The Beautiful Motion of Life entry 6

I move the skateboard with my feet under my desk, wishing I was on the half-pipe. Mrs. Haags sends me a death glare and I take my feet off of the skateboard. The girl in front of me, Olive, brushes her hands through her hair and puts it into a ponytail. She half-glances back at me, like she's hoping that by putting her hair up while sitting in front of me she will cause me to fall madly in love with her. I look at the white board. Mrs. Haags is writing something about cells separating. I turn back to look at Olive. "Hey Olive," I start. She smiles, "Yes, Mason?"

"Do you have any gum?" She batts her eyes and says, "Yea. One sec." She glances up at the teacher as if she's being a rebel and then leans down and pulls a pack of gum out of her backpack. She smiles and hands me the pack. I take a piece, said thanks, and stare up at the board again, deciding I'd rather pay attention than deal with this girl.

"Put on a helmet!" a leader yells at me as I hurry over to half-pipe. I groan and run back, pulling a helmet out of the bucket and putting it on my head. "Buckle it," the leader says with narrowed eyes. I sigh and clip the buckles. I hurry to the half-pipe and finally start enjoying myself. Before long, there's a bunch of guys on the half-pipe and girls have crowded around it. There's about two on each side and about three lingering on the ramp or on the edge of the ramp. Gigi walks up to me and smiles. "You're really good," she says, standing in the middle of the ramp, totally careless about the boards speeding past her. I pull myself to a smooth stop and smile, "Thanks." Gigi is totally gorgeous. "Do you think you could teach me how to board? I've always wanted to do it, but I'm not very good," she says, looking up from her eyelashes in that way that made anyone give her what she wanted and using the word 'board' as if it is a regular in her vocabulary. I seriously doubt that. "Sure," I say, handing her my board and putting my helmet on my hair. I flip my black hair and push her slowly on the gravel. She tries to go a little faster and starts falling, so I put my hands on her waste and help her along. "Thanks," she says, batting her eyes. "What a flirt," someone behind me whispers to her friend in a hateful tone. I turn to see who it was and see Bella notice me looking and blush four shades of red. I smile slightly. Bella hates girls that flirt. She's the type of girl that you would expect would be very unattractive and hate girls because she's self-conscious. Subsequently, she's about as gorgeous as Gigi. In my eyes, she's better looking than Gigi, although in reality she probably isn't. I release Gigi and say, "I think you should be fine now." Gigi stares at me in disbelief as I walk up the ramp steps and say, "Hey, Bella."

"Um...hi," she says, still blushing. "Sorry about that...I didn't mean to...like...offend you or something. I was uh-"

"Its fine," I say with a chuckle. One of the best things about Bella is that she's usually confident. She doesn't get nervous around me, or other guys, like most girls do. She also doesn't approach me obviously and flirt even more obviously like Gigi. Not that I really hate it when Gigi does that. Bella looks up at me with her almost golden eyes and half-smiles. Her dark waste-length hair circles her face perfectly, and a gust of wind sends it out in front her perfectly for a moment before it gets all over her face. I chuckle lightly as she tries to face away from the wind as she desperately tries to keep her hair out of her face. "Ugh," she moans. "Let's go inside," she says to her friend Shayna. "My hair is everywhere." I wave lightly as she and Shayna walk down the half-pipe stairs and she complains, "I don't know what the heck people are thinking when they say that hair isn't alive. Dead things can't eat you alive." Shayna puts up a finger and says, "You're forgetting zombies."

"Aw, true. But they're kind of alive, too."

"True." I laugh as they walk inside. I like Bella. I like her a lot.

© 2009