She watched. And watched. And watched. Always looking around with wide, alert eyes. Never content to stay focused on one thing. She had trouble paying attention in class, and trouble listening as her parents talked to her about it. Her eyes just couldn't stop wandering. And with her eyes, her mind went. When she saw something that interested her, she couldn't help but think about it. She let it absorb all her attention and fill her mind with frivolous fantasies and strange, imaginative stories.
That's how she came to watch the boy and his grilled cheese sandwich. And that's how she came to make up stories about him in her mind. He was a boy genius, thinking of a new way to create grilled cheese sandwiches without having to slice the cheese or butter the bread or heat the stove.
"Molly?" asked a sweet voice.
But still, the girl's mind ran wild. His mother died, and the grilled cheese sandwich was what kept her memory alive for him. She had always made him grilled cheese when he was sick or sad or on his birthday, and now he ate it everyday to remember his dead mother.
"Molly? What are you looking at?"
No, he was a magical creature of some sort, and grilled cheese sandwiches were a vital life source for him.
"Molly!"
She turned, her eyes glazed over, and her face became visible to the girls sitting with her.
"My, oh my," one girl muttered, rolling her eyes.
"Molly, what were you even looking at?" asked a pretty girl with curly auburn hair and blue eyes.
Molly tilted her head at the pretty girl. "What? Why, the grilled cheese sandwich boy, that's what," she confesses readily, turning her gaze back in his direction.
"The who?" asked the curly-haired girl. She shook her head, sending her curls bouncing, and stared at Molly as if she had a third eye.
"Him."
The boy walked past, clutching his empty lunchbox in his hand and looking ahead. He didn't glance at the group of girls, although they were all staring at him.
"Him?" the curly-haired girl asked, wrinkling her nose. "Why ever would you watch him."
"Why not?" Molly questioned, a crease between her eyebrows.
The pretty girl laughed, her blue eyes closing as she tilted back her head. "Molly, you doll, you." She stood up then and left the table.
The other three girls that were with her followed, and Molly sat alone.
Molly was confused, to say the least. She finally finished her lunch and left the cafeteria to go out for recess before class resumed. The whole way, she pondered what the pretty girl with her auburn curls had meant.
