In Search

Alice stared ahead, watching the water in the river run. It didn’t churn, or dance, or do anything remotely poetic. It just was there, in a little wood no one but Alice ever came to. At least, that was what she liked to think. Probably, there were many people who came, who called the place their own. Alice tried not to feel possessive, but sometimes she could barely hold herself back from scratching her name, Alice Taylor Han, in every tree and rock, not caring about the life of trees. Someone, however, had beaten her there too; ‘HR + WN’ was carved into a little tree near the water. That was the one physical poetic thing. Who were HR and WN? How old were they? Were they really in love? When did they write that? Were they still together? Were they just good friends? Whoever they were, they were probably extremely, hold-me-down-so-I-don’t-float happy. Maybe what made it poetic was the fact that it was sad. Alice threw a rock at the tree. It missed and sailed into the brown river. Somehow, wondering about other people’s happiness made her feel slightly sad. One of the reasons she didn’t like imagining, was you trick yourself into thinking that you will attain happiness. Maybe that was why the initials were poetic, because they were sad. Could you be poetic and happy? For now, Alice just wasn’t sure.
Pushing herself up off the rock she sat on, she stood up and tried to look farther into the woods. What else was there? What others life of quiet desperation existed forever the in woods, not seen but still there forever? Grabbing the towel she’d been sitting on (she didn’t want embarrassing dirt stains on her favorite jeans), she jumped over the river and walked father along the wood, looking for something to make her feel more emotional and more real. Looking for signs of life, the way robots did on Mars. Right now, she felt like a wanderer, something she didn’t quite think she was. She gave up, however; and turned to walk home, with walls to keep her mind inside.
School the next day. School was definitely not for Alice. She had a few friends, but Fate had given her classes with none of them. Either Fate or the school’s policy to “mix everyone up.” Right. For people like Alice, that possibly never really worked. She wasn’t good at making the first move on friendship. Right now was, blissfully, study hall; a time when talking about anything but homework resulted in a demerit.
“Alice, right?” She looked up from her textbook, hair falling in front of her face. Her hair had not been cut in two years, so a lot of split-ends were in her face. Her eyes narrowed a little, and she bit her lip.
"Yeah?"
"Nice nails"
She instantly looked at her fingernails. Black, chipping, already earning her a demerit for "not dressing in the correct school uniform." Like anyone really did. But her nails were the same they'd been for weeks. Why get in trouble now? Why comment on them now?
"Thanks..."
The other girl stood at Alice's desk. She didn't seem too tall, but what did Alice know? She was behind a school desk. What did this girl want? She looked different. Her uniform was painfully long, down past the knee, the way they were sold at the new uniform store. Everyone had their skirt hemmed. Even Alice, in her small conformation. Why was the girl asking her? Who really looks around the room, and chooses to talk to the girl with black nail polish. Interesting.
"Do you have the math homework? I had a doctor's appointment, so I missed the class."
Oh. But she’d asked Alice, of all people. "Sure, it’s page one-oh-three, problems twenty through forty seven."
"Thanks."
Alice watched the girl walk away, to a cluster of desks. That was fast. Whatever, it wasn't Alice's deal.
But she watched the girl anyway, watched her bend her head to talk to another girl. The other girl pointed to Alice and nodded. She could imagine what was going on “That’s Alice Han. She doesn’t talk a lot, she barely has any friends. She’s smart, though.” Alice looked back at her textbook, back at problem twenty-eight. Yes, she was smart, yes, that was the biggest thing she had going for her. The bell rang, school was done, and she had survived another day. She grabbed her books, and headed out the door to her locker. Throwing books into her dark purple bag, she zipped it up and headed out the door.
Once inside the door of her home, she ran upstairs into her room and turned on her computer. Her school now was almost entirely based on the internet now, to the extent that if you were absent you could make up all the work. Even grades were posted there, a little awkward for Alice. She wasn’t even really smart; she just put in more work. It made her feel like a thief, gaining attention for something she really didn’t deserve. Finally her computer turned on. She’d accidentally done her math homework on the back of her Spanish homework, and she knew Profesora Gonzalez wouldn’t be thrilled with that. Ay muchachita. Alice turned on her internet, taking her to iGoogle. Surprise, surprise, two emails, and ten spam mails. Her two emails were from her friends, talking about random things in random ways. A little Chat button came up: “Blacksparkle would like to chat. Acceptable? Alice clicked yes. Who knew who it was, but there were always filters if it was some harasser.
blacksparkle: ur alice han, right?
aliceinwonder: depends on who u r
blacksparkle: i’m lane hijora. i asked u about math 2day.
Oh, the possible friend who had pointed at her. Worth talking to her.
aliceinwonder: oh. hey. wat’s up?
blacksparkle: nothing much. i was wondering what u r doing 2morrow.
Tomorrow was Friday. Friday was the weekend, doing something with someone on the weekend would be like having a social life.
aliceinwonder: nothing. why?
blacksparkle: i’m haven’t gotten around 2 buying my school stuff yet, and I have 2 walk to Tiyman’s to get binders and paper and stuff. I don’t really know my way around (I’m new) and could you come with me?
Alice looked at the screen, probably longer than IM etiquette permitted. She quickly typed:
aliceinwonder: i’m in. what time?
blacksparkle: can i meet u after school? at the locker wall? U can come 2 my house or something after.
aliceinwonder: great. See u tomorrow.
blacksparkle: I have 2 go work, bye.
“blacksparkle is no longer on line, chats sent to her will be delivered when she comes back on”
Alice quickly saved the chat. So she and Lane Hijora were buying school supplies together. Hmm. That was a step for Alice, being invited to things on the spur of the moment. She could do it, though.
At her last class the next day, Alice stared at the clock, as always. . Sometimes it seemed to Alice like school would never end. Sure, the seniors counted the days, but they never accounted that, even after 68 days of school were done, they’d have three months then they’d back, counting again. What did it lead to? College? And than to what? What do you do in a life? What go grades really count? Why did they affect her so much? Her history teacher handed out tests, girl to girl to girl. Alice looked at hers. “97%,” A! Was written at the top. Whoopee. She checked to see what she had gotten wrong. Odd. She hadn’t gotten one problem wrong, rather little points off many problems. That almost always happened to her. She got close, but not close enough. Whatever She zoned out, as Mrs. Black went over the answers. Why focus, to understand why she’d got .25 taken off problem one? She saw Lane sitting at the desk in front of her. She also looked a little zoned out as well. Judging that Mrs. Black was normally pretty interesting, this was rare. Alice pulled a piece of paper out of her binder and scribbled: “Hey. So we’re definitely on for after school, right? –Alice.” When Mrs. Black turned to make a timeline of Iranian dynasties on the board, Alice slipped the note onto Lane’s desk, and then resumed drawing clothes in her notebook. Dress after dress, all of which she thought were gorgeous, although her frame would never look good in any of them. She turned a page and, since it was history class, started writing her own timeline. It was covered, however; by a hand and a note. “Hey A, yep defiantly.”
After another thirty minutes and Alice had designed an entire clothing line, history was done Alice thanked Mrs. Black and grabbed her books.
“Hey Alice.” Alice slowed to let Lane catch up with her, readjusting her books.
“Hey Lane. What’s new?”
“Nothing much. That class kind of crawled along.”
“Yep. Normally it’s so much faster.”
“I know. I have to get my science stuff, see you after school.”
Lane kept following Alice, chatting as they hiked from one end of the building from the other. It was kind of odd, thinking that someone cared about talking to her enough to walk around their gigantic school building with her. Lane’s locker was probably on the other side of the building, in the narrow hallway reserved for people with last names that started with Z and new people. The school had a policy to give people their same locker year after year, but it resulted in new people sticking out longer than they should have. Alice reached her locker, nested between Victoria Hae’s locker and Sally Ian’s locker. Pulling it open, she realized for the first time that her locker was pretty bare, without any decorations but random notes people had stuck up and papers and quotes and junk. The thing that set it off though was that a previous owner had stuck up pink paper with blue flamingos, and hadn’t bothered to take it all down. Lane, peering into the locker, started to laugh.
“Nice paper,” she laughed before dropping her stuff on the floor. “This note is awesome too: ‘Hey A, had a bad day?’ I love the rhyme!”
Alice turned and looked at the note Lane was pointing too. “It actually was one of the worst days of my life,” she said, smiling.
“What happed? You tried to rhyme but didn’t have time?”
“No, hilarious, that wasn’t it.”
Lane stopped for a minute “That really was funny.”
“Right. As original as the note that started it all.
“Nice one. But seriously, what happened?”
“Too much stuff. My parents were fighting and all my clothes were dirty and some random strangers threw a snowball at me.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Stinks. That stuff really happens to you?”
“Really.”
Alice put all her books in her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Okay, Ms. Lucky, let’s load up your bag, and maybe a textbook will fall on you!”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Well I am unlucky.”
“You actually are genuinely funny.”
“Louie, I have the feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“Totally corny come to mind too.”
“Like the classic Casablanca is corny.”
Debating Casablanca and its quotes, they started walking to Lane’s locker. Alice, for once in her life, couldn’t stop talking. The weirder thing was, she didn’t want to stop talking either.