Reign of the Harvest Moon -The Long Ride

"The dirty banana" the kids called it. Long, yellow, and even had dark patches along the bottom from rush building up. The black smoke bellowed out as it came to a stop in front of the school.

"Wow I actually got her on time!" Jessie saw her friend Kim stepping off the bus and timed her pace just right for a good startle.

"Hey girl!"

."whoa watch where you are going.." Kim realized it was her friend playing another trick on her.

"Oh hey girl! Wow why are you all messed up? Your shit is dirty!"

They both laughed and walked in the front door, just enough time to catch up on gossip about the Halloween party that Saturday while on their way to their lockers.

"Oh don't look now, it's Patrick Nash and he's looking pretty hot right now. And look who he's with." Kim spotted Patrick by Sarah's locker down the hallway.

"Oh I don't want to see that shit!" Jessie slammed her locker door. Jessie and Patrick dated a couple years ago before high school and baseball turned him into one of the coolest and cutest guys in school. They never officially broken up, Patrick spent the summer in New York and rumors started about him hanging out with professional baseball players at his baseball camp and losing his virginity with a couple models at the same time. Apparently listened to his buddy's advice to drop Jessie by the start of high school.

"You are right, my bad. Hey we still don't have costumes for the party, what are we going to do? Look Tarjays have a sell girl and I'm not shamed at all, we should go." Kim hands her the sales paper.

"How will we get there? I don't even have a bike anymore. Heck where's my bag? I must've forgotten it near the bike."

"What happened to your bike?" Kim stopped in her tracks

"Long story, you'll have to wait for my autobiography to come out." They both laughed.

"OK we have to get to class before get caught in the hallways again. That's the last thing my mom needs to hear!" Jessie rounded the corner to first period. The writing on the board said Mrs. Fields...an older woman walked into the room wearing a shawl, her black shoes stretched out at the sides. The bell rang as she closed the door.

"OK class Mrs. Baker is out today, we will catch up on our reading. Turn to page 254 in your books". Jessie usually sat by the window so she could gaze out and daydream if the boredom overtook her. The glare was brilliant as spotlights shining on stage. Jessie didn't see a shadow being cast as she felt it should, looked at the other students shadows and thought how odd it was to not omit a shadow in such bright light. She tried to ignore it through the rest of the day but it was bothering her. She also felt slightly different, kind of sick to the stomach to the point where she wanted to go home. Even though the day was almost complete Jessie decided to skip the last class and make it home while she felt somewhat decent. She hid in the bathroom just long enough to sneak down the hallways and slip out of the door.

"Hey Jessie come here for a minute " Jessie looked up to see Patrick standing near the gym.

"I don't really have a minute for you."

"Oh come on, I never see you around anymore." Patrick smiled

"You see me all the time, you must mean there's usually too many people around to be seen talking to me." Jessie turned to continue walking when Patrick rushed over to grab her hand. "I just wanted to talk without the hall monitors catching us".

"Say it here because I'm not going with you in there." Jessie snatched her hand back.

"OK maybe I deserve that, I'm sorry I sort of got caught up in the cool stuff but I never stopped liking you. I want to make it up to you."

"What makes you think I'd want you to make things up? We're different now"

"Well can we start at least with being friends? Maybe I'll show you that I'm not so different." Patrick made another attempt you take her hand, then Jessie snatched it back again.

"Go tell Sarah how different you are, you remember how we both hated her in middle school? Want to tell me how you're not so different now? "

"I am and I'll start showing you at the Halloween party, your still going right? Kim said yall were."

"That Bitch! Well we're not going there to hang around you."

"I'll see you there." Patrick smiled and walked back towards the gym.

Jessie opened the door and walked outside as fast as possible, couldn't afford to get caught outside of class. As she walked towards the end of the bus drive way a black van was waiting at the corner. The engine was running so out of curiosity she glanced over to see if it was a student that she could hitch a ride from. A man in the passenger seat held up a bag that looked like the one Jessie dropped on the road. There was a fuzzy teddy bear Keychain attached to the strap so it had to be the same one even though this was a different van with a different driver. She thought to just keep walking and get a new bag later but it also had her cell phone and books inside. The man rolled down the window "Hey this is your bag right?"

"Why would you think that?" Jessie nervously tried to put on a front.

"We saw you get hit by that van and run off before we could give this to you, your bad as or something."

Jessie laughed in response, the tension eased a bit. She walked towards the van "yeah that's mine, I just didn't know who the hell you guys were."

"Naw that shit was legit, you should've stayed down or something and filed a police report, sued that dumb ass!" The driver yelled over his buddy.

"Yea I should've, I'm the dumb ass." Jessie grabbed her bag but the guy didn't let go.

"Shit you need a ride? Your bike got pretty fucked up. You can't be walking all the way home?" The passenger asked

"Naw I'm straight, thanks though." in the back of her mind she was still in pain, she checked her bag for her phone and everything was still in the bag.

"It's no bother, we can drop you off at anywhere, so you are not showing strangers where you live at. I'm Rick by the way." Jessie and Rick giggled "That's Bill"

"Thanks for my bag, yall driving by the mall?" Jessie felt these guys were just a little older than her and seemed like good guys.

"Sure hop in" Rick reached out and cracked open the sliding door as far as he could reach. Jessie jump into the smoke filled van and slammed the heavy door closed, it locked.

"You want to hit this" Rick took the joint out of Bills hands and held it for Jessie to grab.

"No thanks, I have asthma" Jessie heard that excuse given before at a party and thought it was clever.

"You don't have to lie, just say you don't smoke. Anybody that gets hit by a van and runs away doesn't have fucking asthma. Rick and Bill laughed while Jessie sat back, analyzing the situation.

"You know that's kind of disrespect to turn down when someone offers you a drink or a toke, that's kind of fucked up. Rick put the joint in his own mouth and took a long pull, then blew the smoke toward Jessie. They approached the mall and turned into the parking lot. Jessie figured they were just high but they took her to the mall as expected. The guys drove pass the first door, then the second. "Hey here's good I can walk in from any door." Jessie protested, they laughed while passing the third door.

"Oh we forgot our wallets, we want to go shopping with you, that's cool right? Bill just lives around the corner."

"Oh hell no! Let me the fuck out here." Jessie pulled at the handle.

"Damn you're a rude ungrateful bitch. Why are we even helping you out? Rude bitches need to be taught a lesson." Rick cracked the window to flick the end of the joint out of the window when he saw the van from this morning heading towards them at full speed.

"Oh shit Bill!"

The van toned the other van flipping it over into a roll, it stopped on its side. The driver of the van that hit Jessie jumped out and punched a hole into the passenger window, reached back and unlocked the sliding door. He opened the door to see Jessie staring at him and grabbed her out. She started screaming before he covered her mouth and threw her into his van then drove off.

"Why did you do that?" Jessie rubbed her head.

"Followed those men since this morning after you ran off. They grabbed your bag off the street, I knew something was wrong when they circled your school a few times. Those men were going to try to rape you."

"What!" Jessie was in shock.

"Possibly try to kill you too, but you're different. I saw it this morning, youâre different than most people.â

"Oh now you're crazy too? Just let me out here at the mall."

"I will but take my number, when you are ready to know how different you are" he caught Jessie's eye, "call me."

The man handed Jessie the number before dropping her at the front doors to the mall and drove off.

"Wait what's your name?" Jessie yelled and the van speeding away, he didn't say. Jessie looked at the torn piece of paper with seven numbers on it and put it in her pocket, then walked into the mall.