Hell Mary

Chapter Five

"I should go... I don't want to miss lunch. I didn't eat in the morning," she said.

"What about your provisions?" He asked.

"I don't have," she replied.

"Oh! It finished?" He asked again.

"Should that be the only reason why one wouldn't have?"

"Yeah, I mean... Why else?" He asked. She released a light weak laughter at his clueless thought before making an attempt to leave the class.

"Wait! Don't go... Please," he said, grabbing her by the wrist. "Be like me and skip lunch. I brought snacks," He said and sauntered over to his bag to get them. She followed him however to the other end and narrowed her eyes on the heart he struggled to draw. Picking his pencil, she sketched a better one within few minutes on his note.

"There," she completed, admiring her work.

"Woah! You draw? That's amazing," he said as he dunked his hands into his school bag and searched for the snacks that had been there. The sound of a wrapped package cracked lightly and he slowly brought each one out. "Take this one," he said, handing one over to her.

"Oh my God!" She yelled.

"What? Is it a cockroach?" He looked around and briefly under the nearby desk.

"This biscuit is very expensive... About ten thousand for one." Her eyes examined the pack to be sure it was the same type her aunt sent her to buy once for a foreign visitor.

"It is? Wow! I wouldn't know, my mum stuffs them for me all the time. Take one," he added again as he bit into his.

"I- can't."

"Why not? Is the seal broken? You don't like it?"

"What do you want?" She poured out bluntly.

"I beg your pardon?" He queried with a mouth stuffed with foreign cookies. His lips bore small crumbs of it.

"I learnt while growing up that nothing is free. You can't just share your very expensive cookies with me...for free. So, what do you want?" She asked again.

"OK. Let's review how we got to this point, shall we? I stayed back in class because I had my notes to complete and you did because you were crying and then eventually you drifted into sleep. From there, you fell off the chair and I rushed on impulse like I would have for any other, towards your end to help you up. I noticed you were feeling home sick and we talked about the movie you enjoyed watching at home to make you happy. It was dinning time and you wanted to leave but I wanted us to talk more before that and so I handed you my biscuit so you wouldn't feel hungry and to buy time. I previously didn't know it was this expensive. The moral lesson of all I just said is that I don't want anything from you. Sometimes, some of us are just nice. You don't always have to feel insecure."

"I'm sorry," she spelled out and bowed her head.

He took the cookies he had given her and opened up the pack, taking one round chocolate cookie from within the packet and biting the end out. Jagged teeth marks had been left in the remaining fraction and more crumbs were deposited on his lips as he chewed.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm taking a bite from your biscuit so you won't feel like you have to pay. You can't pay what you didn't fully eat."

She smiled and took the biscuit from his hands and closing her eye lids, made the sign of the cross over herself and muttered incomprehensible words of prayer over the biscuit and he stared at her, flushed with embarrassment that he had forgotten to pray, as he removed the other half he had stuck to his mouth and prayed as well.