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Description
The creak of the door announced the subtle arrival. Finding no need to peek her head in first, she stood in the doorframe. Naturally, everyone looked up from their daily journal to examine this new student. She had a soft, petite build, layered beneath a brown pea coat that was left unbuttoned, exposing the baby blue polka-dot blouse she wore beneath. She was a high-school student that wore jeans, and so was everyone else. She wore chunky gold and turquoise earrings that were swinging like antique chandeliers at her neck, drawing us to acknowledge her facial features. Her cheekbones rested high on her round face, accented further by numerous freckles. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of the neighbor’s old Toyota, but more observant than afraid. Her eyes were casually darting about the room as she stood—blue with undertones of grey like the sky above an afternoon campfire— taking in the atmosphere and faces and who knows what else.

“Is this creative writing?” she asked, her brunette ringlet curls bouncing by her jaw. Her voice was bright and calm, just like the question. I would have pegged her as a little naïve, but the way her eyes widened and her thin lips pursed at a sassy comment from someone next to me got rid of any idea of that. She clearly understood what these people would act like for the first week or two. Or rather, she had met enough people in her first class to know with this comment that this class wouldn’t end up much different; she was new, after all. She was introduced to us as per the norm with new students, and after exchanging a glance with Mrs. Long to silently confirm she could sit wherever she liked, she stepped out of her safe place in the doorway. As she stepped towards the front of the class her bare fingers lingered on the cool, metallic door handle, and after slipping away from the surface refused to hide away in her large, presumably warm pockets.

Her stride stayed smooth and low to the ground, and all the while those eyes were darting around in her skull again, taking in everything from the emotions written on the whiteboard to the periodic table of sweets that I had a feeling she would later study if she ever found herself bored. Her eyes strayed a moment longer on the word saucy, written much larger than the others for some reason. She walked past me to my right to take an empty seat near the back of the room, presumably a nice vantage point from which she could analyze most of the new surroundings. Her fingers again barely grazed the edge of desks she strode past one by one to get to where she was going. It was hard to make out, but she smelled vaguely like cigarette smoke and roses. I wasn't sure where either of those scents came from, or if she liked either of those things –or both, or neither, for that matter—but she certainly had me wondering, if anything.