Rosie
"Guys, trust me, you tip twenty percent," Marilyn assured the group, as they all bickered among themselves. It was actually starting to get quiet at iHop, because all of the tour groups were gone by 12:30. And here they were, arguing over how much to tip.
"My mom told me fifteen. I've been doing it ever since," Rosie explained. Justin rolled his eyes.
"Rosie, I work in food service. It's twenty. You lower the percent if you feel they don't deserve it because bad service."
"No, that can't be right, I always just don't tip if there's bad service," Beth said.
"And that makes you an awful customer."
"It doesn't matter, I think the waiter didn't do anything wrong…" Marilyn tried.
"Listen, ok, whatever, I'm the one paying, so I'm in charge of the tip. I'm tipping twenty percent. Ok?" Justin finally said. Everyone shut up after that. Justin took out his change and left it on the table.
"Are we ready to go?" He added. Everyone nodded, slightly irritated. They got up from the table and left the restaurant, stepping out into the breezy, cold Indiana weather.
It had gotten cloudier since that morning, and it looked like it could rain later.
"I hope it snows," Marilyn sighed.
"I don't," snorted Rosie. "I just want it to be warm already. Like Spring is supposed to be."
"And I want to get a tattoo of Carrie Fischer's face on my arm, but that's not gonna happen," Justin said.
There was a slight pause before Rosie said, "I mean, I don't see why you can't?"
"Oh my God don't encourage him!" shouted Beth. "What if he actually does?"
"So what if I actually do?"
Midlaugh, Rosie looked towards the woods as she shook her hair from off her shoulder. In that instant, she thought she saw movement or shadows, moving behind the bushes. She stopped.
"What's up?" Marilyn asked. Rosie stared for a little at the area she saw movement, but nothing else stirred.
"Nothing, I…" She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus. What did she think she saw? Possibly a dog, or a wild animal? Something snapped a little bit behind them, and there was an audible thud. Rosie took off, walking into the brush.
"Rosie?" Beth called after her.
"I think there's a dog or something," she mumbled, hardly so that the others could hear her.
"What?" Beth asked, trailing behind her.
Rosie walked towards where she thought she heard the thud, and reached the area behind a short, wide shrub where she saw a leg scoot behind another tree.
"I think there's a kid!" Rosie decided.
"A what?" Beth questioned once again.
"Are you dense, Beth?" Rose shouted in frustration. She heard another thud behind the tree and quickly dashed around it and found the kid leaning against a rock, wide eyed with blood running down from her nose. She had shoulder length curly brown hair and wore a tattered pink dress. Dirt caked her arms, legs, and face. She seemed to be sick, because she stopped trying to hide.
"Hey, hey, I'm not going to hurt you," Rosie said as the girl started to breathe heavier. Beth caught up and stood next to her and cursed.
"Jesus it's a kid." Rosie glared at her and mouthed Language. Marilyn finally found them and stood there, speechless. The girl's eyes glanced back and forth between all three girls, clearly anxious.
Rosie knelt down near her slowly. "We're not going to hurt you, we're your friends."
The girl stared up at her face and slowly repeated, "Friends."
"Yes, friends. We want to help you. Are you lost?"
After a second, she nodded her head. Marilyn leaned down next to Rosie and asked, "Did you lose your family?"
She nodded again.
"When? Where?"
"Long time," she whispered. "Bad place."
Shivers went down Rosie's spine and Marilyn turned towards her. "I don't think this girl's with the tours," Marilyn whispered.
"We don't know that, she could be disoriented, or sick," Rosie said. Marilyn contemplated this for a moment, and nodded in agreement.
"Can you stand?" Marilyn asked her. The girl didn't respond but instead stared blankly at her. "Can you stand if we help you?"
It seemed the girl thought about it for a second, and then decided, "Yes." Marilyn and Rosie held out their hands and the girl grabbed on, letting them pull her up. They kept supporting her until she was upright. Rosie let go and the girl seemed to sway. "Ok, here we go," Marilyn groaned as she hoisted her onto her back. The girl only had to be 13 or 14, but she was also very very small, and thin… almost too thin. She was no effort to carry at all.
"What are we going to do with her?" Beth asked as they walked back to the sidewalk.
"I'm not sure. We can keep her in my dorm… I live alone," Marilyn told them, "Remember?"
They explained what happened once they found Justin. "Shouldn't we call the police?" Justin asked quietly. At the mention of police, the young girl seemed to startle on Marilyn's back.
"No, we'll figure it out first. She needs rest. And food, probably."
They walked the rest of the way back, with the girl on Marilyn's back. They headed straight to her dorm, Raphael Hall. Fortunately, Marilyn's room was on the first floor, so they didn't have to climb any stairs.
Marilyn put the girl down and Rosie steadied her as Marilyn opened the door with her keys. They layed her down on the unused loft bed. Beth grabbed a box of tissues from Marilyn's desk and started dabbing at her nose.
"Are you ok?" She asked. The girl opened her eyes and gave a slight nod. "Okay… good."
"Are you hungry? Do you want food?" Marilyn asked her. She nodded again, more vigorously this time. Then she leaned her head back into the mattress and closed her eyes.
"Do I have food?" She asked Rosie from the side of the bed. Rose walked to the other side of the room and started rummaging through Marilyn's shelves. "Yes!" She exclaimed as she picked up a box of cereal. It was empty. "Um… no… Marilyn, you really need to clean out your stuff."
"I usually don't need to," Marilyn mumbled.
Rosie continued rummaging through the shelves until she saw a box of fruit gushers lying on it's side. She picked it up to find that there was one packet left. "There's some gushers!" She shouted.
"That'll work, kinda," Marilyn said. Rosie brought them over to Marilyn.
"I have some lean cuisines in my fridge, I can go get some," Justin offered.
"Please," Marilyn said. This girl couldn't live on gushers.
"Ok, I'll be right back." Justin left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Rosie and Beth turned back to the girl on the bed. Marilyn was slowly feeding her gushers.
"So, um," Beth started, looking at the girl, "What's your name?"
Marilyn looked up at her with narrowed eyes, and said, "Beth I really don't think-"
"Eleven," the girl said.
The girls all just looked at her, not quite understanding what she just said.
"El," she said, pointing at herself weakly, "My name is El."
"OK, El," Beth continued, "that's a nice name. My name's Beth. Well, it's actually Elizabeth. But we can't both be El." El seemed to enjoy the thought as she smiled a little bit.
"I'm Rosie." Rose said. Abruptly she added, "Rosalinda." Beth laughed a little bit and Rosie shot her daggers with her eyes.
"I'm Marilyn."
"Hi," El said to all of them.
"Um, El, do you know how you got here? Did you run away from something?" Beth continued. El furrowed her brows and she shook her head.
"It's… hard to explain." She eventually said.
"It's ok, we'll listen, if you want to talk about it," Marilyn said. El looked back at her, and asked, "You are my friends?"
"Yes. We're you're friends," Marilyn agreed.
"I walked here… from Hawkins." She stated, pausing to close her eyes and take a steady breath. "I went through a window, from the Upside Down."
"What's the Upside Down?" Rosie asked.
El turned towards her, searching for words. "Bad place. Bad… dimension."
Beth rose her eyebrows and looked at Rosie, "Man, this is getting a little too sci-fi for me."
"I'm not lying." El said loudly, starting to sit up a little bit. "Friends don't lie," she added, softer.
"Ok, I believe you," Marilyn told her, glancing up at Beth, who shrugged in defense.
There was knocking at the door, and Justin's voice called, "I've got the lean cuisines!" Rose left to open the door and Justin walked in and held up another backpack. He walked over to the desk and pulled out five different frozen boxes. "I don't know which one you want, so I brought a couple." El turned towards him and shrugged. So he picked up one and left to find the kitchen. Rosie followed him out the door.
"How's the little kid?" Justin asked as they got to the kitchen down the hall and he headed to the microwave.
"Her names El," Rosie started. "And, well, right now she's saying stuff like she came from different dimension."
"That's rich. She must be really sick," Justin said.
"I don't think she's that sick. She just seems injured, and scared." Justin slammed the microwave door and pressed a few buttons before starting to cook the lean cuisine.
"You think she's actually from another dimension?" He asked.
"I don't know," she started, "Maybe. I don't really think it matters."
"Rosie," Justin said, "You have to call the police. You can't just keep her in Marilyn's room."
Rosie sighed, "I know, I know… we'll figure it out. I'm sure someone's looking for her. If she's still here by the end of spring break… I guess I'll talk to the others about calling someone about it."
The microwave beeped and Justin pulled out the dish. It was simply mac and cheese. He grabbed a fork and they began to walk back to the room. Right around the corner of the door, someone bumped heavily into Rosie, knocking her against the opposite door frame. Papers went flying. An upperclassmen, someone Rosie didn't really recognize but might have seen before, scrambled to pick them all up.
"Um, Sorry," Rosie said. He nodded his head as he stood back up and taped some of the posters up on the hallway walls quickly and haphazardly. He was gone in the next minute. Rosie watched him leave, and then turned to look at one of the posters.
"Missing: Anthony Sanders. Last seen in room 315 in the Old Chemistry Laboratories."
There was a photo of him, wearing a lab coat and goggles, with disheveled hair. In the picture he was holding a half full beaker. Under the picture were contact numbers.
Rosie didn't know what to do, so she ripped this one off the wall and ran to catch up with Justin.