Forget Green Gables

Good Morning Life!

The alarm ringing does not even phase me the next morning. The energy left from Friday's realization that I have best friends, not just a best friend, and the joy of Danny asking me to be his homecoming date puts a spring into my step and a rosiness to my cheeks. I catch sight of myself in the mirror and cannot believe how effortlessly pretty I look.

"You look flushed. Are you getting sick?" My mom demands the moment I appeared at the breakfast table the next morning.

"Not that I know of," I reply, pouring soy milk over my cereal.

"Well, you don't look good. You're pale and pasty. Go get the thermometer and take your temperature."

I resist the urge to roll my eyes or remind her that I am always this color, seeing as I'm mixed and she isn't exactly dark to begin with. "I'm excited. That's all. This Friday is Homecoming; we've got this fancy half-time routine. I have an extra hour of practice every day this week. Gotta go, I hear Jamie's dad."

Felix is smarter than me; he spends his weekly allowance on cereal bars and eats in his room for breakfast for the rest of the week. "She's not happy, so she doesn't want any of us to be," he summarizes the next morning. I shrug; the last storm cloud I want in my beautiful sky is my mother. Shouldn't she be happy for me instead of jealous and petty? What she should be and what she is are drastically different things.

Mr. Jones starts Honors Physical Science with a pop quiz. I pull out my purple graphing calculator and quickly begin calculating velocity, speed, distance, and other physical science questions. My classmates stare at their papers in various states of disbelief and confusion; am I the only one who did homework that weekend? No, Danny flies as fast. Our eyes meet briefly across the aisle and we smile at one another before returning to our quizzes.

"That was just about the easiest quiz I've ever taken," he comments after class. "Plug and chug. How could it be any easier?"

"People are lazy. I'll see you in Spanish."

"Can't wait." He leans in and gives me a quick kiss before heading in the opposite direction.
"Strait! Algrim! Knock it off!" Mr. Jones shouts from his doorway a few feet away.

I laugh and hurry to my Advanced Freshman English class, loving life. On the way past Jessie, headed from the math wing to the language wing, Jessie hands me a note folded like a Chinese throwing star. I slip it into my back pocket and wait for the opportune time to open it.