One Day in June- Part one

Hey guys. Here is my second short story set back in time. This time it is split into parts. So this is Part one! Happy Reading! 

March 26, 2012. 18:00 hours

“Hairdressers in Iceland are the happiest people on Earth”, she said. Not every day would you hear of something as bizarre; not if you didn’t know her. I remember, it was 5 complete days before she had said hi. I could lie and tell that she had me at hello. But no, there was more to her, a lot more. Some people said she moved from South America and some said from Finland. Personally, I could have sworn she had jumped out of Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster and would be responsible for the planet’s doom. She could have had a portal to the alien world in her locker and could be sending updates when no one watched, or when she scared people away from watching her. Eyes so cold, that they could give you frostbites. Okay, maybe that was a bad comparison, but you get the idea. She basically walked with caution tape wrapped around her. If it wouldn’t have been for a stupid dare, I might have kept clear of her asteroid belt altogether.

 

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September 18, 1996. 13:00 hours

Steve Buthcman called me sissy for fainting while dissecting a frog. It’s not like I was scared or anything, I just could not see its guts spill out in front of me. After paying for Steve and my lunch, I said, “Fine then. Give me any dare, and I will prove it that I’m a real man.” (You do stupid things like that as a high school senior). I should’ve have known what was coming my way, because the first thing he did was turn to Alice. That wasn’t her name, I didn’t know her name. Everyone called her Alice because she came from Wonderland, and her only friends were inanimate objects. I rolled my eyes and braced myself when he smirked. “Ask her out”, said Steve. I thought of protesting and sitting back down like a little chicken while I would beg him for another dare. That seemed less assuring for a real man though. So like an overconfident jerk, I said, “Done.” and started walking towards her table. The slowest 5 seconds of my life. I wondered why my life hadn’t flashed in front of me already. If it hadn’t, maybe it wasn’t my end yet. As I slowly rested my hand on her table, without even looking up from her book she stood up and left. I stood there in amazement, maybe for more than an obvious minute. I didn’t even know her but felt the deepest rejection of my life. When I came back to my ugly existence, Steve laughed and said, “The dare will continue until you are murdered pretty boy.”

September 18, 1996. 14:00 hours

“Dagur Campbell,” called out Big Red, a.k.a Mr. Chapman, our red haired and beer bellied Japanese teacher. He was quite a misfit for my Japanese language class, but then again, so was Alice. I by the way, am half Japanese and so kind of have a reason to be in here. Anyway, he called my full name! He knows I was dreaming. Crap! Alice knows I was starring at her. They’re going to hide my corpse up a chimney for Santa to collect. “Yes Mr. Chapman?” I asked. “Could you translate that for me Mr. Campbell.”  Again! He is going to kick me out. “I’m sorry but I don’t understand it Mr. Chapman.” “You would if you paid more attention rather than starring at Ms. Lee here.” Stupid Big Red, thought I was staring at Jenna Lee who sits next to Alice. Whatever, no one would care. “I’m sorry Mr. Chapman, it will not happen again.” “I would hope so. Take a seat.” Through the corner of my eye I could see Alice staring at me. NO! Not the desirable staring, the ‘I can read your mind’ staring. She didn’t even bother looking away when I turned. I looked away.

September 18, 1996. 14:50 hours

Alice had her locker next to mine since they were assigned alphabetically. This is the first time I even saw her use it. Steve stood there across the hall signaling me to talk to her. “Hi”, I said. She turned her alien gaze to me like she was analyzing my anatomy and then bent down, picked up my fallen book, placed it in my hand and left. Cre-epy! I thought of her eeriness and how much I hated Steve all evening that day.

September 19, 1996. 08:00 hours.

She climbed onto the bus. I was in for trouble since I was the only one with an empty seat. Before things got bad I stood up and decided to remain standing until I reached school. She barely even looked at me; and then slid herself against the window. I noticed a bow tie tied around her ponytail- cute!

September 19, 1996. 13:00 hours.

It was another failed attempt of trying to talk to Alice at lunch. This time I almost thought I got it because she hadn’t said a word or stared into my soul while I talked to her about how much I loved her essays. It was only then, when I saw the black earphone cord peeking out of her hair that I realized she hadn’t been listening. I discreetly walked away.

September 19, 1996. 14:50 hours.

Once again the bell rang. Once again she walked away from my “Hi.” I remained standing all the way home on the bus- again.

September 20, 1996. 08:00 hours.

Today I had decided to not move away from my seat on the bus. I didn’t look at her when she climbed in and could only feel her take a seat next to me. I swear I could see Steve laugh from the back of my head! When I did finally look at her she wore a Brand New shirt today. For all of you that are thinking it was brand new because it still had a tag on, no. I meant the band. I just felt like I hit the jackpot because now I knew exactly what to talk to her about.

September 20, 1996. 10:30 hours.

“Pssst,” I hissed. She didn’t turn. “Hey, umm new girl”, still no answer. Finally I wrote a letter and tossed it to her. I wrote, “Brand New is great. What do you feel about Alexisonfire? They are holding a music carnival at the Peak on Friday. There will be Green Day music too.”  She slowly hid it under her desk and read it. She smiled. She smiled! She was writing. Oh god she was writing back to me. Then she left it on the floor between us and continued doing her work. When I picked it up, it only read, (in extremely neat writing), “11pm. 102.7. Future you will thank you.” That was all that happened with her in the day. On my way home I sat next to Kayla Jones who preferred counting her split ends.

September 20,1996. 22:50 hours.

10 minutes before 11 pm and I had still no clue what her note meant. I thought of all the possible numbers with 102.7. Home numbers, street numbers, locker codes, even car license plates! Not a single one of them seemed relevant, and I wouldn’t be able to ask her until Monday, the 23^rd now.  Maybe she was after all giving me a code to the alien future and all I had to do was look out for a celestial sign or time machine at 11 pm. So I placed myself by my window and turned on my old cassette player. That’s when it struck me! I felt like I had been completely stupid all this while. Of course she wanted me to listen to music, to the bands she liked! I turned on the FM and switched to 102.7. I slept that night to the tunes of Arctic monkeys, Brand New and Bowling for Soup.

September 23, 1996. 08:00 hours.

Alice climbed on. I thought either I was dreaming or she was sleep-walking but she actually smiled. As she sat next to me she whispered (or what I thought was a whisper), “Hi.” I smiled back as I said, “Hey morning. I heard the songs. Do you always listen to the radio before sleeping?” She nodded. Then she fiddled inside her pockets and pulled out her black earphones dropping them in my hand. I assumed she wanted me to put them on and so I did. I immediately recognized the song as Say it Ain’t So by Weezer. Not like I liked that song, but I pretended I enjoyed it. In reality I was just more spooked out. I thought of just asking her out and getting done with it. Before I could think about that she got up and got down. I hadn’t even noticed the bus entering the school.

September 23,1996. 15:00 hours.

Alice was sitting with me on the way home again. I needed to say something. “What’s your name?” I asked, thinking that would be a good start. “Juliet Capulet”, she said. I didn’t want to laugh, but I could not control staring in amazement either. Juliet Capulet; just like Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. No wonder she never told anyone her name. She started laughing then. I laughed too, but I didn’t know for what. “I was also born on April 1^st.” she said. We laughed more. When we finally stopped, she turned and laughed more and said, “It’s June. June Caine. Not Juliet Capulet. And I was born on June 2^nd.” All I did was stare more. And I was speechless. Finally I managed to say, “Oh! Oh, well you got me. I’m Dagur by the way.” “Dagur?”, she asked. “Yeah. It is an Icelandic name meaning Day. My father’s ancestors were Icelandic.” “Hairdressers in Iceland are the happiest people on Earth”, she said and then got off the bus. She was a mystery.

To be continued…