Dreamscape, IN: Episode 2, They Were Saying

Read the Prologue: here Wordcount: 521 Part: 3/ongoing

They Were Saying

“Hey, Sarah!”

I swear I had never even seen the girl before. I had no idea how she knew my name or recognized me from a distance. She called to me again as I waved hesitantly to her from where I stood preparing to jump on my bike and head home. School was over. The busses were dispatching on the other side of the sprawling high school building. It was a bit of a workout getting home on my bike, but I preferred it to the noise of the buss at the end of the day.

The girl sprinted up to me, fluffy black hair tossing in the crisp September wind. She had a checkered black and white backpack over her shoulders with a plush white tiger charm dancing on the zipper. “Hi,” I said as she jumped up onto the sidewalk next to me.

“Everybody thought you we’re leaving town. Everybody said you wouldn’t be back this fall.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Everybody? Who?”

“No. Everybody.”

That was the funny thing about it. I only had a few friends in school, and yet this new girl told me the whole school had been whispering about my rumored departure. Kayleigh was her name. Somehow, she already knew all the cool kids. But how was it that suddenly, all the cool kids seemed to know me?

“But I never said I was going anywhere. Not even after graduation.”

“Weird. Guess I’ll tell them they were wrong.” She shrugged and snapped her gum. “See you Monday, then.”

“Nice meeting you,” I called after her as she went to join a couple of other girls on their way out.

“You too.”

On the way home, I often stop off at a little gas station that sells muffins. The lady behind the counter knows I’m never leaving town. As she reached into the case to get me a blueberry muffin, I noticed, for the first time, the tiger tattoo on her forearm. I passed her two dollars and fifty cents in exchange for the oversized muffin, and she threw a sharp glance at the prices on the sign. She shook her head. “Almost twice what it was,” she said, “when I started working here two years ago.” She closed the case. “You could get a ticket for fifty cents more.”

I laughed in response because I didn’t fully understand what she was referring to. I guess, in retrospect, I still don’t know for sure. But I have a feeling.

I coasted home with the muffin in one hand and the other hand on the handlebars only half the time. The air was slowly losing its summertime softness, and every here and there, a shower of brilliant yellow walnut leaflets fluttered across the road. Along the telephone lines, rows and rows of blackbirds faced into the wind. It wasn’t time for that yet, was it?

There was music somewhere. As I cruised into my driveway, I could hear laughing. I looked up at the sky and saw a glowing blue break in the smokey gray clouds.

And, for an instant, a jet passing over.