English Class?

Anyone from my English class see this?
If you do, comment.
Just want to see who actually clicked on the link.
And to those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about...
Yeah, don't worry about it.

The Most Beautiful One

Ellie always told me that she wanted “the most beautiful one.”
Whenever she said that, she would be pointing to the pictures of Prom in my yearbook. She’s always say she’s have to have the perfect, prettiest dress.
It’d have to be pink, frilly, and have tons of sparkles.
Little did she know she’s never wear a Prom dress.
*****
One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was sit in her funeral.
But the hardest thing I’ve ever done was stand alone at her grave.
A solid, grey stone.
Cold.
Hard.
Like the rest of them.
I unzipped my backpack and turned it upside down. Shiny cloth, pink ribbons, and glitter glue tumbled out.
I took the cloth and wrapped it around the stone. I tried to avoid it, but occasionally my fingers would brush against the cold granite.
Then I realized that I had to do this. I had to touch Ellie’s gravestone. My eyes filled with tears at the thought. I wiped them away with the back of my hand.
Emotions swirled around me, overwhelming me as I sat in front of my sister’s grave. But then the thought returned.
I had to touch the stone.
My fingers seemed to feel the shock, and they froze. I urged myself to reach out, but my arm was petrified.
Again, tears welled up into my eyes. This time, I let them fall.
One fell onto my hand and slowly slipped between my fingers.
Suddenly, I jerked my hand forward and slammed it into the gravestone.
The tears burst out of control and freely slid down my cheeks. My hair fell over my shoulders as I faced the ground.
A passerby asked me something, but, lost in my thoughts, I shook my head. They went away.
Inside, I was glad, but somehow I wanted them to stay.
Now the only things that were still with me were my thoughts.
My sister, my own little sister…
Memories surged through my mind.
Ellie laughing, Ellie coloring, Ellie pointer at her favorite pictures of…
Stop. I had to stop thinking like that.
I took a deep breath and, after regaining myself, continued decorating her gravestone.
I made it pink, frilly, and sparkly.
Just like the wanted.
Yes, indeed, Ellie did have “the most beautiful one.”

Stats!

'Saving Professor' is currently thirty-seven pages long!
Which means that if it's a book it would be about 49 pages... only! Oh, writing is such a long process!
Well, I'm not planning to get this published, anyway, so it doesn't really even matter.

Saving Professor (Part 18)

Collier was two minutes late to Alexander’s house. Professor had dropped him off at the front door.
Collier walked through the familiar doors and into the blank room. He started down the staircase and entered the cluttered office.
Alexander was nowhere to be found.
I’ll just wait until he gets here, Collier thought. He sat in a swivel chair and spun around and around.
Then he had an idea. He eyed the chair that Alexander always sat in.
“This is my chair. My chair. Mine, not yours. That means that you can’t sit in it. Understand?” Alexander had once said. He had enforced that rule more than once.
Making sure no one was around, he crept up to the chair.
“Why am I tiptoeing?” he whispered. “Why am I even whispering? There’s no one even around.”
He stood above the blue leather office chair. Then, in one swift motion, he sat down. Air swished out of the seams under him.
“Ha. See that, Alexander? So much for your rules. If you ever find out what I’m doing—“
“I would kill you.”
Collier spun around. Alexander rose out of an empty tin trash can, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Collier, did I scare you?”
Collier didn’t answer.
“Yes, on a regular basis I would probably do something to you. But I plan to share something very important with you today. And, besides, if I did kill you, then there wouldn’t be anyone to carry on my plan, now would there?”
Collier shook his head, but he was thinking about Petra. She would be there. But Alexander wouldn’t know that.
“Anyway, we can’t waste any time. Let’s get on with my plan.” Alexander peered curiously at Collier.
“Haven’t said anything yet today, have you? Cat got your tongue?” Alexander laughed hysterically. Finally, when the humor apparently faded, he was left gasping for air. “Anyways—that was so funny, wasn’t it? Oh, but you wouldn’t know why. The reason why that was funny is because…”
Alexander ran across the room and hovered over a box. He turned around, put a hand up to signal Collier to wait, and then turned back around with his hands cupped.
He ran over to Collier, hands still cupped, with his grin larger than ever. Slowly, he uncapped his hands. In his hands lay a kitten. It had soft, white fur with a bushy tail. It stirred and twisted its head upside down against Alexander’s thumb. It lifted its eyelids and revealed the purest blue eyes.
“His name is Frisky,” Alexander whispered softly.
Frisky attempted to stand up, so Alexander gently lay him on the table. Frisky stood up, arched his back, and began to purr. He rubbed his head against a nearby chair in pure delight. Then he looked straight up at Collier and meowed a soft, high-pitched meow.
“He’s so cute!” Collier exclaimed.
Alexander smiled.
“You finally said something!”
Collier ignored him and scooped the kitten up.
“Why’s he so small?” he asked.
“He’s a kitten. Why else would he be so small?”
“Well, kittens aren’t usually this small.”
“Then he’s a baby kitten.”
Collier was about to point out that a ‘baby kitten’ didn’t make any sense, but he decided against it.
“Why’d you get him?” he asked, instead.
“I found him on the side of the road. He was a lot dirtier. I washed him up nice and clean.” Then he took Frisky back up and walked him over to the box. “You stay in there, little Frisky. I’ll get you back out later.” Then he turned back to Collier. “Time to get to work,” he announced.
“What was the important thing you had to tell me?” Collier asked.
Alexander’s face turned a lighter shade of red.
“Oh. That was the cat. There’s really nothing that much more important.” Then his face lit up again. “I did figure out more on the project, though!”
Collier nodded.
“Let’s see it, then!”
Alexander dug through a large stack of paper, and then pulled out blueprints, which he excitedly began showing to Collier.
He pointed to a basket of lemons scrawled on the graphed paper.
“See? Here are the balloons.”
He showed Collier a sketch of some sort of a stick with half a lemon at the end.
“This is the air pump.”
He traced an arrow that led to a drawing of a cup piled high with lemons.
“So I’ll put the balloons in here, and—“
Then Alexander seemed to notice his drawings for the first time. He lowered them and started scrutinizing them.
“Huh. This is the wrong paper. This is my diagram of how to make lemonade. Why didn’t you tell me, Collier?”
Collier was speechless.
What would I tell him? he thought. That he’s crazy?
But Alexander was already busy looking for the right diagram. Finally, he held it up and proudly handed it to Collier.
Apparently, Alexander was going to use a swimming pool cleaning machine to blow up the millions of balloons.
“It’s a reasonable choice,” Alexander was saying.
“But… how would that work? Do you even know what one of these machines does?”
“Well, I can at least find out, can’t I?” Alexander snapped back. Then he regained his calmness. “It will do as I say.”
“It’s a machine.”
“And I’m Alexander!”
Collier raised his eyebrows.
Alexander picked a piece of kitten fur off his vest.
“Alexander the Great, if you please,” he added. Then, still intrigued with the fur, he said, “Go home.”
“Go…”
“You heard me. Go home. You have a big day tomorrow.”
Knowing better than to argue or question, Collier made his way to the old-fashioned telephone in the corner of the room to call Alexander.

Saving Professor (Part 17)

Collier pushed the glass doors open and rushed into the building.
“Where is she?” he asked Professor, who was trying to catch up.
“She’s still in the doctor’s room. She fell asleep, and hasn’t woken up since.”
Collier started into the hall.
“She isn’t in a coma, is she?”
Professor ran a hand through his hair.
“No,” he finally responded. “I don’t think so.” Then, after a pause, he turned to a door and said, “It’s this room.”
Collier turned around and ran to the door. He knocked Professor’s hand off the knob and twisted it open.
The room was small, and looked just like a doctor’s office. There was a sink with a light teal cabinet. On the wall hung a photograph of a herd of elephants, and the air trailed a light scent of rubber gloves.
Almost immediately after he walked in, Collier stopped in front of the bed. It had a leather covering, the same shade of teal as the cabinet. Over the leather was a sheet of what looked like wax paper, something for the doctor to change every time a new patient came in.
On the bed was Petra, propped up on pillows. Her hand was up near her mouth, and she seemed to be sucking on her forefinger. On her forehead was a band-aid. Other than that, she looked perfectly fine, like she was just in a comfortable sleep.
Collier dropped down next to the bed, and whispered, “Petra.”
Professor rolled his eyes; Collier was taking this way too seriously.
Petra blinked and opened her eyes. Her eyes glanced across the ceiling, confused, before looking down and spotting Collier.
“Hey, Collier. How was Alexander?” she asked.
“How was Alexander? How are you?”
“I’m fine. My forehead doesn’t even hurt that much anymore.” She sat up even higher. “Did I sleep through the night or is it still today?”
“It’s still today,” Professor answered. “Speaking of today, it was Collier’s turn. Tomorrow’s supposed to be your turn. Can you go or do you think you need Collier to go for you?”
Petra looked over at Collier.
“I’ll go for her,” Collier offered.
“Are you sure?” Petra asked thankfully.
“Yeah. I’m sure. It’s fine, really.” Then, with a spreading grin, Collier joked, “But whenever you get better, you’re going twice in a row for me!”
“Sure,” Petra answered, shrugging. “That seems fair enough.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m hungry. Is it dinnertime?”
With that, Petra jumped off the doctor bed and walked out the door.

As the three sat down for dinner last night, Collier asked Petra what exactly had happened.
“Collier, I already told you what happened,” Professor scolded. “She probably doesn’t even know.”
Collier threw a hopeful glance at Petra.
“Well, actually,” Petra started slowly, “Professor’s right—I don’t even really know what happened.”
Then, after watching Collier’s face fall, she offered, “But I can tell you what I do remember!
“So I got done with my studies with Mr. Murphy—“
“How’d that go?”
“Um… good, I guess. But, anyways, I asked Mrs. Sheralton where Professor was, and she told me he was out back loading stuff away. Then she asked if I was a snack, so she got some lime sorbet—“
“We have lime sorbet?”
“Well… yeah… So anyways she got some for me and put it in a glass cup, and I went out the back door to find him. I watched him for awhile then he asked if I wanted to help, so I said yes. I finished my lime sorbet—“
“I can’t even believe you didn’t tell me we had that!”
“Okay, okay, well now you now! As I was saying, I helped load cardboard into the recycle bin, then when that was done, I was throwing away those long light bulbs when they hit the side and exploded everywhere. One piece landed on my forehead, so that’s how I got a cut.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s all. And I had a heat stroke, but I’m over that now.”
“I thought there was more.”
“No. Who told you that?”
Petra’s gaze slid over to Professor, who put his hands up and said, “Hey, I told you, Collier, I told you all that happened.”
Collier, looking disappointed, raised his eyebrows, nodded, and shoved another forkful of green bean casserole into his mouth.
The rest of the table conversation was just small talk. They didn’t mention the ‘accident’ anymore that night.

Saving Professor (Part 16)

After her lessons, Petra ran off to find Professor. She found Mrs. Sheralton at the front desk and asked where Professor was.
“He’s out back sorting junk,” she answered. “Do you need a snack? I have time on my hands, so I’d be more than happy to make something for you.”
“Oh—well, I’d love to, but I really would like to find him.”
“On a hurry?”
“Not really… You know what? Actually, a snack would be nice right now. What do we have?”
“Do you want something like crackers, or some fruit? What kind of a snack are you up to.”
“Is there any chance we have ice cream?” Petra asked, a childish grin spreading across her face.
Mrs. Sheralton rose up from her chair and began walking towards the kitchen.
“Well, Petra, how would you like some lime sorbet? I just got some yesterday. It’s Professor Stein’s favorite.”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want it if it’s his.”
“The thing is, he’s on an allergy medicine where he can’t have anything cold.”
“I didn’t know that cold things could affect allergy medicine.”
“Neither did I.”
“So he can’t have ice drinks?”
“No, he can’t.”
Mrs. Sheralton and Petra reached the kitchen. Petra leaned on the polished granite countertop as she watched Mrs. Sheralton take out a tall glass and a long spoon. She counted each of the three scoops of soft green lime sorbet Mrs. Sheralton plopped down into the cup.
Then Mrs. Sheralton took a bottle of ginger ale out of the cupboard.
She noticed the inquisitive look on Petra’s face, so she stopped mid-pour.
“Would you like any ginger ale in your sorbet?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Sheralton, I’m good.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Sheralton sighed. “Professor Stein likes it that way.”
“Well, I’m really okay with this. Thank you, though!”
Petra took the glass off the counter and followed Mrs. Sheralton out the kitchen door. About halfway down the hall, Mrs. Sheralton pointed to a heavy door and said, “That’s where outside is. Professor Stein’s out there.”
Quickly thanking her, Petra opened the door and stepped out. The bright light of the sun surprised her. She squinted and could barely make out Professor lifting oversized pieces of cardboard into the recycling bin.
When her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that Professor was walking over to her.
“Petra, are you finished with your studies already?” he asked.
“Yeah, I am. It’s already 3:54.”
Professor checked his watch.
“Yes, you’re right, it is.” He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’ve been working out here way too long. I need to go inside sometime soon.”
Then he noticed Petra’s lime sorbet.
“That’s my favorite summer treat, you know,” he informed Petra.
“Yeah, I know. Mrs. Sheralton told me.”
“Oh, did she?”
Petra nodded.
“She’s been making snacks for me ever since I began working here. She was originally going to be a hotel restaurant chef, but she probably figured that she’s get a better pay working at the front desk here.”
Petra scooped out the last bit of sorbet. She was planning on getting more the next day. She wouldn’t tell Collier about it. He never enjoyed sweets, after all. But that wasn’t fair. She would tell him.
Only when she looked back up, she noticed that Professor had asked her a question.
“Oh… what? Sorry. I was thinking.”
“I asked if you’d like to help me with this loading.”
“Sure!”
Petra set her glass down on the steps and jumped down onto the asphalt.
“Put your arms out.”
Professor loaded cardboard onto her arms. She dumped it into the recycle bin.
That went on until the tall pile of cardboard had been successfully piled into the bin.
Petra wiped sweat off the back of her neck.
“Are you tired already?” Professor asked.
“No, not really,” Petra replied, holding her arms back out.
“Here’s something you’ll need to be more careful with. These are burnt out light bulbs, the kind that go in the tile ceiling. You’ll need to be very careful throwing them away, because—“
But Petra obviously hadn’t listened enough, because as soon as the lights struck the top of the trash can, they shattered and flew in all different directions.
Standing there, shocked, Petra could only stare ahead at the forest green paint peeling off of the garbage bin. Her heart pounded as she wondered what Professor may do.
She heard his voice behind her.
“Petra. Petra, it’s okay. You’re lucky we’re outside. This happens all the time. That’s why I was warning you—oh, no. Petra, there’s a cut on your forehead… Wait. Stay there. Don’t move.”
Petra stared, horrified, at the green paint. She stared harder and harder. Her vision swam, and a deep red mixed into the green—
She shut her eyes.
“Professor.” Her voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat. “Professor. I think there’s blood getting into my eye.”
“No, Petra, there’s not. You’re just imagining that. You were probably staring too hard at that green color. Now don’t move. I’m trying to get this glass out of your forehead.”
In the blackness, Petra stood still. She didn’t really know why, but she wasn’t ready to open her eyes up again.
I’ll just keep my eyes closed until I’m calm, she thought.
Suddenly, a sharp pain blasted through her head, starting from right above her left eyebrow.
“There, I got it out,” Professor mumbled from behind her. “Okay, Petra, I’m going to need you to open your eyes. Put your hand right here to block the blood from coming through.” He took Petra’s hand and placed her finger over the cut.
Petra slowly opened her eyes.
“Come back with me,” Professor commanded.
Petra trailed behind Professor. When the door opened, the swish of air conditioned air felt good, but turned cold as soon as it touched her sweat.
Black fuzziness crept in from the corners of her vision.
Professor stopped her in the hall.
“Stay here, Petra,” he commanded.
She sank to the ground, keeping her hand over her eyebrow.
Grey pinpricks began making their way into her vision.
Soon enough, an unfamiliar voice asked, “When did this happen? Just recently?”
Then Professor’s voice answered, “Yes, just about three minutes ago.”
A door closed, and then the unfamiliar voice spoke again.
“Petra, let’s go. Come on, get up.”
Petra felt strong arms lift her up and carry her. She would usually have been embarrassed to still have someone carry her, but she was so dizzy that she didn’t really mind it. She could hear whoever it was huffing and puffing as they reached their destination.
She felt herself being lowered onto a soft bed.
“Take your hand off the cut, Petra,” the voice ordered.
She slid her hand off her head.
“I’ve seen worse,” was the only comment Petra heard.
Her eyes adjusted to the light and she could see the doctor. He was a middle-aged man with short brown hair, and he wasn’t exactly what you would call “in shape.”
He opened a cabinet and took out a piece of cotton and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. He talked to Professor as he squirted alcohol onto the cotton ball.
“How’d she get the cut?”
“One of those long light bulbs exploded and hit her.”
The doctor nodded.
“That’s happened before.”
Then he turned around and began to rub the cotton ball onto Petra’s forehead. A sharp pain spread around the area, but she was too tired to react with much more than a jolt. Then the pain went away as the doctor rubbed on a yellowish ointment and placed a band-aid over it.
“You’re good to go, Petra. Come back to me tomorrow afternoon so I can change your bandage.”
Petra raised her head in an effort to nod, but her head fell back and the blackness returned.
“Is she okay?” she heard Professor ask.
“Well, how long was she out there?” A hint of worry showed through the doctor’s voice.
“About twenty minutes. It wasn’t that long, but it’s really hot outside today.”
“Did she have a drink before or during that time?”
“I really don’t know. She was eating a lime sorbet when she came out.”
There was a pause. Petra felt a shadow come over her, as if the doctor was leaning over to get a better look at her.
“I think she had a heat stroke,” he said. “You’d better get her some water.”
The door opened and closed. Petra kept her eyes closed as the doctor situated her back against pillows so that she was sitting up.
“Petra, you’ll have to open your eyes to drink water,” the doctor ordered in a low whisper. “Just for a second. You only need to get hydrated again.”
Then the door opened again and Professor walked in with a cup of water. Petra opened her eyes and took the cup. She lifted it to her lips. It was freezing cold. Because she was covered in tight blankets, the cool liquid was welcome. When she was done, she sucked on an ice cube.
After the ice cube melted, she closed her eyes again and fell asleep.

Saving Professor (Part 15)

Petra came back that night tired and annoyed.
“That Alexander guy is so weird!” she exclaimed, slumping into the couch. “So weird!”
“Yeah,” Collier replied. “Just have to get used to it.”
“What do you know? You’ve only been there one time.”
“Well, I had to get used to it. You know, Petra, we’re going to have to act the same. We’re pretty close already, but we’ll have to be like the same person.”
“Do you seriously think that Alexander guy’s going to notice?”
Professor walked into the room.
“Petra, you need to stop referring to him as ‘that Alexander guy.’ He was a very highly acclaimed student back at the boarding school, and you should respect him.” Professor glanced at Collier over his glasses. “You, too, Collier. You both have to respect him.”
Petra looked at Collier and sighed. Her mind was still stuck on having to act the same way as him.
“Well, anyways, it’s time for dinner,” Professor announced, before walking out of the room.
“Do I have to go? I’m really tired,” Petra whined to Collier.
“Petra. You know that dinnertime is the only time we have together.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like Professor’s our dad. He’s acting like he is.”
“Well, technically, he’s our guardian. For now. He got the papers signed today.”
Petra sat upright.
“What? So now he’s our dad?”
“No, I said he’s our guardian. He didn’t adopt us!”
“Why don’t I ever know any of this stuff?”
Collier shrugged.
“I didn’t know, either, until today. Hey, you know what’s weird?”
“Alexander?”
“Petra! No! Well… yes, Alexander is weird, but that’s not what I was going to say.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Professor has kids.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Kids.”
“How would you know?”
“I saw one today. He came to the office.”
“Again, another thing I don’t know!”
“Calm down, I only found out today, too!”
“Big day for us, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Hey, Petra, let’s go get some dinner. I bet Professor’s waiting.”
“Even you’re talking about him like he’s our dad,” Petra grumbled. Even so, she followed him out.

Early the next morning, Petra woke up long after Collier had left. In fact, she had woken up so late that she found Mr. Murphy standing at the door.
Jumping out of bed, she quickly began to apologize.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Murphy, I was staying up late reading last night, and I lost track of time and I fell asleep way too late, and I didn’t notice Collier leave this morning and—“
“It’s fine, Petra, really. I got here early. We actually start in fifteen minutes.” Then, with a hopeful look, he suggested, “Or we could start now.”
Petra could see his excitement, so she shrugged.
“Sure. Will do.”
“Which subject first? History?”
“Whatever you like.”
“You know, it really doesn’t matter. What do you want to do first?”
“I don’t know, but you seem to want to do History—“
“Oh, no, no, no, it’s okay if you want to do something else!”
“No! Seriously, Mr. Murphy, we can start with History.”
Mr. Murphy grinned.
“Okay!”
Petra pulled out her history book and flipped to the page where they left off. She took her white satin ribbon bookmark out of the book and began to stroke it.
As Mr. Murphy went off in a detailed description about the Battle of Bunker Hill, Petra compared him with Asher Alexander.
They were both kind of strange, but they looked nothing alike. They both had an extreme passion for what they did, but they showed it in different ways.
There were a lot of things in common about Alexander and Mr. Murphy, but for some reason, Petra just liked Mr. Murphy a lot better.