Odd

"Okay Odd, I'm done for now. We can go to breakfast." Jeremy turned around in his chair.

"Finally! I'm starving!" I whipped the door open and started down the hallway.

"Aren't you always?" Ulrich and Jeremy said at the same time then laughed and followed me.

Once we had gotten our meals and sat down, Aelita and Jeremy started going on about some technological stuff I couldn't understand. Ulrich and Yumi were talking about their Pencat Silat thing, which wasn't very interesting to me either. So I just focused on my food. That was, until I saw her. She was sitting across the lunchroom all alone. She was wearing a spaghetti-strap brown shirt underneath a brown leather jacket. She had a brown plaid skirt on with black tights down right past her knees. Her shoes were these cute brown flats with little bows at the end. Her hair was brown with caramel highlights, and it was in braided pigtails. She wasn't eating, or talking to anybody, just staring out the window, and she looked kind of… Sad.

I elbowed Ulrich and asked, "Who's that girl over there?" I guess the fact that my mouth was full got the whole gangs' attention.

"I don't know, she's new. Why are you asking me?" He answered.

Aelita then said "I overheard Jim talking to her in the hallway. She just moved to the city and her parents let her enroll here and stay in the dorms."

"Oh." Everyone went back to their conversations but I just couldn't focus on my food anymore. I was suddenly full.

I don't know how much time passed before Ulrich redirected my attention and we left the cafeteria. We sat outside on one of the benches talking about Lyoko for a while before I heard something. It was kind of faint, but I could tell it was yelling. I guess everyone else heard it too. We walked around the corner of the building and we saw Sissi yelling at the new chick.

"Who do you think you are? You can't just waltz on in here and expect everyone's attention! Why don't you just crawl back into your barn and leave us alone!" Sissi scoffed at the girl.

"But… What did I do to make you so ma-"The girl said real quietly before Sissi cut her off.

"I'm not going to waste my time on some country bumpkin. So just leave." Sissi just laughed and strutted away.

I saw the girl start crying, and then she ran into the forest. I was about to follow her to make sure she was okay, but Yumi stared talking.

"Geez, that was harsh. " Everyone started walking away.

"Anyways, are you guys up for a quick mission to gather more information from sector 5 since we don't have any more classes today?" Jeremy switched the topic. Everyone agreed and we started walking to the forest. The other side of the forest… which wasn't the way I wanted to go right now.

"Uhh… I'll catch up with you guys. I've got something to do first." I started walking towards the direction the girl went.

"Ok?" Ulrich said puzzling and they kept walking towards the factory.

A couple minutes later of walking I heard a few quiet repressed sobs, but I couldn't quite pinpoint where it was coming from. I walked through a couple trees then I found her. She was leaning against a tree holding her knees with her face buried in her arms. So I leaned against the tree and stared through the trees up at the clouds.

"You know, Sissi's just like that because she's threatened by you." I said softly.

She jerked her head up and wiped her tears.

"Why would she be threatened by me?" The girl choked out.

"Well, Sissi is the 'prettiest girl in school,' and since you got here, a lot of guys of been paying more attention to you rather than her… She doesn't like the fact that there's a girl here that's prettier than her." I explained.

"Me? Pretty? Yeah, right. Well if all girls at this school are like that then she won't have to worry much longer." She said more clearly.

"Once you get past Sissi, this school is actually pretty nice. Everyone else here loves new students." I was really hoping she'd stay. I really wanted to get to know her more.

"Even so, I really miss Manny." I could see another tear roll down her cheek.

"Oh. Who's Manny?" I said with some bitterness in my voice, even if I didn't mean to. Because when she said that, I automatically thought, Oh man. She already has a boyfriend?

She scoffed. "As if. Manny is my horse. We had to leave him, and all my other pets back home with my aunt when we moved here for my mom's new job. I really miss him."

A wave of relief blew over me. After a couple seconds of thought, I bent down, grabbed her hand and said, "Come on, I wanna show you something."

She had a confused look on her face but she got up, grabbed her black side bag with the horse design imprinted on the front, and we ran off towards the dorms.

A couple minutes later she laughed and said, "Where are you taking me?"

I chuckled and replied, "You'll see! By the way, my name's Odd."

She stopped and jerked my hand back. "Naomi." Then she smiled and gestured for me to continue.

When we got to my room, I opened the door and we walked inside and sat on my bed.

"So what's the big deal about your dorm?" She said kind of slowly.

"It's not my dorm; it's what's IN my dorm. But you have to swear you won't tell anyone." She crossed her heart, and I knew I could trust her. So I walked over to Kiwi's drawer and let him out. He immediately jumped on the bed and started sniffing Naomi, then laid in her lap.

Her mouth hung wide open. "You know pets aren't allowed here right?"

"Yeah, but I just couldn't leave my little Kiwi at home all alone! And he doesn't bother anyone, so the students don't mind keeping him a secret." I said as I sat down next to her.

She let him sniff her hand, and then started gently petting his head until he drifted asleep. "So, all the students know about him? And no one rats you out? That's amazing. Maybe the people here aren't that bad."

"I told you." I smiled at her and she beamed back. "I thought he might cheer you up, since you like animals so much."

"Thanks Odd, that was really thoughtful of you, and you hardly know me." She said.

"Well you seemed like someone I could trust. And since Kiwi just fell asleep on you, you have plenty of time to sit here and let me get to know you."

And that's just what we did. We sat on my bed for hours, and talked, and laughed. So, Naomi is an experienced horse rider that likes art, skateboarding, and is extremely good at math, almost as much as Jeremy! I guess we lost track of time because the next thing I knew Ulrich slammed the door open and started yelling at me.

"Dude, where were you! We waited for you for hou-"He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Naomi. "Oh, um… Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt anything…" He slowly backed out of the room.

"Uh, no it's not your fault. I didn't realize it was so late, I was just about to leave." Kiwi woke up when Ulrich burst in and had already jumped into his drawer, so Naomi got up and started walking towards the door. Ulrich moved aside, but she had stopped halfway. She turned around and came back to me, then hugged me and whispered, "Thanks Odd." … and then she was gone. So Ulrich closed the door behind her and looked at me. I just kept smiling and flopped onto my bed. Then I went to sleep, and I went to sleep happy.

I woke up happy that morning too. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and I had a feeling that today was going to be good. When Ulrich and I came back from the showers, he started questioning me.

"So who was that last night, and where were you? We waited at the factory forever!"

I smiled again and sighed, "Sorry man, Naomi and I just lost track of time."

"What were you guys even doing?"

"We were just sitting… and talking… and laughing." I sighed again and walked out.

Ulrich followed me and we met up with Jeremy in the hallway, and Yumi and Aelita halfway to the vending machines.

"What's up with him?" Yumi whispered to Ulrich.

"I don't know, he was hanging out with that new girl last night, and he's been like that since. All cheerful… it's so weird." He answered.

When I got my coffee and sat on the bench Jeremy asked me, "So Odd, why aren't we at the cafeteria by now?"

I told him the truth. "You guys can go if you want, but I'm not hungry."

Aelita laughed and said, "Okay, there's definitely something wrong with him!"

They all laughed, but I just chuckled and shook my head. There wasn't anything wrong with me… I was just too preoccupied to think about food. My mind was set on Naomi. The only thing I was thinking about was when I was going to get to see her again. But, it was Sunday, so we didn't have any classes. That was the only place I could think of to see her, and I don't even know if she's in any of my classes. She moved in Friday night, and wasn't starting classes till Monday anyways, but of all the things we talked about last night, I never asked her about her classes! Ugh, stupid me.

"Odd? ODD? Hello, is anyone there? Earth to Odd!" Jeremy broke my thought bubble. "Are you coming with us?"

"Huh? What? Where are we going?" I guess everyone kept talking, I should've paid attention.

"We're going to sector five, to get more data so Jeremy can decode Franz' diary?" Aelita filled me in.

I look at my watch. Ten o'clock in the morning. I guess if Naomi was awake I would've seen her by now. I guess she slept in because it was Sunday. "Okay, okay, I'm coming." And we started off to the factory.

When we got into the sewers, we grabbed our skateboards and headed off. I was in the front, and I was going pretty fast. Then I made a sharp turn, and it all happened so fast. I heard a scream and I was on the ground. When I turned over and looked up, Yumi, Ulrich, Aelita, and Jeremy were just standing there and staring with terrified looks on their faces. When I look at what they were staring at, I realized what happened.