Stranger in the woods

Nia was late to school again. When she arrived to her classroom all the other students were already there waiting for her arrival. They all knew that once Nia arrived, class would begin. Nia was late constantly. She had gotten in trouble for it numerous times but none of her punishments corrected the problem. So the powers that be finally decided to stop doing it. Instead the teacher just adjusted his schedule by the number of minutes that Nia was late. Now if she was considerably late they couldn't let it slide but she was never more than 10 minutes late on any given day so that became the accepted norm.

Lidia sat in the desk to Nia's right. Lidia had been the first person her age that she met when she arrived in the small village all those years ago and the two had become inseperable. If you saw one of the girls you knew that the other one was somewhere close by. They had just started the sixth grade and not concidently had started to notice boys. They always knew boys were there but they were never interested in them before, at least not like this.

Lidia looked at her friend and noticed that she was staring at Bobby. Bobby had wavy blonde hair and a good complextion. Bobby was a natural born leader. All the boys in the class looked up to him and all the girls in the class wanted his attention. This could have given Bobby a false sense of importance but it didn't. He had a personality that drew people to him and he used it to keep the other children in line. This gained him the respect of his teachers. If he wanted to he could have caused them all kinds of problems but he never did.

"You know boys aren't interested in girls yet, right?" Lidia whispered to her friend. Boys mature later than girls do and she gained this knowledge from one of her talks with her mother.

"Yeah, I know but I can't help myself," Nia admitted. Nia had a hard time keeping her attention focused on what the teacher was saying. Fortunately for her, Lidia had no such problem. If it wasn't for Lidia Nia might have failed her lessons. She helped Nia study and get her lessons done. It wasn't that Nia wasn't smart, it was just that sometimes she had a hard time staying on task.

At recess Nia and Lidia and some other girls gathered around to talk about boys. They would relate all the things they liked about them and then complain about all the things they didn't. They all wished that the boys gave them attention but none of them did. That would all change in a couple of years but for now they just had to tolerate it.

Nia and Lidia sometimes took a walk in the woods nearby their small village. It was fun to explore and if they didn't go too far they could always be sure of finding their way back. They had been in the woods a thousand times by now and they knew their way around. After walking for some time they came upon what looked like a campsite. It was partially hidden and they stumbled upon it purely by accident. They didn't see anyone around but it was clear that someone had been there. They heard a noise of someone walking through the woods and they hid themselves.

After a few minutes someone did come to the campsite. It was a teenager and Nia recognized him but she didn't tell Lidia. It was the same boy who she had saw when she was a small child, the thing was he looked like he was the same age now that he had been then. She knew it was the same boy because she remembered the cube he was holding and a chill went down her spine. The boy took out a sandwich from the pocket of his jacket and started to eat.

Lidia and Nia started to quietly back away from the campsite. They were unsuccessful however and the boy heard some noise coming from their direction. He turned his head to see if anything was there but he didn't see anything. Nia and Lidia continued slowly to move away from the campsite. The boy got up and moved in their direction. Nia and Lidia froze. After looking for a few minutes and not seeing anything, the boy went back and sat down.

When Nia and Lidia got back to Nia house, they wondered what they should do. If someone was living in the woods, somebody in charge should be notified. Nia decided to do the right thing and tell her mother. She told her mother that she saw a teenager camping in the woods. She kept the face that she had seen him before to herself and said that he was a teenager she had never seen before. Once everyone in the village had been notifited they all searched the woods but they didn't find anything. Nia was confused. Both Nia and Lidia promised they weren't lying.

Everyone kept their eyes open for the next several weeks but nobody reported seeing the teenager that Nia and Lidia described or anyone else that didn't belong in the village. Soon everyone forgot about it and went about their business the same way they always did. Nia and Lidia didn't go into the woods again for a long time but eventually they filed the experience away in the back of thier minds and didn't think about it after that.