Few People Have Many Friends...

• Lilian Luong, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2011

On the first day of high school, you enter your first class- English with fear. You have questions madly running in your mind- Who will you sit next to; Are the students nice; Is your teacher kind; and will you make any friends? As you step inside the room for the first time in your life, you hear your English teacher, Mr Smith, welcome you.
“Hello Judy, welcome to Rosshill High School. I do hope you enjoy this school,” he smiled.
“Thank you, Sir,” you say with gratitude. You then walk to an empty desk at the back of the room. Walking towards the desk you see your classmates giggling and whispering nasty things back and forth. You become embarrassed, not because you know they’re talking about you, but because you’re the centre of attention. At your previous school, you were always the invisible girl. Nobody looked at you, talked to you or made friends with you.

As you open your new textbook, you catch an eye looking at you. It’s a boy. A good-looking boy, with amazing eyes. You can’t resist but look back into his sad eyes. His eyes remind you of something familiar, something gloomy and unhappy, perhaps evil. Suddenly, the sound of the lunch bell breaks your eye contact with the charming-boy. He instantly gets up and disappears. You ponder, what in the world is going on. Everybody leaves for lunch, so does your new English teacher.
“Have fun at lunch break, Judy,” he winks.
You smile and reply, only too happily, “Thanks, I will.” Mr Smith closes the door behind him. Accidentally, you drop your books and trip on a black cable. You fall down in pain and agony, with a loud “Ouch”. Maybe you broke your leg? It was a bad fall, that’s for sure. You can’t get up. There’s nobody to help you. You think; how could there be anyone? This room, out of all the rooms in the school, is isolated. Nobody can save or help you. You weep loudly.

It has been around twenty minutes and no-one has come to your rescue. The pain in your leg gets worse by the minute. Then you hear footsteps heading towards the room. Finally, someone has come to save you! Screaming at the top of your lungs, “Help me!” you find the charming-boy facing you. His eyes now joint to yours like an eagle. You see his eyes; it looks like the wind knocked him unconscious. “Please help me, take me to the first aid room,” you plead.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come out, but didn’t see you so I thought you’d already left. I looked and asked many people. They said they didn’t see you, so I came back,” he tells me with genuine honesty and a gentle tone. He doesn’t look evil to you anymore, more like a person you have always known and felt comfortable with. He reaches out his hand for yours to take. You look up to him and take his hand.