He was conscious of sitting in a room with the new girl. The new girl who looked quite small for their age. The new girl that was clearly unafraid to tell the teacher she was wrong. Quite loudly, her remembered. So, they were being punished together. Him for leaving class without a pass and she for causing a racket.
Everything about this little troublemaker was a mystery. Why she doodled in every class like she wasn’t paying attention. Why she moved here at all. Why she never took off the coat that hung just below her waistline. It was old. Threads pulling out from here and there. The seasons changed but she never took it off. Never went to any parties. A few months and she made no friends. That part wasn’t a mystery. She was prickly and quick witted. He liked her though. Many times he caught himself smiling at an offhanded joke she let loose on someone else.
It was last month he started to see her differently. At the store, he turned a corner and heard her voice even before he saw her. He couldn’t follow everything . “I can’t go to parties mum”, “people will see the bruises”, “nobody likes me at school.” “What’s the point?”. At the last statement, her lips quivered. Her mother gathered her gently and quickly . “You’re just sick, nothing is wrong with you. Everyone gets sick.”
Today he decided to be a little braver. Sitting way behind her, he threw his voice across the room. “I’m having a party, you know”. She ignored him. Her chin set on the sketch book she was doodling into. “Everyone is coming. It’s a coat party”, she ignored him. “Everyone who takes their coat off has to leave”, she ignored him. Maybe even doodled a little more furiously. He rattled off his address, the date and time.
She never looked up or said a word. He didn’t know if she heard him at all, until she stood on his front porch with her mother that Saturday afternoon, dressed in her coat with a scowl and a present for him.
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