Fierce Friends [1x1]

Prescott Middle School. It was the kind of school that you would want your child to be enrolled into because of the neighbourhood. Most people would assume that friendly neighborhoods produced friendly schools. And they normally aren't wrong.

But Janine wasn't very sure about that kind of claim.

Maybe it was the strange looks she kept managing to see from under the edge of her hood. Maybe it was the whispers she kept hearing, and while they never spoke that loud, she was still able to hear them, when she focused hard enough. Maybe it was her intimidating attitude. Perhaps it was the jokes concerning her that she heard from a distance while she was sitting alone.

But as far as Janine knew, not everyone here was friendly. Herself included. And she wasn't going to deny that. The young girl walked down the hallways as she tried to focus on her destination. Lunch time. Everyone was bumping into one another so they could be the first in line, when there are obviously more choices. But Janine didn't want to deal with all that. She preferred to be out on the blacktop, where she could soak up the sun in relative ease.

A scent flowed to the girl's nose as she got closer to the cafeteria doors. Hmm... Apparently all the cheerleaders had gathered in the area this time. She shook her head with huff. There was no way she was going to sit in there, now that all those pencil-neck plastic dolls were going to do something that would surely annoy her.

So off she went, veering towards the doors that led outside.

In Prescott, people liked to pretend they were rebellious. When things were so sterile and nice, you sometimes had to break out and do something totally scandalous. For a lot of people that sat outside at lunch, that meant doing something as dangerous and wild as sitting on the tables instead of the benches. Woah. This rowdy nuisance had been going on at Prescott for years, and for some unknown reasons, the teachers just decided to let such a heinous act slide!

Dodie Callaghan didn't sit on the table for that reason, though. When you were as little as Dodie, you needed all the extra height you could get. She perched on the wooden table, feet up on the bench that was connected to it, plastic lunch tray out over her knees. The sun shone down on her chicken and mayo sandwich and juice bottle, and her bright ginger braids caught the spring light, making them glow like fire. She munched idly on a cereal bar as she glanced over everyone's heads, looking out for someone.

As the school doors swung open, and a hooded girl walked out, Dodie immediately lifted her hand up. There was no way that wasn't Janine. "Hey! Jan!" she called, ignoring the funny looks the other kids gave her. Dropping the cereal bar, she used her free hand to pat the space next to her on the table, still waving with the other.

The moment she hit the blacktop, Janine noticed that she wasn't really the only one out here. She didn't care really, so long as nobody tried anything funny while she was out here. Her ears shifted when someone called out her name, and turned her head to see who it was. But she didn't need to guess who was calling her - nobody else knew her enough to give her a nickname besides Dodie. A nickname? Yeah, nobody else did that but her.

Janine smirked as the girl on the tables waved at her. She walked over to her, and got up to sit down next to her on the table.

"Hi Dodo." Janine said with a small wave of her own.
The nickname "Dodo" was Janine's name of choice - while for others it's an insult towards intelligence, to her it was just her way to forever point out that Dodie was short. Thanks to Janine's interest in animals both extant and extinct, she explained that the Dodo bird was a short bird, like a midget ostrich. It just seemed to fit and make sense in her mind. At first, she said it to make fun of the girl, but somehow, someway, as time passed, they became friends, and the nickname became one of endearment.

"How long have you been out here? I was sure you'd get stuck somewhere," Janine teased with a low chuckle. The girl went into her backpack and pulled out a PB&J sandwich, with some milk and some chips. She grabbed the chips first and snacked on them, hands placed on the table behind her so she could lean back.

Dodie couldn't stop the grin coming across her face at the nickname. There was something about it that made her feel so much more comfortable in her skin, no matter what. She knew that it hadn't started out too kind, but things were different now.

"Not long," she answered, speaking through a mouthful of cereal. "I was in science last, so that's literally, like..." she trailed off, and gestured vaguely in the direction of the science block, which was practically close enough to touch. "I left early too, I just asked to go to the bathroom. I'll need to grab the homework off someone."

Janine put another chip in her mouth as she felt the heat of the sun beating down on her. If she was normal, she'd have taken the jacket off and complained of the heat, but she reveled in the heat, and had no qualms concerning the warm rays. If people didn't know any better, people would speculate that Janine was a plant.

With a chuckle, Janine turned to Dodie and tisked at her her playfully.

"Oh Dodie. What are we going to do with you? Making a habit of ditching the last three minutes of class are we? Such a delinquent," Janine teased.

The girl then reached for her backpack and rummaged through it. She then pulled out a colored folder that held a piece of paper, put the folder back in her bag, closed the bag up, and turned around with a smirk.

"You mean this paper? Your teacher is Ms. Holly right?" Janine said as she teasingly shook the paper barely out of reach.

Dodie pouted and swiped at Janine for her accusations. "C'mon, it's science. Anyone in their right might would skip it," she said. "Besides, if I don't take at least a little bit of that period off, I'll probably just die. Just die of boredom!" She snickered at her own joke.

She hadn't been looking at Janine as she went delving into her bag, her attention rather on the people around them. The courtyard was always full of big groups of friends coming and going. The only constants were Dodie, and Janine, and Ms Dahl, who watched to make sure that no one was smoking—it had happened one time a few years ago, and the teachers had never really gotten over that one. There was maybe only one other thing that was always there; Mirek Jagoda. He sat at a table, all on his own, face hidden behind his long, blond hair. He wasn't in any of Dodie's classes, so she'd never spoke to him. Looking at him now, she felt guilty for that.

She started to mention this to Janine, but the girl almost hit her in the face with a sheet of paper before she could. "Hey!" She hit out on impulse, but quickly saw that it was the homework she'd mentioned. Dodie stared at it, and huffed a little. "How did you even get that?" she asked, reaching out to take the paper.

Janine rolled her eyes at Dodie's small joke. She didn't think science was that bad. Certainly wasn't as bad as History.

"You over-exaggerate Dodie. Science ain't that bad." Janine said as she handed the homework paper to her friend. She scoffed with a smirk as she leaned back again.

"I just happened to be running an errand for my own science teacher, Ms. Heidi. She wanted me to give Ms. Holly some paper, and when I got there, the bell had already rang. We talked, and she showed me the homework that she assigned to her last class. I barely remembered you being in her class, so I asked to confirm. When she said yes, I asked if I could keep the paper to give it to you, and she said yes. So now here I am, giving it to you," Janine explained with a smile.

Contrary to popular belief, Janine didn't behave the similarly towards the teachers that she does to the rest of the student body. If they didn't get on her nerves, she was rather enthused about her work, especially if she favored the subject. But she only did it when she was alone, so she never seemed to show much interest during class. It puzzled the teachers that she had, and she was often questioned about her behavior differences, but Janine often shied away from answering them.

But she never did back down from a personal challenge or errand inquiry from a teacher. Which was why she got Dodie's homework. She was kinda like a secret teacher's pet - a secluded kind that worked in the background.

She suddenly backed the paper an inch out of Dodie's grabbing range. "Of course, I could always just send it to you as a paper airplane or something. Maybe while you're in the bathroom?" Janine taunted.

"But is is!" Dodie complained. "I don't know why we have to take it. I can't wait until we're in high school. I can drop all the stupid stuff and take the good ones!"

She reached out for the paper again, and once again it fell just out of her grasp. She groaned, tipping her head back in a mock of an eye-roll. "Come on, man! You're such a nerd. Seriously, just give it!" She leaned forward, directly over Janine's lap, and, grabbing her wrist with one hand, snatched the paper, tearing it a little in the process. She clearly didn't care much, as she folded it neatly into eighths and tucked it into the pocket of her shorts. It was early Autumn, and she was still wearing shorts. She never could let those sun–kissed days go.

"You're stupid close with like, every teacher," she said, tone lightly teasing.

Janine laughed at Dodie when she complained about science class. Always hating on the interesting stuff.

"Dodie, I wouldn't count on High School. I heard that the stuff there is harder than here, and that we'll have to work in classes that we still don't want to go to. I thinj our best bet is to appreciate being here for as long as we can," Janine said with a small smirk.

She enjoyed teasing Dodie with her paper a little longer, until she gained the boldness to actually grab and reach over her to get at her wrists. When the paper finally left her possession, Janine was still with slight shock. She didn't expect Dodie to be so willing about it. When the initial shock died down, Janine gave her friend a mischievous glare.

"You are incredibly lucky that you're my friend - if you were anyone else, you'd be dead by now," Janine said as she went back to eating another chip. Dodie's jab at her being with her teachers made Janine snort.
"And you're stupid close to that bathroom you go to. Would you like for me to bring you lunch in there from now on? How about we sleepover sometime?" Janine teased.

Dodie huffed, and rolled her eyes. "Okay, maybe it'll be harder. But at least I'll care about the stuff we're learning!" She folded her arms across her chest and rocked back and forth a little where she sat. "And they can't make us take all stuff we don't like. That's not right!"

She snorted. "You act like such a big man," she teased. She knew that Janine could be pretty big with other people, but she never had been with her.
Quickly jumping to her own defence, she said, "hey, it's a nice bathroom!" but that came out all wrong, so she backtracked, and said, "well, I mean, you'll never get bugged in there. Especially if you've got a teacher who's a guy. And especially if you lock the stall door."
"And speaking of sleepovers...we still on for this Saturday?" Her eyes gained a mischievous glint. "I don't actually know if it can be a sleepover though, really. My mom says we're going to see my granddad early in the morning on Sunday, so we'll have to leave super early." Dodie's granddad lived a few hours away, but much to Dodie's annoyance, her mom always insisted on leaving the house so that they'd be at his in time for breakfast. "So, it might just be a day thing. And I'll leave after dinner, or something. That's cool, yeah?"

Dodie's answers just fueled all the laughter that Janine had within her. Out of all the people of this school, Janine really laughed only with Dodie and her antics. Sure, she'd hear a joke from a teacher, and snicker a little, but she tried to not let it show. She'd often tell Dodie about them, and then she'd laugh wholeheartedly as she'd relay them, whether Dodie found it amusing or not.

At the mentioning of sleepovers, Dodie brought up their own supposed event. As expected, being Janine's only friend, she had given Dodie the privilege to sleepover at her house. To her, anybody that managed to be her friend got to do all the things that friends normally did with her. It may not be a big deal to everyone, and some people may think that she's just super full of it, but to her, those kinds of ordinary rituals for the rest of society were a big deal to Janine. Her mother and sister knew how Janine felt about getting close to others, so when she first told them about Dodie sleeping over that first time, they were able to grasp how important Dodie was to the teen. And they embraced her with open arms.

Janine sighed and groaned as she leaned her head back. It was annoying how they couldn't even have a really sleepover - it was more of a dinner date considering that she had to leave that same night.

"Heck yeah we're still doing it! And you're right. It's not a sleepover. It's a dinner date. But I guess it's alright. Mom's making tacos tonight! And we'll have all sorts of salsa and tortilla chips and toppings. It'll be like an ice cream shop, but for tacos!" Janine excitedly exclaimed. But then she had a thought. "Why don't you just sleep over Friday? And then you can leave Saturday night? That way, we can actually have a sleepover. And you'll be back at your own house without a worry."

The prospect of tacos made Dodie smile from ear to ear, despite the fact that spicy food really didn't agree with her much (she was the colour of a milk bottle, after all) and she'd probably end up having the most boring options on the table. "Oh, that'll be good!" she said, voice bubbling with a delighted laugh.

Dodie's face set in worry, brow furrowing and lip coming between her teeth. "I dunno how my mom would like that. It's a school night, she'd want me doing homework, or studying, or something..." she trailed off. Even as she spoke, she knew that Janine knew that she never did any of that, especially not on a Friday night—but she was expected to pretend to do it, at least. She shrugged. “I’ll ask,” she said, “and if she says no, maybe I’ll just sneak out!” While she laughed, the truth hung uneasily in the air that that would not have been totally out of the ordinary for her.