Tears On the Photograph Closed

Phoebe's smile seemed to have brightened, noticing the girl had stopped shaking. When she asked if they were friends, she was practically glowing. "Yeah," Phoebe began, "I'd love to be your friend!" Phoebe beamed at the girl, delighted that she wanted to be her companion. However, it suddenly dawned on her that neither of them had mentioned their names. Phoebe's smile became slightly awkward. She laughed nervously.

"Well, this is awkward. I completely forgot to give you my name! I'm Phoebe McCrary. I'm a first year. I like nature, baking, and embroidery," she said, trying to become more familiar with the girl. "What about you?" she asked.

Phoebe realized how strange their meeting was. It started as her crying about her parents, then the girl started crying, she comforted her, and now they're becoming friends. Yes, their meeting was quite peculiar, but it didn't change the fact that Phoebe genuinely wanted to get to know the girl. Hopefully, she wanted to get to know Phoebe, too.

Phoebe looked down at her feet, curling and uncurling her toes. As she waited for her- hopefully- new friend to say her name, she focused mainly on the movement of her feet until she heard the girl speak.

Koko laughed, and she was very surprised that it was completely genuine. “I can’t believe I did that; I swear I remember saying it somewhere! I’m Koko Riddle,” she said, including her last name just for the sake of it. A grin worked its way across her face and she, for once, looked like a perfectly normal eleven-year-old.

“I promise this is the last time I’ll apologize today, probably, but sorry about everything. Really. That was a messed up first meeting.” Koko wanted to find out more about this Phoebe, so maybe she should ask some questions. “I’ve got a seriously dreaded question: what’s your favorite color?”

Not that she was vain, she definitely wasn’t, but Koko hoped her robes didn’t have any dust on them... or anything worse. She hummed one of her favorite songs to herself, and then smiled a little, while waiting for Phoebe to reply. Koko had an odd vision of a girl with a white bob in her head, but she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to get another girl with the same last name out of her head. She'd heard the rumors--not that they meant anything, but...

"If I say anything wrong," Koko said playfully, "Please tell me to go wash my mouth out with some of that rotten soap over there." She gestured to the moldy sinks, with green forming on the copper knobs, and a few missing. She wondered just how old the school really was. Maybe one day they'd meet another ghost... She never could tell!