Chapter fourteen
Skinner looked up from his iPod as soon as he heard the laughs of Mel and Keira. The two walked over to their table in the corner and sat down, still giggling. The boy just raised his brow and then ignored them as he went back to playing his game.
"Where's Anika?" Mel asked after a few minutes of settling down.
"Yeah, I thought you guys had art together?"
"We did. And she went to wash up at the bathrooms." Skinner said, not taking his eyes off the screen in his hands.
"Oh." Keira simply said and fell into a conversation with Mel again as they waited for their other friend to join them before heading up to get their dinner.
A scream at the cafeteria's door caught everyone's attention and they stretched their necks to see a flash of chocolate brown hair charge by.
"You!" the shrieking girl pointed a finger towards Skinner's table when she reached halfway through the hall. Her brown eyes, just a few shades lighter than her hair burned with anger as her nose flared out a little.
She let out another scream as she finally came within the last few steps of the table. By now, the whole cafeteria was silent so every word said could be heard and gossiped about later on.
"I know you two did it!"
"I'm sorry Vicky, what did we do?" Keira blinked innocently while Mel couldn't contain the scowl on her lips.
"You can't pull that shit off on me." the brown haired girl snarled and grabbed the straps to Keira's tank top, pulled back and let them go. A collective amount of gasps echoed throughout the room as the straps slapped against Keira's skin. The blond girl gritted her teeth at the sting and slowly looked down to see the flesh rise in little bumps and turn pink.
"Nice straps." Victoria hissed in her faced. "It seems mine were all cut off. You know, I got in trouble for violating the dress code."
"Well you are a bit of a sleaze." Mel growled.
"You can't say that to her Mel." Keira said to her red head friend with a small frown. "She'll take it as a compliment."
"Why you little-"
"Language!" All heads turned to the two girls standing behind Victoria.
"And who the hell are you?" Vicky looked Anika up and down.
"Well she's 'what's it to ya' and I'm just Anika." Anika jerked her thumb to Ivy standing next to her and then to her own chest and hid her smirk at the confused stares she received. From the side of her she heard Ivy chuckle remembering their act they played on Skinner- who also had a smirk on.
"Whatever. What do you want?" Victoria snapped.
"She wants you to move your ass out of the way so she can sit, you moron." Mel glared at her.
"I don't know if I should be happy that you losers have found a friend," Victoria turned away from the table to glower down at Anika with the few extra inches she had on her, "or be disgusted that you would want to hang out with them."
"I don't know if I want to say 'nice to meet you too' but I haven't the hell of a clue who you are, nor is any of this in anyway nice so I guess punching you in the face doesn't sound all that bad." Anika shrugged, her calm expression at odds with her words.
"Oh, this is Victoria." Keira leaned around Vicky in order to tell Anika who nodded exaggeratedly.
"Hi Icky Vicky. I still want to punch you though." Victoria's eyes burned holes into Anika's grey ones.
"You think this is fun new girl? You think you're all tough taking their lead?"
"Whoa, whoa hold on there girly. No one is taking anyone's lead because we aren't dogs. Well most of us anyway." Anika said with a pointed look up and down Victoria's body. The girl let out a growl but Anika wasn't done.
"And secondly, if beating the crap out of what's his name this morning was fun than you'll be even better. Just think about it, he just plain pissed me off. But you my darling, you come over here and now you're stopping my good friend Keira here, from getting her supper which these good ol' wonderful ladies," Anika held her hand out to the cafeteria ladies behind their serving stations who were also silently watching the exchange across the room, "have dedicated their precious time to prepare for us and you probably won't eat a thing because you're too insecure about yourself. Now, I've seen Keira when she get's hungry, and it is not pretty."
"Well she's not pretty to begin with." Victoria smirked at her little comeback but a dark smirk crept up on Anika's lips as well.
"I'd say she's prettier than you." Anika paused for effect.
"But then that would be a diss to her because you don't even come close to the natural beauty that Keira has. Or Mel. Or Ivy here."
"Hanging out with all the crazies I see." Victoria glared at Ivy, but the pink haired girl held her ground.
"Skinner isn't crazy." Anika scoffed and all eyes turned to him. "He's just a little special." Anika winked at him as some people started to chuckle. He shrugged in good nature and smiled back at Anika.
"Could have fool me. But do tell me, has Gelsey searched your cabin yet?" Victoria asked with a gleam in her eye that made Anika weary. From the corner of her eye she saw Mel stand up with a murderous expression as she guessed Victoria's mind track. Vicky smirked as she delivered the final blow.
"You know, for the drugs. I heard you hid them in your bed frame." the room whispered lowly and Anika felt her friends' eyes on her blank face as they worried about what she was going to do next. But Anika wasn't going to give Victoria the satisfaction of seeing her break or run out. No, she had broken down completely the night of her mother's death in a dark alley surrounded by men and she hated herself for being so weak. She wasn't going to do it again. So in a deadly calm voice, Anika delivered her last line.
"I've never done any kind of drug before. But even if I did, just because you hide your self esteem boosting shit in your bed cot frame, doesn't mean everyone does."
"You little-"
"Language!" Keira yelled with a wide grin, making Victoria jump.
"This isn't over." Victoria shrieked and turned on her heel to retreat back outside.
"Don't forget to get new tank tops." Mel reminded her as she walked out the door.
For a half a minute later, silence followed Vicky's departure and Anika pulled Ivy down to sit next to her. The pink haired girl shuffled nervously as everyone now stared at her. Timidly, she raised her gaze to meet Keira's, because in her mind she seemed a lot less intimidating than Mel. When she noticed the cautious curiosity in her emerald green eyes, Ivy quickly switched her baby blue eyes over to Skinner and offered a small smile which he returned.
"Yeah... Ivy has art with Skinner and I and they can't stop talking about each other so I invited her to sit with us."
"What?" everyone at the table jumped at Keira's outraged face. Ivy cowered back, getting ready to leave. She knew Anika was very wrong to believe that they would be okay with this. In fact, she'd much rather deal with an angry Victoria and her minions than a pissed off Keira and Mel. Hell, even she was slightly afraid of Skinner when she found out he beat up a kid even after he was unconscious.
"You have a crush on her and you never told us about it?" the golden blond girl continued to yell.
Skinner flapped his mouth open and closed multiple times before his shock finally registered.
"Huh?" Mel rolled her eyes at his intelligent reply and turned her head to a shaking Ivy.
"You're brave for sitting with us." Mel eyed her.
"I can move. I told Anika no but-"
"She can stay." Skinner defended Ivy and gave Mel a hard look which the red head rolled her eyes at again.
"I wasn't finished." Mel playfully glared at him. "I was going to say, you're brave for sitting so close to him. You might catch his stupid."
"I know, now that we're on this subject. My arm is kind of itchy.... and it was the side closest to you when I sat next to you Skin." Anika pretended to inspect her arm.
"I didn't know stupid was a noun." Keira thought out loud with a smirk and earned herself a slap upside the head by Mel and Skinner.
"Ow!" the blond cried and rubbed the offended area but her friends ignored her.
"You guys are always picking on me. Maybe I'll just leave and take Ivy with me. We'll sit far, far away from you meanies." Skinner threatened playfully and casually slung an arm around a blushing Ivy.
"Yeah, far away from us so we won't be able to chaperon you two love doves." Anika teased.
"Awe! Look! Little Skinner's blushing! And so is Ivy!" Keira cooed.
"See? Aren't they cute together?" Anika asked laughing at the total mask of embarrassment on their faces. Skinner eventually wiped his face clean of any emotion and glared at the surrounding tables who were studying Ivy under their critical gazes. Anika smiled at the action.
"I can't believe this." Mel sat back in her chair and let out a small smile. "It takes Anika to finally get us acquainted." she told Ivy.
The pink haired girl laughed a little less nervously and admitted one of her thoughts. "You guys, er girls are pretty intimidating." Mel and Keira joined in on laughing at the look on Ivy's face like she was expecting some sort of attack from the two girls.
"What, I'm not intimidating?" Skinner pouted.
"No, you are. Just not as much as they are." Ivy looked up at him and fought herself from swooning under his arm.
"What she meant to say was that your total deliciousness and utter edibility brings down your intimidator factor." Anika held the edge of her table to keep from falling out of her chair, laughing along with Mel and Keira.
"You still want to leave?" Ivy asked Skinner in his ear.
"Maybe they'll choke on their spit and knock themselves out when they fall on the floor." Skinner twisted a movie quote and looked into Ivy's baby blue eyes to see if she followed.
"They'll choke but I don't think we're lucky enough to have them knock themselves out." Skinner beamed when she finished his quote.
"Do you think she said 'I love you'?" Skinner shook his head and looked to see the three other girls huddled together at the other side of the round table.
"I don't know, I've never seen him smile that big before."
"Hey, audience." Ivy plucked up her confidence around her new found friends. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."
"Hey, that's my line." Keira stood up and followed Ivy and Skinner to the food line. By then, the cafeteria had long since returned to normal with all their names being bounced around from lip to lip.