"Sophia!"

I nearly choked on the last peice of my sandwhich.  I turned to see who was yelling my name.

"Emma...no...Eva...no...Kayla...ugh...What was your name again?"

The copper-haired girl behind me giggled.

"Ava Summers. You were close. I'm in your art class! And literature! And music! Wow..." Ava leaned on the thin tree behind her.

"We're in a lot of classes together, huh?" She said as though she was noticing it for the first time.

"Ummm...yep." I answered nervously. I remembered this girl from class. She had hummed while she painted in art, sung a strange song in another language in music, and asked the teacher why we were reading when we could be dancing, only to receive laughter and a stern telling off by the teacher in return. She was weird. 

"What's your phone number?" Ava asked suddenly in a cheery voice. 

"Huh? Uh...here." I scribbled my number on a small piece of paper after scrounging in my backpack for a pen. I handed the tiny torn slip to Ava and she smiled.

"Cool. So, did you really think I was crazy and weird or were you just kind of weirded out by my bad acting?"

I was taken aback and stared at her in shock. "That was you acting?" I asked, astonished. "I thought you really were...um...crazy and weird, like you said."

"Really?" She gasped. "Sorry! I've been practicing for a school play thing. Gosh, you really thought I was crazy?" 

"Yeah." I replied with a sheepish grin. " You're a great actor."

She grinned and hopped over the back of the bench I was sitting on. She sat next to me.

"I really like acting. I like writing and music too. But I love fantasy things." She sighed and looked at the sky with an almost dreamy look in her eye.

"I love anything magical. I will never perform in any plays that are supposed to be based off of real life things. Magic! I used to leave tiny flowers on my windowsill at night for faries to take and they would be gone in the morning. I put antlers on my bunny to make him a jackalope. I rode my dog like he was a unicorn, and I nearly put a horn on a horse at the stables. You know," She leaned closer to me. "They say there are mer in the waters here." I shot up and away from Ava.

"I gotta go. Sorry."

"Oh." Ava looked really disapointed. " Do you think I'm weird? Crazy?" She asked, looking at me with eyes like those of a puppy.

I laughed darkly. "I'm the one who's crazy." I muttered. Hearing music, seeing a mer. I had to have been halucinating. But I had helped the mer, and it felt too real to be fake.

I looked at Ava sideways. "Look, do you wanna, like, go to the mall or something? I could go to the mall tomorrow."

Before I could stop them, more words tumbled out of my mouth. "Or we could go to the beach. That one with the rocks? I can't remember it's name."

Ava smiled brightly, her personality becoming childish and ditzy again. But this time, it was slightly creepy. "Yes. Death's Reef. I'll be there." Then the girl hurried off, not exactly running but... gracefully... trotting away. I hadn't realized it, but the sun was beginning to set. Somehow my conversation with Ava had lasted longer than I thought.