Uncool & Alive

Willow craned her head around the edge of the bedroom door.

"Good! Yasmin's not home from the movie yet!" Willow said as she flipped on the light switch and immediately made herself comfortable on her sister's gigantic, paisley-print canopy-bed.

"Where are they?" Willow impatiently said aloud. Willow remembered seeing a pack of cigarettes sitting on her sister's desk right before her mom drove her to violin practice earlier in the day but they were no longer there.

First, she looked under the magenta beanbag lying in the middle of the floor. No dice.

Then, she fervently began rummaging through her sister's closet. She instantly came across every type of sundress, variety of tank top, style of jean, and pair of flip flops that a girl could want, but after searching through what seemed like 9,000 different empty shoe boxes, no smokes were found.

Undeterred, she walked across the room and began looking through her sister's chest of drawers. She found tons of exotic-looking eye make-up, a tube of cherry red lipstick, socks and undergarments, and a broken jewelry box containing approximately 14 cents but absolutely no smokes.

Willow impulsively kicked the trash can sitting near her sister's bed, turning it over; she was frustrated. Suddenly, amidst an old pear rind, several pencil shavings, and a couple of torn up copies of a half-written History paper, three cigarettes rolled out onto the floor and landed near her gold-sandaled feet.

"Found em!" Willow said triumphantly.

Willow had recently heard that ALL of the cool kids smoked once they hit High School. Although, she hated the smell of cigarettes, and she remembered how they had turned the walls of her grandparent's (formally white) living room to an ugly, Marigold-yellow, she decided that she'd better get prepared by lighting up.

Willow saw a midnight blue lighter near the overturned trash can. She picked it up and sat down on the bed. All of a sudden, she heard two sets of footsteps on the nearby staircase.

"Uh-oh!" Willow exclaimed as she quickly dove under her sister's canopy bed.

"That movie was so lit! I loved the way the characters from opposite sections of a war-torn town fell in love," Willow heard Yasmin say.

"Yeah, it was so romantic! But the main guy, who looked like Michael Ealy, smoked and that is such a turn-off. His gorgeous baby blues couldn't even save Him tonight," Yasmin's best friend Mimi replied.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. My cousin Adae was over here this morning, with his stinky cigarettes, begging me to hook him up with my Statistics TA, Tamryn.You know...the tall Blasian girl from New Orleans that used to date Corrine's ex: Davis. I told him that Tamryn is too old for his 16-year-old behind and that my room is a NO SMOKE ZONE. He only had three cancer sticks left in his pack but I grabbed them, along with his lighter, and tossed them in the trash anyway. Adae doesn't stand a chance-- Tamryn is a second year grad student so she has to be pushing at least twenty-two or twenty-three. Why would she want to ride on the back of Adae's dusty big wheel when she could be chauffeured around town in a shiny two-door coupe by a"big man on campus" instead?" Yasmin responded with a giggle.

"And you know that Adae is a Taurus, therefore he is as stubborn as they come, Mimi. He's like an angry Spanish bull on the hunt for Matador chow when he is pursuing someone romantically; he only sees red/go," Yasmin concluded.

"You're a fool,Yas!"Mimi responded with a light chuckle.

"What? I'm just being honest," Yasmin replied with a mischievous grin.

"Back to the topic at hand, you're right, Mimi. Smoking is not it! I remember hearing that ALL the cool kids at Asphalt High smoked before I got there and that was so untrue. Besides, why should you do something that you clearly know is going to harm you just so people will like you, anyway? I thought friends were chosen based on their essence, not on how well they mimic what others are doing. Followers are so whack! I'd rather be an uncool, healthy, and alive leader than a cool and sick or dead follower! How about you Mimi?" Yasmin continued.

"Amen Chica!" Mimi retorted.

Willow heard two purses land on the bed.

"Hey, we should go to Dixon-Bowen-Johnson's for some froyo," Yasmin suggested.

"Sounds good. I'll drive," Mimi replied.

After the girls left the room, Willow immediately felt a bit foolish. She darted to the restroom as rapidly as her twelve year-old legs could run, shut the door securely behind her, flipped up the lid of the white porcelain frog-shaped toilet and quickly flushed the unsmoked cigarettes down the mouth of it. The only thought on Willow's mind was what was I thinking?