It's Book Tuesday!

Casey did not notice the group of boys congregated at the end of the hallway by a section of lockers. Her 5-foot tall frame was scrunched up into a corner of the hallway as tight as she could make it. Casey’s clear green eyes were downcast as she chipped the light peach nail polish off her fingernails. If she had noticed, she would have seen the tall, athletic looking boy with dark hair sneaking glances at her scrawny frame. He was nonchalantly studying her. She looked sort of like a drowned rat, he thought to himself as his friends continued to talk about the new kids on their track team. They were going to be late for practice, he was thinking. There was nothing special about her, he thought with her glasses and braces and limp, mousy dark blond hair. He had never seen her before and he could not stop looking at her. She seemed so frail and lost.

The dark haired boy nudged his friends and said, “Let’s go guys! We’ve got practice and we don’t want to be late the first day.” Casey looked up and locked eyes with the boy. He smiled. She blushed. His friends noticed and briefly looked her over. They ran by her as they headed toward the gym’s locker room not bothering to give her a second glance. Casey continued to chip at her nail polish and silently fume about having blushed so deeply in front of them. She did not even think that boy was cute. Why did she always do that? She hated being so shy.

The small town where Casey lived consisted of a dark and brooding winters. The black, bare trees reached out starkly into the stone cold winter sky. It was gray for about four months out of the year. The light in the fall is not what one would call spectacular in fact, Casey and her friend Sarah have always joked that it is a cheap on-sale light. A blue light special if you will. The harsh dimness of the afternoon light in the fall is abrasive and only serves to spell out the long winters that will stretch out menacingly.

Summer, is the main reason people chose to live in this town. It is also the only thing that Casey finds redeeming about it. She loves summer more than anything and not just for the Alice Cooper schools out forever feeling. Here in her seaside town lay beautiful, undisturbed beaches with pale yellow sand. Sand so soft one does not mind the searing feeling it gives your feet on a hot July day. Sarah and Casey would bike around town stopping at little stores to grab junk food and stare at the natives, never once stopping to consider the fact that they themselves were natives too. They would sit, plan, and stew for hours. Talking, always about one thing. How they hell they were going to get out of this one horse, one trick pony of a town. They would while away the long summer days on the beach listening to the gulls and the deep green sea pounding into the sands. They spent numerous nights camping out on the dunes and building campfires with their friends. Sarah and Casey felt they had big plans.