Tʜᴇ Fᴏʀɢᴏᴛᴛᴇɴ- Bᴀʀʙᴀʀᴀ Hᴏʟʟᴀɴᴅ

ᑭᗩᖇT Tᕼᖇᗴᗴ

The entrance to Hawkins high was unbearably busy, saying that there was a good ten minutes before any mention of an education. Middle schoolers biked through the grounds with their friends, cutting through to Hawkins Middle on the other side of the building. Barbara sauntered along quietly as she stared down to her shoes. Brown leather creased slightly with each step and she wanted nothing more in that moment than to be in the comfort of the school library. So naturally, that's where she headed.

Thankfully, the hallways were a lot less busy.
Footsteps echoed on the polished white floor, the odd student passing through with a work journal under arm. This is how Barbara wished school was all the time- quiet, no need for any unnecessary drama. Sadly though, it was merely a wish.
The door to the library was swiftly approaching, and even though every muscle in her body ached, Holland sped up the pace for the last length.

As expected, the room was pretty much empty. The woody smell of old books filled the girl's nose, and she took a deep breath. No more smell of chemicals, even though the amount was minuscule. There was comfort in books, thousands of other worlds and stories within their very own. They were also just dead trees, so there was that.
Hand on wood, she walked, tracing the bookshelves with her finger to collect a fine line of dust. The shelves probably hadn't been dusted in years, but it made personality. The vintage feeling of walking into somewhere old, that's what she favoured the most.

A mixture of colourful and dull spines lined the surface as Barbara ran her fingers along them slowly, reading titles as she advanced. Chemistry, biology, mathematics were the obvious choices there, having it be a school, but the young girl found herself unconsciously stepping towards the 'G' section.
It wasn't a conscious decision to end up in that section, but for some unknown reason, autopilot took her there.

Geography, General studies, Global development... Government and politics.
Government...Politics.

Considering her interest spiked, Holland reached up to the top shelf, straining both arms as she stretched. Fingers secured around the cover; the book was pulled out of place.
A covering of dust glittered in the morning sunlight as Barbara flicked through the pages, skimming over the odd sentence and title. Perhaps this would hold the information to inform her on what was going on. Maybe a piece of machinery that let off a smell? Or an experiential feature?

Securing her find under jacket arm, she set off towards the front desk to return previous borrows, and then make new ones.

-

Morning bell shrieked as Barbara took her position in first period science. On today's agenda was an experiment with different gasses, and the density of them. Maybe this was the chance to sneak in some questions about the air quality, see if a skilled eye could sense it just as much as she could.

Noise grew rapidly as more and more students piled in, all rowdy and tired. Barbara was tired too, but simply didn't have the energy to complain. The insomnia buzzing in her mind weakened her like never before, and she wondered if anyone was even going to notice. Assumably not.
Leaning over to retrieve her class supplies, her satchel clicked undone and out was pulled a text book. New supplies had been purchased during the summer holidays, but nothing was safe in that high school, so even after a week of being back the corners were torn and tatty.
As much as the young Holland loved shiny and new things, there was a much deeper love for something a bit more used, more authentic to a student's life.

The Government Politics book laid limp in her bag, fraying at the corners. It looked old, really old- but at the same time, looked untouched for decades. Perhaps it just wasn't interesting enough to be chosen regularly.
Barbara chuckled weakly at the naivety. She despised the fact that when the word 'government' was used, people automatically thought 'boring'. She betted that they wouldn't think that when their very own classmate knew all the secrets there was about the job, possibly confirming all of the conspiracy theories out there. It was a stretch of a thought but it was still a thought.

Barbara looked up from her position, straightening her posture to glance over at the opening door. A thin, brown-haired girl took a step inward, closing the entrance behind her to avoid any noise. Holland smiled, and beckoned over her best friend, Nancy Wheeler.

Gently lowering herself down into the seat beside her friend, she blinked. "Didn't get much sleep either?"

Barbara parted her lips slightly, blowing out a breath. Was it really that obvious that she only got approximately twenty minutes of sleep, if that?
"How'd you know?"

"Oh, I don't know, you just look tired." Nancy revealed, reaching down for her textbooks. Barbara chewed on the inside of her cheek as her fingers travelled to her face, running an index finger over the dint of a dark circle, and sighed. At this stage, she didn't even rely on the fact that her sleep schedule would soon resume its normal track, because deep down she knew that it was lost for the long run.
"Why didn't you sleep?"

Her friend rested the side of her head on her hand, leaning on the table. "Just a lot on my mind, I guess."

Barbara knew the feeling. "Same here."
She knew it was the same feeling, but for completely different reasons. Barbara was trying to deal with the figuring-out of secret government implications, whereas her friend was trying to deal with... boys.
She didn't understand why it was an issue to lose sleep over, because as far as she knew, things were going just fine. Nancy swooned, they hung out, they... kissed- and that was that.

Just on cue, Nancy's not-so-secret admirer sauntered through the door, late as usual. Barb didn't like to think too deeply on the subject, as quite honestly, she didn't think she could manage losing her best friend as well as all the other things. But she'd have to deal with it, to make Nancy happy. After all, they weren't kids anymore.

The girl on the chair beside practically melted as she caught eye on the new-comer, and Barbara rolled her own. She didn't need this.