“Then why would you say them?”
“You were burying yourself so deep in your misery that you were becoming numb to your surroundings, which leaves you vulnerable to an attack. I was trying to break you out of it, and was aiming to make you feel a different emotion. I figured anger would have been the easiest one to get you to feel, but I completely disregarded joy. I forgot how easy it is to make you humans laugh.” He stood back up; a large chocolate stain ran down his pants. His face kept shifting from utter disgust at the milk on his clothes to remorse for hurting her.
She couldn’t help it—she started laughing again. Even though his reasoning behind being rude to her was terrible, the laughter did help her the rest of the day. She was even able to raise her hand in class and answer two questions. She didn’t believe it, but Jared’s attempt at caring by pretending not to…worked.
Sara even noticed a slight change in her when she picked her up from school.
“Did you have a good day, honey?” she asked while frowning at the brown stain on Mina’s pants.
“No, it was awful. The worst first day of school ever,” Mina answered with a huge grin on her face.
Chapter 8
Nan was rightfully suspended from school for a week. Which left Mina completely defenseless against Ever’s constant French-fry thieving. The pixie had a serious thing for French fries. But it also put her right between Brody and Jared.
Lunch period was painful and awkward. Whenever Brody tried to ask Mina a question, Jared would interject and turn the subject back to Nan. Ever, frustrated by Jared’s lack of attention, turned to tossing food in the air and catching it in her mouth. It wasn’t until Ever almost choked on one of the French fries that the boys calmed down their feud and turned to helping the girl not choke to death.
For once in her life, Mina was thankful for the pixie’s interference. Now, if she could only interfere and find a way for Mina to get out of her Tuesday/Thursday P.E. class.
Mina was terrified of gym class, and tried hard to stay out of the way of the more athletic students. She also hated gym because she was forced to change into stupid gym shorts, and she always thought her legs were too skinny, like a chicken or duck. The other girls wore their gym clothes like they walked straight off the runway. Mina’s gym clothes, no matter how she folded them, always looked like they came out of a hamper. She was hoping today was a running day instead of something like baseball or basketball. She actually liked running the mile on the school’s track. There was less chance of her injuring herself or others.
But today was not going her way at all. It wasn’t a track and field day. It was worse. They were playing flag football. It used to terrify her to have the football and have the more aggressive boys shoot right toward her, intent on ripping her flags off.
A few times last year she was bowled over in the process, and once she even ripped off her own flag and threw it on the ground in front of T.J. when he was about to tackle her. This made her a very unpopular teammate. So her goal for this year was to stay out of the way.
Mina was late because somehow her shoelaces were in incredible knots. She threw her shoes over her shoulder and ran out to the field in her socks. Once there, she plopped on the ground behind the girls and desperately tried to untangle the knots in the laces to get her shoes on. The team captains were chosen, but she didn’t even notice.
Briefly she stopped and tried to get a head count to see if there would be too many players and she could sit out. Or better yet, next time she should try to get a doctor’s note that read, “Mina Grime is unable to participate in any sports due to the hazard to other students’ health.” The teams began their draft; Mina knew her name wouldn’t be called anytime soon, so she continued attacking her laces. She was wrong.
“Mina!”
It wasn’t hard to miss his golden voice calling her name over the crowd of students, loud and clear, and she froze in her spot on the grass. When she didn’t immediately come forward, he called her name a second time. Mina attacked her laces with a vengeance and finally stuffed her foot into the last shoe. The girls around her parted, and everyone saw her scramble up from the ground and wipe furiously at the grass clinging to the back of her shorts. She took a deep breath, carefully tucked her ponytail over her shoulder, and walked toward the voice that had called her name.