Nice to Meet You

Erinella had finished her classes for the day- hooray! They weren't terrible classes or anything, but on an island like Manta Carlos there were thousands of things she wanted to do more than stupid schoolwork. She had rushed out of her classroom with no particular direction she was headed in. After all, she still had a while to waste before her mom arrived to pick her up. She was sad that some other kids didn't have their moms to pick them up after school, and she tried her very best to play down the situation as if her mom wasn't ever there, but other children had started to notice. And she didn't want them to be uncomfortable.

So each day after school, she would wait in the courtyards, wandering the stone pathways and admiring the color pop of the flowers beside it. The late winter snow had lightly coated the garden beds with white, but the flowers of Spring were sprouting through despite it. It was beautiful. She was still very cold in her jacket and tights she was wearing with her uniform. She always seemed to get very cold. Hands in her pockets and backpack slung over one shoulder, she walked alone along the stretches of gardenbed, the same garden bed she had seen for the past fortnight or so.

She he was usually content with her own company, but today she was bored. She was hungry, too. She needed something to distract her from all of that. And today, the pretty gardens weren't doing that for her. She couldn't see any students who looked close enough to her age, who she recognised or who would likely talk to her, so head permanently turned away from the others in the courtyard, she stared into the flowers. It wasn't that Erin was antisocial, she wasn't, but not having made any close friends yet was wearing off on her a bit. She wanted a best friend.

@Ashes

The little flowers really were pretty, weren't they? Erinella wondered at how they could be so still all the time. She knew they were living, but they couldn't do anything. For that, she felt sorry for the flowers. Bending down to brush a bit of snow off a flower petal, she glimpsed a girl. This wasn't just any girl, though. It was a tiny girl. Tinier than even the teensiest of babies. The girl held onto tiny little books, too. She wished she had books like that. They were weighing down her bag so much.

Immediately interested, Erin knelt down in the snow, not caring that her stockings would be cold and wet when she stood, and whispered, "Hello little girl." She only whispered because she didn't want to break the girl's tiny little ears or blow her away with a breath. That would not be the way to make a friend.

The fact that the girl was so little made her a lot less shy. Her fear of approaching people was totally irrational, she knew, but somehow the size difference made Erin feel much stringer and more confident. "My name is Erin, what's yours?" She found it hard to tell the age of the girl because usually the older people were the taller ones and the shorter ones were younger.

Not living at the school made Erin more comfortable, but meant she had less friends. she needed a friend, or at least somebody like her.

@Ashes

"Nice to meet you too, Olive," she said, still whispering so as to not scare the girl off. She didn't know what you could and couldn't do around little people. "Your name is olive- Like the food? People call olives vegetables but the are fruits. Not that that matters. Sorry." Her nervousness around new people was getting to her, making her blurt out random things without realising.

Upon closer inspection, Erin looked at the girl's appearance besides her obvious size, and realised she was very pretty. Her hair especially was. Erin found her own hair too short and too dark. The light blonde locks of Olive made her a little bit envious. Also despite her size, her face did not look like a toddler or small child. It actually looked quite similar in age to Erin. Maybe that meant they could be friends? She hadn't seen the girl in class, but that could be because Erin was new or because the girl was quite hard to spot. She reminded herself never to play hide and seek with her.

"Which grade are you in?" She asked. It was hard to tell, and she hoped she didn't offend the girl by asking and it turning out that they were in the same class all along. That wouldn't be good for either of them.

"Um- is an olive grove where olives grow? Wow, that's a tongue twister!" She didn't point out that Olive had already said it was nice to meet her. Was she nervous and stumbling over her words too? A horrible part of her wished she was. That meant she wouldn't be the only one who felt like she was about to do that.

Erin gasped. Grade Seven? She was in Grade Seven! Her face lit up, beaming. "I'm in Grade Seven too! We must be in the same class!" Then a bad thought came into her head. "Oh no. I haven't noticed you! Have you been there long? I haven't been there long. Maybe it's only because I have only been there a couple of weeks. I'm sorry!" She hoped Olive wouldn't be too offended by this. It would be great if they could be friends.

Quickly recovering from from the embarrassment of not knowing Olive was in her class, Erin got excited and said, "This is great! Maybe we can sit next to each other or eat lunch together- I need someone to eat lunch with. Do you live at the school?" She babbled on. That was one of the ways she coped with meeting new people. It calmed her down, but wasn't always calming for other people.