Monday's Story - Vol. 1

*to protect the sort-of-innocent I have changed the name of the girl in this story.

Shayla McBird liked to kiss boys. So what? It's high-school. From what I hear, that's pretty much all that goes on there anyway (I wouldn't know. I was home-schooled.) Shayla wasn't the most popular girl in school, but that didn't stop her from approaching the most good-looking guys. Or the guys on the football team. She would catch a glimpse of that letter jacket as she was standing at her locker and, I don't know... something would come over her. The crushing, oblivious crowd would fade away as she focused on him. The one with the curly brown hair and the delicate shadow of a downy mustache. She began to walk towards him, quietly and calmly.

As soon as he saw her coming, she knew it would be much harder.

20 feet. A few girls caught a glimpse of her and stilled their chatter.

15 feet. Quiet, quiet.

10 feet.

He sensed something. He turned. She caught the look of horror on his face for the slightest second before he was off - oh, was he fast! No wonder he was on the football team! And she was after him, just like that! She might weigh a few pounds less, but she wasn't as light on her feet. Sheer terror is a winged shoe on the foot of the pursed, but Shayla trailed her quarry with plodding determination. You know, like when a mummy is chasing Bugs Bunny in a cartoon. When Shayla caught him, it would be the same as it always was, hold him down, sit on him if necessary, wrestle and push her face closer and closer, and he'd squirm and buck and try and fling her off, but usually she'd get her kisses. Boys usually had reservations about being too rough with a girl. Even one who was hanging on their back, trying to kiss them. Go figure.

So, now you know Shayla. And you'll know why Stephanie was not excited to see that the seat usually occupied by her Biology lab partner was, on that day, filled by Shayla's stout frame. She paused at the door (I imagine) and rolled her eyes and huffed in annoyance. Finally she plopped down next to Shalya, did not say hello, and determined to ignore her the whole class. She took out pencils and a notebook. She was all business. But... she was also a little nervous.

That is Shayla McBird right there, on the left. Nothing fancy. No name brand clothes, no Jansport backpack.

(do you like these stools I drew? This is what stools in science class look like right? Like they came from a french bistro? Yes, I always imagined as much. Oh, and they're not hovering, I just forgot to draw a floor. Newbie mistake, I know.)

Back to Biology. For a little while things went as planned. Stephanie worked on her own, took her own little notes and tried not to notice whatever Shayla was doing on her side of the table. She poked around reluctantly in the cat and felt sick a few times, and then wondered if she could have anyone over to spend the night this weekend. She didn't notice when one of the tools went missing.

At Stephanie and Shayla's public school they had all the correct utensils for dissecting a cat.

From left to right: Tongs, trident, cleaver, butter knife, runcible spoon, dead cat, spatula, serrated knife, tweezers,.... missing scissors.

Try as she might, Steph couldn't completely ignore Shayla. She was glad that Shayla was keeping to herself, but she was acting a little weird. "Weird is normal if it's Shayla," Stephanie reminded herself, as she snuck a sidelong glance in Shayla's direction. What was that sound?

It was like... like a ripping noise. No. More like... cutting.

It was hair.

Shayla's own hair. She had been snipping away at it while Steph was diligently trying to mind her own business and as soon as she had, I don't know... a respectable sized hair-pile, she turned, and threw it on Stephanie. It didn't flutter like confetti, or make crazy whirls and twists like paper planes might, it was like a bomb. The air was thick with it (or so I imagine) and the long pieces stuck to Stephanie's face and the short pieces got in her mouth, and the cat had a sprinkling of it on him too. Of course there was screaming and, I imagine, some pretty regrettable name-calling and some accusations. The teacher didn't see what had happened, but Stephanie was screaming, and there was hair everywhere, and it certainly looked like Shayla McBird's hair, and after all it was Shayla McBird we're talking about, so he shipped one off to the principal, and the other to... the nurse? And to this day (at least this is how it seems to me) whenever Stephanie gets a hair cut, as the long strands and the short little bristly bits are all getting swept up into the dustpan, she can almost feel it again, Shayla McBird's shorn hair, falling softly on her shoulders like a thick January snow.