Chapter 5: Big Olivia

   Remember what I said about me sitting in the seat with only a couple kids? The table consisted of six people.

Me, Disaster, and Olivia Perkins, and Olivia's "crew".

  Olivia Perkins was a big 8th grader, she was meant to be in her second year of high school by now, but was held back. She had dark tanned skin, and probably weighed twice as much as me. Almost everyone called her "Big Olivia". She had brown-ish curly hair that was always pulled back into a messy ponytail. Olivia, everyday, said "Hi!" or "How you doing?" or gave a fistbump to the vice principal to keep a connection so she wouldn't get in trouble, or so she thought. 

  The other three people in Olivia's crew were Ashley Bandsam, a short glasses girl from Puerto Rico, Tomica Kinisha, a tall lanky girl from China, and Zoey Sims, an aggressive girl from North Dakota. 

  I sat farthest away from as I could to stay away from trouble, even though I'm sure Olivia doesn't even notice me. Disaster sat in front of me and usually read a book, wrote in her journal, or had a cracker or two in her pocket. 

I looked over to the left where a couple seats back, Olivia and her girls were sitting. 

Her lunch? A family sized bag of Doritos held inside a brown Publix bag. Everyone else had a nice Mom-packed lunch or a hot lunch from school.

"Hey! Yo, Chris! Where'd you get your glasses? The dumb glasses store?!" Olivia yelled to the table in front of us at a "nerd" looking guy.  

Her group laughed a shared high-fives even though that "joke" wasn't even funny, just mean.

Disaster glared at them and turned a page in her thick book. My mind raced with topic starters, something funny? Action? Romance? Drama? Wait, I'm talking movies right now...

Then I finally found something we could agree on, because I thought we were destined to be friends, Olivia. 

"That girl, she's such a jerk, isn't she?" I whispered to Disaster. Disaster nodded and then said in a low voice, cautious to not let Olivia or anyone else overhear.

"She's stupid, idiot, jerk. Yesterday during history, I dropped my pencil and I asked her to pick it up for me because it was under her chair. You know what she do? She snap it! In the half!"

My mouth was wide open and I looked over at Olivia's side of the table.

Tomica was slurping in her thermos of greenish liquid and the other girls were asking "Eew! What is that?!" and sticking their fingers in there and licking up the thick drink.

"Mmmm! That taste pretty good! Lemme waterfall it!" Zoey said and picked up the thermos. "Waterfalling" was what everyone called when you take a friend's drink and drink some of it without letting your lips touch the container otherwise that would be considered "kissing".

"Disaster, do you think that-"

"Excuse me?" Disaster said looking me deep in the eyes. I thought about what I should have regretted when I said those five words.

"Disaster?" Disaster repeated pushing her book away. "Is that what they call me? Disaster?!" 

I stuttered and answered back in a nervous voice "Y-yeah, that's what a lot of people are saying." 

Disaster scrunched her nose and gritted her teeth.

"Disaster?! My name isn't Disaster, just some stupid rumor I guess... Cazzia, how long have you, like, known this?" 

"Cassia," I corrected. "and about a week or so. Apphia told me." 

"Who's Apphia?" Disaster asked pronouncing it "App-ee-yuh" instead pf "Aff-ee-yuh".

"My," I hesitated. "friend." 

Disaster groaned and looked me in the eye, her's a bit wobbly. 

"Disaster," I said. "-I mean, you. Do you wanna come over tonight? Or, after school, actually." 

Disaster nodded and stuck her book in her bag and smiled. 

"Yeah, I vould like that. And my name, it's Crescentia."