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David who responded in kind. As Alex gathered his posters and the box
with his camcorder inside, Mrs. Parks helped him by holding the front
door open. When he was gone, she closed the door.
Left alone in the foyer with Leah, David's mother stared at the
silent girl for a moment and then asked, "What's your name again?"
"Leah."
"Are you one of Heather's friends?"
Leah shook her head no.
"Just a classmate then?"
She nodded.
"That's what I thought. I didn't think I remembered David ever
mentioning a girl named Leah."
Silence.
"What was all that yelling I heard down here a while ago?" Mrs.
Parks asked. "My husband and I could hear it all the way upstairs."
Leah shrugged. "David and Heather had an argument."
"Oh," the woman said. "You certainly weren't yelling, though.
You don't say much, do you?"
Leah shrugged again.
Mrs. Parks glanced at something out the window. "Is that your
ride?" she asked.
Leah looked and saw her mother's car. "Yes." She opened the
door and started to leave.
David must have heard the door open because he shouted, "Bye,
Leah," from the kitchen.
"Goodbye," Leah replied, but her voice wasn't very strong, and
she didn't know if David heard her. She exited the house and quietly shut
J.M. Reep | 157
the door behind her.
Leah hurried down the driveway to her mother's waiting car.
When she climbed inside, she found her mother was happy and smiling.
The hopeful expression on her face hadn't changed at all since she
dropped Leah off at the house earlier that afternoon, except that it now
reflected the orange light from the November sun descending in the sky.
"So," Mrs. Nells asked, "did you get a lot accomplished today?"
"Not really," was all Leah could say.
S e v e n t e e n
A COLD front was waiting for her early the next morning when
she stepped out of her house and started for school. It was windy, and
the temperature was just above the freezing point another reminder
that the frigid days of winter would be upon her soon. The sky was
cloudy, but instead of dark clouds that threatened rain, Leah noticed that
the sky looked white. She couldn't see individual clouds; it was all just
one great, enormous mass, obscuring the sun completely and reinforcing
the uneasy feelings that Leah felt about this day.
Before she left for school, Leah pulled her heavy, powder blue
coat out from the back of her closet. It was the same coat that she had
worn for the last two winters, and she found, when she put it on, that it
didn't fit her as well as it had last year. She might have to ask her mother
for a new coat for Christmas. Although her coat protected her from the
cold, Leah still shivered as she walked to school because she was worried
about history. Today was the day that their presentations were due, and
there was a good chance that her team would be chosen to present their
reports to the rest of the class. As she struggled against the wind on her
way to school, her imagination frightened her with visions of what might
happen later that afternoon. She imagined standing in front of her class
and trying to read her report. Looking out at all those faces and seeing all
J.M. Reep | 159
those eyes staring back at her was going to be absolutely terrifying. Leah
wished that Alex's and David's cameras had worked like they were
supposed to yesterday. Seeing herself on TV wouldn't be so bad because
at least she wouldn't really be talking to the class; the image of her on the
screen would be giving the report for her. It would have been
embarrassing to see and hear herself on TV, but it wouldn't have been as
awful as standing in front of the class and facing a room full of people.
The only thing that eased her mind was the idea that if she did
present her report today, David and her other three partners would be
standing with her. Leah especially needed David's support, and when she
imagined him standing beside her while she read, she felt a little bit
better. She decided that when the time came to speak, she would pretend
that David was her only audience. He was, after all, the only person to
whom she wanted to talk.
At school, when the first bell of the day rang, Leah went to her
locker to get her books for her first two classes. As she opened her
locker and took off her coat, she was still thinking about what it would
be like to stand in front of her history class, so she was startled when she
heard a voice behind her say, "Hey, Leah?"
The voice belonged to David; Leah recognized it instantly. She
quickly turned around, her eyes bright with surprise. She blushed and
wondered what David was doing at her locker. He told her.
"Hey! Listen, me and the rest of the group are gonna meet at
lunch and do some last minute work on our presentation. You wanna
join us?"
With all of the anxiety surrounding history class today, Leah
hadn't given any thought about what she was going to do for lunch. It
was cold outside, and she knew if she tried to sit at her usual table on the
patio, it would be very uncomfortable and she might even catch a cold.
Spending lunch with David sounded like a much better plan. Leah
nodded eagerly and forced a "Sure!" from her lips.
"Cool. We'll be at one of the tables in the cafeteria in between the
stairs and the windows that face the teachers' parking lot. Do you know
where that is?"
160 | Leah
She wasn't certain, but she nodded her head anyway.
"OK, well, I'll see you then. I gotta go to class. Bye."
Leah smiled her goodbye and watched him disappear into the
crowded hallway. She spent the rest of the morning looking forward to
her lunch hour. After phys. ed., she rushed to her locker, grabbed her
lunch and her notebook with her report inside, and hurried to the
cafeteria. Only a few students were sitting at tables when she arrived, and
David wasn't anywhere in sight. Most students in the cafeteria were
standing in line to buy their lunches. Leah looked for him in the line, but
she couldn't see him, nor did she see Heather, Alex, or Melanie. She
walked towards the area of the cafeteria where David said he would be.
Leah found that there were several tables between the stairs and the
windows, but Leah didn't know which table belonged to David.
Not knowing what else to do, Leah simply stood where she was
and waited. Through the windows she could see the oak trees swaying
gently in the cold wind. She wondered if she should look for another
place to sit and eat lunch just in case she wasn't able to find David or if
David were to appear and cancel their plans to work on their project. She
knew she would have to claim a chair soon because everywhere she
looked she saw students sitting down. Leah noticed that boys now
occupied all the chairs surrounding the table where she had sat a few
weeks ago when the rain had forced her inside. She certainly couldn't sit
there again. And even if she did find some other place to sit and eat her
lunch, what would she do when she was finished eating? She hadn't
brought a book to read only her notebook with her report inside.
She looked back in the direction of the lunch line, and it was then
that she finally saw David. He was leaving the kitchen with two other
boys, neither of whom Leah knew. They were walking in her direction,
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