"Stop squirming," Lucía flinched on the stool.
Nurse ally rubbed rubbing alcohol on the cut on her cheek.
In her rolling chair, she wheeled herself to the mini-fridge under the cupboards. She came back with a cold blue ice pack.
"This is the third fight this month, Lucía!" Nurse Ally placed the ice on a bruise she got on her side.
"That you know of," Lucía corrected smiling, showing Nurse Ally a missing front tooth.
"My, God," she grabbed Lucía face and examined her mouth. She let out a sigh of relief, "It's a baby tooth."
The nurse sighed and scribbled on a blue hall pass. She handed it to Lucía, clasping Lucía's hand looking her in the eyes.
"Lucía, please be careful. These fights aren't funny, or cool, or how you make friends. Something bad could happen to you." Lucía pulled back her hand. The intensity in her eyes made a sense of fear travel up her spine. The nurse backed away.
"And why do you care, so much?" Nurse Ally paused trying to think of the next few words to say. Because someone has to. I want. It's my job as a school nurse. I'm friends with your mother and it hurts her when you come home in bandages, limping.
"Because I'm the school nurse and it's my job to take care of the students," Lucía stood from the stool stretching. "Well, I must be getting you paid overtime then." Outside the office walking down the hall Lucía could feel eyes on her and almost hear the whispers.
"It was terrifying," one girl said.
"She should be a boxer or an MMA fighter," one guy said.
"I heard her eyes glowing red like from Naruto," another girl said. "Like a demon."
"The spot where she and Jason fought still has blood on it, wanna go see?" Some creepy third-grader suggested. Once she walked into her math class the whole class went silent. even stopped his lesson. Lucía placed the hall pass on his desk. Forty-eight eyes followed her take her seat next to Jason Duff, a pasty boy with brown hair and a pack of ice on his eye.
"How's your eye?" Lucía asked leaning in her chair.
"Better than your mouth," he responded.
"Oh, yeah?" Lucía raised three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?" "Ms. Noceda, please stop talking and focus on my class!" Her teacher yelled.
The bell rang. Twenty-four fifth-graders charged to exit the classroom. Everyone but, Lucía.
"You're busy, so I'm going to make this quick-." "Yeah, yeah. You're wasting potential and stop fighting, I heard it like twice today."
"And yet, you still do it," took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Not only did you get the highest grade on your exam you have the highest in the class." Lucía stood surprised. The highest grade she's gotten in any class that wasn't gym was a C+. "And here you are," Lucía. Could feel the anger in his voice. You act like this," he put back on his glasses and went back to grading papers on his desk. "Disappointed isn't even the right word for you. At this point, it hurts looking at you."
Ouch. He motioned for her to exit the class. "You're free to go, Noceda."
The walk down the hallway filled with more stares and rumors. Lucía thought to herself, wonder how people react if I ran up to a random person whispering. That way it would show to keep Lucía's name out their mouth. She fought against the idea, knowing it'd cause more problems than it's worth.
Down the hallway, she caught sight of Ally Thompson. Surrounded by two other of her friends. Lucía eyes lit up and she ran up to her calling her name.
"Ally, how's your arm and hand?" Ally's friends stopped talking and cleared their throats.
"We'll go." One of her friends said.
"Yeah, we'll meet you by the bus," they walked off leaving Ally alone with Lucía. Ally rubbed her arm avoiding eye contact with Lucía.
"Fine. Thank you"
"That's great," Lucía said smiling. Ally felt uncomfortable seeing the missing tooth. "So, I was thinking," Lucia squatted down. From her backpack, she pulled out the book, Azura and the Hidden Island, and handed it to her.
"I heard that you were a fan of this author yesterday. So, I was thinking you might want to like," Lucía stood up playing with her beanie, you might want to read it? You could keep it if you want, I have like two copies-." Ally scanned the hallway to see if anyone was watching them. She put the book back into Lucía's bag.
"Listen," she zipped up Lucía's bag and handed I back to her. "I appreciate you defending me from Jason-." "Oh, it's no problem! Like, when I saw him bullying you, I thought what would Azura do and-." "But I can't be around you." The happiness in Lucía eyes died out immediately.
"Why?" "You know why," from her pocket Ally pulled out two five dollars. "Thanks for the help," she placed ten dollars in Lucía's hand and sped walked away. The money felt heavy in her hand. With a sigh, she placed the money in her pocket. She headed towards the playground to meet her younger six-year-old sister. She looked down on a patch of grass with some flowers stained with her blood.
Her eyes fixated on the spot for so long she hadn't realized her sister had been calling her name. Luz pulled at her shirt trying to get her attention.
"Are you ok?"
The question cut deep into Lucía's heart. She had to stop herself from crying. Not in front of Luz she thought.
"Yeah, your big sister just got into a mean...conversation." Luz wrinkled Lucía's shirt with her hug. "I'm happy you're okay," she mumbled. Lucía winced in pain.
"Y-yeah," and rubbed Luz's hair. She stopped and squatted down to her eye level.
"Hey. When mom comes picks us up, how about I order us a pizza?" Luz''s eyes lit up the same way Lucía's did earlier.
"REALLY?!" Luz's smile turned into a pout. "Are you tricking me again?"
"Nope," she pulled out ten dollars from her pocket. "See?" Luz cheered jumping up and down clapping. "And later I could read to you from my Azura book." Luz's mouth hung open and froze in time. Lucía poked her sister a few times trying to get a reaction.
"L-luz?" Luz let out a scream so loud she could feel the pain from her ears traveling through her body.
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She gripped Lucía tighter than before. "Best. Sister. Ever!" With a chuckle, she responds with, "I know."
The sound of their mom's car horn beeped seven times. Lucía took Luz's hand and walked towards their mother's car. She listened to Luz ramble about what toppings she was gonna order.