Procrastination [open]

[indigo bella mccarthy]

Though it was lunch time and most everyone could be found eating in various places around the school, Indie found herself heading to the library, eating a quick snack as she went. She had her favorite messenger bag slung across her shoulders. As usual she had procrastinated with doing her homework the night before, and this time she managed to fall asleep while working on it, meaning she hadn’t finished. Therefore, she was heading to the library to finish it up before she had to go to her next class, when she was supposed to hand some of it in.

Slipping quietly into the library, Indie smiled at the librarian and took a seat at one of the empty tables. She spread out the stuff she would need to work on her essay that was due for History the following block. History was her worst subject, and it didn’t help that she strongly disliked the subject as well. She figured those two things probably went hand-in-hand. Sighing, Indie began to go through her textbook, looking for the information she needed. Stupid five paragraph essays. Her teacher seemed to be in love with them and assigned one every other day it felt like.

Indie sat and worked diligently on her history essay for a good two and a half minutes before she got distracted, looking around the library for something else that would be more interesting. She could always BS the rest of the essay and hand it in the next day for half credit she told herself as she got up, closing her textbook. Indie wandered through the fiction section, looking for anything that might catch her eye. A blue covered book with the title ‘Wicked Lovely’ caught her eye and she pulled it off the shelf it was sitting on. Flipping it over to read the blurb on the back, Indie found herself intrigued and brought the book back with her to her seat.

Sitting with one leg underneath her, she began to read the book, quickly becoming engrossed in the storyline. It was a pretty good book from what she had read so far and she found she was glad she had picked it up. Stories about any sort of faerie always interested her, and this seemed to be a pretty good one.

Outfit

[dustyn james harrison]

Dusty wasn't one to skip lunch. He was on the school's free lunch program, and thus, lunch was the one meal Dusty could count on each and every day to have around. He didn't skip it lightly. It was the reason he didn't procrastinate on his homework, the way some students did, and work on it during the lunch period. He, frankly, needed his lunch period.

So why was he standing outside the library door during his lunch break, hastily cramming a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich down his mouth so that he could enter? It wasn't like he couldn't have found someplace to sit in the cafeteria. He wasn't a social person by nature, and he didn't have a lot of friends, but he'd never had a problem sitting with kids he didn't know for the duration of a single meal.

No, he was outside the library today because his sister was online. He'd noticed her in his last class when he sneaked onto facebook to check his status. He hadn't talked to Hailey since she'd sent him an email telling him that she'd taken a flying hike from wherever it was she'd been staying for the past couple of years, and he was worried sick about her, but the computers had been taken back just when she'd logged on and he hadn't had a chance to talk to her.

So now, he was going to. It was his mission. He was still chewing his sandwich when he pushed open the door. He leaned heavily on his cane as he made his way towards the computers in the back of the room, bypassing a pale-faced girl on the way. He signed onto his account eagerly, ready to talk to Hailey.

She'd already signed off.

He felt like crying, but he hadn't really cried in years. Instead, he massaged his eyeballs lightly with his thumb and forefinger, posted a quick message on her wall, and signed off. He didn't bother waiting around to see if she was going to log back on. He knew her; if she was anywhere near a computer, she'd be on facebook. If she'd logged off, it was because she was going well away from the computer.

He wandered back into the library proper, running his fingertips along the spines of the books. He saw the flash of the cover of a book that he recognized in the hands of a girl, and he took a step forward in foolish eagerness. It wasn't Hailey, though. Of course it wasn't Hailey. Hailey wasn't the only girl in the world to have ever read Wicked Lovely, and besides, the girl he had encountered was several years older than Hailey.

He stared wistfully at the cover of the book, and couldn't help but say, "That's a good book. It was my sister's favorite. She made me read it to her over and over again one summer."