Fear prompt: March 19

The metal door fell closed behind me. I stood under the narrow awning watching the rain. Children pushed past. to the streets, to the idling cars along the curb. A boy from my class, Toby I think, bumped against my shoulder, said nothing to me, didn’t even smile, then rushed up behind another boy I did not recognize, jumped on his back, hooped and hollered.
Then the boys were knights clad in leather armor, fighting over the fair princess with their umbrella swords. The fair princess, rapunzel hair, sleeping beauty eyes, cinderellla feet, stood by laughing. Her name was Angela. She was also in my class.
I hated that I had to start a new school in the middle of the year. This day to day fear of who I was in light of who I clearly wasn’t, was easier when the faces were familiar, when I’d had some memories and background to guide me. I stepped off the awning and felt the rain on the top of my head, soft, cold and wet.
My house was only seven blocks from the school. I was certain of that. I’d walked there and back yesterday evening, just to be sure, dawdling at the school fence for a while, noticing how empty it was, how institutional the metal fence was, the same metal fence they’d had at every school I’d known, but larger by far. This fence contained a large cement play yard. Where was the grass? The school building sat on a hill above the massive gray playground, old red brick, old-fashioned clock face over all. That was my first impression of Franklin Elementary.
This morning, filled with three hundred children, it’d seemed a friendlier place. it hadn’t been a bad day. I hadn’t talked much to anyone, had spent a lot of time working quietly at my desk observing, had spent recess twirling round and round on the parallel bars. I’d made a fast friend named Eva who also liked to twirl and read and was in third grade like me, but wasn’t in Mrs. Wright’s class. Mrs. Wright looked like a truffle to me, round and soft and full of so much expectation. I liked to eat truffles alone in my room or lying on my back on park benches.
I watched the ground so as to sidestep puddles from yesterday’s rain, kicking through piles of blown leaves. No rain. No wind. So quiet. Not fog, but like fog spread transparent thin over everything, dimming everything. I kicked green chestnut pods and thought they looked like weapons from a Bruce Lee film. Crunch. Crunch. Was that an echo or a person walking behind me? I listened. Someone was behind me. I was sure. I walked faster, thinking I’ve only got four blocks to go, don’t turn around, just walk as fast as you can, don’t cut through alleys or through empty yards, stay on the path. Whistle, yes, whistle. He’ll think you’re not afraid. He? Always he.
The thighs of my cotton tights were hot from the friction of walking, those uncomfortable tights always riding up or falling down. Those flats that clacked on the sidewalk, clacked like his shoes did. Two blocks.
I’d seen a movie once about a girl who was kidnapped on her way home from school and never saw her parents again, and another where a werewolf had stalked a girl to the edge of a cliff, forcing her to throw herself onto the sharp rocks below. One block.
Clack, clack, clack, right through two giant puddles, water soaked my legs, froze my toes, my arms flew like Flo-Jo and I wished I was that fast and that bold. Home. Safe.
I sat on the front doormat looking out at the gray sky, the houses that looked like they were sinking into their muddy lawns, catching my breath.