Purple

2,054 words - teen sci-fi

I love days when I have green eyes. Green is so peaceful. So beautiful.

So normal.

But today, a Tuesday, I knew as soon as I woke up that I was doomed. When I looked in the mirror, it was worse than I'd thought. My eyes weren't blue, which was alright, or even gray, which I could tolerate. They were purple. Straight-up flamboyant purple.

I hate days when I have purple eyes.

Today was important. Today, of all days, was not the time for purple.

My jungle of brown curls wouldn't be tamed either no matter how much sleek and shine shampoo I used or how hot my straightening iron got. When I stumbled downstairs at five minutes to seven, trying to tie my shoe and walk at the same time, I felt more like a hurricane than a human. Mom handed me my paper bag lunch and tried to put a slice of toast in my mouth.

"I'm going to miss the bus!" I said, stuffing my arms into my jacket sleeves. One of the seams popped and instead of coming out the armhole, my hand went right through the new rip in the shoulder. I made a face and tossed the jacket on the floor. "It was getting old anyway," I said.

"Looks like you're going to have an exciting day today, Indra!" Mom grinned.

I'd thought about faking sick and skipping school, but I couldn't. Not today.

"Got to go!" I grabbed my backpack, permitted mom to kiss me on the cheek, and let the screen door bang shut behind me.

As soon as I was out of eyesight of the front window, I crouched down behind the neighbor's dead bush and pulled a box of contact lenses out of my pocket. It was always tricky getting them in without a mirror, but I was getting pretty good at not poking my eyes out.

Blinking, I felt them settle into place. When I stood up, I had green eyes. Well, at least green on the outside. There was no way to disguise the inside.

This was going to be a purple-eyed day, and I was dreading it.

It was raining by the time I got to the school bus. Big fat drops of rain that looked like quarters when they hit the sidewalk. I was soaked by the time the bus came. The water made my hair even frizzier.

Just what I needed.

When I walked into school and saw the neon orange banner yelling, "Girl's Choice Spring Dance" over our heads, I almost turned around and walked right back out.

"Are you excited, Indra?" Betsy whispered from the next desk over when I plopped into my seat for first period English.

“Oh. Totally,” I said.

She made a face. “You’ll end up thanking me, you know.”

In Chemistry class, I twiddled with my pencil instead of balancing chemical equations. When the bell rang, I accidently snapped my pencil in half.

This was the part I was dreading. Lunch.

Spencer Ramikin always sat at the same lunch table with the same group of boys. They were all on the football team, except for Nate Stelling who had broken his foot at the beginning of the year. Their table was the loudest, messiest, and most envied place in the cafeteria. Usually a few of the football guys had a girl or two at the table. The kind of girls who had hips and knew how to walk in high heels. The kind of girls who woke up every morning with the same color of eyes. The normal kind of girl. Usually one of those girls was next to Spencer Ramikin, but he and Lipstick Lucy had broken up almost two weeks ago, and so far no one had replaced her.

That was what had started this whole plan. It was Betsy's idea at first, and if it failed I was going to blame my social humiliation on her.

Standing at the entrance to the cafeteria, I clutched the doorframe to keep myself from being carried away on the current of students. I could see Spencer Ramikin carrying his tray to the football team table. There still wasn't any girl with him.

Betsy grabbed my arm from behind. "Are you ready?"

“No.”

Betsy rolled her eyes.

“If this fails, I am becoming a homeschooler.”

"It won’t be that bad." Betsy dragged me into the cafeteria and gave me a shove toward the table of terror.

I filled up my lungs with air, like I was inhaling armor. The worst that could happen was that he would say no. That was it. A simple no. I could handle that.

Squaring my shoulders, I locked my eyes on Spencer Ramikin. This would take five minutes tops. I could do this. I could so do this.

Marching forward, I smacked straight into Derek Jackson. The corner of his tray went into my ribs and his chocolate milk went all over my face.

I gasped. Derek said, "Watch it girl!" I heard the tray clatter. Spencer Ramikin looked up.

I jumped backwards. My eyes were burning from the chocolate milk and the contacts were making it so much worse. Poking a couple fingers in my eye, I fished for a contact and pulled it out. But I still couldn't see well.

"Oh my goodness!" Betsy said. I felt paper towels being wiped across my face and the contact get swept away with them.

This could not be happening.

"OMG! What happened to you?" A girl said.

I cringed, blinking and trying to see straight.

"Ugh, don't get to close," said a girl right behind me. "If you get this skirt wet, I will kill you."

"Are your eyes two different colors?" The first girl asked.

More paper towels were smeared across my face.

"OMG! They are!"

Now everyone was looking at me.

"Were you wearing contacts? Are your eyes really purple?"

"That is so creepy," said one of the girls. "That's like that one lady - what's her name?"

That one lady was my mom. But of course I didn't tell them that.

"OMG. You look so weird!"

"Are you, like, a freak?"

There was a bathroom connected to the cafeteria, and peering through the one eye that hurt less, I tried to bolt for it, shoving people aside.

The bathroom was empty. I turned the water on and peered at myself in the mirror.

Fishing the other contact out was worse than usual since my eyelid didn't want to let in any more intruders. Once it was out, I splashed my face with water and sputtered at how cold it was.

One of the stall doors opened behind me and I jumped, the contact slipping off my finger and down the drain. Whirling, I grabbed for the paper towel dispenser but it was empty.

"Uh..." The guy standing there was tall and scrawny with big glasses and bright red cheeks.

That was when I saw the urinals on the wall. The age Teri's bathrooms were flipped. I'd forgotten. My own cheeks went pink, and I fumbled with the faucet handle, trying to turn it off, but yanked too hard. The whole sink head broke off in my hands spraying water like a geyser and drenching both me and the bathroom. Dropping the broken piece, I darted past the guy who just stood there the whole time, staring and turning both redder and wetter by the second. Once I was back in the cafeteria, I realized I was dripping a lake onto the floor.

I heard laughing. Three girls were standing there, looking me up and down. More people were turning to see what was so funny.

"We wondered where you'd gone," said one of them, and I recognized her voice from earlier.

 My wet clothes were cold. More predators were gathering. 

"Wow. Look at those purple eyes!" Announced one of the girls.

Some of the kids closest to us turned and looked.

I ducked my head and tried to slide past the nearest guy and get to the girl's restroom, but one of the girl snaked out her hand and caught my wrist.

"Are they real?"

"Look!"

The space around me was getting more congested by the second as students clogged it, trying to see what all the commotion was about.

"Show us your freaky skills!" Someone said. 

Over the girl's shoulder, I could see Stephen Ramikin parting the crowd, his posey of football guys following him. I cowered down.

And I had thought the worse that would happen was Stephen Ramikin saying no.

Everyone was so close I could feel them all breathing on me, their words crowding the air and slithering into my ears. Their odors were all smashed together against my nose. I backed into the wall and pressed myself against it. There was no way out.

"I've never seen someone like her in real life!"

"Did anyone know she was a freak?"

"What's going on?"

"You know that one girl with the frizzy hair?"

"She totally has purple eyes!"

"Look!"

"What's her name again?"

"OMG!"

"So freaky!"

I could see Stephen Ramikin staring at me, and I wanted to melt into the floor. I wanted to disappear, turn invisible, evaporate, anything.

The students pressed closer, and my throat closed against the torrent of words and breaths and shouts. I gasped, and tried to slide away as someone stepped on my shoe and something - an elbow maybe - hit me in the ribs.

"Ow!" Someone said.

"Indra?" I heard Betsy call, but she was lost in the jostling crowd.

Without thinking, I slammed myself backwards into the wall. The plastered cement cracked. I felt a metal beam in the wall groan and shriek as I hit it. People gasped.

"She's a monster!" Someone yelled.

The hands holding me disappeared.

I turned around to face the destruction. It looked like a rhinoceros had charged the wall. Cracks were spreading out from the hole etching their way up the the ceiling.

"Look out!"

A girl screamed.

The ceiling collapsed.

I knew this was going to turn out to be a rotten day.

Thankfully, most everyone was intelligent enough to get out of the way. Except for that one girl with the new skirt she didn't want to get wet. She must have gotten knocked over in her pointy high heels and twisted her ankle, because as the ceiling fell, she sat there and shrieked.

The shriek was cut off by the thud of plaster and dust. Coughing erupted.

I ran forward and lifted the sheet of ceiling off the girl. She stared up at me with terror as I tossed the ceiling piece aside.

That's when I realized the floor was cracking too.

Great.

I went to grab her just as the floor gave way. One second ago, I had no idea our school even had a basement. Now, very suddenly, I became intimately acquainted with the basement floor as my face collided with it.

Wincing, I looked up and heard more gasping.

There, right above me in the air, was none other than Spencer Ramikin. He was holding the unfortunate girl, and he was flying.

Like, literally flying. Like, his feet were not on the floor. Because there was no floor.

It's one thing to know you have weird powers, but it's totally different to realize the coolest kid in school is just as much of a hidden freak as you are.

The girl looked down and started screaming again.

Spencer floated over to the place where there was still floor to be had and set her down. She shoved him away and started crying.

"OMG!"

"Did you see that?"

"How many freaks are there in this school?"

 Spencer looked down over the edge of the hole to where I was sprawled.

Maybe it was my imagination, but I was pretty positive he was wearing colored contacts.

"Um..." I said. "Would you like to go to the spring dance with me?"

(photo by CurioSEOty)