I wrote this story for the fun of it, but a friend suggested that I upload it here. Anyway, enjoy!

I was staring into space when a girl appeared. I blinked, but she didn't disappear. Now, I don't mean 'walked in' or 'magically teleported with lots of special effects'. In the time of an instant, a girl occupied the formerly empty space I was staring at. She looked confused for a second before walking in our direction.

Naturally, I ignored her and kept talking, er, listening. It was during lunchtime at Lincoln, and the school never gave us enough time to both eat and talk. Besides Emily, Rayne and I, the table was mostly empty. Anna had left her lunchbox, and we assumed she'd be back. My friends were trying to recall every question on the math test last period and calculate their grades.

"I need at least a 77.2 on this text to get an A," Rayne said, putting away her calculator. "That means that if I missed numbers 3 and 19, I can only miss one more. Emily, did you get C on number 23?"

Emily tried to respond, but the strange girl came from behind and hugged her. Emily turned around, a strange expression on her face. "Do I know you?" she asked.

Up close, the girl couldn't have been in high school yet. Though I'm terrible at guessing ages, I assumed she was in middle school. She had straight brown hair and wore a T-shirt advertising a team I'd never heard of.

"Yeah, I guess not," the girl said, her face turning red. "But don't worry," she turned to Rayne. "You get like a B on the test and an A in math. It never said the exact numbers, though." She stared at our lunch table. "Wow, you guys don't look anything like I pictured."

By then we had been thoroughly weirded out. Trying to return to normality, I said to Rayne, "Nice! You can stop worrying now that you're going to get an A."

The girl looked at her shoes and mumbled, "So that's what she meant by not interfering with the story." She recovered quickly and stared at us once again. "Can I sit down? Darn, I forgot lunch," She took the seat next to me, which had been open since Sarah left. "Hey Rayne, can I have some of your chocolate muffin?"

Now it was Rayne's turn to give her a weird look. She reached into her lunchbox and pulled out the muffin. "You guys can share." The new girl gave her an excited look and stuffed a piece in her mouth.

Anna chose that moment to return to the lunch table. She looked at us and mouthed 'who's she?'. When we collectively shrugged, Anna asked the girl "Who the heck are you?"

The girl didn't seem fazed. "I'm Chelsea." I tried not to laugh. "You're Anna, right?" She held out the muffin. "Want some?"

As the rest of us tried to process this, Chelsea tried to make conversation. "How are your IB exams going?" We looked at her quizzically. "Wait, that's like the 4th book. Sorry." She visibly struggled for another topic. "Um…"

As if to put an end to the strangeness, the intercom crackled to life. "Students, put your trash, trays, and garbage into the compactor and have a nice day."

Chelsea reached to take Emily's tray for her. We fled the cafeteria, leaving Chelsea behind.

"Ok, that was strange," Rayne pointed out the obvious once we had left the cafeteria. "It's like the reverse of my story," she turned to Emily. "Which you should read."

Emily glanced behind us to make sure we hadn't been followed. "Sure, I will. But who is she?"

We speculated for the rest of the walk about what she meant by the '4th book', where she came from, and why we should care.