Chapter 1: Lonely

CHAPTER 1: LONELY

" They’re not coming . . . . "

" No! They’re not coming! They would have been here by now if they were coming.”, thought Deedee.

She looked at the miserable weather outside from the window of the upstairs family room. The blowing wind, wet snow, and freezing temperatures belied the fact it was the second Sunday of April. On many a Sunday, Sherry, Deedee's friend, and Mazie, Sherry's best friend, as well as Leonard, a neighborhood boy that Deedee had known since first grade, would come over to play. Most often, they would play a for fun tournament game of a simplified version of chess, called ' Chibi(\*) Chess' ".  Deedee had introduced the game to her friends a few months ago. She loved the game, despite the fact that Leonard would win most of the time. He would always shout "Winning is *so sweet*" when he moved the final chess piece to checkmate position. This action would annoy Deedee greatly, she acknowledged. After the game, the little group would walk a couple of blocks to a Taco Bell restaurant for dinner; for whatever reason, Mazie would always order a kid's meal with a toy.

Darla D'nell Ryevalley was bored. Bored and lonely. “As lonely as she had ever been in her fourteen years of life”, Deedee thought. Being an only child, she never had a brother or sister to play with. With a father who was a research scientist for the USA Energy Department, and a mother who was a high school physics teacher, she was born with a high I.Q., and a full set of “street smart” genes. "Girl Geek" and "Girl Genius", she was often pejoratively called, by students and teachers alike. Unfortunately, she was too adult-like to be liked by other children, and too child-like to be liked by adults. So Deedee came to value very much her few friends, and their often quirky personalities.

Deedee sat down on the windowsill. She watched as the wet snow was now dusting the green grass like powdered sugar on a doughnut. “Why couldn’t she have been born into a rich family, like Sherry, instead of into a family of nerds ?”, she mused. Sherry Anne Elizabeth Ormsby was thirteenth years old, and had received the best of everything, all given to her since birth. Her father was a software systems designer who formed his own company in the early eighties, and soon become wealthy, seemly overnight. Yet in spite of her designer clothing and expensive toys, Sherry was a kind, down-to-earth person and a loyal friend. Sherry would often tell Deedee that being wealthy was more of a curse that a blessing. “Was that really true ?”, questioned Deedee in her mind.

For as much as Sherry's family was rich, Mazie's family was plain and ordinary. Mazie Alice VanDeGraff was twelve, but sometimes acted more like a hapless eight year old. Her father was a motorcycle mechanic and her mother worked at a pastry shoppe. The family was financially poor, to say the least. Mazie was always dressed neat and clean, but it looked like her clothes came from Goodwill, or that someone gave clothes to her after a session of dumpster diving. Still, Mazie had a couple of things going for her, everyone said she was super cute, and she had developed a kind and generous personality. With her big eyes and small, pouty lips, plus pink hair, she looked like a real, living anime girl. Even dressed in a faded Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt and old blue jean shorts, she would make the latest virtual rock music idol, or fashion guru, look like a frumpy kitchen washerwoman. Like a favorite living rag doll, Sherry loved Mazie intensely, and Deedee liked her very much, too.

A gust of wind blew against the windowpane, startling Deedee, and breaking her chain of thought. She looked at the icy puddles forming in the distance, and resumed thinking. And then there was Leonard. Leonard Noel Norwood. Leonard the Winner, Leonard the Arrogant, Leonard the Friendly One, Leonard the Critical One, Leonard the Bishonen(#). Despite his “anything you can do, I can do better” attitude, Deedee still secretly liked him. With his dark blonde hair that almost curled into tiny ringlets, and his blue-gray eyes, Deedee thought he looked " cute ". As a friend and companion, she liked matching wits with him, especially when he would say “silly girls need smart boys to tell them what to say and do.” He was only fourteen, same age as her, but he acted like he had a lifetime of experience already. He knew all the sports trivia. Plus, he would always wear a sports T-shirt or sweatshirt of a winning team. Lately he had been wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirt, since they had won the Stanley Cup last year. Deedee half-heartedly chuckled to herself. One thing about Leonard though, he was really good at playing Chibi Chess.

The dark clouds outside made it seem to be twilight, although sunset was still a couple of hours away. Deedee could see her reflection in the glass windowpane. She looked the same as she always did; tall, thin, fair skin, short black hair, and blue-gray eyes, and that made her look tom-boyish. She was dressed the same today as she had always done. A Polo shirt, blue denim shorts, sneakers, and that made people often mistake her for a boy. Deedee would often ask herself, "Shouldn't I have been born a boy?" Then she noticed a tear was running down the cheek of the person in the window reflection.

" Will you be my friend? “, she asked the person in the window reflection.

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\* Chibi---Japanese word meaning little, small, tiny.

# Bishonen---Japanese word meaning a genetic male who is feminine looking and / or feminine acting. Not considered a negative term.

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