I tried at sleeping again, but only got about three hours worth of it. I shuffled my feet down the stairs and into the kitchen. Clarisse must've figured out my morning routine by now, because she was waiting by the sink, pouring out my coffee into the sink. I leaped into action. My hands acted frantically, but sadly, I'm too short to reach her, so all I could do was yell and squirm.

 "Give me my f*cking coffee!" I shouted. My hand knocked against hers, and the coffee spilled on both of us. She gave me an accusing glare, and went off to clean up. I was left with a pool of brown to mop.

  Most of the morning was anticlimactic, compared to the face off for beverages, until mother and father came home from doing god knows what. Those two keep their activities concealed from us, leaving us confused. Today was different, however, and they asked for me to have a talk with them. An hour later, I fulfilled, and came to sit with them.

"What'd I do and how do I fix it?" I asked. They had no obvious response, and my mother looked rather concerned. She motioned for me to sit down.

"Listen," she started, "We understand that your social life isn't the most exciting, and that you don't go out much, and-"

"What's your point here?" I interrupted.

She stuttered and got back on track. "What I'm saying is, there's a small coffee shop down the street that I've noticed a lot of teenagers your age going to. We wanted you to try that out and just see how that goes."

"And if it doesn't go well?"

Father smiled at me. "Then we won't force you again."

"Fine, but when do I have to go?" I asked.

Mother gave a supporting nod. "Anytime today, sweetie."

"Noon?"

"Noon."

Of course, I waited until the selected hour. The clock struck twelve,and around a half hour later, I decided to get dressed and ready to go. I was going through the closet, until Clarisse came in.

"Try to dress down a little bit," she commented, "Don't give people the impression that you're uptight. I already hate you, don't let other people do the same."

With that, she left down the hall. Hmm, I guess I had no idea my sister would be willing to give information about socializing, but I shouldn't question it. I threw on a pair of jeans and a flannel button down and stumbled down the stairs. I slipped on a pair of sneakers and shouted where I was going, and with that, I was gone.

I tried running as fast as I could to this new coffee shop thing, but then I remembered: I didn't even know the name. I thought of typical names for a cafe.

Hmm, probably something with "Joe" in the name, right? probably followed by something that this man supposedly named Joe owns, but what does Joe even like?...

My thought were interrupted by a tree-to-face moment. Conveniently enough, I was apparently standing by some sort of hill. My feet slipped, sending me rolling down the hill. When I hit rock bottom, I also hit a pair of legs. It was the new neighbor I'd seen yesterday. She giggled a lot after seeing me covered with shreds of grass.

"Did you just get busy with the ground?"  She said between light hearted laughs.

"Get...busy?" I was confused about the topic. She looked as if I should've known, so she acted it out through hand gestures. She make that sign for "perfect" and inserted her pointer finger in the loophole. I had a mini heart attack and cleared my situation up.

"No no no, I was just confused and distracted and I-"

"No need to take it literally!" she waved her hands. This girl really likes hand gestures. I attempted to change the subject.

"And, uh, who might you be?"

She imitated a deep male voice. "Faun. Kat Faun. And yourself?" She silently laughed to herself, clearly impressed with her James Bond thing.

"Uh...Kaci Bender."

"Well, blondie, I didn't really have any plans, so I go where you go?" 

Blondie? Huh, this girl is strangely friendly. But still, out of all names, "Blondie"? Am I supposed to call her "Plum" or "Dye" or something? Either way, I suppose it was helping me achieve the objective of making friends, so I guessed I would go along with it.

"Uh...sure?"

Kat clapped her hands together. "Yay! I already have a friend!"

She walked in a happy silence, but that only lasted half a second, because I just had to ask awkward questions.

"So, what's up with your purple...you get what I'm saying?"

"Oh! Well, I'm usually busy with my siblings, so I don't really have time to dye it, so I use spray cans when I feel like it. It'll probably fade by tomorrow. I'm actually a brunette!"

"How many siblings, to be exact?"

"Two little sisters, and five little brothers."

"You say that like its normal. Do you ever need help?"

"Of course not! It helps me build life skills. I'll be a good wife to a lucky woman someday!"

I hate to say it, but I'm starting to like this plum-headed, cheerleader, city girl- oh, whatever, the point is, she seems like a good person.

We never really made it to the coffee shop. We just sort of made it around the neighborhood. When we were done, she and I waved goodbye from our porches. Nobody seemed to question the fact that I was out for a majority of the day. Hm, what idiots. I plopped on my bed once more, writing what you just read. 

-Kaci Bender