People Talk

Authors note: This is just the first story , I'm hoping to work in a sequel with next week's prompts :) Here goes:

And so, she lay there, with the hot water bottle upon her stomach and an icepack strapped to her forehead, contemplating the meaning of life and asking herself all kinds of philosophic questions she didn’t know the answers too.

Do the teachers notice when the chalk squeaks on the blackboard, or don’t they and is that why they just keep on writing like their students aren’t being cringed to death behind them?

Why can’t any real-life guy just be like pretty much any fictional ones? Is it really that hard?

Does everyone at some point in their life just wake up in the morning and start craving something or other so bad that it felt like they were going to pass out with the extremity of ‘’want’’? Or is that just me?

That day was actually the perfect day for pondering things like these. Rays of sunlight streamed through the cracks in the wooden walls of the age-old treehouse, built by the previous owners of fourteen-year-old Trisha Walker’s new home sweet home. The treehouse was by far her favourite feature of their new address, that and the fantastically overgrown backyard, the latter of which was crowded with immense trees and unkempt flowerbeds.                                         

She spent every free second there, pretending to be tracking down an undiscovered species, or narrating the lives of the unique insects she discovered there.

Trisha was different than other kids her age, and she knew it.

They gossiped about the teacher’s personal lives because half of their parents were educators, while she had her nose in a book.

They moaned and complained about how fat they were, while she wrote stories about confident protagonists.

They laughed about jokes shared on Whatsapp and tore celebrities apart because of their tiktoks, while she made a point of the fact that she didn’t own a cell phone.

Not that they ever listened, though, Trisha thought, adjusting her position so that her head was resting more on the crimson pillow she’d snatched from her mom’s pristine living room than on the hard wood the treehouse walls were made of, and also so the bright sun wouldn’t shine in her pale eyes anymore.

‘’Why can’t I fly?,’’ she said aloud, to no one in particular, really. She talked to herself often, which is probably something you’d expect from the average fourteen-year-old who narrates insects’ lives. And believes that she should be able to fly.

But that afternoon, someone actually heard her musing aloud, a rare occasion that’s never, ever occurred in the whole of two weeks that she’d been living there. Unless you count that unfortunate instance when the old lady next door happened to come over to borrow a cup of sugar whilst Trisha was narrating the particularly gruesome death scene of a ladybug about to be devoured by an arachnid.

They don’t discuss it in the Walker-household.

This time the visitor wasn’t the old lady (thank goodness for that) but rather one of the boys from school, Darren Barlow. He wasn’t there because he was interested in her; he didn't even know her. Yet.

He was there because he lived across the road to them, and because his parents, who were very sociable and loved to have everyone know how just exactly rich they were, wanted to meet their new neighbours .They had been away to Dubai the past month ,and only just heard about the Walkers.

Whilst his parents moved to the living room with Trisha's , he wandered out to the backyard, where he was soon lost amongst the thick overgrowth of weeds and other, possibly undiscovered, vegetation.

Suddenly Darren heard someone say ‘’Why can’t I fly?’ in a voice that sounded a lot like the sweet milky tea his grandma often drank .Sweet milky tea doesn’t really sound like anything , but nonetheless , that’s what the voice reminded him of.

‘’Why can’t you what?,’’ he loudly questioned the oak tree , which is where he assumed the sound was coming from.

Suddenly the leaves above rustled and shook, and a bushy brown something popped out from between them. The bushy brown something had a freckled face but was too high up for Darren to make out any other details.

‘’What are you doing here?,’’ Trisha exclaimed from her treehouse, baffled at this boy who had just, as if by magic, turned up in her backyard. She wondered where he came from. Had he fallen from the sky?

She was confused but wasn’t going to miss this chance; there was someone talking to her, in her backyard, someone who was, or at least seemed to be, interested in her. No one was ever really interested in her.

‘’Hello!,’’ She called to him from the treehouse, racking her brain for a way of inviting him over, without sounding completely bonkers.She decided that a direct manner would work the best. ‘’I said, what are you doing in my backyard? Do you want to come – aww shoot…watch out!’’

Her icepack had suddenly slipped from her forehead and, despite the numerous bandages she’d spent to keep it in place, was now plummeting towards the ground, and Darren, at breakneck speed.

But sky – boy, as she had taken to calling him in her mind, dodged and caught it expertly, much to Trisha’s surprise. So, he had supreme hand -eye coordination. Very much unlike herself.

‘’Sorry!,’’ she called down to him, her face crimson.’’ I meant to say, would you like to come up? The view’s awesome from here. Also,’’ she pulled out the gingerbread cookies she’d been saving for later and waved them at him,’’ I have snacks.’’

Darren couldn’t quite make out what she (at least he thought it was a girl) was waving at him, but the mere promise of snacks was enough to make his stomach growl.

Just because you're rich doesn’t mean you can’t skip lunch every now and then.

He scanned his surroundings, but his search for a ladder was in vain.

‘’Uh.. how do I get up?,’’ Darren asked. ’’Do you have a ladder or something?’’

‘’A ladder?,’ ’Trisha exclaimed indignantly.’’ Why on earth would I need a ladder? Can’t you climb?’’

Darren flushed bright vermilion, and gazed down at his shoes, suddenly extremely interested in them. Of course, he could climb, he just thought …never mind.

He started up the tree, utterly focused on not slipping and humiliating himself in front of this creature again.

‘’Wrong one,’’ Trisha called from the right tree, in which she was seated. So much for not humiliating himself.

After much struggle, he finally made it up. Trisha eyed him carefully. Definitely what you’d expect from someone who’d just fallen from the sky. Short blond hair, blue eyes, winter-kissed face.

Except now his face wasn’t very much winter-kissed, it was redder and more flushed from the effort he’d put into climbing up.

‘’Your treasure, brave sky warrior,’’ Trisha teased, presenting him with half the carton of cookies. Darren couldn’t quite tell whether she was joking or not, she had that sort of air about her. But he took his ‘’treasure’, before she changed her mind. Can’t exactly refuse a gift.

‘’Uh, Thanks, uhm… Fair maiden,’’ he praised her hesitantly. She pulled a face, clearly not impressed.

‘’ Don’t ever call me a maiden,’ she told him, dragging a notebook from beneath her crimson cushion.’ ’I am a dragon, and I shall eat whole next time you do.’’ With that she bit ferociously into the gingerbread. ’Would you really like to suffer the same fate as this unfortunate citizen?’’

He nearly choked on his own unfortunate citizen. This girl was unbelievable.

 They started talking and then talked and talked some more.They just never run out of things to say.

She made him feel like he was important, like it wouldn't matter if he was a polka dotted elephant in a jumpsuit; like she’d still care about what he had to say.

When he asked why she had the icepack and water bottle, she told him that it was all about achieving perfect balance.

‘’But aren’t you already perfectly balanced, without adding anything?,’’ he asked, confused as to why she’d go the extra mile, but she just told him he didn’t understand and started up a pillow fight.

The stars were already twinkling above by the time his parents found him and Trisha in the overgrown garden, as they were narrating two butterflies who whirled around each other like a cat and a laser. You know, like when you point a laser at something, and the cat goes bezerk about it. Yeah,like that.

Darren Barlow left number 6 Cherry lane with a happy feeling in his stomach, the kind you get whenever you feel that life just…likes you. He finally met someone who actually, genuinely accepted him for who he was, someone who didn’t mind that he was.. suddenly he realised that he hadn’t even asked her name.

She hadn’t asked his name either.

But that didn’t matter. School would start the day after next, and people talk.

They talk about guys like him and girls like her.