First Day At This Crazy Place
"Class, I am proud to introduce our newest classmate, Kairi," said Mrs. Summers, the second grade teacher at Spring Beach Elementary. Seven year old Kairi stood embarrassed at the front of the classroom while the class replied in unison with 'hello Kairi' enthusiastically. The blush on her cheeks just about matched her red hair completely.
At least it wasn't as bad as what she thought it would be like earlier.
Flashback
The young girl didn't sleep at all last night. The cause of this only had a one word explanation: school. The thought of school freaked her out. She had only been here for what? A week and they were already forcing her to go to school? Madness!
Shaking her seven year old head, Kairi slowly ate breakfast, but not really tasting it. She knew she had gone to school before, when she was younger, but for some reason couldn't recall any memories older than a week. All she remembered was her name and when she born. She didn't even remember her parents! Just out of nowhere she washed up on shore, opened her eyes and awoke to her new home; Destiny Islands, having no recollections of the past, and ended up living in the mayor's house.
But here she was—about to go to school.
"Kairi, Time for school," Called the mayor's wife, Donna. With a backpack slung over her shoulder, and a half eaten piece of toast in one hand, the young auburn Kairi walked out the door with Donna at her side. Donna grabbed hold of her hand looked over at the spazzing young girl, "Don't be nervous, you'll have lots of fun here. You'll make great and loyal friends, and the teachers are really nice." Though Kairi settled down a bit, she still was freaking out on the inside.
Donna smiled, showing all her pearly white teeth, "You're still nervous, but that's alright. I know you'll make friends fast. Do you know Sora? The really happy brown haired guy?"
Kairi barely nodded, not even daring to make a single peep. In fact, the only thing she had ever said since getting here was her name. She was so nervous, what if she said something that made her sound stupid or deranged? Would the kids at school think she was stupid, hate her, and smash her face into the mud? She shivered just thinking about it.
"Well I know he'd love to be your friend, he's really great and funny. His hair does look a bit silly doesn't it?"
Deciding to finally be brave, Kairi murmured, "Yeah, he seemed nice when I first met him…" Sora was actually the one who found Kairi in the first place on the shore.
After walking down the path that weaved throughout the main island for a couple minutes, Donna finally announced, "We're here Kairi, have a great first day at Spring Beach Elementary! I'll pick you up after school." Then she was gone.
Swallowing hard, Kairi hesitantly walked the dreadful steps to the classroom.
End Flashback
Scanning the very few faces in the classroom, Kairi spotted two familiar faces. The first boy had silver hair and was slightly taller than everybody else in the classroom. His name is…Rick, no, Ron! No…R something! Kairi thought, frustrated. The other boy had spiky brown hair that stuck up in almost every direction, he was grinning a very goofy smile, showing all his white teeth. Sora, Kairi thought.
Mrs. Summer motioned at Kairi, "Please sit over there by Sora and Riku, okay?" She gestured at their table which had an empty seat.
Feeling dumb for forgetting Riku's name, Kairi stumbled over clumsily, taking her seat. She looked down at her hands, not quite sure what to say or do. Should she say hello? But Sora, being his normal goofy Sora self, didn't even think twice before practically leaping across the table to stick out his hand.
"Hi Kairi, my name's Sora! Wanna be friends? And if you're going to be my friend, you must—absolutely must—meet my best friend Riku. He's awesome he is like so cool. Seriously. Then you can go over to my house almost everyday to play, though that'd get boring after a while, so we can go to the island! The island rules! There's no adult supervision and it's so fun to play on, and even you have to row a boat to get there, it's so worth it. So wanna be friends or what?" He said this all really fast, really eager.
Kairi was so flustered she didn't honestly know what to say. She was saved to answer though because thankfully, Riku let out a long sigh, hid half his face in one hand, and yanked Sora back down on his chair by his shirt. "Sora you idiot! Do you have to do this every time you meet someone you want to be friends with? It's getting really annoying only way past that." Riku turned his aquamarine eyes on Kairi, "He's pretty much just saying, 'Do you want to be friends?'"
Kairi blushed several more shades of red. "Uh, sure…" She looked down, trying to avoid eyes.
"YES!" Kairi looked up very startled. Riku had his face hidden in both his hands this time, and meanwhile Sora was nowhere in sight.
Kairi asked Riku timidly, "W-where's Sora?"
She was replied with a muffled "on the floor".
Sticking her head below the desk, Kairi noticed with a start that Sora had fallen backwards in his chair. "Sora? You okay down there?"
Sora looked up from the floor, "Hey Kai-Kai, I'm fine; I just fell backwards in my chair from all the excitement. I just can't believe I have another friend besides Riku!" Sora picked himself off the ground and hoisted his chair right side up before sitting back down on it.
Kairi looked back over at Riku who said wearily, "Sora you have other friends besides me. Please don't tell me you've forgotten about the other three?" His eyes flickered to Kairi, whose face held a look of confusion.
"If you don't mind me asking, who are the other three…?" Kairi asked Riku, though still eyeing Sora every now and again to make sure he didn't hyperventilate like before.
"The other three are Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka. They're sitting over at that table over there, see?" Riku pointed behind him at three other kids. The first boy, Tidus, had blonde hair and really tan skin, the girl named Selphie had flippy brown hair that was shoulder length and wore a yellow sundress. She was a Sundress type of person. The last boy there had orangey hair that stuck upwards like ice cream and was just as tan as the first boy. Both of these boys wore clothes that were sleeveless and had baggy shorts. Kairi assumed that they were sports people.
Sora, feeling left out of the conversation, piped up randomly, "Do you like ice-cream Kairi? We could get some at lunch; they serve ice-cream of all sorts there."
Finally tearing her eyes away from the three other kids, Kairi stared at Sora for a little while before answering with an awkward, "I don't know Sora. I don't remember what ice-cream tastes like very well. It's spicy right?"
Riku leaned back in his chair, "Oh, something like that Kairi," he smirked.
Sora glared at his best friend, "Riku!"
"What!"
"You're mean!"
"You overreact."
"Well you smell like a monkey's armpit!"
"You—Wait what?"
"You heard me baboon butt! You smell like monkey armpit sweat!"
At this point, Kairi didn't weather to crack up laughing, roll her eyes, or be appalled and make them stop. She chose laughing hysterically.
The other two stopped arguing for a moment to stare at her.
"I think we just struck her funny bone…" Sora whispered to Riku, who nodded. "Good thing it's time for lunch. I'm starving!"
"Sora, you're always hungry," Riku reminded Sora as if he'd done this several times already. "And I don't think Kairi wants to be friends with someone who is constantly hungry either. Right Kai?"
Kairi didn't answer.
When Mrs. Summers announced that it was time for lunch, the whole class cheered, Sora especially, and started abstracting their lunches from their tiny whiny backpacks. Once arrived in the cafeteria (if you could consider it one; it is that small) Riku and Sora chose their seats at a table and Kairi, not quite sure what to do, joined them soon after.
Kairi watched the two boys in front of her open their lunch boxes. Riku pulled out only one sandwich of some sort while Sora pulled out only several cups of pudding.
Several, Kairi thought inwardly. Awkwardly, Kairi opened her bag and pulled out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a juice box from her bag, careful not to meet eyes. Yes, she was still shy.
"So where do you come from Kairi?" Sora asked trying to make conversation. She looked up from the table to see him staring at her expectantly.
"Erm…" Kairi flushed slightly; this was something she had tried to avoid. Apparently she failed to do so. "I don't remember actually…Sorry." She looked down again, picking up her sandwich and eating it.
Even though Kairi was looking down, she still felt Sora's eyes on her. "Wow, really? That's weird, I mean, how can you not know? I remember where I came from. It was here—Destiny Islands!" He paused with a thoughtful expression, "Actually I came from my mommy's tummy, but since she lives here in Destiny Islands I guess it doesn't really matter what you say."
There was a few moments of quiet. Kairi lifted her eyes to Sora to look at him strangely. Her eyes flickered to Riku to see, to her amusement, that he had hidden his face in hands again. She giggled.
"Pudding Kairi?" She looked back at Sora to see him holding out a cup of pudding to her. "It's goooood pudding! It doesn't look like you ate much either."
"No thank you Sora."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes I am sure."
"Positive? It's extremely tasty this pudding…"
"Sora. No. Pudding. Okey?"
He made a pouty face, but backed down anyway.
Riku chuckled and looked at Kairi, who glared.
"What, so now he's funny when he's annoying someone that's not you?" Kairi asked Riku, staring at him intently.
"Yes it is."
Kairi rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair, done with her lunch. "But still. I'm sorry you now have to put up with Sora like I have to do every day now." Riku amended. Kairi shrugged.
Sora directed attention to himself again. "I can't get this stupid lid off this pudding cup! Riku help me!"
"Just pull harder!"
"I'm trying dummy head that smells like monkey butt odor! It's stuck!"
But as if on cue, the lid flew off. Except the only problem was that the lid caused most of the pudding in the cup to 'explode' which resulted in lots of pudding everywhere. Lots and lots of pudding. Kairi wiped the pudding from her eyes so she could see what had happened. What she saw almost made her crack up into hysterics again.
Riku was covered in brown pudding. Covered from head to toe almost. He had wiped pudding from his eyes also and was glaring at Sora. If looks could kill…
Sora was shaking nervously and also trying to control his laughing at the same time. "Riku…you got a little…"
"I KNOW THAT SORA!"
"Haha, you know it sorta looks like you're covered in poo Riku. Monkey Poo."
At that moment, the girl from before, Selphie, past the three. "Oh my gawd everyone! Sora said the bad word!" Everyone turned towards their table and said in unison, 'ohhhhh'.
Kairi said directly to Sora, "You make references to monkeys a lot. And you should at least give him some napkins you know."
Sora stared at her blankly. "What's a reference?"
"Never mind then."
It was later, lunch was over and it was time for their next class which was 'Language Arts' if you could even call it that since they were only in the second grade. Today's assignment was to write a story about why you think writing is important, according to Mrs. Summers at least.
The boy from earlier, Tidus, raised his hand. "But Mrs. Summers! Writing's boring! Besides, it's not important in anyway, so why are we doing this?"
Mrs. Summers sighed but then smiled. "Tidus! Writing is important. Without writing there would be no libraries, no books, no recordings of the past! How could man kind possibly survive without books?"
Tidus smiled impishly. "I dunno Mrs. Summers. But I know how I'll be able to survive this paper—you just gave me the answers!"
"Tidus…that was just what I thought. This paper is supposed to be supported be your opinion. Not mine."
Kairi looked at Tidus who shrugged and starting writing on his paper. She looked over at the girl from before named Selphie who had just then muttered "boys…" and sighed.
Sora raised his hand like Tidus, "Mrs. Summers? I don't wanna do this assignment. Can I just not do it?"
"No Sora, you're doing this paper and that's final." He pouted again.
A few minutes later, most of the small majority of the classroom was done and that even included Sora. Yeah I know, I'm shocked too.
He and Riku went off to do something unknown to Kairi and she was left alone at the table. She sat looking down until a friendly girl voice interrupted her thoughts.
"You bored?" Kairi looked up to meet the eyes of Selphie. "Tired?"
Sighing, Kairi answered with a dull, "Nah, just…well yeah; bored."
"So the two nitwits left you here? Jerks." Selphie scowled. "Boys can be such idiots y'know?"
"Well actually no. I don't know." Kairi answered sheepishly.
Selphie giggled. "Oh Kairi, you have so much to learn about conversation. But I like you anyway. You're my new best girl friend!" She paused to look over at Wakka and Tidus who started calling her name, "I'll be there in a second guys!" She called over at them. She turned back towards Kairi. "I'll have to introduce you to Wakka and Tidus later, but I have to go now so I will catch you later! Bye new best girl friend!" Selphie waved and walked off.
"Bye," Kairi answered vaguely. Weather or not Selphie heard her she did not know.
The rest of the day went by like this. When school was finally out, Kairi walked out the front doors with her two new guy friends. Donna was waiting for her like she said she would.
"I have to go guys. See you tomorrow I hope." Kairi said to Riku and Sora.
"What! You're leaving us so soon? Aww, I wanted you to go with the island with us!" Sora looked disappointed.
"Sorry Sora. I'll go see it with you guys tomorrow okay? I promise." Kairi smiled, hoping that Sora would go back to his happy go lucky self.
He did. Smiling a really cheesy smile, Sora nodded and started hopping around Kairi and Riku like a crazy person. "That's great Kairi! I also heard that you became best girl friends with Selphie! That's great because she goes with us to the island too didn't I mention?"
"She does?" Kairi asked smiling, liking the idea more and more.
"You bet she does! Let's go now Riku, I want to eat more pudding even though I already had ten cups of pudding earlier! Let's go!"
Riku had hidden his face in his hands again.
Kairi laughed at him. "Hey Riku, you know you do that an awful lot. The putting-your-face-in-your-hands thing."
He smiled ruefully. "Yeah well, after a while with being with Sora, it's almost second nature."
"Okay, well, I have to go. Donna's been waiting for the past few minutes because of me. Bye."
"Bye!" Riku and Sora said in unison.
Kairi went up to Donna who said, "How was your first day Kairi?"
She shrugged. "Alright. I made friends at least."
Donna didn't look surprised. "What did I tell you? I knew you'd love it."
"Who said I loved it Donna?"
"So you're saying you don't love it?"
"Well no. But still. Let's just pretend for now."