Whispers of Courage - Whispers

Chapter Three

At the doors to the cafeteria, Luna was waiting for her friends. Jackson was the first to show up. Not much later, came Kate. They head in with their lunches and look for a place to sit. Almost every table was full. Except for one near the back. It was warm outside, so they chose to eat out there. Luna takes her hood off. She’s not afraid if her friends see how weird she is. She trusts them. They talked about what they did in their classes that were before lunch. And Jackson and Luna showed Kate their slimes. Luna gave Kate one of her extras so she wouldn’t feel left out.

“What are your guy’s full schedules for today and tomorrow?” Kate asked between bites of her sandwich.

“Hmm. I’ll need to check. Let me finish my rice first.” Luna says with a mouthful.

“Okay, Jackson?”

Jackson pulls out his schedule. “My schedule for today is: Science, Chemistry, Multimedia, Lunch, Gym, Art, and Theater. And for tomorrow, I have: History, Chemistry, L.A, Lunch, Library, Math, and Theater. I have theater as my last class everyday, and I have Chemistry everyday as second period.”

Luna had finished her rice a minute before he was finished saying what his schedule was. “Okay so, my classes today are; Math, Chemistry, L.A, Lunch, Gym, Art, and Theater. Oh cool! Jackson, we have a lot of classes together today, don’t we? Let’s see tomorrow’s schedule. Home Economics, Chemistry, Science, Lunch, Woodshop, Art, and Theater. My Theater and Chemistry classes stay the same as well as Art it seems. What do you have Kate?”

Kate finishes the last part of her sandwich and says; “My schedules are like this: So todays is; Math, History, Gym, Lunch, Exploring Technology, L.A, and Kitchen Preparation. Ugh. So lame. Tomorrow, I have; Home Economics, Gym, Science, Lunch, Woodshop, Theatric Engineering, and Multimedia. At least I get gym everyday! Hooray. Only 3 classes with you Luna. I’m so happy.”

Kate clearly wasn’t actually happy though. Her cousin got to see Luna a lot more so far. She couldn’t hangout with Luna much at all.

“Cheer up Kate. I’m sure we’ll have more classes together come Friday.”

Luna tried what she could to cheer her friend up. The bell rings. “Here. Here is my number. Call, text, or video chat with me whenever you want. You can even come over after school if you’d like. You both can. I’m usually home and free anyhow. Just give me a call. Okay Kate?”

“Okay. Thank you Luna. We better get going. Bye. See you guys after school. Same tree up front?”

Jackson and Luna both nod. “Bye Kate.” They say, almost in sync. Luna puts her hood back on and Kate leaves for her next class as Luna and Jackson go to their lockers.

“I feel bad for Kate.” Jackson says as he grabs his gym clothes and puts his backpack away.

“Yeah. Me too.” Luna hangs her backpack up and grabs the bag with her gym clothes and shoes. They walk to the gymnasium without another word.

Luna walks into the girls’ changing room and goes into a stall. She changes into her gray short sleeved shirt, which also had a hood, black shorts, and gray and white shoes. After she’s done changing, she puts her original clothes into the bag and walks out of the stall with her hood on. Once most everyone was either gone or in a stall, she pulled her hood down and brushed her hair, put the bow in her bag, and braided it into one single french braid. Then she put her hood back on and walked out.

Mr. Patterson, the gym teacher, told everyone to make a straight line shoulder to shoulder. Jackson found Luna and stood next to her. Mr. Patterson did attendance and then sorted them into teams for dodgeball.

“The following people will be on Team Blue. Jason, Carren, Karson, Tim, Lin, Joseph, Connor, Sarah, Ella, Jessica, Lucas, and Luna. Go to the right side of the gym. The rest of you, go to the left side of the gym. You are Team Red. When I say go, you may run to the center line, and grab a ball. But. You must run back, and touch the wall with the ball before you can throw. You all understand?” The class yells in confirmation. “On your marks, get set…” He stops. “Hey! You with the hood! You’re Luna right?”

“Y—Yes sir.”

“Take the hood off! No jewelry or any other type of accessory including hoods and jackets are allowed during class! Everyone got that!? Now. Luna. Please take off the hood.”

“But…”

“No buts Luna. Or you’ll have to speak with the principal.”

“Fine.” She takes it off muttering angrily under her breath. Jackson knew why she didn’t want to take it off, but he couldn’t do anything about it. All he could do was stand there, be quiet, and watch in worry.

Great. And just as I thought this day was going well. She sighs quietly. Well. Hopefully this will be the only “bad” thing happening today.

Everyone except Luna and Jackson gasp when she pulled down her hood down and pulled her braid to lay on her shoulder.

“Alright. Enough of that everyone! Luna, come see me when class is over.” She looks down. “On your marks!” Everyone immediately stops staring at Luna and focuses on the balls and the other team.

“Get set! Go!”

They all rush to get a ball. When they were able to throw, many people threw the balls at her. She dodged all of them, nearly getting hit multiple times and threw balls back. A girl from the Red Team yells.

“Hey Luna! What’s wrong? Embarrassed by your freakish hair!?” The girl laughs.

A boy from the same team yells “You better watch out! ‘Cause we don’t like weirdos here. And we definitely don’t like it when they steal what isn’t theirs. Attention.”

The kids looked like twins. A boy next to her, who she believes his name was Lucas, says “I’d be careful if I were you. Those two are the school bullies. Their names are Chloe and James. They’re twins if you couldn’t tell. They are a lot of trouble. Better watch your back. Always.”

Chloe and James snicker. “Yo! Freak! Catch these!” James and Chloe each throw a ball at Luna at the same time expecting her not to catch them and get out of the game for the rest of the round.

But they were wrong. Luna had caught both of them. One in each hand. Mr. Patterson blows his whistle.

“James, Chloe, that’s an out! Both of you!”

James and Chloe gasp and stomp over to the side mumbling to each other how that was an impossible catch and that they shouldn’t be out.

The rest of the students cheered and they continued their game more fairly. Team Red was winning for most of class, but in the end, Blue had won. Luna got to know a lot more people during that class. She was starting to wonder if showing who she really was, would help her get over her shyness and her less adventurous side.

When the bell rang, so many people wanted to talk to her and ask her questions. As she changed back into her regular clothes, she remembered that she needed to talk to Mr. Patterson.

Ugh. I forgot. How could I forget a stupid thing like that. Nothing I can do about that now. Luna sighs.

When she was changed and her hair was back to what it was, she walked over to Mr. Patterson. As she was walking towards the teacher, Jackson shows up beside her and asks her a question. “Where are you going? We have Art.”

“I have to talk to Mr. Patterson, remember?”

“Oh yeah… I forgot sorry. Is it okay if I just wait for you then?”

“Sure. Though, it might make you late. I forgot too so no worries.” They both laugh. “Well, I guess I’ll see you in a minute. Right after Mr. Patterson torments me.” They laugh once more then split off.

Luna walks towards the Gym teacher, while Jackson goes over to the nearest wall and leans against it. “Ah you’re here. I was starting to wonder if you either had forgotten or ignored the fact that you had to come talk to me.”

“Yeah, well, I actually did kinda forget, but I remembered just barely.”

“Good thing too. So. What I wanted to talk to you about Luna, is your hair. Students aren’t allowed to have dyed or colored hair during the school year.”

“Mr. Patterson let me explain. I—” She was cut off by the sound of the bell ringing.

“No ifs ands or buts, Luna. I want you to have your original hair color by tomorrow morning. Principal Neilson will hear about this as soon as possible and an email will be sent to your mother. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Luna grumbles.

“Good. Now take these and give it to your next teacher. There is one for your friend too. Make sure he does the same.” He holds out two laminated pieces of paper.

She takes the slips of paper and walks over to Jackson. When she’s halfway to where Jackson was standing, she puts her hood on, hiding her hair once more. She then hands him one of the papers.

“So?” he asks. But Luna stays quiet. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well considering the way you’re ignoring me and showing that you’re not very happy.” She stays quiet until they reach the Art room. Before they walk in, Luna says that she’d tell him later.

Art is one of Luna’s favorite things to do. It was where she could draw and paint what she was feeling. She was free from the rest of the world. Whenever she draws, it calms her down. And after that talk with Mr. Patterson, she needed it. At home, whenever she was upset or for any other reason, she would go up to her room, grab all her art supplies, and go up to the caves on the hill behind her house. Her main cavern was hidden. No one had ever been there. It was like it was invisible to everyone but her. It was like another room in her house just for her. Just this one wasn’t in her house. It was behind it.

If something terrible ever happened, she would take the most stuff she could that were essential for living, and she’d live in her special cave. She would even include all her art stuff because to her, she needed it in her life everyday. Any kind of art. Especially if she was the one to create it. Most of the time she called her cave her calming cavern or room, her room of life, and her cave of peace. Veronica was the only person who knew that whenever Luna was frustrated, sad or even if she just wanted to, Luna was up in the caves behind their house. But even she didn’t know which one.

When class ended, Miss Rose told her that her art pieces are extraordinary and that Luna should partake in both the school, and the state art festivals. Luna wasn’t sure she should. She didn’t believe her work was good enough to compete against the other art pieces during the festivals. Luna had been to a few of the state art festivals with her family and those who had entered their art work in, had real talent.

Luna had taught herself art. She had raw talent. When she first saw the festival’s art, she told herself that she wasn’t talented enough and that she should never enter in the contest.

Jackson agreed with Miss Rose. He believed she could win, if not get at least second place. Miss Rose put her magnificent piece up on the wall to dry and be seen by others.

Theater was next. The last class of the day. A.K.A, Luna’s next getaway. For the first half of class, they talked about the importance and the history behind the theater. For the last half, she got to start making props and the set for the school’s upcoming play. She and Jackson had a little paint war against each other and were sent to clean up before class ended. But apparently they didn’t get all of it because after class got out, they met up with Kate at the bottom of the stairs and she asked what was most likely the most obvious question to ask; “Did you guys roll around in some paint in art or something?!” Kate of course laughed at them and her own question.

“Surprisingly, no.” Jackson said as he started to laugh at what had actually happened and Kate’s question. Luna joins him while trying to explain to her what actually happened.

“Actually, it happened in theater. We were painting sets and I don't fully remember what caused it, but I believe it was something your cousin had said that made me start a paint war. Something like that.” They all laugh.

“I was only asking because Jackson has yellow paint in his hair, on his shirt, all over his shoes, and you have purple paint in the white parts of your hair, and white paint on your pants. But that does seem like an interesting story. I want to hear both of your ways of telling it. Not now of course though, we got a bus to catch.”

They quickly run up to their lockers and grab their stuff. As Luna was grabbing her stuff, she noticed that one of her books had fallen to the bottom of her locker.

That’s odd. I didn’t put it near the edge of the shelf. Did I?

She picks it up and puts it in her backpack. A folded piece of paper falls to the ground from inside the book. She picks it up. Luna gasps quietly.