am Adelie ”
She smiled shyly.
He was cute alright.
“Actually- I feel very bad
about you lending me your shoes. Even though I really really appreciate it!”
Adelie said.
Indeed, she had felt that
she was troubling him.
“ Not to worry at all. I live just behind your house-you
know”
He chuckled.
“ Really ?
So you were my neighbour before? I have never realized that! Thank you so so much! I will wear them and I will go off now!”
She carefully wore Danny’s shoes and bowed slightly to
him . She
realized that Danny was a head above her and was very tall.
This went on for a couple of months. Danny never failed to show up at
her window ledge every afternoon, no matter how humid the weather had been, or
no matter how hard it had rained.
On a
particular Wednesday afternoon, things proved to never be the same again.
“ Let me send
you to school by my bicycle.”
“I can actually walk to school .. It is quite near…”
“Just let me ..”
Adelie never
knew why she never asked too many questions when it came to accepting help from
Danny. She had not known that many things about Danny other than that he used
to live behind her house once. She hadn’t even known how old he had been. What
was his full name. There were so many things to Danny
which were a mystery. She just knew that she trusted him.
It was the strange, inexplicable sensation, she
got, when she looked into his eyes, and felt a bond with him. She felt
something growing in her, but felt that it had already been there when she had
seen him.
Adelie nodded her head. She felt that it was natural of her
to agree- but she didn’t know why.
He
stretched his hand over and signalled her to come over to him by going over the
window ledge. She hesitated for a second, then she
smiled, reached out for his hand, and pulled herself over the ledge.
“ There you are!”
He smiled.
That warmed her heart.
“Come
aboard my bike?”
Adelie gently
lifted herself onto the bike. She held onto his waists. As if it were a natural thing for her to do.
He smiled.
The
scenery seemed different that day although the weather had been hot and humid.
The usual trees seemed so beautiful and old, the off beaten track which she had
never taken seemed so nostalgic and she had held him like she had held him before.
It all seemed like a well-rehearsed day where everything was so familiar and
yet so novel.
They
hadn’t said a word. The gentle wind beat on her face as her short bob bounced
along as he rode his bike.
He stopped
at the gates of her school. That was when she realized that she had been
holding on to his waists so tightly all the time. Why hadn’t it come to her
before? Why did she only realize it now? She felt herself blush and a tingle of
pink lit her cheeks.
He gently
lifted her off the bike.
“Have a
good day in school. See you tomorrow”
He waved
goodbye and rode off in his steel blue bike.
Adelie had been distracted in her lessons. Her mind was
filled with images of Danny. She heard nothing of what people told her, other
than his voice echoing within her. Why was Danny starting to have such an
effect on her?
Before she
had realized it, she had scribbled his name ‘Danny’ all over her textbooks and
her notebooks.
“ Adelie Claire! What are you doing?”
She looked
up, nearly jumping in shock when she saw her Mathematics teacher, standing before
her with those bulging eyes. If looks could kill, she would have died there and
then.
“Very well. Do the questions written on the board”
She nodded,
feeling stares on her. She went over to the board and began attempting the
questions. The thing about her was that she had been known as a prodigy. She could
easily solve all questions regardless of subjects, even though she had not
studied for them at all.
She had
got all the answers right. Her Mathematics teacher plastered a smile, and told her
to return to her seat.