What [Not] to do Around Someone you Love

Summer walked into Mrs. Xyla's first grade elementary classroom, scowling under her breath. It was her first day of not being in kindergarten and she was irritated as heck. She remembered the kids who got to stay back with Mr. Gardener, her own kindergarten teacher, and remembered the tantrum she had thrown when she found out that--suprise!--she was moving on to the next grade.

"But I don't wanna go with Mrs. Xyla!! I heard she boils kids alive and eats them for dinner and I wanna stay with Mr. Gardner cause he lets me play with his stuffed animals and read when I wanna and do art and hardly has any stuff for us to do so we can just play all day and Mrs. Xyla has a pun-men for anyone who don't work and--" her face had turned a blue/green shade and her voice got tight with each word she spoke. Eventually, Mrs. Xyla had leaned forward and told her to stop talking, or else she'd run out of air. Summer hadn't listened to her, but when Mr. Gardener told the the exact same thing, she mumbled and apology, took a deep breath, and shut up for the rest of the day.

Now that is was September and school was back in session, little Summer Melodie couldn't really do anything to prevent the inevitable. The only slightly good thing about all this was that she was in the same class as her crush, Habanara.

"Alright, class, take your seats," Mrs. Xyla sang, holding up a sheet of paper with one purple hand. She scrunched her face up into, what Summer thought, was an ugly image, then quickly relaxed it again. Not any better, Summer thought brattily as she swung her head so meadow green hair could get out of her face.

The seating chart, projected on the white board, had the little first grader sitting in the second row next to a boy named Skyfire and Habanara. Wait, next to her crush? Hopefully that didn't things uncomfortable for either of them."Uh, es'cose me?" A voice rang through the class. Everyone turned to see a light blue, white haired, piggy-tailed girl with her rock textured-hand high in the air; her huge hanging jeweled earrings  practically touching the floor. Summer touched her own naked ear-lobes self-consciously; she had to be this girls friend.

"Yes, sweetie?" Mrs. Xyla responded.

"Uh, I'm a girl." Next to each name on the seating chart, Mrs. Xyla had put down whether the person was a boy or a girl with fancy signs in blue or pink ink.

"Oh. Oh!" The teacher turned a light shade of pink around her cheeks and she quickly scribbled out her Skyfire mistake with some magi liquid paper and added a pink sign on top of it once the liquid paper was dry.

The class burst out laughing, pointing to her and singing "Sky is a baby boy! Sky is a baby boy!!"

Summer watched this with shock; she looked over at Mrs. Xyla. She was drinking her coffee and not doing anything to stop the teasing--she was practically watching it ash she slowly doused her mug of joe. Mr Gardener would have never allowed something as horrible as this to happen!! The little girl stepped in front of Skyfire, throwing her hands out to block her from the insults heading the rocky girls' way. "Stop!" Summer cried, "stop it now! Or you'll get in trouble!"

The class continued to tease.

"I said stop! What if you guys were all called boys but you weren't boys?!"

"News flash, Summer," a girl that she shared kindergarten with-- said. Her name was Semmie and, while she was usually reclusive, she sometimes jumped out of her shell just to do whatever the heck she wanted for five minutes, then crawl back in. "Over half the class is boys already."

"Shut up, you jerks!" Summer screamed, finally losing control. She had done all she could before snapping, and she considered that a personal victory. But the teacher hadn't.

"Summer Felicia Melody!!" Mrs. Xyla had roared, closing the mouths of every student in the room. "There is no reason to be using that language in my classroom!"

"But--"

"No but's! Go to the deans! Now!" The crazy teacher thrust a slip of paper into Summer's face and pointed to the classroom door for emphasis. Close to tears, Summer ran out of the class, not wanting anyone to see her crying.

^-^

At the end of the day, before everyone left to go to the buses, two people approached Summer as she was busy stuffing her puke-green folder into her Flora backpack. Green wasn't left, according to Mrs. Xyla, but Summer had seen plenty of evergreen green folders beneath the pukeish greens that lie on top. When she had tried to get one, Mrs. Xyla had smacked her hand, telling her to only choose from the top.

"Hey, Summer," Skyfire smiled, placing a pebbly hand on Summer's bony shoulder. "That was really cool of you, standin' up for me like that."

Summer smiled. "No one else would."

"You're something special," Habanera added, almost ignoring Summer's quip. "Somethin' special indeed." He then smacked on on the back and told her he'd see her later as he headed for the bus. Summer practically floated home that day with her older brother by her side. When he asked her why she was acting so strange, she responded "I'm special, Storma. I'm really, really special..."

Even later that school year, around the middle of May, Mrs. Xyla's class was deserted, save for a few kids; Skyfire, Summer, Habanara, Semmie, and a new student that had joined in the middle of the school year, Lila.

Everyone else was out on a field trip and these four kids didn't get to go because they didn't get their permission slips signed on time. So Mrs. Xyla had paired them up and they were currently learning the differences between triangles, rectangles, and squares. Lila got to be with the teacher while Semmie was paired up with Summer and Sky with Haban.

"Can I have someone else?" Semmie had asked, jerking a thumb Summer's way. "This one's to strange for me. I don't really like it; she's to weird." Summer had almost gotten paired up with the teacher then, but she protested and argued so much and the teacher finally decided to go with her and made Semmie partner up with Summer.

"Jerk," Semmie scowled under her breath as she and her partner lay on their stomachs on the floor.

A smirk came to Summer's lips. I know you are, but what am I? She had thought, but had grown wise enough over the school year to keep the thoughts hidden to herself. "Let's start with triangles," she said instead.

"I wanna start with something else."

Summer held in a sigh, placing the flashcards down. "What?"

Semmie's eyes glittered dangerously under the huge fluorescent lights. "I wanna start with a dare."

"A dare?" This sounded interesting.

"Yeah. A dare. Are you up for it? Or are you to chicken?" She flapped her arms at her sides, though while lying down, it just looked like she was a weird, creepy starfish instead of a actual chicken.

"No, Imma no chicken! Dare me! What do ya dare me?" Summer challenged; anything to shove that self-confident smirk off of Semmie's little face.

Semmie raised an eyebrow and guided her eyes towards where Haban and Sky were in the same position just two feet away. "You haven't exactly been...subtle... with your crush, you know?"

Summer froze. "I haven't?" A million flashback invaded her all at once; on Valentine's Day, she gave him extra candy and when she saw his generic card in her mailbox ("I think you're sweet, Valentine!") she has nearly lost it, she was so happy. That, and she constantly stuck by his side at recess, even during the most difficult games of basketball... and... oh, grop, Semmie was right. She'd might as well written the message on her forehead, it was so obvious.

Semmie's smirk grew wider. "Not really." She shifted in position so all her weight was on her right side and her ponytail draped the filthy carpet. "So, I dare you to tell him you like him."

"But.. if it's obvious, why should I?" Summer asked, cheeks flushing a cute rosy red.

"Bawk.. bawk bawk..." Semmie started.

"Fine." Summer growled, "I have a crush on Haban."

"He can't hear you~~"

"You never said he had to hear me!" Summer pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I said it in my head, so there."

"That doesn't count!"

"How would you know? You never take any risks in your life!!"

Summer scooted closer, shoving a finger in between Semmie's eyes. "I actually have. You see this?" She jammed the finger to an ugly red bump to the right of her forehead, holding it there until Semmie actually looked at it. "This was the result of playing tag! I tripped and fell on the stairs and nearly died and had to get stitches. So, yes. I have taken risks. So there." She stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry to make sure she got her point across.

This whole time, Mrs. Xyla had been outside in the B Wing (which is where the classroom was located) with Lila, as she had had trouble catching up on their math and was getting personal tutoring help while everyone else was away on the field trip with Xyla's TA.

"Ooo, tag, so scary..." Semmie flopped back down on her stomach, only to sit up again into 'criss-cross apple sauce'.

"You know what, you little--" Summer took a deep breath, figuring she had nothing else to loose. Their whole fight started out in whispers and they were now practically screaming at each other. "Fine, you jerk!" She added, standing up so at least she could be taller than the little brat in front of her. She closed her eyes, her whole face a bright, crimson red. "I LOVE YOU, HABANARA, AND I ALWAYS WILL!"

She heard laughter. Opening her eyes, she saw Habanara and Semmie laughing so hard they were on their backs and crying. Summer felt like crying, too, but for a different reason all together. "S-Semmie dared me to.." she tried to explain to Haban, but Semmie cut her off.

"No, I dared you to say you had a crush on him. Not to say you wanna marry him." She managed to say between fits of laughter.

Summer's whole face turned purple and she sank back down in a sitting position. Sky crawled over to her, placing a rough yet comforting hand over Summer's own. "Just ignore those two brats," she instructed, helping Summer up and guiding her to the farhest table away from them. "She had her own set of flashcards, Summer noticed, and she placed them on the table, spacing them apart from one another evenly. "Why is this a triangle? Do you know? I don't get it." She finally asked, pointing to the triangle card.

Summer sniffed, wiping her eyes; she knew Sky was just trying to make her feel better; the gargoyle girl was the smartest kid in the class. But she stayed patient as Summer tried to explain why.

Over the course of the rest of the school year and beyond, whenever Habanara was in summer's line of sight or she even heard his name, the memory cam rushing back to her and she immediately went to hide behind the nearest object. One time, it was Habanara himself, and she had yelped and fled into the building.

She doesn't know if Haban has forgotten what happened that day, or if he remembers and it simply doesn't bother him as much as it bothers her. Over time, thankfully, the crush finally dwindled away and she could actually be in the same room as him without fighting the urge to bolt as soon as they made eye contact.