Chapter Text
Everyone was talking about the new girl that day, in whispers, shouts, and everything in between. Nobody wanted to talk about the new Pokemon, or the class trip next week, or what games they were going to play at recess. Just some girl called Lizzie, who didn’t even have anything going for her besides not being there last year. Joel pulled the fluffy sides of his wolf cap over his ears, but it did little to muffle the din. The lunch room magnified every tiny sound.
“What’s wrong with you?” Joel jumped as Scott elbowed him.
“Are you sick?” Jimmy added. “Can I have your juice if you are?”
“If I was sick, you’d get it too!” Joel said, taking a sip of his juice box before his friend could swipe it. “And nothing’s wrong.”
“Yeah right. You haven’t talked at all, which is saying something for you.” Scott grinned, but Joel just rolled his eyes at the attempt at a joke.
“Nobody wants to say anything interesting. It’s just “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!”” Joel shot a glance at the girl in question. She was sitting with some of the pretty girls (or so they were called. Joel didn’t understand what exactly made them so), but she wasn’t talking, just picking at her food. “If they like her so much, why don’t they go talk to her?”
“Why don’t you talk to her?” Scott countered. “Since you’re so bothered about her.”
“No way,” Joel said hastily. “She won’t like me anyway.”
“You like Lizzie?” Jimmy extrapolated, his eyes wide.
“No!” Joel said, quite shocked at how loosely Jimmy defined the word “like”. “Shut up!”
“You shut up!” Jimmy rebutted, before covering his mouth and glancing around anxiously. When none of the minders came to chastise him, he eyed Scott with a conspiratorial smirk. “Well, I think she looks lonely,” he decided, then turned to Joel. “I double dog dare you to talk to her.”
“No.”
“Triple dog?” Scott suggested.
“No way!”
“Four…ple dog?” Jimmy guessed.
“Double WOLF dare you!” Scott cried.
“Fine, whatever, I’ll do it,” Joel said with a roll of his eyes. He finished his juice. “I’ll do it at recess, though.”
“We’ll follow you, to make sure you do!” Jimmy said with a blazing grin. Joel rolled his eyes.
Ten minutes later, the minders were shepherding them out into the schoolyard. “Remember the dare,” Scott muttered on the way out.
“Yeah, yeah,” Joel said. He stood on his tiptoes, scanning the crowd for the new girl. If she was still in the throng, he couldn’t pick her out from the sea of puffy coats and knitted hats.
The first moment he could, Joel split from the group and skirted the edges of the school yard. He inspected the various groups that formed every recess- the show-offs on the monkey bars, the warrior cats fanatics playing by the trees, the sporty kids organizing a game of frisbee. But he didn’t see Lizzie anywhere. He wanted to brush it off as her looking like everyone else, but he’d seen how quiet she was. He gritted his teeth as another search in the trees turned up no sign of her. Slowly, against his will, he began to worry for her.
He didn’t see hide nor hair of the new girl until it was almost time to go back inside. Lizzie sat on the front steps of the school, fiddling with the side flaps of her hat. It was the same kind as Joel’s, but shaped like a bear instead of a wolf. She didn’t look up when Joel awkwardly stopped in front of her, then sat a few feet away from her on the steps.
“So,” Joel said after a few silent minutes. “Do you like bears?”
“No,” she said, so quietly Joel had to strain to hear. “It was the only one left.”
“Oh.” They sat silently for a few more moments. “I like wolves,” he said eventually, because there was nothing else to say.
“Why? They’re scary.”
“They are not!” Joel yelled, before calming himself. It wasn’t Lizzie’s fault that she didn’t know anything about the best animal ever. “I mean, they can be dangerous, but they’re really more scared of you than you are of them.”
Lizzie raised an eyebrow. “Really? Scared of me?”
“Sure. Wolves aren’t stupid. They know if they hurt a human, all the other humans will be after them. Besides, most wolves haven’t seen a human before. You’re new and strange to it.” Lizzie frowned and hunched her shoulders. “Not like that!” Joel hastily added, waving the idea off with his hands. “I mean, imagine if you saw a person walking around on all fours! That’s how a wolf would feel.”
Lizzie gave the hint of a smile. “I think I’d laugh, not run away.”
“You sure?” Joel toppled forward onto his hands and knees, crawling around. He growled at Lizzie. “Rawr! I’m gonna hunt you down!”
True to her word, Lizzie burst out laughing. “Yeah right!” she giggled. “I’d like to see you try!” Joel lunged at her, and she danced away. “Too slow! Try again, wolfie!”
Joel stood up, chasing after her on two legs. “It’s Joel,” he said through puffs of cold air.
“Lizzie,” she said, even though everyone knew her name.
Joel had art class next, and for once, he didn’t want to go. Lizzie wasn’t in his class, and worse, Jimmy and Scott were. “So,” Jimmy said, leaning over him until Joel almost fell over. “Did you talk to Lizzie?”
“Yeah,” Joel said shortly, staring intently at his collage and hoping they got the memo to leave him alone.
“Only one word? He must really like her,” Scott said.
“I do not,” Joel said, though he knew it wouldn’t convince them.
“Are you gonna marry her?” Jimmy pried.
“No!” Joel snapped. “I’m eight, geez.”
“What about when you grow up though?”
“Never,” Joel stated. “Not in a million years. I bet you one hundred dollars I never will!”
The teacher walked up behind them. “Is everything alright?” she asked in that tone that made it clear it wasn’t a question of how they were doing, but whether or not they’d be quiet soon.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jimmy said quickly.
“We’re sorry,” Joel added. Satisfied, the teacher walked away to watch over other students.
“You like her,” Scott whispered, then dodged away before Joel could smear glue on his hair in retaliation.