Nora – real life witch, part 1

Nora was a quiet girl. She did not have many friends and was very introverted. It took quite a lot of effort to befriend her because you felt she was testing you as soon as she laid eyes on you. I happened to be sitting next to her in class and a good two months passed before we even exchanged a word not related to typical everyday stuff…

It was a Monday morning and our teacher had been late. Nora was sitting humped and was quiet as always… her posture and attitude not to mention her weird make-up, were of course attracting a lot of negative remarks from the other students and they often made fun of her, calling her names to her face, but oddly she did not seem to care. She would often look at them and smile as if she had not heard them at all and then simply walk on. That day was not different. Nora was just staring blankly at her hands folded in front of her on the desk and none of her classmates’ usual sneers about her seemed to even reach her ears. I looked at her wondering inwardly what she could possibly be thinking, when she suddenly turned and steeled her eyes on me. I nearly fell of my seat, so intense was her gaze, and then she spoke: “I can take care of myself”, I felt weird, as if she had read my mind, but I rejected the idea, thinking that my expression looking at her earlier had probably given away my feelings… “Sorry” I replied “I just don’t understand how you manage to remain calm all this time…” “Who says I am?” she snapped. I just turned my head away from her. There was no reason to continue on this conversation as clearly there was something wrong with this girl. All this time never, not once had she seemed phased by the teasing and the rude remarks made towards her and now she said she did not remain calm??? I was not going to dwell on it further. I concentrated on the history book that was open in front of me when she reached across and snapped the cover shut. “What’s wrong with you?” I barked, feeling my temper rising, “Nothing…..will you walk home with me after school?”, she said this with an apologetic tone to her voice (or so I thought) “I want to show you something…” she carried on not waiting for my reply, I looked at her with surprise not knowing what to say or think. After a while my curiosity won and I simply nodded and we both fell silent for a while.