Conner bolts up, looking around trying to find Julian, but he must have bolted. So instead of tearing through the crowd to get his hands on Julian, he kneels down next to Claire, pulling some napkins out of his pocket,

Claire accepts them and starts stabbing up the paint on her abdomen. She didn't seem surprised that everyone else just seemingly continued as if nothing happened. Conner, on the other hand, is still glaring at the crowd, but he knows he won't spot Julian. I'll get him later, Conner thinks and he doesn't notice Elizabeth and Remi until they are almost to them.

"Are you alright? Um..... your Claire right?" Elizabeth asks, handing her more napkins, Remi and Elizabeth both have large hand fulls of them. Claire nods mutely, accepting the new napkins, tossing the now useless ones aside.

"Was that for your names Claire or that your alright?" Remi asks sarcastically, earning a kick from Elizabeth before she crouches down to help Claire.

"Ow."

Conner stands up, leaving it to the two girls to try an extract the red paint from Claire's shirt. Though he doubts the paint would come out. "Did you see where Julian went?" Remi shrugs and pulls a pen from his back pocket. He starts scribbling on his arm adding more abstract art already there. Conner sighs, Remi and Conner never really talk to each other. It isn't out of dislike or anything. They just don't have a lot in common.

Remi can draw really cool, complicated yet simple, pieces of art. Conner, it would be a miracle if he didn't mess up drawing a stick man. Conner has a passion for sports. Remi could be on several of the school’s sports teams, but he turned them down, he wasn't interested.

Elizabeth is muttering under her breath about paint and fabric and what she'll do to Julian if she sees him.

"So are you guys coming to the game or the after-party? Its gonna be at my house."Conner asks, trying to break the silence. He runs his fingers through his braids hoping one of them would answer.

"Yeah, I'm going to go outfit shopping before the game," Elizabeth answers, taking Claire's hands and pulls her up. "You want to come? I could pick out some new clothes for you?"Conner looks at her worried when she shrinks away and tries to get more paint out of her shirt. Her reaction causes an awkward pause. Elizabeth bits her lip and glances at Conner.

Conner knows Elizabeth enough that he knows she’s only trying to be nice but he is not sure that Claire understands that she is just trying to be friendly. He knows that Claire is teased or looked at for her different clothes. It’s one of the reasons she is so shy, besides that she thinks she is invisible to everyone.

It also doesn't help that some call her Ghost Girl because of her pale skin a black hair. Conner even heard the foreign exchange student call her Yuki-onna. He found out later that Yuki-onna is a Japanese Ghost from folklore that appears when it snows. She is known for being very pale with dark hair and she freezes her victims and sucks out their souls.

Claire has heard these kinds of things before, she was made fun of to when they were little. But Conner tries to keep her from those kinds of people. She needs more friends besides just him. He strongly believed that she should know that not everyone judged you based on how you look.

It’s ironic that she was the one who taught him that when they were little. In the first grade, he was the only black kid in the class and a lot of the other kids would ignore him or pick on him for looking different. He was even isolated by the teacher, they would refuse to call on him or turned the other cheek when the other kids picked on him.

But Claire was different, sure she stared at first but Conner later found out she was just trying to figure him out. Turned out she couldn't so her solution was to share the cookies she made with her mom. She was confronted by the other kids almost immediately.

They asked why, as they called her, Ghost Girl was with the weirdo. And Conner swears what she said was one of the best things he ever heard. "He isn't weird and isn't a bully like you. He doesn't pick on you because you look different from him. And you can’t know someone you don't talk to."

It was Claire who told his mom what was going on at school. Conner had come home from school crying because of the bullying and discrimination. He’s mom got the teacher fired, but there wasn't much she could do about the other kids. His mom also helped him realize not everyone was like the other kids and that there are also more like Claire. And First graders are mean and mind-controlled by their parent’s ways of thinking.

Conner lets out a breath and nods his head at Claire, letting Elizabeth know to try again, he also takes the dirty napkins from Claire. Though Elizabeth probably barely noticed because she isn't one to give up, She already started to talk again.

"There is going to be a surprise sale at Annie's Clothesline, Annie told me herself. She sells some really comfy sweaters, I am sure we could find a few that you would like." She snatches Remi's pen from his hand, he just sighs and pulls out a purple one from his back pocket. Conner couldn't help but wonder how many he has hidden in his pockets, he seems to always an endless supply on him.

"You’re going to get ink poisoning, you dummy. It’s not good for your skin."

"Then I'll go with my art, shorty." He smirks at her as she huffs at him and resumes drawing on himself, flicking his brown hair out of the way. Elizabeth scrunches her face at him and picks out a still clean napkin and jots something down and shoves it into Claire's hands before she could argue or refuse.

The bell rings signaling the end of their lunch period, giving Elizabeth the chance to escape so Claire can’t give her back her number. "That's my phone number, text me to let me know you’re going. I'll meet you at the front gate. Oh and take my jacket to cover your shirt! Buh-Bye!" Elizabeth tosses Claire her baby blue jacket.

Grinning she quickly turns on her heel, causing her curly blond hair and long skirt to flair out, and grabs Remi's sleeve to drag him along with her. He gives a brief smirk and waves at Conner and Claire before letting drag him off. He tucks his pen back in his pocket, Conner sees a glimpse of a salamander on his arm before they are swallowed by the rush of students.

"Thank you," Claire whispers, even though she knows that she is most defiantly out of earshot. She looks at the jacket in her hands, along with the phone number napkin. She gives a small smile thinking about how nice Elizabeth was to her. And she noticed Conner motion for Elizabeth to try talking to her again

He has always been better about reading people, he probably would have intervened if Elizabeth was maliciously targeting her. Claire kind of likes Elizabeth's determination, defiantly her goodwill that made her lend Clair her jacket.

Claire carefully pulls on the jacket, finding it to be a form-fitting jacket. "How am I not supposed to put this on without getting paint on it?" Claire asks, mostly to herself. Conner shrugs and grabs what was left of the clean napkins in one hand and grabs the soiled ones to throw away.

He passes the clean ones to her, "Maybe if you fold up the front of your shirt a bit and line the jacket with the napkins?" She shrugs back, she doesn't think that will work, but she also doesn't want to make Conner late to class.

As she starts folding up the front of her shirt Conner quickly throws away the used napkins and comes back, grabbing the long shoulder strap of her bag and slings it over his right shoulder. "So what are you going to do with your free period Miss Smartypants and oh so great conversationalist?"

Claire frowns at him as she struggles a bit to zip the jacket over her chest, feeling a little uncomfortable at its tightness.

"Just because I tested out of most of my core classes doesn't make me a smarty pants-"

"Yes, it does."

"And you barely said more than me."

" You didn't say anything."

"Whatever."

They quickly start making their way to the gym, Conner grabs his book bag form his teas table as they pass it, slinging it across his other shoulder. "Can you get my hair tie from the front pocket?" He asks as he riffles through Claire's. She rolls her eyes, Clair knows he is looking for baked goods in her bag.

She unzips the pocket and pulls out a wide hair tie and hands it to Conner, taking her bag back from him and pulls out a big Tupperware box filled with chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies. "I made an extra batch for you and the team for before the game, make sure Coach Larson gets some. I am making the Bake Sale cookies at home."

She spent the morning at Home Ed. making the team’s cookies while her teacher, Mrs. Connie, was going over the basics of finances with the class. Claire already knows how to handle finances because she already took and past the class in middle school. She helps with her home finances because her dad struggles with it.

Claire waves the box at Conner. He quickly ties up his hair and takes the cookies. Claire Pulls her bags strap over her head and rests it on her shoulder as the Two-minute rings. They look at each other and make a quick run for it. They make it in time as the last bell rings and start heading down the hall to the locker room.