- And what are we supposed to put on the poster?
Natalia looked at me for a few seconds in silence while she analyzed my question in search of an answer.
"You can say your plants are magical."
I gave Lia an annoyed look.
"They are not magic."
"Well, they don't have to know."
Lia winked at me and I narrowed my eyes and pursed lips at her.
- Do you really think that someone is going to believe that I have magical plants?
—If someone believes that, they will only think that the word "magic" refers to drugs.
I snorted at her stubbornness.
"There is always the possibility."
—If someone believes that, they will only think that the word "magic" refers to drugs.
"Better, so more people will be interested."
"I don't want to lure all the junkies out of school, much less risk having a teacher come across one of these posters and get kicked out."
-It's ok, you win.
-I always do it.
Natalia gave me a bad look and started walking faster towards the exit to try to ignore me. I just laughed at her immaturity and tried to reach her without succeeding, my short legs of a meter sixty body could not compete with her infinite meter seventy legs.
We made it to the parking lot where I mounted my white bike and Lia, after grunting several times to show how little she was motivated by the idea of riding on the back of my battered bike, got in behind me.
At home you could hear the footsteps of the newcomers, with Lia we were locked in my room thus avoiding listening to the sycophants trying to earn a position in the flower shop.
I diverted my attention from the steps and refocused on the big problem of creating a poster about healing plants without making it look like I was trying to sell drugs to students.
- What if we tell the truth?
Lia looked at me with wide eyes, according to her lies were the basis of the world, mainly in business. Nobody got very far by being honest.
- It's just selling plants, it's not like we're joining the Italian Mafia.
Lia snorted.
- But what kind of sincerity do you want to use?
"Examples, I like that."
We had finally agreed on something, this was progress.
—Okay, you make a list of examples and I'll make another one, when we finish we compare them, we choose the best ones and we write those.
Lia looked at me with narrowed eyes and pretended a loud yawn to show me how little amused my plan was, then she threw herself on my bed where she almost crushed Lazy who, feeling attacked, jumped away and curled up next to me on the floor. .
We spent an hour thinking about examples. I tried to remember all the romantic series, books and movies that I had read or seen, it was the first time that I regretted not having experience in love. Lia seemed to be calm writing on my bed, even though her back was turned and I couldn't see her very well. It was strange that she was so calm and quiet. Perhaps after having suffered so many times from a broken heart, the account was finally coming to him and he had fallen into nostalgia.
Suddenly the door of my room opened and a brown boy appeared on the threshold of it. His honey eyes collided with mine and froze him in position. Who was he and why did he enter my room so gracefully?
- Oh! I'm sorry, they told me the bathroom was here.
I gave him the most unpleasant look he was capable of creating and replied in an unsympathetic tone. It must be one of the sycophants.
"It's the door before you go up the stairs."
The boy's skin, which was almost golden from his perfect tan, turned red and he tried to smile despite his nerves.
Maybe I was a little overly unfriendly, but before I could apologize, he slammed the door harder than necessary causing Lia to jump out of bed.
- What?! What happened?! Earthquake?!
He had one of the leaves stuck to his cheek and his eyes were squinting to avoid looking directly into the light. His long hair was tousled and the edge of his mouth was slightly damp.
"I can't believe you fell asleep." Did you manage to write more than two examples or did your mind crash before?
He gave me an indignant look as he tried, unsuccessfully, to straighten his hair. Before speaking, he wiped the corner of his lip with his jacket.
- Of course I managed to write more than two examples, I even made a drawing.
"Then show them."
-You first.
—Natalia Castillo, do you think that after ten years of friendship I don't know you? Read your examples first, I know you are able to copy mine.
Lia sighed and tried to sort the sheets that were scattered all over the bed.
-Agree.
- "Did the boy you like get a prettier girl than you? Well, what a shame, you must be very ugly", "Did you listen to a magazine and use the trick of" How to get a boy in 20 days "But you ended up humiliated? You are very idiotic if you thought it would work", "Are you reading this as if it were propaganda? So my thinking is correct and you are an idiot." "Lydia should go out more often to avoid making her life upset, you finally say something smart." Those, dear friend, are more than two examples.
- First, you were the one who got me into this, so now assume the consequences and be responsible for the first time in your life. Second, where is the famous drawing?
Fearfully, she handed me a wrinkled and wet sheet in one of the corners, probably Lia must have fallen asleep on it.
On the sheet there was a stick drawing similar to the ones six-year-olds make when they are learning to draw. Lia had had the decency to draw a pink triangle that appeared to be a dress and some orange lines that should be my hair. The strange human being had an abnormal expression on her face, something like an angry goblin without a nose and at one end there was a speech bubble where Lia had written many "WORK".
- Is this your wonderful work of art?
"You must accept that the resemblance is uncanny."
"I'll use your first two examples, removing the offending part."
- But that's the fun part!
"We are trying to help people, not make them feel more miserable than they already are."
After a few seconds of eye contact battle, Lia let out a sigh.
Lia threw me a ball of paper that bounced off my hair and fell perfectly into the garbage can, causing Natalia to laugh, which managed to infect me. We both ended up rubbing our stomachs due to laughter.
After almost two hours of work, where we wrote each poster that we would deliver the next day, we were able to lie down with sore hands to a point that no plant could help us heal.
"We could have photocopied him, you know." It was not necessary to write them by hand.
The look I gave her would have beaten any horror movie grin, nor did Annabelle compare to my face right now.
- And you tell me now that we're done!
"I thought you would notice." I withdraw the compliment towards your intelligence.
I rolled my eyes and put the hundred posters that we had just finished writing in a small folder, tomorrow we would take care of spreading them among the students. I just hoped it really worked and didn't make me a mockery of everyone.
The house was completely silent, Natalia soon fell asleep next to Lazy. I was just as tired but before I went to sleep I decided to say goodbye to my mother and ask her how everything had gone, I hadn't spoken to her all afternoon. I opened the door carefully to avoid waking Lia and went downstairs to my mom's room.
- How was everything?
My mother was already in bed reading, illuminated by the precarious light of her night lamp.
"Well, a lot of people came and it was very difficult to decide, but I think I managed to make the right decisions."
- When will they start working?
- In two days, I must create the contracts and all that administrative.
She pointed to some sheets of her notebook that lay on her lap and I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
- Your? Doing "clerical work"? I thought you hated all that, wasn't that the reason you opened the flower shop instead of looking for a job at a company?
She lowered the book and looked at me with a small smile on her face, I walked over to sit next to her on the bed.
- You're wrong about that, dear. When I opened the flower shop I had to do administrative work, only less. Plus I've always had help from Mark.
- Ah, right. I always forget Mark.
And it wasn't a joke. Mark was my mother's administrative assistant. He was the one who really ran the business. Without him the flower shop would probably never have expanded as it currently is and my mother would continue to sell flowers in the garage to the neighbors. If it weren't for how suspicious my mother became after my father bankrupted her, she might suspect that Mark would try to steal some of the money that the flower shop raises, but he was tied by his hands and just trying to think about it would leave straight to jail and why talk about the blows that Klaus would give him. Besides, I had always had the slight suspicion that I had feelings for my mother.
"Well, then I guess I'll meet them on Friday." Goodnight.
My mother stroked my hair and tried to tidy it up by tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear the same way she did when I was little.
"Goodbye, Lydia."
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