Kinetics - By Andrew Peed
Chapter 1: The Orphans
The food was always cold, but I filled my tray anyway. When I got to the front of the line I took my government issued free lunch card from my back pocket, and handed it over to the lunch lady. She swiped the card in her computer and marked today's date, "You have six meals left in your program." She handed the card back to me, and I tried to put it away without anyone seeing.
“Why is it that you can’t pay for you food like everyone else?” a boy behind me pushed. This kind of thing happened a few times a week. I didn't care about being poor, but everyone in this school seemed fixated on this fact. Ignore what he says and walk away I told myself, but that didn’t stop him from going on, “Yeah, that's right don’t listen to me you stuck up…” before he could finish, his buddy walked up and they began chest bumping and high fives followed by an explanation on the sick burn that I was just given.
Normally I could blend in to the crowd quite nicely at five foot five and only a hundred and twenty pounds. My guardian expected me to do at least thirty minutes of exercise per day to stay healthy, which put me somewhere between athletic and skinny. I was the definition of the word average. My fiery red hair was the only part of me that I was particularly proud of and it was constantly getting me accused of using unnatural hair color by teachers.
I sat down at an empty table and began gnawing on the so called chicken sandwich that I was served. The room was bustling with at least a hundred or so students coming and going. We were allowed to do whatever we wanted to do during lunch as long as we were back to class when the hour was up.
The boy from the lunch line, Josh, along with his normal gang of buddies sat down at the table next to mine, “So, how about we finish our conversation?” the boy smiled a toothy grin. All of his friends were quiet waiting for my response. I always wondered what kind of damage that he suffered to spend so much time picking on a girl.
“What conversation? Oh…wait, you mean you once again being the biggest asshole to walk the face of this planet?” I knew as the words left my lips that I would one way or another live to regret them.
“How dare you!” he wasn’t used to anyone, especially me, actually talking back to him. As he stood to do god knows what to me, most likely sock me I wouldn’t put it past him, his girlfriend walked up and took his attention away from me.
“We’ll finish this later.” He mouthed over his girlfriend’s shoulder.
As much as it made me sick to my stomach I made a kissing noise and said, “See you later Josh.”
His girlfriend reached out and smacked him across the face. He was furious, but had to chase after her to try and explain that I was screwing with him. He returned a few minutes later, alone and furious, and started to eat.
I went back to my food, even colder now, and almost completely inedible. My mood for the day was completely shot.
I was a constant target for ridicule. I lived in an orphanage with a few other kids that went to this school. Hillside was a place where they sent kids like me who have difficulties assimilating, or as I called settling for, a family. I have lived there for five years, I’m seventeen, and right around the corner is my eighteenth birthday. All of us at the orphanage are about the same age, within a few months anyway. Like there is some kind of cut off age for someone to be able to find a family.
Ronnie, one of the other orphans, came to the table from the serving line. He could have blend in as easy as me, but chose a different approach. His short black hair was spiked in all different directions. He always seemed to be in a good mood, and talked to tons of people as he passed by their tables. I never understood why he always sat down at my table when he so many other friends that he could sit with.
He dug into his food. He was able to eat anything, as longs as it was dead before he started, and