It had been two days. Today was Friday. My birthday was tomorrow. I'd be turning 17 soon. I wasn't sure whether I sh ould be happy or sad or excited or what. Tellka seemed like she was in a pretty good mood. I don't know why. I couldn't understand what was so important about birthdays. We were going to have a small party today in science, just for a break. It was just a little thing. Someone had brought in apple juice and someone else had cinnamon rolls. Mrs. Wireman said she would hand out the drinks and food at the end of class. I eyed the food wishfully. This morning I had forgotten to eat breakfast and my stomach kept reminding me of that small fact. Janet wasn't in class today. She had told me yesterday during PE that she was going to skip and invited me to come with her. I had turned down the offer. Truthfully, it was refreshing to not have her here bugging me.

Not much happened during first period until about halfway thru when there was a loud crash and it turned out that some student had fallen asleep and fell out of their desk. Mrs. Wireman sent him down to the office and it took three minutes to get te class to stop laughing. After that, we went back to work and Mrs. Wireman handed out the food and drink. The bell rang and I managed to throw on my backpack without spilling my cup of apple juice. Waiting for the class to file out, I made my way to the door, taking a few small bites of my cinnamon roll, and was a bit surprised when I ran into Alex a ways down the hall.

"Alex." I blinked in surprise. "Why aren't you wearing your uniform?" For some odd reason, Alex was dressed in a black business suit. He had on a black felt hat with a small, red feather sticking out of it and a camera hanging loosely around his neck. Oddly enough, over his suit he was wearing a long, black trenchcoat. Alex smiled widely at me and stuck his hands in his coat pockets.

"It's an outfit for one of my classes," Alex began to explain, "Photography. All the students who have that class are dressed like this, kind of." He scratched behind his ear and got a thoughtful expression on his face. "We're taking pictures for the school year book. Hey, smile!" I blinked in confusion as he pulled up his camera and clicked a quick picture. A few seconds later the camera released a little picture. Alex grabbed it and watched as a picture of me, holding a cinnamon roll and a cup of juice, with a silly expression on my face developed. He chuckled.

"It's not really year book material, is it? But I'll keep it anyway." He shoved the picture in his pocket and let the camera fall back around his neck. I was about to tell him that I had to get to class when he removed his hat, positioned it on my head, took the rest of my cinnamon roll and scooted past me.

"Hey!" I turned in surprise. He looked back at me, a huge grin on his face. With a quick wink, he took a bite out of the roll before waving me off to class. I hurried off to the art room and sat down at a table as the bell rang.

Art class was pretty layed back. We have tables instead of desks, and no assigned seats. You just pick a spot and sit. I managed to grab a seat next to a windian girl named Tracy. We sometimes talked to eachother during the really boring parts of class. She gave me an odd look and pointed to the hat. I shrugged.

"A friend stole my food and gave me a hat instead." I explained. She nodded in understanding and the class began to work.

We were starting an art project today. Our assignment was to do a sketch of a three dimensional object. It seemed easy enough. I sketched a small sphere and spent my time shading it in. After a moment I wondered how silly I must look with a large black hat and a dull pink school outfit on. Pulling out a second piece of paper, I removed the hat, sketched it quickly, and then put it back on my head. Then I drew myself into the picture. It took me a while to get it to look right, but once I was done, I put down my pencil, sat back and took a long look at what I had just sketched. It didn't look half bad. Infact, it looked kind of cute. Staring at it in admiration, I began to wonder if I really looked like that. I slipped the picture into my binder as the bell rang. Shouldering my pack, I headed out the door to history.

History... la la la la la..

'You do that every day.' I could feel Tellka sigh.

Yea? So..? When's your next battle?

'Lunch time. I have a while.'

Lunch. Hrm. Now I was hungry all over again. I hadn't had time to eat much of my cinnamon roll before Alex took it. I was about to step into my next class when a tap on my shoulder caught my attention. I turned to find Alex standing behind me. He was still smiling as he plucked the hat off of my head and put it back on his.

"Hey, thanks for the roll." He snickered and shifted the camera around in his hands a bit. I crossed my arms and gave him an odd look.

"You owe me lunch."

"I'll buy you some."

"Not from school." I stuck my tongue out. "I don't see how you can eat that stuff."

"Great," Alex studied me with a grin. "Then I'll take you out tomorrow. Tiger's Catch? Maybe we could see Ryan there."

His reply caught me off guard. Lunch? I don't know.. Tomorrow was my birthday. Maybe Diane, Alex, Ryan and I could all get together tomorrow for lunch. Suddenly the idea didn't seem so bad. I glanced up at Alex and smiled. "If Diane comes."

Now it was his turn to be surprised. The smile faded from his face and was replaced by a thoughtful expression. He scratched his head under his hat, and glanced up, squinting one eye at the ceiling. After a moment he shrugged. "Sure, I guess she could."

I nodded. "We'll talk during lunch. All four of us?"

Alex nodded. "Sure thing." He did a quick spin and turned, heading down the hall to his next class. As I watched him go, I saw him glance back, the smile returned to his face, and he gave a quick wave. "See you, Kate!"

I returned the wave and ducked into my class, heading over to my window seat and plopped down. Most of the class had already shuffled into the room and were ready to get started. Now my mind was thinking about lunch. Would it be okay with Ryan? I think it would be great if we could all get together. I really wasn't doing much for my birthday anyway. Tellka had promised that she would take me to do whatever I wanted to do tomorrow. Maybe she could come.

'Oh no.....'

Why not?

'I'm not spending my day hanging out with a bunch of worens.'

Come on Tellka, they're friends.

'You're friends maybe, but I don't know them, and I'd like to keep it that way.'

I knew she wasn't going to change her mind, so I just dropped the question there. Besides, we could do something later that day. This was only lunch. I really didn't think we were going to do much more then get together at a resturant. I sighed and stared out the window. Maybe Tellka would take me out for a walk or something. It would be nice to get out of buildings for a while, and back into nature. Mr. Jamerson's voice broke my daydreaming and I slowly drifted back to reality as he began lecturing. I still couldn't wait for lunch.

e-mail author, talonr@hotmail.com