The Snake in the Grass
I almost fell asleep listening to the wind whistling through my ears. My body laying down on the grass, I could feel the grass poking up into my skin telling me to get up because I was too heavy. I opened my eyes just a little and then squeezed them shut again because the sun was too bright for them to handle. If I could just stay here, just a little longer, I thought. Maybe I will, just stay here in the nice warm sun and take a cat-nap. I felt a rather foot shaped nudge in my leg.
"Leslie, get up, we have to go to class." I recognized the voice and groaned.
"But, why does the class have to be right after lunch!" I complained with my eyes still squinting against the sun. I felt a shadow cover my eyes and opened them, seeing the familiar blue eyes, glasses, and long brown hair. She gave me an indignant look, or at least tried to.
"Aren't you the one who scheduled it that way?" She held out her hand to me and I grabbed it and stood up with some difficulty. I wiped the grass off of my black and white striped dress and gray cardigan that I was wearing.
"Yes, I did. But I did not think it would be this way, that there would be time to let the food happily digest in my tummy before going to class." I sighed, feeling my stomach with a sad look.
"So you admit it's your fault then?"
"Audrey!" I reached out to grab her angrily, but she dodged it easily with mocking eyes. With a swift motion she then continued past me and picked up my giraffe backpack which was laying on the grass behind me and slung it around her shoulder, knocking it into her own old black backpack that looked just about ready to fall into pieces.
"You really should get a new backpack soon, yours looks like it should have a hole for your books to fall out of." She looked back at her backpack and walked towards me. Her outfit was a pair of freshly washed jeans, a black tank top that she had at least three duplicates of, and a fairly new looking hat, which I would guess she got from a thrift store, because that was where she liked to get most of her clothes.
"That's because it does have a hole for my many many books to fall out of. I'll get a new one eventually, but for now we should be heading to class because Ana is waiting for us at the entrance and I feel she is getting antsy because we haven't arrived yet and there is," She looked at her non-existent watch on her right wrist. "Three minutes until class starts." I turned to ask her to give me my backpack back when I saw something move in the grass beneath us and screamed in probably the highest, most girliest scaredy cat scream ever. "What is it?" She looked at me with concern.
"S-s-s-snake! There's a snake!" I shrieked, she looked down and saw it, then kicked it. She kicked the snake like it was a soccer ball. Then she just looked up at me and motioned that it was time to go. I stood there baffled and stuttering,
"But you just- how did- I thought you loved animals! How could you?"
"I do love animals. It was an instinctive reaction, I couldn't help it."
"But it was- it was a snake! A real hissy slithery slimey snake! What if it was poisonous? What if it bit you?"
"It didn't." I stood there staring at her in shock. Did she even notice that what she kicked was a real snake?I opened my mouth to ask her but she interrupted with a panicked look on her face. "Leslie, we have to go to class! We're late!" She grabbed my hand and we ran into the classroom apologizing to Mr. Cox for being two minutes late to his biology class.
After we sat down next to a very distraught Ana, I barely paid any attention to the lecture Mr. Cox started on how young college students don't know the importance of biology and how it impacts everyone from this "largest space rocket" to the "smallest pimple". Then he proceeded to talk about how biology was much more important than zoology, which got him a very scary death glare from Audrey, even though she was a biology major.
I looked over at Ana, who was also not paying attention and was texting someone on her cell phone, but she was allowed to because she was not actually in this class. She was just there waiting for her next class to start after this class ended. I wonder who she is texting, does she have a boyfriend? I did not remember her ever saying she did. Her phone buzzed and she smiled slightly, her nose flaring a bit as it did when she was happy.
Ana had short, straight black hair and brown eyes, which is normal for her to have since she is part Japanese. Her fedora with a hello kitty insignia she embroidered into it was hanging on top of her head, it was astonishing how it did not fall off. She is a psychology major for the reason of wanting to see into others minds a little better so she can take over the world. I believe that she really could take over the world one day, and demand that every household has at least one cat per family member.
After he had realized nobody was listening to him, Mr. Cox announced that the rest of the time was free-study and sat down at his desk grumbling to himself. I turned to Audrey and approached the subject of the snake once more.
"Was it really a reflex?" She groaned but Ana looked up from her phone with a confused look.
"What reflex?" I turned to Ana as Audrey started to say something and cut her off.
"The reason we were late was because we, meaning me, almost got bitten by a snake." Ana shot a nervous look at Audrey, who had her hand on her forehead.
"A snake?" Ana said anxiously still looking at Audrey. I nodded.
"A real snake! I screamed and she kicked it liked it was a fútbol! If I had not been so shocked I would have yelled 'Goal!'" Ana stood up and leaned over me and closer to Audrey with a petrified look on her face.
"What if it had been-"
"It wasn't."
"But if it was, you know," Ana shot a quick nervous look at me that I barely caught and she lowered her voice to a small whisper. "You could have died."
"It wasn't and I didn't die, so don't worry about it!" hissed Audrey, after standing up angrily and almost knocking over Ana, who looked hurt by her sharp words. Audrey, noticing this, lowered her voice and apologized softly. "Look, I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just, you know we can't talk about that here." Despite her lowering her voice, almost the entire class was looking at us now, including Mr. Cox. I stood up and apologetically looked around while sitting Audrey back down in her seat. As I sat down I whispered quietly,
"Can't talk about what, the snake?" There it was, that nervous glance again. They were definitely keeping something from me. But before I could ask Mr. Cox stood up and dismissed the class. Audrey stood up after collecting her books and said softly to Ana,
"We'll talk about it later, okay Ana?" Ana opened her mouth, but closed it again and nodded. As Audrey and I walked out of the classroom I saw Ana quickly type something into her phone and press send.
