Excerpt: The Boy from Aberdeen

Neefi
Copyright 2008, Linda Cavanaugh. All rights reserved.

01 - Chapter one

Neefi groaned silently as she shifted her heavy opulent electric purple and light turquoise cordura nylon book pack from one slouched shoulder to the other. She knew that wishing for all the world that her World History book did not weigh even more than her Algebra Two book would not make it happen. And when you added the fact that the Algebra Two book weighed less than her Earth Science book, and well, then there were the notebooks and folders that went with it all, and finally her laptop adding another two pound to the mess, you could easily see why Neefi's shoulders seemed in a permanent slouch. She knew she should have taken her mother up on the offer for one of those rolling suitcase book packs, but only nerds and the terminally uncool used those. No, Neefi would stick to compressing her spine for the sake of fashion, thank you very much.

Neefi had no place to go and all day to get there. No place, in this case, meant home, and the reason she had all day to get there was because, once again, she would come home to a cold, dark, slightly damp house with only her calico devon rex cat, Daria, to greet her as she opened the door. And Neefi had a strong feeling that the main reason Daria met her at the door was to scold Neefi for being gone all day and to demand that Neefi now make up for it by procuring gooshy chicken in a dish, and fresh kibble immediately, if not sooner. So when Han suggested they head for the library instead, it did not take much thinking on Neefi's part to divert from her chosen path to follow along with Han.

"Han, why do you think our mothers gave us such awful, common names?" Neefi asked, as she did every day when she first saw Han.

"I dunno, Neef. Jennifer seems like an OK name to me. At least it does not evoke pictures of pioneer women in calico dresses and boots standing next to a house made of grass and buffalo chips out in the prairie somewhere like Hannah does."

Neefi thought for a minute. This was a different reply for Han. Usually Han nodded and commiserated right along with her, not challenging the superior stupidity of being named Jennifer over being named Hannah. Like in most situations where she was caught off guard or didn't know the answer, Neefi just shrugged and nodded.

"I suppose," she replied, sulkily, "But what is eating you, Han? You usually agree with me on this stuff."

"I will tell you when we get to the library," replied Han in a foreboding whisper, to which Neefi replied only with a sidelong glance and a raised eyebrow at her best friend.

"Do not worry, Neef - it is not what you think. But, you will love it anyway."

"Okay, but remember, I have to be home before five o'clock otherwise Daria and my mom will both have fits."

"If you are that worried, set your iPod to remind you," replied Han.

"I will when we get to the library," replied Neefi, "It is buried in my pack."

"Along with the rest of your life, the universe, and everything?" said Han sarcastically.

In reality, Han felt a bit sorry for Neefi having to carry everything back and forth. Her own parents had sprung for the second set of books for Han to use at home, but Neefi's parents did not see the use of owning schoolbooks that would be obsolete the next year, and refused to buy them. Han and Neefi walked the remaining two blocks to the library in silence.

Neefi looked up from her feet to the worn brown adobe building ahead of her, and sighed. With its attempt at an art deco entrance contrasting violently with the red tiled roof and low profile, the building always looked like it was trying to start an argument with itself. Obviously, some second rate architect back in the nineteen twenties decided that an Art Deco entrance would somehow turn this mud pig into a princess. He should have been shot. Not even Julia Morgan, in her extremely excessive designs for the William Randolph Hearst mansion in San Simeon, California, went as far as this unnamed architect had managed to do. That is because Julia Morgan had style and taste, something very much lacking in this building, Neefi thought as she trod up the cement steps leading to the ornate doors.

"Spill," Neefi commanded in a hushed whisper as soon as she and Han had set their book packs down at the far end of the reading room, away from Ms. Pretri, the ancient, dour, white haired senior librarian that had been there for as long as Neefi could remember.

"You know that new guy in Earth Science? The dreamy one with the big velvety brown eyes and curly hair that keeps falling down in his face?"

Neefi nodded vigorously, her frizzy chestnut mane flailing into an even bigger concophanic mess. She remembered the first day he had ambled into class - was it only last Tuesday - behind the assistant principal, Mr. Rosebaum. He was wearing a forest green "earth day" tee shirt, with a Big Dogs solid dark gray linen button down camp shirt over it. His long legs were covered with a pair of classic black Levis that partially covered the Nike logo on the tongue of his unlaced shoes. His hair was a pile of carelessly groomed loose curls, ever so randomly falling over the tops of his oval rimless glasses and the biggest sexy brown eyes she had ever seen, even online. He looked awkward and cool at the same time, and when he spotted the two girls sitting in the back of the class together, Han and Neefi both saw him give them a sly wink. OK, maybe it was for Brittany, the bodacious bubble headed blonde cheerleader that sat in front of them, but neither Han nor Neefi wanted to believe that. Neefi swore the whole class heard them groan when Mr. Zapho pointed to a desk on the far side of the room from where the two girls sat.

"Han, if you tell me he is gay I am going to scream," she hissed at her friend, who was obviously delighting in keeping Neefi in suspense.

"Shhh! Neefi, keep it down or Petri Dish will kick us out again!" Han's flame red hair fell around her face as she glared with green eyes at her friend.

Neefi nodded, and whispered, "Then tell me!"

Han wondered how long she could keep Neefi in suspense before her friend lashed out across the library table at her, and decided instead to unpack her day glow orange, olive green and black canvas book pack that was so battered it looked like it had survived Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but only barely.

"Han," Neefi growled.

"Shh," replied Han pulling her French book, small spiral notebook, and black MacBook out of the dilapidated pack, "Get your books and laptop out so people will think we're working not gossiping."

Neefi sighed. When Han was right, she was right. And right now, she was right.

"Do I have to grab French too, or can I pretend to be doing Algebra?" she asked Han sarcastically. Han just shrugged.

"Whatever tickles your pickle," she replied, flipping open the laptop and clicking on the iChat icon in the dock.

Neefi pulled out her Algebra book and let it thump on the table, then carefully slid the white Macbook out of its pouch, and wondered if dream boy - jeesh, she could not even remember his name! - was any good at Algebra. She had not seen him in her class, but that did not mean he was not taking Algebra, only that he did not have Ms. Acosta third period. Which, all things considered, was probably a good thing.

"Well?" Neefi hissed again.

Han sighed an looked up from her black MacBook. She glanced sideways to make sure there was no one near by then leaned way over to Neefi and said,

"He is not gay."

"That, that is *it*!?" sputtered Neefi, barely able to keep her voice quiet. Mrs. Pretri shot them a glare, but thankfully stayed in her chair.

"No, but it is the answer to the question you asked."

One of these days, Neefi thought, One of these days, Hannah Adrianne Nelson, you are going to push me too far, and I am going to kill you. She glared at Han over the top of her laptop.

"Well, then what?" she whispered sarcastically.

"What what?" replied Han.

"You are pushing me, Han," warned Neefi, the blood veins on the back of Neefi's neck starting to pound.

"Oh, all right."

"Finally," muttered Neefi under her breath.

"First off, I found out from Marissa that his full name is Tristan Patrick Dylan, and"

"Wait," interrupted Neefi, "How would Marissa know?" Marissa was Han's older sister.

"Because, silly, if you remember correctly, Marissa works in the office two afternoons a week."

"Oh yeah. Go on."

"Anyway, Tristan Patrick Dylan is a transfer student from Aberdeen, Scotland, and his parents are"

"Wait - the guy is from Scotland? What the heck is doing out here in the blight of suburbia called Silicon Valley?"

"Would you stop interrupting me? He's from Scotland, haven't you heard him speak?, and he's here as a visiting student while his father is a guest lecturer at Stanford." Han finished retelling what Marissa had told her.

"If his dad is at Stanford, why isn't he going to Gunn or Paly? Or even Menlo Atherton? I'm confused. Happy, but confused."

"His mom apparently has some kind of medical condition that gets worse when the air is hot and dry, so they are living here on the coast."

"Well, there's lots and lots of humidity and coolness here," Neefi muttered, then looking up, slid down in her chair.

"Oh, shoot!" she coughed, "Look busy, here comes Ms. Petri Dish."
***************

Stephanie sighed and closed her laptop. OK, she had made the 1667 words for today, with two to spare, even, but how she was going to sustain this for a whole novel, she had not one clue. The dialog was dreadful, the characters wooden, and her action was nonexistent. It didn't help that her younger brother, Kyle, who only had to write twenty five thousand words, was all ready over four thousand and showed no sign of slowing down. And it was only day two!

She placed her computer glasses beside the closed black macbook (just like Neefi's - coincidence? I think not!) and stood up, stretching her arms over her head and grasping her hands together like they had been told in computer class oh so many times.

"Where did I put my NaNo workbook?" she muttered to herself, and her little brother Kyle grinned.

"Steph, you should see, it is SOOO cool. I have Jake and Ian talking together like old friends, even though they are supposed to be sworn enemies. But that is because Paine is really in charge, and Jake did not realize it until the end of the last novel. YOu know, Steph, the one I wrote last year. Anyway, they are talking, and Cainus and Emily are watching because they think there's some kind of trick for why Jake would want to talk to Ian. Do you think I should have a trick there? Or not? And then they start casting spells - I have a great way of ordering the spells, the first name is the action and the second name is the element you want it acted upon. Cool, huh."

Kyle went on and on, and it was all Steph could do to not cuff him in the ears and tell him to knock it off. Instead, she just smiled sweetly and mumbled "Uh huh" a couple times, hoping he would get the message. But, twelve year old boys are immune to that kind of message, especially the extra bright, outgoing, charming kind like Kyle was. She swore his voice had dropped an octave just this past month, and by next summer he was for sure going to be taller than her and Mom. He might even end up as tall as Dad, or even Uncle Larry. At least Kyle will be nicer than what mom said her younger brother was like.

And to be honest, Steph really loved her little, err, younger brother. He was a joy to be around, even when he was being a pain. Whenever he walked into a room, it was like the voltage just got turned up a hundred volts. His dancing, brilliant blue eyes, easy smile, and wavy brown hair made him an instant hit with the kids and parents alike. Babies loved him, and toddlers squealed with laughter when he played with them. He read to preschoolers, and helped elementary school kids with their homework. He was even nice to Allison, the girl next door who was a year younger than him, when she got stuck in one of her Nintendo DS Pokemon games, calmly walking her through the process like an senior call center technician, until what ever stupid problem Allison had managed to get herself into had been resolved

"Kyle, have you seen my NaNo book?" Steph asked. Kyle just laughed.

"Having troubles all ready, dear sister Steph?" he replied as he went over to the Nano messenger bag their mother used as her portable office. Their mom, Sarah, was the Municipal Liaison for their region for the third year in a row. He reached inside the dark blue and silver Timbuk2 bag and withdrew Steph's notebook with a flourish.

"Ta Da and Voila!" he smiled as he handed the green D ring binder to his elder sister.

"Mom used it on Thursday for the Meet and Greet at Peet's, remember?"

Stephanie had not remembered, she had been too busy wishing that she was someplace - ANYplace else last Thursday instead of a Peet's with her mother and Kyle. Her mom had the extremely embarrassing tendency to use Stephanie and Kyle as examples during National Novel Writing Month. Stephanie had wanted to crawl under the table from the first year on, but Kyle was only starting to feel uncomfortable about her doing that, and Steph had a feeling it had a lot more to do with a twelve year old writer named Liz that was sitting across the table from him than anything their mother had said in particular.

"Thanks, oh brilliant one," she replied as she grasped the notebook from his hands, "When you finish your twenty five thousand words next week will you write another twenty five thousand words for me?"

Stephanie was really only half joking. The way stories flowed out of that kid it made Chris Paloni, or whatever his name was - the Eragon guy, look like, well, like her. Stuck in her story on the very first day. Unprepared. Uninspired. Undone. Stephanie sat back down at her desk in the classroom she shared with her brother. Ever since Steph and Kyle's parents has pulled both of them from the public schools when Steph was in sixth grade and Kyle in third, they had shared the spare bedroom turned classroom as their school. She set the sea green binder down and opened it to the first page.

"Hello Author, Here it is, almost November, and you've decided to tackle on of the most rewarding challenges ever: writing a novel in 30 days. Before you begin, we want to commend you just for showing up!"

Stephanie rolled her eyes inwardly and scanned the rest of the page, then turned back to the Table of Contents. "Creating Well-developed Characters, page six; Character Questionnaire, page eight; Creating Conflict, page eleven; Outlining Your Plot, page fifteen..." Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep, and Yep. Stephanie mentally saw the check boxes next to each item, all of them unchecked in spite of her mother and her brother both reminding her to do them.

"Later!" was all she said when they tried to persuade her to take some time to do it. Now, faced with a fiasco of a novel, she could not even remember what it was that was so important that she could not have spent a half hour or so getting herself organized. She turned to page six, "Creating Well-developed Characters" and began to read. The introduction went quickly, but now it was time to actually start writing about her characters. Stephanie took a deep breath and started with Neefi.
****
Section One: Complete this section for all your characters!
1. Name: Jennifer Elizabeth Newman (Neefi)
2. Age: fifteen
3. Height: five foot eight
4. Eye color: brown
5. Physical Appearance: Neefi is *oh crap, what did I say she looks like? I can't even remember what color I made her hair - oh, here it is.* OK, Neefi has long frizzy chestnut brown hair. She has very pale skin, and only a couple zits, small ones, on her forehead. Her mother says if she wouldn't wear her hair down in her face, Neefi wouldn't have her forehead breaking out. But Neefi doesn't think that is the case. Anyway, she has long arms and long legs that don't quite know how to act together yet. She wears a retainer, or is supposed to anyway. She has a pair of John Lennon round glasses that she is supposed to wear for the computer, but she doesn't like to wear them because "they make her look like a dork." Her mom thought they were "cool," which gives you an idea about where her mom is. Her mom would also have her wearing tie-dye if Neefi would put up with it- which she won't. She has small breasts but to her they feel like giant balloons protruding in front of her.
6. Strange or unique physical attributes: Neefi is ambidexterous. The dark frizzy brown hair that stands out in every direction except the way she wants it to go. A small scar in front of her right ear where she had to have a 'stone' removed when she was two. Otherwise, she is amazingly normal looking. She fades into the background in the halls of her high school.
7. Favorite clothing style/outfit: Neefi loves to wear nothing but black - black turtleneck, black vest, black jeans, black boots, black purse, black, black, black. But she is not a Goth. More the artsy look. No designer names - no names at all on any of her clothes. "They don't pay me to advertise their stuff, so I'm not going to give it to them for free." The one exception is her book pack, which is bright violent purple and pale turquoise. Onyx and obsidian are her two favorite stones to wear. Her mother sighs and tells her she would be "much prettier, if only she would wear some color sometime" so Neefi got even and got some blood red lipstick and started wearing it. Her mother has been strangely quiet since.
8. Where does he or she live? What is it like there? Neefi lives in the United States, in California, south of San Francisco but north of San Luis Obispo. There is a wide mix of people, from the hispanic natives and recent immigrants, to the wanna-be yuppies that moved out to this hot hell-hole because they can't afford to live in Palo Alto. Most of Neefi's school has dark hair and speaks at least two languages, although the second may be Hindu, Spanish, Tagalag, Chinese, or sometimes even Farsi. But she is cool with that. There are tensions between the old ranchero descendants and the new yuppie wanna-bes that usually show up in the town hall meetings. One group wants to preserve the historical look and feel of the town, the other would rather have a shopping center and a discount store - especially with climbing gasoline prices. And it's not the way you might think.
9. Defining gestures/movements (i.e., curling his or her lip when he or she speaks, always keeping his or her eyes on the ground, etc.): Neefi often starts to stutter when she gets too excited or is too tired. Her extremities are always in motion, even when when she is being still. She taps on things, taps her pencil on the desk, her fingers on her hip, her foot on the floor. Quietly, but incessantly. Drives her teachers nuts, but since she's not harming anyone, they really can't say anything about it.
10. Things about his or her appearance he or she would most like to change: You mean besides everything? She IS fifteen, you know. Probably would like her hair to behave, and for her body to develop into something more curvy and less like a ten year old with balloons.
*****
*Oh wait, Neefi needs freckles across her nose. That would be the killer.* Steph paged back up and added "a sprinkling of light brown freckles across her nose, left over from childhood" to item number five, then added "get rid of the light brown freckles cursing her nose and cheeks" to item number ten.
*****
11. Speaking style (fast, talkative, monotone, etc.): *Oops, guess the stutter should have gone here. Oh well.* Neefi is a fast talker, with lots of inflection and emotion. Except when she has to get up in front of people. Then she starts to whisper and stutter.
*****
Stephanie looked down at the next page and a half and sighed. This questionnaire goes on forever! she moaned internally. Sighing, she turned back to her keyboard.
*****
12. Pet Peeves: Her mother. Her little brother. People who say "I seen." Teachers that give out tons of homework the day before vacation. Stale gum. Tomatoes.
13. Fondest memory: Going to Disneyland with her Junior Girl Scout troop. Her mom was one of the chaperones, and they got to stay in the Disneyland Hotel. They really worked hard selling cookies & calendars, and even had a booth in the elementary school holiday faire. They went in April, and Han (Hannah) went too. They were happy that they were over forty eight inches tall since it meant they could go on the Matterhorn, but then the ride was closed (again!) for repair while they were there, so they went to the Haunted House instead.
14. Hobbies/interests: Umm, boys, for sure. Computers. Social networking (aka iChat and text messaging – no one uses the phone to talk anymore, it's too insecure). Getting the United States forces out of Iraq before her little brother has to go fight there. Embroidery. Yes, embroidery. It calmed her nerves. She tried knitting once, but it just seemed a bit too ordinary.
15. Special skills/abilities: Neefi can type eighty two words per minute on her laptop - if she can find eighty two words in a minute she wants to type. She also has an uncanny knack of being in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.
16. Insecurities: Neefi is really insecure about her hair, her eyes, her arms, and her body in general. Sometimes she thinks she's the stupidest person on earth. Other times, she knows she is the stupidest person on earth. She worries that she won't get into the college of her choice - University of California at Santa Cruz, even though she has never heard of anyone being turned down from there that has applied.
17. Quirks/eccentricities: None - she is a regular, boring fifteen year old girl in high school.
18, Temperament (easygoing, easily angered, etc.):
19. Negative traits:
20. Things that upset him or her:
21. Things that embarrass him or her:
******
"Gah! I am never going to be able to think all this up!" Steph mumbled as she continued to read over all the questions. "I wonder if Neefi has a mom that thinks nothing is better than to try to cram fifty thousand words into a cohesive story in thirty days?" She continued.
*****
22. This character is highly opinionated about:
23. Any phobias?
24. Things that make him or her happy:
25. Family (describe):
26. Deepest, darkest secret:
27. Reason he or she kept this secret for so long:
28. Other people's opinions of this character (What do people like about this character? What do they dislike about this character?):
29. Favorite bands/songs/type of music:
30. Favorite movies:
31. Favorite TV shows:
****
But what if my character doesn't watch TV?, Steph wondered. Well, she would just have to work that out when she got there.
*****
32. Favorite books:
33. Favorite foods:
34. Favorite sports/sports teams:
35. Political views:
36. Religion/philosophy of life:
37. Physical health:
38. Dream vacation:
39. Description of his or her house:
40. Description of his or her bedroom:
41. Any pets?
42. Best think that ever happened to this character:
43. Worst thing that ever happened to this character:
****
being trapped in this novel, thought Steph.
*****
44. Superstitions:
45. Three words to describe this character:
46. If a song played every time this character walked into the room, what would it be?
***************

Steph looked at the list one more time. No wonder her mother had been bugging her to start early. She wondered if there was a way to incorporate her character descriptions into her novel. She would have to think about that. Maybe have her character be writing a book - a NaNo novel herself. No, she thought, that is too lame - even for me. She looked at the long list again. "No wonder Kyle used the home Wiki for this," she thought miserably to herself.

Sighing, opened up her laptop and fired up Copy Write, the program she used for such things. She open up her binder file, and created a new character file, "Neefi" and cut and pasted the questions from the online version of the workbook to her sheet. A small "gong" and a bouncing happy face icon on the bottom of her screen told her that someone had just logged into iChat and sent her a message. She clicked on the icon on her menu bar and watched as the window emerged. Ah. gray with pink text - that would be Madison.

Madison was the last of her public school friends she hung out with, but Madison was enough. Through her, Stephanie kept up with all the good gossip from the high school, and also gained access to most of the public school events. "The best of both worlds" Madison had once grinned, with that goofy, toothy grin of hers. And Stephanie had to agree.

"Whazzup, Oh great novelist of the twenty-first century?" came the message on her screen from Madison. Steph groaned and rejoiced at the same time. Madison was good at filling out surveys and stuff, maybe she could help Steph fill out this one.

"Plodding without plotting" came Steph's reply.

"Ouch - that bad, eh? How many words do you have? I just barely got mine done last night, and still have to do today's. I think my princess is about to get captured by the dragon."

Steph smiled. Madison had been writing the same story for National Novel Writing Month every year since fifth grade. Every year, there is a princess, a dragon that kidnaps the princess, and a handsome prince that goes through many trials and tribulations to rescue the princess. "The story is the same, only the names have been changed to protect the author from lawsuits or getting caught," thought Steph. Of course, Steph was not one to talk. She has used the same book, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, for a book report every year since third grade. Steph figured it was legit because she re-read the book every year, and also wrote a new report every year. She's not sure how much longer it was going to work, though. Steph kept hoping that they would quit assigning stupid book reports before she had to find a new book, but things were not looking hopeful.

The beep from her black laptop brought her back to the present.

"WELL?" was emblazoned on her screen in the upper left-hand corner, bright magenta letters against a dark gray background. Steph sighed for like the hundredth time, and quickly typed in "One thousand, nine hundred fifty seven words, and counting."

"STEPH!! You are supposed to be at five thousand one words today! When do you plan on catching up?"

"I dunno, tonight or tomorrow, maybe over the weekend. It isn't like I have such an active social calendar that I actually have to schedule my writing time." Steph paused before she hit the RETURN key and deleted the second sentence, then sent it off to her friend. She didn't need to explain such stuff to Madison. She all ready knew what the score was.

"Stephanie! Kyle! Wash your hands for dinner!" She heard her mother Sarah's voice wafting up the steps to their classroom. Kyle took off the headsets he was wearing and headed out of the room like a shot.

"Come ON, Steph, you can talk to Madison after dinner!" he called over one shoulder as he left the room making a quick right turn down the hallway towards the steps.

"BRB Madison, dinner" Steph quickly typed into her chat session, then clicked in the red Gone to Dinner away message in her iChat buddies menu and closed the top of her laptop before Madison had a chance to respond. The top latched with a quiet click.

"Coming, Mom," she called as she turned the overhead light out and stepped into the hallway. Little brothers can be such a pain, she mumbled to Lady Godiva her chocolate Norwegian Forest cat, as she scooped the large, long tailed feline into her arms. Lady Godiva wiggled a little then allowed Stephanie the privilege of carrying her down the stairs to the kitchen for dinner.

------------------------

02 - Chapter two

After dinner, Steph headed back to the class room to finish the description sheet on Neefi, but Madison was still on iChat and she ended up helping Maddy with her algebra instead. It always amazed Steph that anyone could have as much trouble as Madison did with simple math, but Steph just figured it was the result of some early traumatic experience with negative numbers in a second grade class room. Anyway, the problems they assigned Madison every night were really simple if you understood math in general. Madison did not, and well, that was probably the source of the problem. Poor Madison, thought Steph, she never really learned the good stuff about mathematics, only the boring stuff. Such was the problem of public schools, sighed Steph. Finally, Madison had to call it a night - she had class at 6:30am and had to catch the bus by 6. Uggh. Another reason to be home schooled - not having to be ready for the world at six am.
Stephanie lay in her bed staring up at the ceiling, the faded florescent stars her mom had pasted up there when she was about five still trying to glow and only half succeeding, sometimes. Steph grimaced- it was such a perfect analogy to her nano novel and her life in general.
Yep, just like my life. Trying so hard to glow and failing miserably, yet not knowing that I should just quit. She drifted off to sleep thinking about whether she could talk her mom into letting her spend her literature an composition hours writing, then worrying that she wouldn't have anything to write about.

+++++++++

"Yo, Steph!"
Steph sat up in her bed like a marionette being pulled up by its strings, instantly wide eyed and searching for the source of the sound calling her name. She could vaguely see someone standing at the side of her bed, but the shape was far too tall and slender to be her little brother, Kyle. Squinting, she clicked on the soft LED nightstand light and fumbled on her night stand looking for her glasses.
"Looking for these?" the voice said, and as Steph watched the image fuzz into her view, she could see that the figure belonged to a girl more or less her own age, twirling Steph's glasses by the earpiece, and dressed from head to toe in black. She sported a black motorcycle cap like the one she remembered James Dean wearing in the poster Steph saw once at the mall; a black leather waist-length jacket with silver studs around the waist, zipped open to reveal a black shirt beneath. Her black jeans were held up by a studded black leather belt, and although Steph couldn't see enough to see the girl's shoes, she was sure that the shoes were probably black as well.
The girl paused twirling Steph's glasses long enough to try them on, then shook her head as she took them right back off again, "Woah! You are a blind one aren't you?"
Steph nodded lamely. Something was strange. The girl looked strangely familiar, but she couldn't quite remember where she'd seeh the girl before. She certainly was not local to anyplace Steph hung out. Slightly irritated, but not wishing to annoy the person standing in front of her since Steph didn't know if they were armed, Steph decided that maybe if she asked politely the girl might give her glasses back to her.
"May I have them back, please?" she enquired softly, still feeling a bit sleepy and well, a little odd. There was something not right about this whole situation. Especially when she tried to look at the girl in front of her. Being nearsighted might make it hard for her to see the outline of shapes, but it was like this girl was not quite solid.
"Maybe later." The girl sat down on the edge of Steph's twin bed on top of the fluffy purple & turquoise comforter. "Figures," Steph heard the girl mutter to herself. The girl crossed her long, black jean clad legs up under her, and shrugged off the studded black leather jacket.
"Look, Steph, we gotta talk. If you are going to write about me, you are going to have to do better than this." She waved several pages of Steph's novel in front of her.
"Hey! How did you get that?" Steph asked, sitting up in the bed.
"Does not matter, the girl replied. What matters is that I did, and boy am I glad. Otherwise, you might end up writing me as badly as you did that poor servant girl you wrote about last year."
Steph squinted in the soft light at the girl, who lifted her leather sports cap up to let a waterfall of frizzy dark brown hair fall past her shoulders. Reaching over to the nightstand where Steph had a basket of hair ties, she grabbed a black clip and pulled the mass of unruly hair to the nape of her neck and fastened it with Steph's clip. It was starting to dawn on Steph that maybe she was not really awake. A part of her knew it was the middle of the night and everything was dark, yet here she was, basking in the soft glow of the light on her night stand, and seeing far to clearly to not be wearing her glasses. Steph stared at the girl some more, not wanting to believe what she thought she might be seeing.
"Umm, who are you and why are you sitting on my bed talking to me in the middle of the night?" The hell with politeness, thought Steph. "And, how did you manage to get in without setting off the security alarm?"
"I have my ways," the girl responded, taking a piece of Wrigley's Doublemint gum out of her front jeans pocket and popping into her mouth, "And you know who I am, or you would if you had really stopped to think about what you were writing about."
"You are ... Jennifer?" Steph asked incredulously. "How did ... why .. uh, what is going..."
"Yes, I am Jennifer. Or 'Neefi' as you call me."
"But, you are not real! You can't be!"
"No shit, not the way you are writing me. Girl, even if you finished this description," Jennifer shook the papers in Stephanie's face again, "I would still be nothing more than a flat, two dimensional, whiny high school girl with bad hair and zits on my forehead."
"But that is the way I wanted to write you!" exclaimed Steph, deciding that this was all a really bad dream and that she was not about to get pushed around by a figment of her imagination.
"Well, stop. It's not me."
"Well, so who said I'm writing about YOU? Maybe I'm writing about another Jennifer Elizabeth Newman with a best friend named Hannah Adrianne Nelson. I mean, you don't even really look like my Neefi, and you certainly do not behave like she would!" Steph was not happy with this girl sitting on her bed, claiming to be her Jennifer Elizabeth Newman from her story. The girl glared at her and Steph could almost feel the fiery daggers jabbing at her from the girl's eyes. She leaned forward to Steph so Steph could get a really good look at her face.
"Hey, look at me. You know who I am. And you know you would write me this way if you had the guts to create an actually truly interesting person to weave a tale around."
Steph glared right back. Dream or not, she wasn't going to be meekly accepting any lectures from anyone, and especially not from someone that was claiming to be a person three years younger that Steph herself. She leaned forward towards the girl - Jennifer if she was to be believed - and stared deeply into Neefi's eyes, holding her prisoner with her own. The edges of the girl became less solid, and Stephanie quickly pulled her glasses out of the girl's pale hand and sat them on her face.
"OK, so what if you are? Why do you care one way or the other what I say? It's not like you go to school with me, or even hang with me. Shoot -You don't even live in the same universe as me!" Steph was almost shouting now.
"How would you know?" Jennifer shot back, "And keep it down, man - you really don't want your parents, or worse, that irritating little brother of yours, to come in just now, do you?"
"Maybe I do," Steph replied, picking at the tufts on the seams of her comforter. She was getting tired of this irritating girl chewing gum and sitting on the edge of her bed, and she just wanted to wake up and have this Jennifer person go away.
"And by the way, the name is NOT 'Fifi' or 'Nifi' or whatever other cutsie name you have come up with."
"Well, what is it then?" Steph's arms were getting cold, and she just wanted to snuggle down under her pretty deep violet and turquoise comforter, and go back to sleep. She wasn't quite sure why she wasn't, but this creature - this girl - on her bed was fascinating, even if she was only a result of drinking too many Red Bulls yesterday afternoon.
"It's just Jennifer. All three syllables. Jen eee fir."
"That's it? One of the top five most boring names in the english language, and you aren't even going to try to fix it.
"No, I don't need to - it is just fine the way it is. There is security in a dangerous world when they can't figure out if you are the person they want or not just by looking at your name, you know."
"And why do you need to have security? I haven't written you to be some hard ass character with motorcycle togs trying to do a baby James Dean in a bad neighborhood."
"That is true, but unfortunately for you, that is where I live. And I got tired of getting beat up on the way home from school every few days, so now I am someone you don't want to fuck with." Jennifer looked at Steph menacingly.
"Are you taking notes, dearie?" she asked Steph, "There WILL be a test tomorrow, and you better have all the answers right, or else."
"Or else what?" Steph asked as she pulled her comforter up around her shoulders, off balancing Jennifer to where she almost fell off of the bed.
"You don't want to know, Steph." And with that, Jennifer vanished, leaving only a snowflake of a reflection from something shiny, and extinguishing the light as she left.
Steph shook her head and scratched the itchy spot just past her part on the right, then carefully set her glasses down on the night stand beside the bed and flopped back on her pillow to get to sleep. What ever this was, and Step was pretty sure "this" was nothing but a bad dream brought on by too much caffeine way too late in the day. But she pulled her covers up over her head - just in case/