By: Hope
The Ellimist…. Toomin told me that I was a happy accident that he had never picked me to be in the game. So in my dying thoughts and during my last small glimpses at life…I wondered if Jake would still be the leader. I wondered if Tobias would still be the nothlit. I wondered if Cassie would still be a pacifist. I wondered if Marco would still crack jokes and break the tension in the room. I wondered if Ax would ever find his way home. But most of all I wondered…wondered if Earth would have won the war if I had never been.
*~~~~~~~~Flashy Dreamy sequence as screen fades out of stars and into two girls walking through the mall, two girls who's lives were to change forever…~~~~~~~~~*
My name is Rachel. Or my name was Rachel at least. Rachel Berenson, nice name, isn't it? Back then I never really thought about what my name meant to me. I always liked it and thought it was nice and everything but I never noticed how, well you'll find out soon enough. As I said before, my name is Rachel. And this is my story.
"These Cinnamon buns are to die for!" I sighed as I ate my second cinnamon bun and walked out of the food court, towards the exit with Cassie.
Cassie's my best friend. No one knows why, least of all either of us. We couldn't be anymore different. "Yea, it was really great that they just added that new Cinna bun in the food court." Cassie mentioned as she licked all the sugar off of her fingers.
Cassie would spend her free time in her barn helping her father take care of the animals while I'd be in the mall shopping. Her barn is a Rehabilitation Clinic for animals. Basically, what they do there is take in wild animals and take care of them until they're healed. Her dad runs it but she helps a lot by giving the animals their 'meds'(medicine) and help with the surgery, she wants to be a veternarian when she grows up and she'll probably be pretty good at it too.
The girl is my best friend but she needs a serious make over. Here we are walking around in a California mall and she's wearing what looks like Wal Mart overalls with poop all over them. Cassie doesn't exactly follow up with all of the newest fashion crazes. She'd actually be kind of pretty if she ever cleaned herself up, got rid of the Wal mart jeans and let me take her shopping to the limited or something. She's black with dark brown hair that she keeps short and chestnut eyes. She's PERFECT for Jake.
"Don't look." Cassie hissed at me. "It's Jake."
"I can't look at my cousin?" I asked, teasing. Jake Berenson was my cousin and we're the same age. He's pretty cool, we hang out sometimes and him and Cassie have a thing going…but they don't know it yet.
"You can look, just don't look, that's all I'm saying."
"You mean, don't look at him in a way that will convey that you're hot for him? That you want his lips pressed against yours? That you want his big, strong arms wrapped all around you?" I would have gone further but he was getting closer now and I didn't feel like getting yelled at by Cassie.
"Yeah, Rachel. That's what I meant. That's exactly what I meant."
I guess Jake is cute, but I never really thought of him that way since he was my cousin. He and Cassie has this thing going where you can tell that they both totally dig each other but neither one of them will admit it…I'll change that. Before they know it they'll be walking down the wedding aisle…or at least going to the movies together.
"Do you think he's okay with me being African-American and all?" Cassie asked as I looked at her shocked.
"Cassie, I've known Jake all my life. Believe me, he doesn't know you're black. That's how little he would care. Jake is the one guy out of a thousand who really does care about who you are, not what you look like." I was proud of my little speech but all of it was true. I don't think I would ever be able to find someone that cared about me beyond my looks. Most of the guys at our school thought me to be just some sort of airhead that loves the mall but there is so much more too it than that…
"So, how do I look?" She asked anxiously.
"Like you should be singing eee-yi-eee-yi-oh. You're wearing Wal-Mart overalls with bird poop on the cuffs. You have no makeup on and there's dirt under your fingernail…that is just dirt, isn't it?" I asked concerned.
She looked down at her fingernails like she was trying to remember something. "Probably dirt. Possibly manure." I tried to hide my disgust by making another comment.
"Yeah, well, you compensate for your Old Macdonald clothing, sense by being pretty, very smart, very cool, and the most completely real person I've ever met."
"Thanks. Thanks for the last half anyway." She laughed as Jake came closer. He was with Marco…Marco is his best friend and I guess he's all right but he can be so annoying sometimes. He's a natural comedian and really smart, but he's also very full of himself. Calling himself "Marco the Magnificent." And "Marco the mighty."
There was a third person with them. I looked at him and recognized him from Science. His name was Tobias Fangor, and I'm pretty sure that he was new at the time. There was always something about him that seemed unsettling. His eyes were so intense, so focused that they seemed not human…like a bird almost… I lost my trail of thought when Jake, Marco and Tobias reached us. "Hey Rachel. Hi, Cassie."
"Can I look at him now?" I whispered with a laugh.
"You guys going home?" Jake asked while ignoring my comment. "You shouldn't go through the construction site by yourselves. I mean, being girls and all." THAT was a mistake and I could tell he knew it by the second he said it. "Are you going to come and protect us, you big, strong m-a-a-a-n?" He was about to say something but I had him, I had him good.
"You think we're helpless just because –"
"I'd appreciate it if they did walk with us. I know you're not afraid of anything, Rachel, but I guess I am." I shot my head towards Cassie. I had had him! And she just ruined it. I guess she was always trying to bring peace to her surroundings…
And there we were. The five of us, and somehow it felt right. It felt like something that I couldn't quite grasp. To me life was boring. I played my part in the game and grew tired of it far before that night. I was always searching for something now. That might have been why I liked shopping so much. In it I was a predator, and the clothes were my prey. It might sound stupid but that's what it felt like every time I went to the mall. I'd figure out the sales, the clearance items and make my catch.
"Dammit!" I cursed as we had just entered the construction site. "What's wrong?" Marco asked while running up to me. "Do you need assistance in walking through this dreadful place?" Normally I would have made him wish he were never born but I had other things on my mind.
"I left all of my bags inside! I can't believe I forgot them! Go on without me, and I'll get Melissa Chapman to drive me home. I saw her there with her mom." I said quickly as I winked at Jake.
He rolled his eyes. "Okay Rachel, I'll see you tomorrow." He sighed.
As I walked away I felt like I was being torn apart. One part of me didn't care about the bags and the other knew that my mom would totally kill me if I lost al of them. So I walked back to the mall and got a ride home with Melissa.
"Hey Melissa!" I waved as I ran out of the food court with my bags once again in my hand. Melissa used to be one of my best friends but we had grown so distant over the past couple of months for some reason. Melissa turned and smiled as she and her mother started walking towards me.
"Hey Rachel."
"Do you think that you could drive me home tonight? I went power shopping and realized I missed the bus, and I don't want to walk through that construction site by myself." I lied.
Melissa's mom smiled at me and nodded her head. "Sure Rachel, we'd love to drive you home.
Sometimes I still think about that night. I think about it and wonder what would have happened if I took the other way home. I wonder if I made the right choice with my life and if things would have gone even worse if I had walked through that construction site…
But I did what I did after all, there's no use dwelling on the past.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was little my cousin Jake and I were really
close. We even hung out to the time that we were teenagers. Until the change and
its hard to believe that two sweaters and a skirt could change my whole
universe. But they did so I have to live with it. But like I said before,
there's no use dwelling on the past.
"Hi this is Rachel, can I talk to Cassie?" I started flipping through a magazine as I waited for Cassie to pick up the phone.
"What should I tell her?" I heard a hushed whisper coming from the other end.
"Cassie?"
"…Help…Barn…Tomorrow…" It was a different voice and further away but it sounded so familiar…
"Hey Rachel!" Cassie said.
"Hi, I thought I heard something when your mom was giving you the phone?" I asked as I found a column on Freddie Prinze Jr. and started reading.
"No, it was probably just my parents talking. Listen, I have to cancel for today, my dad asked me to help him with the animals in the barn. Maybe we can hang out tomorrow?"
"Sure…"
"Kay, I'll call you then, bye."