The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (4 page)

Mikalah turned from her
sister, brushing the same lock of hair she’d been twiddling about
her finger behind her ear and smiled.

Elena’s predictability
always made her chuckle. Her sister was like clockwork, constantly
striving to be the best at any task. She was a determined, very
organized young mind that always surged ahead of others (or tried
to tell everybody what to do, as Mikalah saw it). Sometimes, Elena
could be extremely impatient with anyone who couldn’t keep up with
her ever-moving mind. Sometimes, Mikalah liked to play dumb just to
see what sort of reaction she could rouse out of her sister.
Sometimes it was a smirk and a snide remark, sometimes an
exasperated explosion of air would escape her throat. She would
walk away wanting nothing to do with Mikalah. That was always the
best and often made Mikalah laugh aloud. Typically, this made Elena
even madder.

Elena will always be
Elena
, thought Mikalah as she continued to
glance around the class waiting for something, anything, to
happen.

A quick succession of
knocks at the door nearest the front of the classroom brought every
child’s head up and a few gasps of surprise from her classmates.
Mrs. Smith let out a quiet, “Okay now”, and made her way to the
door. With her left hand, she opened the door and took a step to
the side and back, leaving the way clear for the
newcomers.

Mikalah snatched a quick
glance at her sister again, but Elena wasn’t heeding her now. Her
sister’s eyes were glued to happenings at the front of the
class.

“
Class, may I have your
attention, please?”

A moot request, thought
Mikalah. Everyone was already riveted.

“
We have a new student
joining us today,” went on Mrs. Smith, gesturing to the figures
standing at the threshold of the room.

As a unit, the class
turned to gaze at a small, pale-skinned girl. She stepped somewhat
shyly in front of the gangly form of Mr. Henderson, the school
principal. She wore a white, knee-length dress. Around her waist
was a matching blue ribbon. She was dressed more formally than the
girls and boys of Yorkdale Elementary School were used to seeing.
Her attire wasn’t in accordance with the school’s dress code, since
all dresses had to be dark or navy blue, which was clearly stated
in the many memos mailed to parents over the summer vacation
months.

Well, she is new,
thought Mikalah.
How is
she supposed to know anyway?

Her hair was
bleach-blonde, but not the usual golden-blonde haired sort so often
associated with Los Angeles. Rather, it was many hues lighter and
rail straight, cut just below her ears with a slight inward curl at
the ends. She wore no bangs; instead, she wore her hair parted in
the middle, showing her broad, smooth forehead. Compared to most of
the girls in the class, she was at least a hand shorter than the
average and slighter of frame by ten to fifteen pounds.

She looks like a first
grader
was Mikalah’s first impression of
the girl.

“
Her name,” went on Mrs.
Smith, “is Nixy.” This caused most of the students to sit up a bit
straighter, glancing at one another in surprise.

A strange name,
indeed!

The sisters shared a
mutual expression. W
eeeeirrrrd
, was the silent message
between them
.

Undaunted by the quizzical
expressions of her class, Mrs. Smith continued. “She is from
Scandinavia, which is a country very far from here,
so
I would like for all
of you to show her how comforting and welcoming we can be here in
the United States.”

Heads swiveled back and
forth like a field full of Meerkats. The kids peered amongst
themselves, Mrs. Smith and finally back to the newest member of
their class.

“
Okay, so who would like
to be Nixy’s partners for today, and show her how we do things here
at Yorkdale?” asked the teacher.

Almost immediately, Elena
raised her hand and announced, “I would like to!”

Mikalah rolled her eyes at
her “Miss-Do-it-all” sister, knowing Elena wasn’t just offering her
services but Mikalah’s as well. Because, god forbid, Elena could
NEVER do anything on her own. Since, she always had to be the
center of attention; she’d always drag Mikalah into doing what she
didn’t feel like doing at the time.

What a freakin brown
noser! Why does she always have to include me in all of her
little-miss-do-good plans? Can’t she do anything on her
own!

Mrs. Smith looked around
at the rest of the students, then gazed back at Elena, and did a
circuit about the class once more. “Come on now, who else…?” She
asked after a time.

Mikalah sighed, knowing
Elena was going to pull her into the mix no matter what she did, so
why not, at least get credit for it with Mr. Henderson looking
on.

“
I will, Mrs. Smith,”
ventured Mikalah with a raised hand, her voice not nearly as
enthusiastic as her sisters’ had been.

“
Ah, the Herrera’s come to
the rescue again,” decried the teacher with a smiling glance toward
Mr. Henderson, who seemed quite pleased with the outcome of this
initial encounter.

He turned and made a
slight waist-high wave to the class and moved to leave the
room.

Mikalah watched his tweed
encased form retreat into the deeper recesses of the hallway and
out of sight, when…

“
So it’s settled,”
continued Mrs. Smith to Nixy. “Why don’t you go and sit in-between
Elena and Mikalah, dear. We’ll have Jessica come and sit up front
here where there is still room. Come on Jessica, come and sit up
here beside me.”

Jessica grimaced at having
to sit so close to the teacher, but didn’t utter a sound. She began
to gather her things for the move, while Nixy shouldered her
heretofore unseen backpack. With measured steps, she began to move
down the aisle of desks to sit between the sisters, nodding to each
of them as she sat down and began to unpack some of her school
supplies.

Over the pale girls’ back,
the two sisters smiled at one another. Elena was quite satisfied,
while Mikalah’s was full of sarcasm and mock thanks.

Dragged me into the frying
pan AGAIN,
thought Mikalah as she looked
away disgusted just as Mrs. Smith began to commence with the day’s
first lesson.

The door closed with an
audible click.

*****

Mr. Henderson, long gone,
already most of the way back toward his office, was thinking of the
strange little girl entirely done up in white – skin, hair, and
clothes.
She
was
entirely
white
, he mused for a while as he walked
up to the private entrance to his office. He inserted the key to
the locked door and walked within the room beyond, seeing huge pile
of paperwork stacked upon his desk. His thoughts strayed to the
grind of his typical workday. He sighed, all notions of the
pale-skinned girl in white buried before the onslaught of the
bureaucracy that sometimes dominated his task of running Yorkdale
Elementary School.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

2
^nd
Nutrition

Thursday, November
18
^th
,
10:20am…

“
Because our playground is
so small and we have a lot of kids going to this school, we have
three recesses and three lunches. That way there is enough room for
everyone to play without the yard being overcrowded. It can get
kinda dangerous when a bunch of goofy kids are running around,
acting crazy,” explained Elena.

She, Nixy and her sister
Mikalah stood in the breakfast line underneath the large awnings
covering the tables and benches of the eating area in the northern
portion of the schoolyard.

“
The
little kids go first. You know, the 1
^st
and
2
^nd
graders, and then we go – the 3
^rd
graders with half of the
4
^th
graders. The big kids go last. You know, the rest of the
4
^th
graders and 5
^th
graders,” droned Elena.

Nixy nodded here and
there, but mostly watched the multitude of children eating, talking
and running about. She had a strange look on her face that Mikalah
couldn’t quite discern. She frowned. Then she caught Elena looking
at her from the other side of Nixy. She rolled her eyes.

“
Elena,
you don’t
HAVE
to
tell her everything on the first day,” whined
Mikalah.

“
Why not, she has to know
the rules, right?” considered Elena. “Besides, Mikalah, you’re just
bored, because you already know all of this stuff.”

“
No, I’m bored, because
you just talk too much about things that don’t need to be talked
about. I think you just like the sound of your own voice too much.
Because I don’t, I’m sick of you talking already.”

“
It’s okay, really,”
interjected Nixy in her thick-tongued accent, though she betrayed
no expression and continued to stare about at the milling mass of
kids. Her eyes were cold and distant, as if she were thinking of
something else entirely. She gave off the impression the sisters
weren’t worthy of her full attention. Her focus was
elsewhere.

Elena made a face at her
sister, taking a few side steps as they crept ever closer to the
front of the line. For a second time, Mikalah frowned at Nixy’s
expression.

“
Okay, since this is
Friday,” Elena proceeded as if she had never been interrupted,
“we’re probably going to have a muffin or corn bread for breakfast
with milk or juice –.”

“
Sometimes they have
chocolate milk,” Mikalah piped, suddenly excited to talk about
something that interested her.

“
Yeah, that’s right,” said
Elena, giving Mikalah a hard look. “Do you like chocolate milk,
Nixy?”

“
I don’t know. I’ve never
had it before.”

Both sisters took a half
step back in surprise.

“
Yeah right,” said
Mikalah, chortling. “Everyone’s had chocolate milk before. You’re
just playing a joke on us.”

Nixy glanced at Mikalah
with her stone-washed, blue eyes and gave her what appeared to be a
tentative smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “No, where I come from
we don’t have this… this… chocolate.”

“
Wow, Scandinavia must be
very far away from most things then, huh?” inquired
Elena.

“
You have no idea,”
muttered Nixy. Her smile broadened. Neither of the girls caught
sight of her tongue as it danced across the front of her teeth,
playful and gay - a tongue that was way too big for a child of her
size.

“
Yeah, with no chocolate
that place has gotta to suck.”

Elena gave Mikalah a sharp
look for saying such a thing.

“
What?” pleaded Mikalah
with a silent shrug. Then, she said aloud, “a place with no
chocolate has gotta suck big-time, don’t you think?”

“
Well,
yeah, but…..jeez, Mikalah, you don’t
have
to be so completely honest
about it.” Elena spread her arms wide.

“
Why?” Mikalah raised her
eyebrows, challengingly.

“
Well, I hope I get to try
some then,” intoned Nixy with another small upturn of her lips, her
tongue vanishing. Her head was on a swivel, almost as though she
was looking for someone.

The line progressed as
usual, and before long, the three girls each had a muffin and milk,
but there hadn’t been any chocolate milk left. So, the sisters made
their way toward their favorite table in a disappointed silence.
Nixy, in tow, couldn’t stop gazing left and right at the multitude
of children playing and hollering around them.

When they had seated
themselves, Nixy quickly waved her right hand in front of her chest
all of a sudden. Over her food, she made in a series of complex
gestures and signs, chanting in some queer language that neither of
the sisters could make out. Abruptly, she closed her eyes for a few
breaths before she exhaled, re-opened her eyes and glanced
about.