Being the Little Sister

05 - Shine

To be or not to be? That is not the real question.

Fries or chocolate? That is the question.

Standing in the cafeteria line must be one of the hardest things I do every day. The choices are too many.

A bag of potato chips landing on my tray beside my borning ham and cheese sandwich and I looked over my shoulder to Simon who rolled his eyes at my glare.

"We're in a line. People will start to shout soon for the person who's blocking the line to hurry up"

"But I don't want chips"

"Could you hurry up?" The guy behind Simon asked, tapping his foot against the floor. Letting out a sigh of defeat I moved to buy my food and the shitty little bag of chips.

Just as I got my change back a tug in my arm made me fly back.

"Whoa" I looked over as I was dragged across the cafeteria to Luke that had a steady grip on my arm. Glancing over at Simon I saw that he looked as confused as me.

"Luke!" I yelled, "Let me go!"

He didn't. Instead, he dragged me across the whole cafeteria and over to the vending machines. On the long drag, I meet eyes with Cole and I send him a pleading look. He was about to get up over at this table he sat at with two of his friends when Luke pointed at him.

"You're not needed, Cole. Eat your apple" He said and Cole let his eyes go from me to him before shrugging and sitting back down. As he sat back down I became aware of how many watching eyes there were.

"Luke. A lot are staring. What is it!?" I hissed at him trying to get out of his grip which didn't ease one bit.

He let out a laugh and looked over to me as I continued to run behind him. "Get used to it sis. What's the fun with living in the shadows when the sun is shining?"

The smile he gave me made me smile back and I let him drag me over to the two vending machines that stood side by side against the wall, one filled with different types of drinks and one filled with bars and bags of candy and snacks. Looking at Luke I saw him looking at me with a smile and held out his hand.

"If it's a high five you want then sorry," I said and lifted up the tray that I held onto for my dear life as he was dragging me so nothing would fly off.

"No, I need money" Luke answered.

"For what?"

"Gummies." He pointed to the only packet of gummy bears in its slot "I need to get the last packet of gummy bears!" Luke whined and threw his hands up in the air.

"Don't you have money yourself?"

"I spent it on lunch"

"But-" I looked around the room and found Mason a couple of tables away. He was looking at us and when our eyes meet he gave me a questioning look and raised his eyebrows.

"Mason! Do you have money?" I screamed to him over all the bussing of chatter in the lunchroom.

"Maybe.." He answered hesitantly.

"Mason can give you money," I told Luke. I took one step towards the table Simon had picked that Nichole and Adam sat down at but Mason's voice stopped me.

"Eh. No Mason cannot" He said. "Mason never said he wanted to spend his money on a bag of sugar"

"Come on"

"Laraaa! Just give me money"

I looked him into his eyes and he pouted his lip and gave me puppy eyes.