Odion rushed to his Creative Writing class with his backpack still flung over his broad shoulders, he was agitated with himself that he was late. If his father found out… he didn’t want to think about it…They were several weeks into the semester already and this was the first time he was late...

Room 208… he threw the door open.
His over-sized silhouette shadowed the doorway as the echos tripped over the walls from the door. Miss. Adoma stared at him standing there as she was frozen midway through passing out small post-it-note. His muscles tensed, preparing himself for whatever punishment she decided on. “Odion, I didn’t think you would make it today, please take a seat.” she smiled then turned back to her work. As long as he was there it was fine.
Odion’s gratefulness was unseen on his placid face as he sat down at his seat. A bright orange sticky note was beautifully decorated around the number 19. “Now everyone, please look at your number, there is two students for every number, find the other student. You two will be partners on the big class project that you will be working on for the next two weeks…” she went on explaining the big project. They were to write a short story in groups of two, it was to be well written and refined. When they hand it in, it was to be in a folder with drafts and ideas and anything else that you would have made in it. “Now, everyone, go find your partner. For the rest of the class you will write down the basic idea for your story.” Her smile spread from cheek to cheek as her hazel eyes sparkled with excitement. With one look, you could instantly tell that this was what she lived for...
Odion stood up and wandered around trying to find the matching number, everyone seemed to be grouping up quickly as he wandered around. Odion kept his straight posture as he passed everyone in their groups and kept his eyes out for anyone left. Finally he came to a desk in the back where a small girl with dark black hair and light brownish skin sprawled out uncaring. Her number laid by her hand as she refused to get up and find her partner. Odion held back a frustrated sigh, and when he realized her number matched his, he decided to speak up and talk to her, because it was obvious that she wasn’t willing to… “So… hi… I guess we’ll be working together... I’m Odion…” he held out a brave hand, hoping to start off on the right foot...
The small person lifted her head and look at him, her eyes met his, and she growled… literally… she squinted her cold black demon eyes containing no warmth as they cut into him as she growled, her small voice was barely audible under it… “Don’t you dare make us fail my project, big guy…” the words were sharpened to deadly points and were determined to destroy him.
He simply returned the glare, because even though his thick skin remained unscatheed, his pride refused to back down. Their unheard battle built up unseen energy determined to overcome the other.
Miss. Adoma watched the two from the edge of her vision. ‘This is going to be an interesting class…’ she suppressed a laugh…
“Believe me, midget, I won’t be the one to ruin it…”, His accent was thick but his poisonous words were more than clear. He held his stern stare with his clear blue eyes as if they were mighty shield when he stared down at the girl in their muted war.
“Whatever… but we’re using one of my ideas…” she ran her hand threw her long hair as she rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe his “help” will actually be just that…’ she stole one look at the quarterback shaped guy and groaned. ‘Who am I kidding… This hulk probably doesn’t know how to spell his own name…”
“Why don’t I get a say?” his voice was strong and rang in her ears… “I might have some cool ideas, you know, I’m not an idiot. No matter what you think.”
“Because mine is obviously better.” she shot her cold look briefly at him.
“Tell me them then…” Annoyance was becoming more and more blatant in his voice. “and I’ll tell you my ideas, then we can decide what to use.”
“No, I don’t want to talk to you.” this was true, but not only did it apply to him, but just about everyone in town. She wanted to graduate and leave as soon as possible.
“To bad for you, little missy… we have to talk if we want to actually pass the assignment.”
“Not if I can help it..” she mumbled under her breath.
Odion had it. He marched straight to Miss. Adoma,and gave her the paper with the number nineteen written on it. “Give me another classmate. Anyone at all…” He was unshakable in his resolve. “She is a dämon hexe! She's unwilling to try collaboration even on the smallest level! Hölle! She won’t even look at me, unless to use her böse eye to try to turn me to stone!” He shouted out of frustration towards the dreadful girl. The entire class looked shell shocked and was unable to move. Miss. Adoma bit down on her tongue until she was certain she wouldn’t laugh.
“Odion.. I can assure you she isn’t a demon, even though she sometimes acts like it…” She looked to the one person who ignored the entire ordeal. “Ezra. Come here.” The girl slumped her shoulders as she slowly got out of her seat. She dragged her feet to the front, never looking away from them… Miss. Adoma was one of the people she actually liked talking to. She was her neighbor since she was five...twelve years had passed since then.
“Ezra..” Miss. Adoma spoke as if she was talking to a small child… mainly because it was Ezra she was talking to. “Are you giving poor Odion a hard time?”
“....Yes, ma'am… I am…”
“So what are you going to say?”
“Sorry…”
“And how are you going to show that you are?”
“I’ll cooperate on the project like a reasonable person…” her teacher raised an eyebrow. “...fine...and i’ll be supportive of his ideas…” she grumbled as she stared at the coffee cup full of pens and pencils that she had given Miss. Adoma her freshmen year.
“Now you have to follow through…” Miss. Adoma smiled sweetly at her student as she hinted to the red faced giant standing by the girl’s shrimped self.
Extremely reluctant, she turned to face him, she looked him in the eyes and sighed. “Well, I guess I should act my age and apologize… Sorry...okay… I truthfully didn’t think you would get that upset… I’m just not a people person…” she waited for a forced response from him.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly letting it escape. His red face was it’s usual color now and he opened his eyes. “Okay.” He turned and went to the back of the class and took the seat next to hers. “You coming or am I going to do the entire project myself?”
Ezra dragged herself back to her spot and plopped herself down. “So what are your brilliant ideas, Russian?” Her voice remained bored with him, but she grabbed out a small notebook and a sparkly neon blue pen to write down ideas. “Not getting any younger, mr mammoth…” a heaping amount of annoyance was thick in her mouth.
“Ezra!”
“Sorry… I’ll keep myself in check…”she called out to her teacher… the other students already were back to their assignment, but occasionally peeked at the tall blond and the short raven haired.“Sooo…” she rolled her wrist to try to get him to talk.
“Well… I was thinking a historical short about Russian history through their eyes… I know it well and …”
“Let me stop you there… You do realize it’s supposed to be a short… thus the name short story… beside you don’t want to put your readers to sleep….” a glance from Miss. Adoma made her begrudgingly add to her comment, “Though I guess writing about something that we know well is smart…”
“I guess so… what if we wrote a short on a spy making his or her way out off or into Russia? That should be more interesting…”
“Can you think of any story that doesn’t take place in Russia? The story would be interesting though, but it would turn out to be a novel, not a short story… also it’s a little over done.” She scribbled down a few more things in the small notebook.
“Okay… does her tiny majesty have any suggestion?” sarcasm. Either she didn’t notice or she ignored it.
“Well, mr family size…, maybe we could do a modern romantic short story…”
“No.” she raised an eyebrow, “I’m a guy, I can’t write mushy stuff...:”
“Anything kind of element you think should be in it?” frustrated she kept her attention on her paper.
Odion thought for a moment as he watched her movements… “What about someone who needs to know everything… but is upset when they can’t figure out the town’s biggest mystery…” he stopped, waiting for her to shot the idea down.
“Go on… what is the mystery and how would it end?” curiosity was hidden in her voice as she turned to a clean page in her notebook.
“Oh.. umm.. how about the small town's buried secret…?”
“No, too cliche…” she tapped her pen on her desk thinking, “... instead there is a mystery person who helps incognito or anonymously…”
“Like granting wishes.. but without magic or something stupid like that...maybe ends up being a rich guy or something…”
“That would be stupid and so extremely obvious… how would the hero not notice the rich guy and suspect him… it would make the most sense…” she rubbed the arch of her nose… “...unless it was one of those rich small towns that everyone is either fabulously wealthy or high class…” Ezra look up at him with a straight face, but with a gleam in her eyes.
“And he is sent wishes over the internet!”
“And everyone only gets one wish!”
“Yeah! like a genie...it could be like… um… geine’slamp.org.” She gave him a “seriously” look and her signature eyeroll.
“No… that wouldn’t work. If it was just an internet page you could ask for more than one thing… and anyone in the world would be able to access it.” she let out a huff and turned back to her notebook…. looking almost disappointed.
An idea sparked in his head, “What about [email protected]…. and you could only access it once… and that is only accessible after you receive a mysterious note saying ‘you have the lamp’ and afterwards you receive a note saying your wish has been granted… but it might say something like… um.. ‘your wish is rejected’ if it is impossible…”
“Protential…” a small smile was almost perfectly hidden by her long black hair… “I’ll hand in the summary for the story… I put both of our names on it so don’t worry.”  she stood up and started walking to the front, smile gone, and handed the paper in.
By the time she made it back to her seat the bell rang, “oh… joy… math..” hatred was apparent in her body language and tone. Odion suppressed a laugh as she huffed out of the room heading to her next class, and as he watched her black hair bounce as she passed through the door, he knew it wasn’t the end… for they had a story.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~