A/N: I was going to start this later, but I got so excited with the idea. This is slightly based off (mostly the ending) of an episode of Little House on the Prairie, but I won't say which since I don't want anyone looking up the ending (But if you watched the show you'll probably figure it out, so don't ruin the ending!). So credit to everyone who worked on that wonderful show. This is almost my version of what would happen had the dragons never gone to the temple and all ended up at the same school. But the school kind of is the temple. It's weird, okay? And the title will be explained eventually. So, with that out of the way, please enjoy! n_n
Bold/italics: Writing
Italics: Sounds
Dear Diary, I've got to wonder sometimes why boys were born without brains.
SMACK!
Or rather, why they have no idea how to use them.
SMACK!
When I say: 'Leave me alone, you stalker' for some reason, they think it means: 'I want to date you'. Some guys need to get a clue.
SMACK!
At this rate—
SMACK!
I'll never—
SMACK!
date—
SMACK!
again.
SMACK!
That. Was. It. Clenching the pen in her fist, Kimiko shoves her diary aside with enough ferocity to send it over the edge of the desk. Pushing out her chair, she approaches her bedroom window and glares through the glass.
Just as she suspected, a figure was standing outside her window. And just like the times before, with a SMACK! they lobbed another stone at her. The glass chipped a little, and Kimiko had to grit her teeth just to keep calm.
"Kimiko!" He yelled, cupping a hand around his mouth. "Kimiko, don't leave me!"
She grabs the window pane, pushing it open just in time to dodge another incoming rock. This was getting ridiculous. "JACK!" she screamed into the open night. "I told you to leave me alone!"
"But Kimikoo," He whined, dropping his handful of stones. "I just finished building that robot replica of you! Just come over and see it!"
Why her? What was it with all the freaks and creeps and weirdoes that found her attractive? She must be sending out some kind of hormonal beacon that made them flock. Yea, sure, it was flattering to a point, but at what point could you call Jack Spicer's affection flattering? "That's just weird! I told you to leave me alone!"
"But the resemblance is uncanny! Although it's nothing like the stunning originaaaoooowwww!" The boy genius yells as a potted plant drops from her bedroom window and cracks him on the head. The container shatters upon impact, dirt scattering in his hair and clothes as he staggered backwards to regain his balance.
"There's more where that came from, you nutjob!" she yells into the open night before slamming the window shut once again. Letting out a deep puff of air to clear her head, she calmly sits herself back at her desk. It was important to keep control; she couldn't let her annoyance get the better of her.
Not seeing her diary on the desk anymore, she ducks her head underneath the dark wood surface, since that's usually where the book ended up on most days. Retrieving the battered notebook from the floor, she hefts her pen and continues to write.
Sometimes it's so hard for me to decipher the knights in shining armour from the losers in tinfoil. I just want something that's true.
She raises her pen again, looking at her own loopy handwriting. In the social ladder at her school, true was hard to get. Maybe it existed, but from her rung there wasn't a safe looking step in sight.
SMACK!
Either way, I'm probably screwed.
XxXxXxXxXxX
At Shaolin Prep, image was everything, even though there was a uniform. Red blazers with white pants for the boys, white skirts for the girls. Black shoes, standard. It was a tacky look if you didn't know how to wear it right. But either way it was an expensive school in the outskirts of New York City for the best of the best: sports, the arts, academia. Thus far, Kimiko's junior year had been one big competition, much to her dissatisfaction. The gymnastics team was brutal as it was, along with the science courses she was barely struggling through; not to mention her being the only girl in the entire computers department.
At first, the other boys in her programming class could only drool over the fact that an actual girl was in the room. It was a class full of geeks after all, and at Shaolin Prep that meant that they were the ultimate in geekage.
Then after having to do her work in silence for a couple months, they all seemed to gang up on her like she was the odd one out of the bunch. Which, being a girl, she was. Being top of the class didn't help the situation, either (Although it was nice every once in a while when Mr. Kanojo Cho would let her leave class early).
It was all the same thing: 'what's with that stupid PDA? I mean, 2003 calling!" Then they would laugh their weird little laugh and flash out their iPhones and Blackberries and Galaxies like that suddenly made them superior.
Yea, maybe her cell was old, she'd had it forever. But the PDA was the device that kept her life in check, not like anyone would listen to her on the topic of phones. Everyone at Shaolin Prep was not only the best of the best; they had the best of the best.
On the other hand, Kimiko's PDA could best any phone when it came to getting alerts.
Ding! Her phone begins to vibrate, making a loud noise as the device shook the whole of her locker with its powerful vibrate. On one knee packing her bag, she glances upwards just in time for it to beep again. It looked almost like the metal frame was going into convulsion.
Ding! Ding! The sound of quaking metal only ends when she gets to her feet and grabs the phone from the top shelf. Flipping up the top screen, she watches as text messages pour into her inbox without signs of stopping. And each was from the same person.
Scrolling down through the lineup of messages, they all look like gibberish to her. She smiled to herself as the texts kept on rolling in. Omi was probably sitting on his phone again, from the looks of it. That was Omi, an odd kid with a fully loaded ego, adopted a number of years ago by the schools very own principal, Mr. Fung. With that factor in mind, and Omi's star spot as captain of the swim team, you'd think that he wouldn't get bullied as much as he does; and Kimiko wouldn't always have to be the big sister that punches out the bad guy. Not that she minded.
Kimiko reaches down to grab her backpack, shutting her locker with her hip and quickly clicking the lock back in place. Meanwhile, the messages are continuing to pile up. Sighing to herself, she pulls out the PDA's stylus and begins to drag mass files into the trash icon; walking down the hall as she did so. There was a small chance that she might run into someone, but the halls were practically empty during classes; the worse she would run into would probably be a janitor's cart.
…That was, until she did decide to look up and speed walked right into a pile of walking books. Textbooks rained down as the skyscraper of hardcovers toppled over along with the person who had been holding them. Both parties go sprawling onto the ground, Kimiko's PDA falling out of her hand and somewhere in the mess.
Shoving layers of books off herself, Kimiko takes a second of stillness to regain her bearings. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, checking herself for damage. Aside from a few developing bruising, she was intact.
"Watch were you're going, why don't you?" She hears another voice, and it suddenly comes to her that there was someone else involved in the collision. Opening one eye, she sees the back of a guy's head; he's in a crouch already collecting his books.
His hair is a mid-brown shade, messy and spikey but in a way that was probably done on purpose. Although a decent comb wouldn't hurt, considering the high standard appearances of Shaolin Prep. He looks over his shoulder at her; emerald green eyes wrapped in frustration quickly melt into concern.
He straightens up, coming towards her and extending a hand. "You okay?"
"Fine." Smiling weakly, she takes it and he pulls her to her feet. "I—" They share a brief moment of eye contact before she looks down at the disaster on the floor. "Sorry about your books. I'll help you…" She gets back down on her knees, shuffling the thick textbooks together.
He follows suit, and there's a moment of awkward silence, void of the sounds of books scraping against each other. Each of the covers she picks up are brand new, combined with the unfamiliar face… "You're new here?" She asks, not taking her eyes off what she was doing.
"Yea. Just flew in from Rio this morning."
She slides her finished pile over to him, leaning on it as he finishes up with his. "Rio as in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil?"
"One and only." He gives her a lopsided smile before disappearing behind his pile, getting on his knees to add his stack to hers. With the structure complete, he leans back and sits down again. "There. Uh, thanks for your help."
She ducks around to look at him, smiling back. "No problem. It's kind of my fault for running into you."
"Right. And I'm assuming this is yours?" He holds out her PDA, which he must have found somewhere in the pile.
"Oh yea, thank you." She had nearly forgotten about it, which was something she never did. "I'm Kimiko," She adds in after taking the device from his hand. "If you're new here, you're going to need all the allies you can get."
"Raimundo. I'm glad to have you on my side then, Kimiko."
"So you're here for science, I'm guessing?" She asks, motioning towards the stack of books they had just cleaned up. They were all on the same topic, and it wasn't that hard to put two and two together.
"No." His smile turns upside down almost instantly. He looks up at the books almost… loathingly.
Kimiko was tempted to ask what it was then, but by the looks of this guy he didn't want talk about. She opened her mouth to continue the conversation, maybe beat around the bush a little, but she doesn't get the chance. The bell rings for lunch, and almost instantly students begin to pour out of their classrooms.
Before it can get too crowded, he gets to his feet and picks up his pile of science books. "I'll see you around, Kimiko." And with that he disappears into the crowd.
XxXxXxXxXxX
"Someone certainly appears to be in a chicken mood." Omi comments, giving her a raised eyebrow as Kimiko glowers at her sandwich.
Clay smiles, patting Omi on the shoulder. "I think you mean foul mood, little buddy." Since the beginning of the school year the cowboy had sat with her at lunch, even though she couldn't exactly remember at what point they had become friends. He had moved to New York from his home in Texas only a couple months ago, but from the start he had be a likeable guy and they had almost instantly become friends.
"Same difference." The small boy mutters, jabbing at his mac and cheese apathetically.
"I'm mad because Jack came to my house again last night. He just doesn't understands that no means no, and if he keeps following me around I'm never going to get a date for the spring dance." Kimiko sighs, resting her chin on her palm.
Omi already looks like he's tuned out, anything sentence with the word 'date' or 'boyfriend' make him lose any kind of interest he might have had. Maybe that was part of the reason he didn't understand girls, but it was a more preferable outcome than having to listen to the 'what Omi would do' version of her story.
"Well your just gonna have'te be patient for the right fellow to come along, Kimiko." Clay says, always playing the voice of reason to all of her problems.
"It's different for you!" She exclaims at his response. "You already have a girlfriend and you're on the football team. It's got nothing to do with patience, everything to do with luck."
XxXxXxXxXxX
Physics. This was the class that threatened to send Kimiko over the edge every third period. It was a difficult class to manage, to say the least. Parents paid the teachers at Shaolin Prep for the best of the best, which incidentally meant the most difficult of the difficult. And maybe it wouldn't be as hard as it was if it weren't for their evil teacher.
Literally, Mr. Young was evil. He had said so himself, numerous times, and it a tone that told you he was serious about it. His methods were cruel and hardly fair, but on the bright side there was never any fooling around in his class.
Omi had already walked inside, claiming the lab closest to the front. On the first day of the school the swim champ had claimed that spot as 'his' and he would be darned if someone else sat in his seat. Even after they found out what a mean teacher Mr. Young could be, he stood strong to his words.
Kimiko, on the other hand, did not have any attachment whatsoever to her seat, and she particularly detested being in such close proximity to their teacher. So she and Omi never sat together in science, her just going to whatever seat available by the time she walked in.
Today must have been her lucky day; an entire lab was open at the back. Maybe if she crossed her fingers, she would get it all to herself. She could see the back of Jack's head on the other side of the room, and it looked like someone had already taken the spot next to him, meaning he probably wouldn't move. Bonus.
Mr. Young materializes at the front of the class, whacking his giant ruler against the chalkboard to get the class's attention. The room goes dead silent, and their teacher leaves the next minute of class empty, trying to make everyone uncomfortable.
"Today, we'll be covering optics again," He finally begins his lecture for the day. "To prepare you all for the science project I'll be assigning tomorrow." A universal groan goes up from the students, and Mr. Young can only grin. "That's the spirit that I love to see."
"But before we start the lesson, I would like to introduce a new student to the class. Raimundo," He makes a motion with his free hand, and lo and behold the boy that Kimiko had ran into in the hallway got to his feet and walked to the front of the class to join Mr. Young.
The teacher puts a hand on his shoulder, and the new student instantly looks uncomfortable. "This young man came all the way from Brazil to join us, aren't we special? He won the Brazilian national science fair twice, his folder says, and is incredibly gifted in physics. So if you have any questions about the subject, I advise you go ask him instead of me. He's an expert."
The sarcasm dripping out of Mr. Young's words is so obvious a lot of the other kids begin to snicker. Raimundo's looks like he's trying to fight the urge to spin around a slug his new physics teacher. Shrugging the hand off of his shoulder, he goes back to his seat.
Of course Kimiko can't help but feel bad for the guy, Mr. Young was completely heartless. But at the same time she couldn't help feel annoyed; obviously the new kid had really taken a disliking to her if he had blatantly lied to her about being in the science program. Maybe it wasn't so much a matter of luck as it was charisma.
XxXxXxXxXxX
Admittedly, the rest of the day hadn't been that bad. Fourth period was aesthetics, which was always fun. Kimiko had been giving herself some pretty original hairstyles even before she started high school, although she'd toned it down quite a bit since then.
Then after school she had gymnastics practise, and she had finally been able to finish her entire routine without making any mistakes. Of course the coach, Mr. Fung, had still been pretty picky about it, but she knew he was proud of her.
Left with about an hour to kill before her papa's driver could come a pick her up, Kimiko was stuck in a rather odd situation. The school was not a place she wanted to hang out after hours. With a little resentment, she decides it would just be best to start the walk, and hopefully she'll just meet him halfway.
Shaolin Prep was basically surrounded by a giant forest. It was all conservation land, since Mr. Fung was seriously into that kind of thing. Hidden somewhere among the area was the school's baseball diamond and soccer field; although she hadn't been to either that many times. But walking down the lengthy driveway of the school wasn't as bad as she had thought it would be, especially with the nice spring weather.
Well, it had been pleasant, until a certain stalker had shown up. The black convertible could have belonged to anyone, but the shock of red hair sitting in the back could only belong to one. They were still half a mile down the road, but she could already feel his beady little eyes locked on her.
Now Kimiko had suddenly wished she had stayed back at the school and just waited. Was that creep ever going to give up? Looking back up the road, she probably had about fifteen seconds before his car pulled up, and she could only imagine what would go down past that. There was no way she was going to accept a car ride home from Jack Spicer.
Making a quick decision, she evaporates into the treeline. Running full speed, although with her agility level of agility it's easy enough for her to dodge around trees and low-lying bushes. She hears him yelling for her to come out, which can only push her to try and get as far away as possible.
Then again, being trapped in a forest alone with Jack Spicer seemed a lot less preferable to riding in a car with him, at least then his driver would count as a witness. But it was already too late to go back, so Kimiko just kept on running. She would just go towards the soccer field and have her driver pick her up there.
It wasn't a far jog, not enough for her to even break a sweat. Reaching the outline of the clearing, however, she freezes when she sees someone already there. And it's not just any someone; it's the new kid from her science class. Once again met with an unpleasant decision, she's not sure whether she should go back or walk out on the field anyway.
Kicking the ball down the length of the field, he looks seriously into it. Without missing a beat he dribbles the ball to the penalty box and kicks it into the net. He wasn't bad at all, in fact, he was actually pretty good at the game.
Grabbing the ball, he brings it back out to the penalty line. He gears up, running back a couple of steps. His shoulder rise and fall as he takes in a deep breath, then he sprints at the ball, kicking it as hard as he can towards the net. It looked like a promising shot, but the ball bounces off the corner of the goal post. It soars over his own head, landing past the halfway line, but still rolling uncontrollably to the other net.
He's quick, too; spinning around and chasing after his miss-shot as it heads towards the other side. Catching up to it, he stops it slowing roll with his shoe, then bends over to pick it up. He sighs again, then looks up; right at Kimiko.
He raises an accusatory eyebrow after realizing it was her. "Are you spying on me?" He yells across the distance.