Immortals Of Byolla Bay

Coming out of the forest trail that ended at the back of our school’s small gym, I immediately took a left and walked into the side door of the cafeteria. Winnigrove High School was located right at the end of our little county and right next to the elementary school, which also served as the middle school. Our town is too small to have a separate middle school all to itself.

One of the founding families of our tiny town was the Winnigroves. They were the ones who decided schools needed to be built and named after them, too. The founding families throughout the generations either died out or moved away leaving only the Winnigroves and the Forthropes left of the original founders. Mayor Judd Forthrope and his family, along with our town judge and chief administrator, Theodore Winnigrove and his family are quick to tell you their elevated statuses came from their importance to the town’s history.

Both schools and the cafeteria were even named after Theodore’s grandfather because he is the one who paid for an upgrade in the kitchen and volunteered his family to fund the school’s food budget.

As I walked into Thomas Winnigrove Cafeteria, it was buzzing with chatter about the new arrivals just like I knew it would be. Across the spacious lunchroom came my best friend pushing through the line of students waiting to get their food.

Meshella Junisanwa has lived two houses down from me and has been my best friend since we were in diapers. Her mother is from here and met her father on a vacation in the tropics. They fell in love at first sight and he moved from his beautiful island home with sparkling shores surrounded by a crystal blue ocean to this tiny town, where the only water is around the fishing port enclosed within the cliffs and the water is sea foam green, not to mention it smells like rotting fish plus polluted with seaweed. I believe that is what true love must be like because I couldn’t imagine another reason to move here.

Speaking of which, I was eager to hear the gossip about the new arrivals. Meshella didn’t disappoint either, immediately beginning with, “Have you heard? We actually have people that wanted to move here! So far all I know is there are a father, mother and they have 3 children with 2 about our age. The parents came earlier and registered their children, but no one I have talked to actually seen what they looked like! Mysterious, right?” I nodded quickly, excited to share what I seen, “I was walking here from Dr. Gohlan’s office and seen them moving into that empty house on Sanna Way. I seen a blonde girl and 2 guys standing outside.” Meshella smiled mischievously, “Maybe one of them will be hot! Heaven knows we need one in this school.”

I laughed at my friend. She is one of the prettiest girls in my opinion, but has not had an actual boyfriend since her and Eivan Bruccard broke up freshman year. They had been together all 8th grade, but over that summer Analya Forthrope’s bra size suddenly grew a few cups granting her the attention of every boy in school, including Eivan’s. He and Analya were caught behind the bleachers the first day of 9th grade by none other than Meshella herself leaving 2nd period early. After a few choice words and a black eye for Analya, Eivan and Meshella’s one year and 3 month relationship ended. They have not spoken since and Meshella has shown no interest in any other guy in school because of Eivan’s betrayal.

I have never had a boyfriend myself. I guess I’ve been too focused on making good grades to study boys. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like for her.

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang and I made my way to the front office to turn in my doctor’s note. The school secretary is Ms. Tomkin. She is unmarried, no children and shamelessly flirts with our principal, Mr. Uthridge. I always thought it was gross seeing as she is in her 30s and he is nearing 60. Ms. Tomkin looked up and smiled at me from behind the computer on her desk, “Well hello Kinsley. Where have you been today?” There were maybe a little under 300 students in our school so it was easy to tell when someone was absent from our student body. I handed her my doctor’s note, “Yearly checkup.” She nodded, took my note and filed it under my name in her huge vanilla colored filing cabinet behind her chair. Then she gave me a hall pass, scribed in her curly handwriting, excusing me from being late to 3rd period. I thanked her and hurried out the office, smelling like her perfume which everything in that office was drenched in.

My third period was American lit, which was my favorite class even though the teacher is not that nice. We were currently studying Ralph Waldo Emerson and the transcendentalism movement. We had to pick a work from him and write a short essay about what we chose and why. I picked “Nature” because it seemed the easiest to write about since it was basically a straightforward example of transcendentalism itself because nature is free from any institution or social standard. It does what it pleases. I turned in my essay right as the bell rang while everyone else groaned because they now had to finish it for homework since they didn’t complete it by the end of class.

Last period was gym and Meshella’s favorite. We dressed in our school colored assigned uniforms, blue shirt and green shorts, and stepped outside the locker room so that Coach Ronald could do roll call. The class was then separated into two groups of 6. One team walked around the court, while the other played volleyball. When coach blew the whistle we switched. I sucked at volleyball and that was the only sport Coach Ronald had us play. Meshella was good at it, but our team always lost to Analya’s team every time. It’s probably because everyone else on our side played as horrible as I do and her side had most of the athletic built players.

Meshella and I walked around the court the last half of the period describing what we thought the new kids were going to look like. She was adamant that one was going to be a gorgeous 5 foot 7, blonde headed, blue eyed Adonis with nice manners and more importantly will never cheat on her with a girl that had a huge rack. We giggled and came up with even more things to add to the list of our perfect guy when the final bell rang.

“Are you sure you don’t want to ride with me? I could really use your opinion girl. We can pick up something to eat on our way back?” Meshella wanted me to ride with her and her mom to the mall in Zephyrs Landing, which was a 2 hour drive, to pick out a dress for her birthday party next week. I had a ton of homework to do since I missed the first 2 periods of the day, plus once a week I liked to get home early enough to cook something for my mom so she don’t have to spend so much money on eating fast food. Meshella gave me a hug and promised to send me a picture once she found the right one.

I started up the hill to the trail that came out on Sanna Way. I might see someone outside again, except this time I would have time to stop and introduce myself. The trail was well traveled enough to where you could clearly see where the path begins and ends even from a distance, which was good for me because it was starting to get dark. Night time closes in fast this time of year.

Almost halfway down the trail I heard a sound behind me. I turned expecting to see someone else from school, but there was no one there. Convinced it was just a squirrel or other small mammal, I continued walking.

Closing in on the end of the trail, I heard another noise behind me again except this time it sounded like a growl. I froze dead in my tracks and waited quietly, hoping whatever it was would just go away. I’d never seen a bear or a wolf in these woods, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t any around.

My ring that my grandmother gave me started glowing which startled me more than I already was because it had never done that before. A few seconds later I heard hard, labored breathing along with another growl, which sent me into a state of panic. I went running in full sprint to the end of trail, screaming the whole way. I barreled out of the woods and ran smack into a what I thought was a tree, but when the tree’s arms reached out to steady me, I realized I had ran right into someone. I started fervently apologizing for not watching where I was going in my state of terror, but when I looked up at the face of the individual I almost ran over I stopped talking immediately.

It was a man, no, not a man...an angel. He had bleach blonde hair, emerald green eyes and a pearly white smile that could stop traffic. He was the most gorgeous creature I had ever laid my eyes on. “Are you alright, lady?” His deep, luscious baritone voice asked me. The tone registered somewhere in my belly and instant butterflies started dancing around in there.

Logic thankfully took over and I remembered I’d never seen his face here before which meant he must be one of our new additions to the town. I shook my head, “No I’m not hurt. I take it you are new in town. My name is Kinsley Preden. I live on the next road down so I guess I could say I’m one of your neighbors.” He smiled that perfectly white smile, “It’s nice to meet you Kinsley, and thank you for running into me and making my night interesting. My name is Rikki.”