"Gabby Smith, Maxine Brown, Louise Melon-" The entire class erupted in a chorus of laughter.

"Uh, it's actually pronounced Louise Melón. With the accented 'o' emphasized!" Louise corrected the substitute, yelling over the laughter. The substitute gave an exasperated sigh and quickly wrote down a note beside Louise's name on the attendance, reminding herself of the tricky pronunciation. Though this happened with every substitute, Louise hadn't the faintest idea how mispronouncing one's name to "melon" was considered hilarious. Or it could have been that the students of Breachwood High School needed a good laugh, every now and then from all the stressing work that was thrust upon them. After a minute or so, the laughter died down to silence, and the substitute resumed the task of checking attendance, once again. Louise snuck out a pencil from her pencil case and began twirling it around her fingers, like she'd seen a few of her classmates do. It helped pass time and it was somewhat entertaining to watch. She twirled the pencil from her pointer finger to her middle. From the middle, she would twirl it towards the ring finger, and finally to the pinky. Then she would reverse the process and twirl it from the pinky to the ring finger, repeating these steps until the substitute finished the attendance. The substitute made her way, over to the teacher's desk and let herself slump in the swivel chair, lazily. Louise glanced towards the back of the room, to see if her friend was looking in her direction. To her great fortune, she was. Her friend, Elizabeth Winters waved and she returned the wave. Lizzy pointed to her iPhone. Louise nodded. She hastily took out her Samsung Galaxy and unlocked her screen, immediately accessing the texting application. A text appeared on her screen.

Lizzy: "Hi, bored."

Louise: "Well, wut do u think schools r for?"

Lizzy: "To torture innocent people's minds."

Louise: "True. The bell's gonna ring in a min."

Lizzy: "K, byes."

Louise: "Byes," she texted and hastily shoved her phone into her backpack as the bell rang overhead, signaling the end of homeroom and the beginning to first period. Louise gathered her belongings, stood up, and followed the crowd of students out the door. Lizzy ran up alongside her as they entered the hallway.

"Hey, what's up?" Louise asked. Lizzy shifted her backpack uncomfortably on her right shoulder.

"Well, there's the ceiling, the roof, the clouds, the troposphere, the stratosphere, the thermosphere, the mesosphere-"

"Okay, okay, got it!"

"But I still have fifteen more to go!" she whined. Louise shrugged her shoulders, not wanting Lizzy to continue her list, for if she did, it would enter into the next century before she was done. Instead, Louise mentioned the math test they were to take that following Friday. Apparently Lizzy was already studying profusely, not wanting anything lower than a 95. Secretly, Louise wanted at least an 80. Even a passing grade would do.

"I got to go to art, talk to you later."

"Yeah, see ya," Louise replied. She turned right in the first hallway. She spotted and entered the girl's locker room. The pungent odor of perfume hit her nose as she entered. Trying not to breathe, she made her way around the already occupied lockers and searched for her only friend in gym class. She finally spotted her, talked with her a bit, and dressed into her gym clothes. As they entered the main gym, her friend went to sit in her squad spot and talk with whomever was closest to her. Louise took a shortcut into the second gym, which was much smaller than the main gym, but it had a more cozy feel to it. She sat in her squad spot, waiting patiently for instructions. The teachers checked attendance and announced that they would be doing laps around the school. Her stomach did what felt like somersault. It wasn't that Louise wasn't athletic, it was just that running was not her thing. The class dawdled outside, most sluggishly due to the lack of sleep.

"Run four laps around the school! And when you come back do twenty-five jumping jacks!" the gym teacher ordered. Well, there's no gain without a little pain, Louise thought to herself.

***

Louise closed the door behind her and slumped onto it, thoroughly exhausted.

"Louise, is that you?" her mother yelled from the kitchen.

"Yeah...yeah, it's me..." Her mother wandered towards her and kissed her forehead.

"Running again?" she inquired. Louise shifted her backpack off her shoulders and slid down to the floor, having no intention of getting up.

"Do you want me to make soup for you?" Louise nodded her head sluggishly, hearing merely half of the dialogue. Her eyelids began to lower. Her body began to relax as the void of emptiness called to her. Louise, it called. Let us engulf you...-

"Soup is ready!" her mother called. Louise jolted awake, nearly crashing her head into the door.

"Mmmphg," she replied intelligently. Louise stood up, disoriented and wandered over towards the table. She seated herself down and began to wolf down the soup, every molecule of her body screaming "Sleep!" A sense of vibration was felt in her pocket. Halfway done with her meal, she hastily removed her phone, ready to tell the person to not call the number until the next decade. Or perhaps, the next century.

Lizzy: "Hey. Do u get the history hw? Im clueless. Plz reply ASAP." At that particular moment, Louise had little to no intention of texting or communicating with anyone, but she knew Lizzy had no one else to rely on. It was what made her so likeable. She was the kind of person that would never leave you because she had too many friends. Or make up some lame excuse that she was studying when she was really just hanging out with her supposed BFNMW (best friend no matter what). No, she couldn't ignore her.

Louise: "Define vocab words, then use each of them in a sentence."

Lizzy: "Thx! :)" Louise shoved her phone back into her pocket, wishing for no more distractions that would interfere with Louise and her getting into bed.

"When is Dad coming home?" Louise mumbled out.

"In an hour or so. He's running late from work today. Some last minute stuff." Louise finished the chicken broth from the chicken noodle soup and drowsily stood up, beginning to see doubles.

"Don't you want your fortune cookie?" her mother inquired. Perplexed, Louise faced her mother with an expression mixed between bewilderment and grogginess.

"The fortune cookie we got at that Chinese place a few blocks from here, on Saturday," she replied with concern. The bewilderment shook the languor out of her to her fully conscious state of mind. She loved fortune cookies, not because of the fortunes, but the taste. The taste would just melt on her tastebuds. Thank God for the Chinese to invent such an invention! But that wasn't the point. The point being, she had no recollection of ever visiting a Chinese restaurant on Saturday. She had recalled a pleasurable game of tennis with Lizzy, but not a visit to a restaurant. A Chinese one, specifically. She would've known if they had, considering her memory was sharp and focused, unlike her mother's, who sometimes forgot she had to buy Louise summer shorts after 100 times of consistent questioning. Though her memory was off sometimes, it was unlike her to make something of the sort up. Louise racked her brain for the dinner they had Saturday. Chicken? No, they had that the day before. Italian? Dad hates Italian, why the heck think of that? Caviar? In your wildest dreams. Each suggestion, however, was more ludicrous than the last. Queer, it seemed to be the only thing Louise has ever managed to forget. Yet, she couldn't argue with the proof that was held before her, nestled in her mother's palm. Louise clasped her hand around the fortune cookie and held it up close to her eyes, scanning it for any signs of age or mold. However, she was led to a disappointing find, for the cookie was in perfect condition. She shook the cookie, though it seemed ridiculous. Hey, you never know. You could find a time bomb in there, she thought to herself. And yet, when she shook it, she only heard a slight rustle of a piece of paper. She tore off the plastic wrapper, itching to find the source of her mother's delusion. Despite her suspicions, it still seemed to remain as a seemingly ordinary fortune cookie. Oh, well. Perhaps, she's just pulling my leg and she got the cookie from a friend or something. With a satisfying crack, the cookie opened to reveal a tiny slip of paper. Nonchalantly, she slid the paper out from it's encasement. That was when it happened. Any signs of weariness was replaced by pure pulsating energy, pumping in every vein and muscle. Every molecule in her body began to become conscious of its surroundings. Her vision, amplified to the capability of spotting the tiniest atom. She felt like she could run 100 laps around the school and still have the energy to jog fifty more times around it. Unfortunately, the energetic stimulation was short-lived and dispersed in the matter of seconds in that it had occurred.

"Louise, are you alright?" her mother asked, concern, tinting her tone.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm okay." She glanced down at the slip of paper she held between her fingers, along with the two halves of the fortune cookie.

"'It isn't the superpowers that makes a superhero a superhero. It's the heart that triggers the desire to do good,'" she read aloud.

"Well, that's interesting. Okay, well, eat the cookie, and let's get you into bed," coaxed her mother. Louise nodded, half-listening, and the other half, wondering of the incident that had just occurred. Or was it the ever wanting desire to sleep, hallucinating from her greatest wishes?

Now I'm sure no one is reading this, haha. Anyway, any thoughts on Louise? And if it's no trouble, could you please vote? That would probably make my day, and I'd show up at your doorstep holding balloons ^-^ Don't worry, I only stalk people during the weekends :) Also, I'll probably take a look at your book in turn for that kind gesture...