Chapter 2

At school my sister and I went our separate ways. We only had homeroom together, due to the similar spelling in our names, and after that we didn't have to see each other until later in the afternoon when Lupe came to pick us up after school.

For the moment, I had biology with Mr. G (or at least G is what we called him, his real name being something like five syllables long and to difficult to pronounce), an old hippie with a fondness for plants. I like him. He was a nice person and seemed to really enjoy teaching. This week we were learning about reproduction, which wasn't as bad as Health Care (the new name for Sex Ed.), but still succeeded in making half the class uncomfortable and sending the other half into random giggle fits, usually at the expense of those who were shifting in their seats and trying not to stare as one of the bigger lions began humping lazily into a rather board looking lioness. Mr. G has borrowed one of the school monitors from the lab and popped in an old documentary from the Animal Planet channel. I had to admit, it was a little disturbing to watch. Not because it was sex exactly but rather because the animals just seemed so…blaze about the whole thing. Everything I had heard or been told about human reproduction was that it was supposed to be amazing, and done with someone special who you cared about. What the two lions on screen were doing didn't seem all that appealing.

I looked down at my notes. I hadn't taken very many as I wasn't sure exactly what it was I was supposed to be taking notes on. How lions fuck?

"You ok?"

I guess I must have been day dreaming, I hadn't even noticed when Danny had returned from his bathroom break and taken his usual seat beside me. Danny Romero was a boy in my year, and my lab partner. Tall and thin, he easily looked down at me from his already near six feet of height. His skin was dark and free of blemishes, and his eyes were warm chocolate, teeth a little crooked in front but white and clean, his hair a loose mess of curls atop his head, and he smells vaguely of tuna fish.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I answered in a whisper, glancing briefly at Mr. G, who seemed to have spaced out…again. "Its just a little…" I waved my hand through the air as if I could snatch the word I was looking for from it.

"Weird?" Danny supplied with a smile.

"Yeah… that."

"Do you need a…you know… 'bathroom break'?" He offered me the hall pass.

I waved it off," No, really, I'm fine. But here…" I pushed my pen into his hand and the notes, few though they were, in his direction, " you can take the notes now."

"Heh…Alright then, I guess that's fair." He focused his gaze once more on the screen. The picture had changed to a pair of penguins necking in the Antarctic.

"It is," I said with a self assured nod.

We sat in silence for a bit as the images change before us; salmon swimming up stream, a butterfly emerging from her cocoon, lions humping again (why did they keep coming back to that!), wolves fighting for mating rights, and so on.

"Is this all we're going to be doing all week?" I asked, mostly to myself.

Danny snorted, "Maybe. Would be kind of nice if all we had to do the whole week was listen and take notes. Unless he gives us homework."

"What, homework like this?" I nodded towards the little television at the front of the classroom. I had meant it as a joke, but inwardly I cringed at what sort of homework we might get for this!

"Anyways…" Danny began, "Its October and the Hollows Ball is coming up soon…"

Oh God…I thought to myself please don't let him ask me out! Please, please, please don't let him ask me out! God please don't -

"Would you like to go with me?" The question was asked in a casual way but I had seen the way his shoulders had tensed.

"I…" I trailed off, not sure what to say. I was surprised, this was not the first time he had asked me out. He was a nice boy and all, I liked him well enough, but he just wasn't…what I was looking for I guess. Not that I was entirely sure what I was looking for, precisely, but I was pretty sure it wasn't Danny. And that smell! Ugh! I hated having to turn him down though, he always seemed so disappointed whenever I did and would give me the cold shoulder for about a week afterwards. I hated that! Why did he keep asking me?

"So, what did you tell him?" asked Sakura later during softball practice.

"I said yes…" I admitted with some shame.

"What! But I thought you didn't like him?" She quarried with reasonable shock.

"I DON"T!" I exclaimed, perhaps a bit to loudly," But he just kept asking and asking…I figured if I said once he might not be so persistant-"

"-or become a stalker…" Sakura muttered.

I ignored her,"- and I made it clear to him that even if I did go to the dance with him, we are not fucking dating!"

"Marielle! You're up!" called coach Wiggins, a tall, long legged, aethletic woman with short blond hair and skin darkened by the sun, who looked to be about 20 years younger than her 54 years of age, if one ignored the wrinkles around the corners of her mouth and eyes.

I smiled to Sakura as I lifted myself up from the bench, grabbing my bat along the way. She smiled in return and crossed her fingers. I stepped up to the plate, took my stance, and waited. When the ball was thrown I swung and hit a homerun.

When Lupe pulled up to the curb to pick us up from school I was alone.

"Where is your sister, mejita?" Lupe asked with a frown as she put the old, blue Mustang into park and cut the engine.

"I don't know." I said with a shrug. And I didn't really care. Let her walk home if she was going to be late.

"Well go and find her!" Lupe ordered me in an exasperated tone. "Have you even tried her cellphone?"

I had, in fact," She isn't picking up!" I defended myself.

"Well maybe her club meeting is ran late. They're rehearsing for something, si? Go and see! Go, go! Vamenos!"

I tried not to pout as I tossed my back pack in the back seat of the Mustang before stopping off to do as I had been asked. I did of course find my sister, Maria, at the school theater. She was laying on the stage floor, covered in blood, with a dagger in her hand.

Chapter 3