Out of the Loop

Chapter One

Hey, everyone! Enjoy!  This is for my friend Julie because she gave me the title for this story and helps me out with story ideas :)

In the far rear corner of the Creek High School cafeteria, a young girl called Maz sat alone, reading a thick novel.  Maz sat in this spot every day, enduring snickers and glares from nearby tables full of hulking jocks and skanky cheerleaders.

Glancing up from her book, Maz noted an unfamiliar boy enter the cafeteria.  He glanced around, , then turned towards the back of the room and ambled over to Maz’s table.  She buried her nose in her book, sneaking furtive glances up at the boy as he approached.  His beat-up Chuck Taylors scuffed the ground as he walked up to the table.  She dared to look up farther, and saw his hands were stuffed in the pockets of his grey cargo pants.  Glancing even further upwards revealed a navy, collared shirt covering a blue, cartoon lion shirt.  

Maz finally looked him in the eyes.  His dark brown hair was long and shaggy, stopping just short of covering his eyebrows.  Mocha eyes scrutinized Maz before he slid into the seat across from her.  

She quickly returned her gaze to her book, and sat in silence for a minute as the boy stared expectantly at her.  It’s not like I’m going to introduce myself, she thought.  

“Hey,” The boy said tentatively.  ”Is that the new Roger Mewburn book? I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. Is it any good?”

Maz nodded briefly without taking her eyes off the page.

“Okay . . . .” Silence.  ”I’m Derek, by the way.  Derek Beauville.”

“Maz,” she said.  ”Nice to meet you.”  She extended a pale hand across the table.  

Derek stared at the hand in front of him for a minute before smiling and shaking it firmly. He’d never met a girl who’d shaken his hand.  All through his career in school, Derek practically blended into the walls.  People would walk right by him like he wasn’t there, especially the girls.  Instead of attempting to make contact, Derek spent his time in the library, or with some kind of book, discussing the various plot points with his few friends. In all his time in the school or public libraries, only a few girls turned up.  Even then, they made a beeline to the computers.  None of them ever looked like they had ever picked up a book, and they especially did not look like they would ever talk to Derek or his friends.

After she let go of his hand, Maz carefully placed a navy blue ribbon into her book before closing it gingerly and setting it down next to her.  

“So why are you here?” she asked in a quiet voice.  Derek strained to hear her over the buzz of conversation in the cafeteria.  “At my table, I mean.  Why walk right by everyone else and head over here?”

Derek shrugged, taking in Maz’s long, dark hair, which obscured the left half of her pale face.  Her clothes were all very monochromatic, a black tank-top layered underneath a grey sweater.  If it weren’t for her piercing green eyes, she could have stepped out of a black-and-white photograph.  

“It takes guts to sit in the cafeteria and read,” he finally answered.  “Plus, I know better than to sit with them.” He jerked his head towards the heavily perfumed table across the cafeteria.  

Maz shot an incredulous look at Derek.  “You’re smarter than you look, Derek Beauville.”

He laughed.  “Any chance people are allowed to eat in the courtyard?” He had spotted the tiny, sunny area on his way into the caf.  

“Sure,” Maz replied, “But nobody does.”

Derek jumped up and ran to the doors.  He pushed them open and strode outside.  Maz cautiously followed him, glancing back over her shoulder before gently shutting the door.  She looked ahead again at Derek bounding energetically up to where she assumed they would be sitting.  

A warm breeze brushed the hair off Maz’s face.  Dappled sunlight fell through the foliage of a pair of trees onto a small, delicate-looking picnic table.  Derek had sprawled his lanky frame on the grass, his back to the rickety structure.  Maz padded up to the trees, and took off her sweater.  She smoothed it onto the ground and primly sat herself down cross-legged against a gnarled tree.  

Derek rolled over onto his back and looked at Maz. “So what was with that stick of a cheerleader and the big burly guy?” he asked.  He had noticed a blond girl in a cheer squad uniform sitting on a football player’s lap, fawning over him.

Maz rolled her eyes.  “That was Shannon Reina and Shawn Ethan. They’re the school’s on-and-off power-couple.”

“It figures their names would match,” Derek snorted.  “How cute!”

“They’re the cheer captain and the star quarterback; it was bound to happen.” Maz rolled her eyes again and sneered.  

“You know, if you keep doing that, your eyes will stick there,” Derek teased.  

Maz rolled her eyes one more time for good measure, opened her book and began to read. Her hair billowed away from her face in the breeze as she concentrated on the story opening up before her.  

Derek smiled, and took the opportunity to pull out a small sketchbook from his bag and a pencil from behind his ear.  He captured Maz’s compact body in a few smooth strokes, adding her open expression of reading rapture and her cascading dark hair.  

Within a few moments, Maz’s likeness rested against a tree on the paper.  Glancing at the title of her book, he began to add the background.  Fierce dragons battled brave knights in a forest.  A princess beckoned from a faraway tower.  

Maz glanced up at Derek when she reached the end of a chapter.  Completely absorbed in his work, he stared intently at the drawing as sunlight hit him.  Maz gazed at him for another moment before returning to The Legends of King Arthur.  

The two sat quietly with smiles on their faces, occasionally eating until the lunch bell rang, and they were swept out of Olde England and back to the present day.