A Femme's Touch

(Alex’s POV)

Sitting in last period history on a Thursday, is the most painful thing a teenager could experience, don’t get me wrong I love history but when a bunch of teens I can care less about just talk in front of me, it almost makes me want to jump out the window. Today we were presenting our family genealogy reports to the class, I did my on my great-grandmother Beatrice Witwicky, who was one of the first female architects who helped designed the Hoover Dam, but she disappeared shortly after it was finished. But as per usual nobody thought it interesting except for my history teacher.

“Thank you Ms. Witwicky,” I walked to the back and took my seat, I felt a poke on my shoulder behind my I turned around to see Katy Solstiac, my best friend giving me a thumbs up and a smile, her long wavy black hair was loose under her “Just Dance” baseball cap and the silver glitter writing on her Cadillac dealership sleeveless shirt shined.

“Nice job dude,” she whispered

“Same to you it’s so cool that you’re family helped the Cadillac business,” I whispered back

“Well why else would my dad own the Cadillac dealership? Oh Sam’s next”

“Okay, Mr. Witwicky, you’re up,” My kid brother got up his backpack in hand and walked up to the front, and dumped the contents of his bag out on the desk

“Sorry, I got a lot of stuff,”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Trent aka “dick head” whisper something to his girlfriend Mikayla, before I saw him shoot a rubber band at my brother’s neck

“Who, who did that?” my teacher said standing up and looking around the class room

“People…responsibility,” and he sat back down

“Okay um...so for my family genealogy report I decided to do it on my great-great grandfather, who is a famous man, Captain Archibald Witwicky, very famous explorer, in fact he was one of the first to explore the Arctic Circle, which was a big deal. In 1897 he took forty one brave sailors straight into the Arctic shelf,” he said holding up an aged map of the Arctic Shelf

“So that’s the story right? And here we have some tools and instruments used by nineteenth century seamen,” the whole class started laughing except for me and Katy “Bunch of immature jerks” I thought, and a quiet sign stuck up, Sam continued

“This here is the quadrant, which you can get for eighty bucks, it’s all for sale by the way, like uh the sextant here fifty dollars for this, this is a bargain” the class laughed again and the quiet sign went up again “These are pretty cool these are my grandfather’s glasses, I haven’t quiet gotten them appraised yet but they’ve seen many cool things-”

“Are you going to sell me his liver? Mr. Witwicky this isn’t show and sell this is the eleventh grade, and I don’t think your grandfather would be particularly proud of what you’re doing-”

“I know I’m sorry…I just…you know, this is all going towards my car fund you can tell your folks it’s on EBay, I take PayPal cold hard cash works to, and the compass is a great gift for Columbus Day-”

“Sam”

“Sorry…um unfortunately my great-great-grandfather, the genius that he was, wound up going blind and crazy in a psycho ward, drawing the strange symbols and babbling about some giant ice man he thought he’d discovered-” the bell rang loudly “Finally we’re home free!” thought

“Okay. Might be a pop quiz tomorrow, might not, sleep in fear tonight,”

I walked up to Sam as he was packing up his stuff “Hey Sam nice job,” he looked up at me and smile “Thanks Alex” “Yeah you would make a perfect salesman” Katy said coming up behind us

“Very funny” he said turning back to his stuff

“He listen Sam I’m going to wait with dad in the car, Okay?”

“Yeah sure see ya,” he said turning back to talk to Mr. Jonson as Katy and I walked out, we went to our lockers and taking our stuff we headed to my dad’s car,

“Hey Alex what do you want me to bring when I come over tonight?”

“Hold on let me think, Meg’s bringing the movies, Lilly’s bringing desert, and Maggie’s bringing the video games, so you can bring some drinks,”

“Okay then, anything in particular you want?”

“Um Sprite and Lemonade, but some Pepsi or Coke would be fine to,”

“Alrighty then, I’ll see ya,” she said walking over to her where her parents were parked, I got into the back of my dad’s car while we waited for Sam

“Hey Dad,”

“Hey sweetheart, where’s Sam?”

“Probably trying to talk Mr. Jonson into giving him an A,”

“Well today’s the day he possibly gets his car and it’s all riding on that last A,”

“True, and here he comes now,” Sam came running to the car a huge smile on his face

“So how’d you do Sam?”

“A- but its and A,”

“Wait, wait, wait I can’t see…” Sam handed him the paper “Its and A,”

“So I’m good?”

“You’re good”

“Congrats bro now let’s go get that car,”

We drove away from the school and towards the dealerships I was laying back letting my hair blow in the wind.

“Gotta little surprise for you son,”

“What kinda surprise?”

“A little surprise,” we started driving into the Porsche dealership

“No, no, no, no Dad, You’ve got to be kidding me,”

“No fucking way Dad,” I said

“Yeah I am you’re not getting a Porsche,” my dad and I started laughing hysterically

“You think that’s funny?”

“Yeah I think it’s funny?” Dad said

“You think he would really get you a Porsche for you first car, come on Sam you know better,”

“I’m not talking to either of you for the rest of the ride,”

We drove out of the Porsche dealership and to some crappy place called Bolivia’s Automobiles “no way am I staying here,” I looked around and saw a shoe store across the street “Hey dad I’m gonna go to that store across the street,”

“Sure see ya honey,” while Sam and Dad went over to the dealer I made my way to the shoe store, I needed a new pair converse, I went over to the converse section and started looking through the shoes, I chose dark blue pair with cool red flame designs on the sides, taking the box I turned to wait in line for the cashier, as I was waiting I looked around a saw a jewelry display, but what I noticed a few necklaces kind of out of sight. I walked over to the stand and had a closer look at the jewels, there were five of them, and each pendant had a strange symbol infused with a colored jewel.

“May I help you?” I jumped and looked to the stand there stood a tall elderly woman with her grey hair tied back in a long pony tail, she seemed gentle yet powerful in a sense.

“Oh I’m sorry to scare you dearie,”

“No it’s fine, I just didn’t see you there,” I said with a smile

“Well I see you’ve taken notice of these lovely creations,” she said gesturing to the necklaces in display

“Yeah, I thought they looked cool but these symbols etched into them, what do they mean?”

“Well let me see,” she opened the case behind her where the necklaces were and brought them to the counter I took a closer look at each one and noticed the smaller engravings around the jeweled one.

“Alright, these necklaces represent certain aspects of a person, like this one” she took one that had a gold jewel infusing “This one means Innocence and the side engravings mean ‘young and pure,’” she said pointing to each engraving “That’s so cool, can you translate the other ones for me? I’d like know what they mean,” I said taking a note pad out so I could write them down “I don’t see why not,” she smiled and picked up one that had a green-yellow jewel infused “This one means Healing, and the smaller ones mean ‘restore and recuperate’,” she then picked up one that had a black jewel engraving “This one means Strength and the smaller ones mean ‘to protect with passion’,” she picked up one that had a bright green infused jewel “This one means Unity, and the smaller ones say ‘unity in disarray’,” the last one she picked up had two inscriptions one bright red and one a bright blue “ This one is something different the together they say Prime but separate the red one says Leader, and the blue one says Example, and the smaller engravings say ‘be a leader not a ruler,” I looked at all of the necklaces in front of me, “I’ll take them all,” she easily put each one in its case and put them into a bag “Here you go and have a good day,” she started walking to a door that said “staff only”

“But I haven’t paid for them yet,” she turned to look at me “You don’t have to, your interest in the writing is enough for me,” she smiled and disappeared behind the staff door

I looked down at the bag then made my way to the cashier “Sweet,” the line had gone and I quickly paid for the converse and made my way out side. As I was crossing the street I saw Sam getting out of this awesome Camaro, I was walking towards them when all of a sudden every glass window in the lot exploded I bent down covering my head from the flying glass once it was all over every window was destroyed except for the Camaro’s, the dealer stood up and looked around awestruck, he turned to face Sam and my Dad who were crouched by the Camaro.

“Four thousand,” he stuck up four fingers and the walked to his office. I walked over to them taking care of where I stepped so that no glass got into my sneakers

“Are you guys okay?” I asked

“Yeah we’re fine Alex,” Sam replied getting up and completely ignoring the fact that a hundred or so cars just exploded around him

“I got the car Yes!” he jumped up in excitement

I looked inside the car, it could use a good cleaning but all in all it was a pretty sweet ride, I looked to the front and noticed a strange symbol on the steering wheel it looked like a robot face.

“Hey Alex let’s get home,” Dad said, I put my bags in the back of the car and sat in the front and after the paper work was signed my brother drove his new car right behind us, when we got home Sam and I went back to our rooms, I unpacked my things and tried on my new converse they fit perfectly I looked in my full view mirror, they stuck out against my cut-off jeans and black t-shirt, they were a darker blue than my sky blue eyes, I took my hair out of its pony tail and let it fall down my back in golden brown waves

“Not a bad look for me”

I turned to my bag that held the necklaces, and took each one out and placing it over its case, and taking my note pad out to remind myself of the meanings.

“Now which one do I want?” I looked over them and my notes, I finally chose the one with the two red and blue inscriptions, I put it on, the metal felt cold against my skin but I loved it, I then sat in my bed and turning on the T.V. I waited for my friends to show up.