Rae And Harper Backstory

When I first met Harper, we were in a seventh grade photography class. While the teacher, Mr. Wyatte didn’t even know my name (he called me ‘The Very Blonde Girl’ until halfway through the second semester,) he called on Harper for nearly every question. Having been thrust into the public school system after seven years of Catholic schooling, I was unaccustomed to not being the smart one, the one teachers loved to call on. After all, I was light years ahead of everyone else, due to my strict curriculum. But apparently, this was not my field of expertise, and I’ll admit, it irked me. She’s not even that smart. She’s not, I thought to myself. But here she was, getting praise from the teacher. Praise seventh grade me thought she totally deserved.

“Harper, what’s the difference between positive transparency and negative film?”

“Harper, would you like to explain when and why graininess increases?”

“Who knows what the different parts of an enlarger are? Harper?”

Harper, Harper, Harper. It made me sick.

Then, one day, I was sitting in the cafeteria when I heard someone sit down. I looked up, annoyed: Black plastic frames, ruddy cheeks, frizzy blonde curls. Harper. Gag. Couldn’t she tell I didn’t like her?

Apparently not. She babbled on and on, like an idiot. She was a fizzy soda that had been shaken up, her sugary bubbliness spewing everywhere around her. I took that spew as an attack on my personal space. I did everything I could to ignore her: Adjusting my lunchbox, moving my thermos, checking the clock pointedly. I didn’t say a thing.

This went on for about two weeks. Then, I sat down, frazzled by my last class. I had gotten a 92% on our pop quiz. I wanted 100%. Distracted, I pulled out my lunch. She quickly grabbed my thermos and moved it. I glared at her; how dare she touch my stuff?

“It was on the wrong side.” She said quietly. “Its always on the right.”

I looked down at my lunch. She was right.

That afternoon, I walked into the photography room, planning on asking Mr. Wyatte for extra credit, to bump my grade from a B+ to an A. He wasn’t there, but Harper was. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room; large black and white prints were sprawled out around her. I picked one up; it was a close up of a sunflower.

“Wow,” I said softly, “These are really good.”

She jumped and turned around. “Oh, thanks, Raeleigh,” she mumbled, looking down.

After that, I found myself slowly warming up to her; I started actually listening when she talked. I found that she loved Augustus Waters, Gilbert Blithe, and Captain America with equal intensity; I learned that she was a whiz at cards, and that she had a knack for getting into hopeless situations. She was stagey, sure, but I figured I was stoic enough for the both of us.

The, it happened. It was the last big photography project of the year, and we were told to choose partners. Harper marched over to my station and flopped down in a metal chair. “Be my partner?” She asked dramatically. I grinned in reply.

(Our project, a collage of the staff and students in the design of the school logo, garnered us an A+, bringing my overall grade up to an A.)

Unlike most new friendships, which were fragile as the newly emerged butterfly, ours was rock solid.

School project? We were partners.

High school schedules? We filled them out together.

Talent show? We nailed our duet.

Choir places? Second row altos, side by side, every year.

She brought me out of myself and into her world. Granted, there were a lot of fairies and unicorns in her world, but still. It was a good place to be.

Reviews

[Ana]

You'd mak ea good ya book author because of your humor. It's good that you made a backstory to give more info on the story!

[Lavorther]

Great chapter, nice to read something about how they became friends. Again, this is just a small story on its own, not really fitting together with the last chapter. But it is a good one.

One suggestion:
"The, it happened."
I feel like the "the" needs to be "then".

[Kayle Ann]

Yup. Woopsie. Typo. Again. Thank you.