Keeping the Peace

I was still finishing up my breakfast dishes when she arrived at my house. Well, when I say arrived, what I mean was "walked past, stopped, glanced between a slip of paper and the numbers on my neighbor's house, backtracked a few steps to the walk leading up to my door, and chewed her lip indecisively for a moment." She was a petite young girl, maybe eighteen years old, with fair skin and long hair a shade of red that typically comes out of a bottle. She had a bulging backpack, presumably full of books, that looked ridiculously large on her small frame.

After a brief wait, she steeled herself with a deep breath and marched purposefully up to my front door.