugh. I looked at him and he winked at me.

"Eh. Details," I said, waving my hand dismissively. He laughed again, but his laugh was cut short by Cara running up to our table, bumping into it. She sat and took deep breaths, checking her pulse. "Hey Care bear. What's up with you?"

I hadn't seen her run up like that since the time she beat the mile in six minutes. There was also the time she thought some boy band was coming to Sierra Hills. She was wrong. It didn't surprise me though. No one famous ever came to Sierra Hills. With a population of less than eight hundred people, who would want to?

"Rumor has it Noah ditched. Been gone all day," she answered, stretching her legs. I would have been more excited if she beat the mile in five minutes.

"Yeah I know. Xavier said he wasn't in class. Boy does he have some explaining to do. I mean, seriously! He could have dropped me off and then ditched. Or rather than waiting the five minutes for him, I could've started walking," I said, triggering my mind about my walk to school.

If I would've walked right when I came downstairs or if I had gotten a ride from Noah, I wouldn't have seen Katrina. Just thinking back to the dark-haired girl made all the hair on my body stand up. I keep hearing her scream in my ears. I let out a slow breath. It was just a dream. I’ve probably seen her before. That’s normal, right? To dream about people you’ve encountered.

"Oh. Well, there's another rumor. Do you want to hear it?" Cara asked, stopping my thoughts from racing. She turned all her attention to me. I took a deep breath. Cara could be a reporter at the Sierra Hills Gazette for all the information she obtained.

"Sure? Let's hear it," I answered hesitantly. She drummed on the table with her hands.

"Rumor has it that you are going to be nominated for May Day Queen. Congrats!"

"Wow. Really? That's unexpected," I said, taken aback. I've never been any kind of queen. It’s probably why Cara is overselling her excitement. She’s used to being Homecoming Queen, Winter Formal Queen, and previous May Day Queen. She was already getting ready for Prom Queen. "Well, even if I’m nominated, we already know who’s gonna win.”

"Maybe. Well anyway, I just thought you should know," Cara said, getting up from the table and walking away, leaving Xavier and I to finish our lunch. He looked after her, shaking his head.

"Man. Sometimes your friend can be a-"

"I know," I interrupted Xavier. "She has always been the one in the spotlight. I guess its news to her that somebody else was nominated and me of all people."

"What’s wrong with you being nominated? And what if you win?”

"Thanks, but it’s fine. Really, let Cara have it," I said with a smile. Sometimes Cara can be a little much, but she is still my best friend. You can’t be best friends with someone for so long and not know how they can be from time to time.

"So, how was the birthday dinner and cake yesterday?" he asked, changing the subject. His tone was off though. I don’t know if it was still because of Cara or he was still upset about not being able to join us.

"It was good. We went to that fancy Italian restaurant because my mom said, 'sixteen is a big year!' On the way home she stopped at a bakery and bought us cupcakes."

"Sounds fun. I want to spend Saturday with you. We'll go to the mall, maybe catch a movie, have some dinner, and then maybe go get some ice cream."

"That sounds like my kind of day," I said with a smile. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and gave me a gentle kiss. Holding on to him here, in this moment, I didn’t care about detention, Noah, or my nightmare.

We continued to eat our lunch in silence, then walked to class together. Call me crazy, but I actually liked debate. Maybe it's having a twin brother that made arguing so much fun? Or the fact that my dad was a lawyer? I don't know. Either way, I always looked forward to this class.

"Good afternoon students," Mr. Murphy said, resting against his desk; clearly in a good mood. Maybe he was hoping to get into a good debate today.

"Good afternoon," the class replied back.

"Alright. Today we are going to separate the class in half. Each of you will choose a person to argue your case tomorrow. So make sure to write down all the points of your case today, alright? Let's get started," he said, standing up and walking through the aisle. "These are the teams," he gestured in a separation movement and we knew that's where the teams separated. "This side is pros and this side is cons," he said, waving his arm over the sides. Xavier and I were on the same team, so I didn't have to worry about arguing against him.

Our debate topic was cell phone use in school. We were the cons on why we shouldn't be allowed to use cell phones in school. There was a long list of points about paying attention, where our focus was, and ultimately bad grades. The school was full of land lines, so why did we need cell phones in school other than personal preference? That might just be my cons mind thinking. There were a lot of pro's to cell phone use in school too. Like you had an easier way to get a hold of your parents if something were to happen. In case of an emergency, if the school lines were down, you could easily call 9-1-1. I really didn't care either way about cell phone use in school.

As the bell rang and students got up from their desks to go home for the day, Mr. Murphy called me up to his desk. "I'll call you later," Xavier said, giving me a kiss before walking out of the door.

"Yes Mr. Murphy?" I asked, approaching his desk.

"Annabel, tomorrow let someone else make the case for your team. I know that you usually volunteer, but let's have someone else get the chance, okay?" Mr. Murphy said, leaning back in his chair. Was he serious?

"What if they already voted me speaker?"

"Then, have them choose someone else. If you speak tomorrow, your whole team will receive an 'F' for participation."

"Is it really that big a deal?” I asked Mr. Murphy who sat up in his seat.

“It's nothing against you. I know that you're a good debater, and for that reason I encourage you to go into law, but I would like to hear from a fresh new voice," he said sympathetically. I gave him a shrug.

"Alright," I said before walking out of the class. My team had already planned on me being speaker. I'm the one that wrote down the notes and points that I was going to make and now we had to choose someone else? This sucked! I walked down the hall to the room detention is usually held in.

"Ms. James, glad to see you've made detention," Ms. Lawrence said as I walked into the classroom.

"Glad to be here," I said, sliding into one of the chairs near the door. She made a face, lowering her head again at me so her glasses slid down her nose and she stared into my eyes. I realized that she liked making that face a lot.

After the very long hour and a half of detention, and actually finishing my homework, I walked to Cara's so she could show me the routine they worked on. As I began to pass the bank, about halfway to Cara’s house, a face in the window stopped me dead in my tracks. All the air came out of my lungs and all the hair on my body stood up as a familiar face watched me from the window.

A tall man with an average body build wore a gray suit. He had short black hair and dark brown eyes behind thin framed glasses. The chill that ran down my spine, making me involuntarily shudder, told me that I could recognize this man anywhere, anytime. It was the man from my dream.