Clover. She was everything Ameral had dreamed of. She was a thin slip of a girl, lost in some sort of dreamland or alternate reality; gazing off at something no one else could see, blinking rapidly or not at all, rushing past every time Ameral wanted to reach out and grab her.
Today, Ameral took a deep breath, steadied her shaking hands, and walked over to where Clover was frowning into her doughnut. She asked: "Are you going to eat that?"
Clover started, her hands jolting in that heart-stopping moment of uncertainty regarding the safety of her desired food. Ameral sighed. She was sorry she had come.
"Oh! Yes! I am!" Clover clenched down harder on the doughnut and looked up straight into Ameral's face. Ameral found herself staring into the bluest eyes she had ever seen.
Clover wondered how many calories this doughnut had, because it was glazed and also alarmingly large, and her stomach sank. That whole morning she had fantasised about eating a gigantic glazed doughnut, and now that she had one in her hands she found herself mulling over every reason not to.
"Are you going to eat that?" came a voice astoundingly close, and Clover looked up to see a strange girl staring down at her. Ameral. That's right... isn't it?
Clover could hardly be sure of her own memory these days. She had seen this girl in some of her classes, maybe art and history. Ameral was tall, thin, pale, her black hair cut in a jaggered shoulder-length bob, a thickly cut fringe, big brown eyes, and had a dark aura about her. Clover had always dreamed of asking this girl around to visit her Aunty Mirren who read people's auras, tea leaves, told fortunes, and practised what some would call 'The Dark Arts'. She could feel something heavy around Ameral, something almost twisted and angry.
"I mean, there's a bin right there," Ameral said, pointing to the rubbish can a few feet away.
"No, I'm eating it!" Clover said indignantly.
"Ok."
Ameral kind of shrugged and Clover looked back at the doughnut.
"Well, the glaze isn't real syrup anyway, is it?" she asked rhetorically to no one in particular. "It's mostly just a number, like 307 or E5, and they don't have any calories."
Ameral stared. Wasn't E5 a highway? Out loud she asked: "You're counting calories?"
A shifty, almost embarrassed, look came over Clover's face. Ameral shivered. "Well, no, I'm not," Cover said, but then added, "Well, I am. I'm trying to eat 300 calories a day."
"What! Three hundred calories!?" Ameral felt like grabbing her shoulders and shaking this ludicrous idea right out of her pretty little head.
Clover shrugged. "Why not?"
"God!" Ameral lifted a hand in a fit of outrage, Clover noticed, and before anyone could do anything about this atrocity, a boy called Norman ran past them both bumping into Clover who lurched forwards just as Ameral went to swipe the hideous doughnut out of Clover's hands.
Clover squealed. Norman cried "Sorry!" and laughed as he ran. Ameral ended up slapping Clover in the chest at the same time her doughnut flew up, as high as any doughnut had ever flown before, then fell to the ground, landing with a splatter.
"Shitdammitfuck!" Clover yelled.
"Fucking christ!" Ameral exclaimed, yanking her hand back as if touching a hot poker.
"I wanted that all day!"
"Jesus," Ameral shoved both her hands into her skirt pockets. "Boys are dumb as fuck."
"So dumb. Why do they have to run around the place anyway?"
"There's more out there, you know," Ameral said with a tone of revealing a long-forgotten secret.
Clover looked up at her, still scowling, but with a little glint in her eyes. "I know, they sell them at PayLess."
Ameral took a breath and said in a rush, "Do you want to go to a cafe? With me?"
"Now?"
"No! Not now! After school."
"Oh..." Clover stared off into the distance, unblinking, as if searching for the answer there. Ameral felt her heart pound so loud and so fast it was as if it took up her whole rib-cage. She wished there was a speed button so she could turn it back to steady.
"Ok, sure," Clover said casually, and Ameral felt her world shift suddenly, and also fall into place.
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