Shoving through the hot sweaty bodies in the hall to get to her 10:00 class, Lily felt she had been there before. But she couldn’t have, since she had just started high school today and she had never before been in this hall with all these kids, changing classes. She needed to stop at her locker in the next corridor to get her Spanish book. All this felt way too familiar. No. The only time she had ever in her whole life gone to her locker was this morning, when she got her locker assignment and threw some books in. This crowd wasn’t there this morning.
Then images began forming in her mind. She saw herself almost bumping into a short pudgy girl dressed in yellow—a girl, running, falling and then dropping a couple of books—Lily helping the girl before going to her locker.
A minute went by. Lily froze when she rounded the corner and saw the running girl, wearing a yellow scarf. The girl had tripped and dropped her math and history books. Lily leaned down and picked up the books for her. The girl, who was a good 4 inches shorter than Lily, smiled up at her. “I’m new,“ she said in a cheerful tone. “I don’t know anyone here. I just moved from Detroit. Thanks for helping me. See ya later.” Then she ran off.
Lily felt a wave of nausea like she was getting seasick. Now at her locker, she opened it slowly. She was glad to see her Spanish book was right where she left it.