The Writer- Liesl

I quicken my stride and hear my footsteps against the linoleum, sharp and brisk. I come to the cafeteria and find it empty, except for a redhead girl sitting at one of the tables alone, bent over a piece of paper writing intently.

“Darn it,” I think. This is my first week at Holderness Central School and I’ve missed lunch. I moved here a month earlier and enrolled late, so have spent the past twenty minutes trying to get organized and find the lunchroom. My stomach growls hungrily and I sigh. It was going to be a long day. Startled, the girl turns around, her red hair flying and a blue pen gripped in her right hand.

“Um, hi…” I venture. God. What a stupid thing to say, couldn’t I have managed something more? How lame am I?

“Hi” she says, “I don’t think I’ve seen you before, are you new?” she asks curiously

“Uh… yeah. I just enrolled last week; I’m in the 7^th grade. My name’s Jessie” I stand there awkwardly as she runs her eyes up and down my petite, 4’ 11” frame, brown hair, and totally normal, boring outfit.

“Hey, that’s cool! There are two girls in the eighth grade with me named Jessie! Well, Jessica really, but neither of them like that name, so they go by Jessie. Geez, it’s gonna get pretty confusing around here…, Do you need anything? You look sort of lost. I’m Elizabeth by the way.” She seems genuine, not at all like the other girls who I met today, the ones who were trying to brainwash me into joining their petty clique.

“Err, yeah. I am confus- I mean, yeah, I am lost. I don’t know my way around, and now I missed lunch because I couldn’t find the lunchroom.” Oh. My. God. Could I have screwed up any worse?

“Well, I don’t know how you feel about spaghetti, but that was what was for lunch today, and I don’t like it, so you can it” she motions for me to come sit down next to her and pushes her untouched lunch tray to me. “It’s a little cold, but it should be better than nothing.” She clicks her pen shut and tosses it down on top of a journal decorated with a cupcake and some other random doodles.

“What were you writing?” I ask as I devour the cold, congealed noodles, that actually weren’t half bad.

“Oh. Just a poem for my writing class. You can read it if you want, but it still needs work” Elizabeth pushed the paper covered in notes to me, “It’s this part right here,” I glance down at the paper and read.

 

Time slips between our fingers

Like water in cupped hands

Trying to stop it

Is like trying to stop the tide

And no matter how much you want to

No matter how much you pray

Children will grow up

The elderly will die

We will drown ourselves in pools of tears

Entire nations vanish

In the minute of a god

Yet time keeps pushing

On

The planets spin

The earth revolves

The stars trace

Their never ending passage across the sky

And time keeps pushing

On.

 

When I finish I am stunned “Wow,” I say “I mean, wow, that’s really good, I love to write, but I can’t do anything that good!”

“You really think so?” Elizabeth searches my face for any sign of falsehood. “I still think it needs work.” She suddenly glances at the clock. “Crud, 11:50. Time for class.” She packs up her stuff in a hurry and dashes out the pair of metal doors. I look down at the remains of my lunch, and wonder if I have found a new friend.