Mechanical by Pauline C. Harris

would. Actually, I hadn’t really thought about it
for quite some time. I shrugged the thought away. I was going to do
this for the creators. I was going to show them that I could
fulfill the mission and that I would be good at it.
    * * * *
    I walked through the school hallways, still
trying to think up a plan to get Cecelia to the Institution. I
wondered why Glen wanted her. Didn’t he always tell me to keep what
I was and where I came from a secret? Why would he purposefully
want a human at the Institution? I needed the answers to these
questions eventually, but at the moment, I was willing to fulfill
my mission.
    The bell rang for school to be over and I
knew I was out of time. I had thought up one plan, hoping it would
spark an idea for a better one, but I couldn't come up with
anything else so this time it had to do.
    I went through it again in my mind as I
walked towards Cecelia’s locker. “Cecelia,” I called, and a girl
dressed in a hot pink shirt, white skirt, black leggings and
knee-high boots, looked up at me. She had pink steaks in her long
blonde hair and thick black liner around her eyes, creating a
strange gothic look.
    “Hey Drew,” she said.
    “I think I found something of yours. You lost
a jacket yesterday didn’t you?” I asked.
    She nodded. “Yeah, that was my favorite one.
Did you find it?” she asked hopefully, turning towards me with
bright eyes.
    “I think so.”
    “Is it light blue?” she asked.
    I nodded and smiled, although I had no jacket
of hers. I had only heard that she had lost it the other day. “It’s
at my house. If you want to walk home with me, I can get it for
you,” I suggested. “It’s not a long walk.”
    Cecelia looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Well, you could just bring it to school tomorrow.”
    “Yeah, but I’d like to get it out of my
room,” I told her. “And I’m usually pretty forgetful. I’d probably
end up leaving it at home.” The lie was hollow, but it would have
to work.
    “Oh.” Cecelia replied. “I guess I could walk
home with you.”
    “Great,” I said with a smile. “You
ready?”
    She shut her locker and we headed for the
front doors. As we walked across the school grounds and along the
sidewalk in awkward silence, I racked my brain for something to
say. “Are you walking home afterwards?” I asked lamely, thinking of
nothing else conceivably relevant.
    She shook her head. “I have a piano lesson so
I’ll be walking there after I get my jacket back.”
    “Oh. Cool, I didn’t know you played,” I said,
genuinely surprised.
    “Yeah,” she smiled. “I love piano.”
    I looked at her. She didn’t seem like someone
who would be into something so ordinary as piano. She seemed the
more extravagant type. “I never thought of you as the piano
type.”
    Cecelia laughed. “Yeah, a lot of people don’t
seem to think I would like it at all,” she said. “But I really do.
I want to major in music for college. I know I don’t exactly look
like that kind of person, but I totally love classical music.
Clementi’s my favorite.” She stared at me with genuine
happiness.
    I stared back, surprised. “That’s cool. I’ve
never been able to play a musical instrument.”
    “It’s actually not that hard. And super fun,
by the way.” She smiled, more to herself than to me, and started
running her fingers through her hair to smooth it out.
    I nodded as we walked along. Cecelia hummed
quietly to herself, her boots making clicking sounds as she
strolled along the pavement.
    I had never suspected, ever, that Cecelia
would play classical piano. She just seemed like the
statement-making girl in my class who always wore rocker attire.
Her image warded off people. I had never suspected she had another
side to her.
    Suddenly, the Institution came into view and
I started thinking up excuses to tell her about my living
conditions. “They’re condos,” I told her, feeling the lie burn on
my tongue like fire.
    We walked up the front steps.