Donna Forte

Chapter 4

“Do you think we should ask the student council?” Raina suggested she walked besides Althea down the hall towards the sports faculty room. Since the seniors were graduating soon, the teams were in need of more good players and for that they had to put up banners and posters around the school to announce it. Althea was planning to just go with it but Raina was being the cautious one and suggested they ask the student council before doing anything.

“And what if they don’t agree with us?” althea asked with a raised eyebrow. Her soft features were always deceiving. Under the baby face and the small figure was a lioness who could make anyone pee their pants just by looking at them. Raina, however, was used to seeing her friend like this so it pretty much did not affect her. She sighed and gave up on the conversation. She knew there was no changing her mind, once Althea decided on something, it had to be done, by hook or crook.

The student council and Althea could be examples of arch nemesis. They never got along. It had all started when kalian stone had volunteered to be the president of the council against Althea, who was the president since her sophomore year. Allegations were made and insults were thrown left, right and center. At the end Althea realized it was not worth the trouble and gave up the position even though she had won by two hundred votes. Since then the two never saw eyes to eye.

“But at least talk to coach about it Al.” Raina said. Althea nodded absentmindedly and rummage through her bag for her textbooks. They had almost all lectures together which was the only reason they both could survive the classes. 

“What do you think I was doing in the first lecture Rain?” she whispered when she saw the professor arrive. An hour long history lecture was good enough to put the students to sleep. As soon as the bell rang the students ran out as if the class is on fire but althea and Raina waited back to go last.

“How do they even do that?” Althea muttered.

“Do what?” her friend replied by asking.

“Go about in life without a goal?”

Althea always wondered how a human was capable of living their life without a goal or dream. It had intrigued her a lot. She had many dreams and many goals to achieve. She had made them the milestones to achieve the ultimate goal of her life, which was yet to be discovered. But at least she enough reasons to go on for the next ten years or so. She had seen her fellow classmates waste their lives over useless things. Smoking, drugs, girls or boys, gambling their lives away in exchange of waste.

“No idea Al, they just do.” Was Raina’s reply. She also did not know the reason but there was absolutely nothing she could do to change that. Everyone had their own way of living and Raina had no problem staying out of their mess.

“Let’s go. I had asked Morris to print out the banners, they must be ready.” they left the now empty classroom and headed towards the computer lab where the computer nerd Morris resided. He stayed there most of the time and did some work for the teachers and students in exchange of either academic credits or money. The latter was of course extracted from the students.

“Here, that will be forty dollars.” Morris said and handed the banners and posters to the girls. Althea raised her eyebrow at him.

“Don’t flatter yourself Morris, these banners are not even that good.”

“Then you should have got them from somewhere else Althea.” He replied and went back to whatever he was doing on his computer.

The bargain took twenty minutes of their time and twenty five dollars out of their pocket. It was worth it thought, no matter what she said but the banners were beautiful and conveyed exactly what they wanted to say.

“I’m going to the newspaper department to hand them the banners, should I wait for you after that?” she asked Raina who had one more lecture before school ended.

“Nah, you go ahead. I have to meet Heather later.”

Her nose scrunched up at Rain’s reply. Heather was one of those plastic made human dolls that she did not like to associate with. But unfortunately Heather was one of the most creative artists the school, she looked down at the banner and wondered if Morris had consulted Heather before making it.

“Do you have to? Georgia is making cinnamon cookies!” althea almost whines but Rain did not budge, she said she had some important work that cannot be delayed and she would have those delicious cookies another day.

After handing out the big bunch of posters to the newspaper department for advertising, Althea felt a burden lifted of her shoulder. She was free to go home and eat Georgia’s cinnamon cookies with chocolate milk. Today she had to walk home since her car had been given for painting at the garage. Her car was her pride and joy, it gets a spa like treatment nearly every six month or so to keep it in top condition. While walking home she felt as if someone was watching her, she turned around to see if anyone was actually following her but disregarded the thought when she did not see anyone.

Reaching home again she shouted “I’m home” as loud as she could knowing that it will annoy Albert to no end. Honestly, she was spoiled rotten by Albert and Georgia. She was given every relevant thing she asked for and was never discouraged to do anything. Along with materialistic things they nourished her with values and kindness. She had inherited Georgia’s feistiness and taken her sassiness from Albert, the baby features were just a plus for her.

Even though she was not their blood child she was a perfect mix of both of their personalities, and they couldn’t be more proud of her.

“Althea! Look who’s here to meet you!” Georgia’s excited voice perked her interest and she made her way to the living room.