Chapter three: Arnold O'Neil
Sandy and I entered took the cream steps of NJGHS up to the huge door made of ruby. It also shone like a ruby in the day. Okay, I'm just making that up. The doors were made of wood. Heavy duty. And brown...er than my...hair...? Okay, just get to the point. We looked at each other for a while. Her sapphire blue eyes staring at my blue belle ones. With a smile, we both nodded at the same time and postured the doors open.
The school center was huge. It was circular and had a shiny blue floor with a gold and your school logo in the center. Our school logo was a heart ruby with a golden ring in the center and in the center of the ring was a small red ruby. There were hall ways with the same colored floor beside red-carpeted stairs on either side of a trophy case, which was filled with gold-plated certificates, medals, and smaller trophies. But what really caught our attention was a huge golden trophy with a crystal-like soccer ball on top on a dark brown stand with a gold plate attached to it that read "soccer's ultimate champion".
"Can you believe it," Sandy asked as we walked towards the trophy case. She put her hand on the trophy case glass, "NJGHS won the title "soccer's ultimate champion". [sigh] Maybe this year I could make it to the school track team and help win the title "best running school" for NJGHS."
"Don't worry," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "You will. I believe in you."
"You do," she asked in wonder, turning to me.
"Yes, I do," I reply with a nod and a small smile. It wasn't hard to tell a small smile crept up on her natural soft-pink lips, lighting up her face.
"Yeah, maybe, I will," she said, looking back at the trophy.
I opened the my light blue locker and started filling it with books. The locker I got was right beside the school bully, AKA captain of the football team, AKA Peter. Unfortunately, the locker I got was ALSO beside his girlfriend, AKA the school's most dramatic girl, AKA Diana. Don't ask me HOW this happened.
"Oh, Petey Pooh, I wish our lockers could be *beside* each other, but the girl in between us just *had* to come along!" Diana chirped as she was trying to act as heart broken as possible, "I just wish that she would move of the country and leave the school, just so that I won't have to see her face coming in between the two of us!"
"Oh, I wish so too, my love. But, from the looks of it, she isn't willing to leave anytime soon," Peter replied dramatically.
I rolled my eyes. I closed my locker and headed for my first class: Homeroom. I went around the left turn and bumped into the blue-dyed hair girl. Her name was Clare. She was the school's crudest. She was the leader of the rock n' roll section of the band. Her ultramarine lips twisted into a frown when she saw me. Her face scrunched up. Behind her were her two bandmates slash assistants in boasting: Gemma and Alyssa.
"Dude, you gonna watch were you're goin'!" Clare scolded. Her system was to get angry at the person in her way (in this case, me) and the next move is depending on his/her reaction. If you react angrily slash sarcastically, she retorts. If you react sweetly slash kindly slash shyly, she will treat you as a lower rank. Apparently, that's all I know so far. Apparently the best thing to do is don't react slash poker face. That's what I did. "What, you're just gonna stand there?! Move it," She exclaimed, walking forward with her friends and shoving me out of the way. I didn't fall, but I still got out of the way.
Well, I was gonna get out of her way one way or another. I wonder how many more prideful people I'm gonna bump into today? Oh yeah, when Clare pushed me, I bumped into the school's most boastful, Madeline. Her pink eyes glaring down at me. Well, her eyes weren't really pink, just a pair of contact lenses. She shoved me out of her way, walking away with her six friends behind her: Anna, Amy, Abi, Anne, Abby, and Alice. Don't ask me how I manage to remember all the names.
And then I bumped into a person's locker. When I got up, and turned around, I bumped into someone...again. And they weren't any better. They were the school's nosiest and the school's gossip queen: James and Jane. Jane's hot red lips twisting into a smirk while James continued to tinker with his camera. James is one of the school's newspaper journalists and he likes to poke around in other people's business.
"Oh look, it's that girl who likes to be pushed around," Jane exclaimed, pointing her finger at me. Apparently, everyone in the hall (which were somehow is the school's worsts) heard and laughed. To make matters worst, James decided to put it in the paper.
"Andi Agent: school's perfect dummy," Sandy read.
It was lunch time now, school papers aren't usually let out until the next day, but I guess that James got his story to the school board so quickly that it got published just as quickly and was given to everyone in school before the third bell even rang.
Me and Sandy were sitting on a blue lunch table in the cafeteria across each other with her holding her spoon on her left hand (she's left handed) and the school paper on the other.
"Okay, just how many people did you bump into before the first period," she asked, looking up at me.
"Eh, first Peiana, then rock n' roll queen and her band, then queen pride with *her* gang, and lastly, the tampering twins," I said.
"And you let them push you around like that?"
"Well, yeah. It's not like it's gonna affect my grade."
"But it's only been halfway through the first day and you've embarrassed yourself in school public!"
"Look, I've passed all the work for the next month already. So I could weep in my house for about a month," I said. You see, here in NJGHS, if you pass the work for the next certain amount of time with a perfect score, then you could spend hat time at home or something else. That's what I did and what was better was that I got higher than the perfect score. "or, I could go out and have the time of my life with you."
"Well, I'm not as smart as you, but I also did the same, got a perfect score, and believe it or not, after lunch, I'm gonna go straight for the field," Sandy said.
"And with me by your side."
"No matter how embarrassing it gets."
"Sandy Smith," the Mr. Jones called.
He was tall, muscular, and super strict. He towered over Sandy as she walked toward him.
"Sandy Smith, reporting for duty, Mr. Jones!" Sandy said, saluting.
"Ah...I like the energy. Are you thinking of joining the track team this year?" Mr. Jones asked.
"Sir, yes, sir!"
Mr. Jones smiled. "Then let's see how fast you run," he said, leading Sandy to the track.
Sandy took position on the dusty track while Mr. Jones preped the timer.
"On your mark, get set, GO!" He exclaimed. Sandy ran down the track. I bearly saw her run past me at her speed. It don't know how long she ran, but when she skidded to a stop at the line after a lap, Mr. Jones stopped the timer. "13 seconds, impressive," he complimented, "The rules indicate that to make it to the track team you must to go around the track in 15 seconds less. So you're in."
I walked over to her and gave her were water bottle and a towel. "You heard that?"
"Yeah, I'm finally in," she exclaimed hugging me.
"Yes, you are," Mr. Jones said with a smile.
It was the end of the day now, the last bell had just rang. I walked to my locker and as we all know, Peter and Diana were there... Kissing. I rolled my eyes. I wasn't jealous or anything, but it was pretty gross if you look at their mouths, exposing their tounges playing together. That made me shiver.
I snuck past them successfully (duh) and got to my locker. I was able to put all my books there, take out my semitransparent marshmallow purple raincoat (it's actually light purple; just like to call it that) and umbrella. I snuck past the couple...again. Then out the school doors.
It was raining this afternoon. There were puddles of water all over the orangish green grass and pavement. Water gushed towards the grate. I took a deep breath, breathing the cold autumn air.
"Enjoying the view?" I heard. I turned to my left and saw Sandy looking at me. She wearing a thick long-sleeve marron winter jacket.
I chuckled. "Yeah."
"Just got a call from your mom. Said that you have a visitor."
"It's you, isn't it?"
"I don't know," she smirked, "Let's go see. Race you there!" She ran ahead of me.
"H-hey, wait for me!" I opened my purple umbrella and ran after her.
It took a while, but I caught up to her, and before I knew it, we were in my neighborhood. I walked up to her and put my umbrella above us.
"I win," she panted with a smile.
I chuckled. "I can see that." We walked towards my home.
Her hair was wet, soaked. Water was dripping from its ends and her jacket was drenched and muddy and so were her denim shorts, white vectors, and legs. Don't ask me why, but she didn't bother wearing a raincoat or something that covers the lower portion of her body.
About 15 minutes later, we arrived at a house similar to the others. The house's lawn was orangish and so were the hedges and the big tree in the backyard due to the autumn season. The house itself was two stories high. Well, if you don't count the attic and basement. The walls were white, the door was brown its know was gold, the front porch was white and the roof was shaped like a trapezoid and was color blue.
At the doorstep, Sandy rang the doorbell on my right. It wasn't long until my mom opened the door for us. She offered Sandy a dry towel, some dry clothes, and a mug of hot chocolate, which she gratefully accepted.
I had a warm shower and came out with wet hair and wearing a short sleeve marshmallow purple dress that had a tulle skirt and a pair of purple flats. I made my own hot chocolate with several marshmallows and sat beside Sandy whose hair was down but the butterfly clip remained and was wearing a white long sleeved turtle neck sweater, a pair of black leggings and an extra pair of white converse she had on the brownish green family couch. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
The room was filled with a comfortable silence. Eventually, I decided to break the silence by asking my mom a question as she came to check on us.
"Hey, mom," I called.
My mother came and smiled. "Yes, Andi?"
"Sandy said that we have a visitor."
"Ah yes, he'll be here as soon as possi— [ding dong] —He's here." My mom walked over to the door and opened it. There stood a young boy about our age. He kinda looks like a nerd with the pair of red square glasses. My mom let him in and took his yellow semitransparent raincoat and his wet yellow umbrella and offered him a mug of hot chocolate.
"Oh, no thanks, I'd rather have warm milk," he said and my mother nodded.
"Keep our guest company while I'm gone, okay," my mom asked me and Sandy.
"Sure thing mom," I said. She left and came back sometime later giving a mug of warm milk to our guest and leaving again.
"So what's you're name," Sandy asked, sipping her drink.
"Arnold, Arnold O'Neil," he replied, "I'm sixteen," he said, sipping his drink.
"Well, I'm Sandy and this is my best friend, Andi," Sany said, gesturing to me. I smiled with a wave. Arnold's glasses dropped a bit and he was frozen. "Are you okay," Sandy asked.
"Huh? Oh, y-yeah," he replied, smiling sheepishly, "J-just zoned out for a while, that's all." Sandy smirked and walked over it him, whispering something to his ear making him blush red.
"...are you okay," I asked.
"Wh-Wha? O-oh, y-yeah, perfect," he replied.
"Okay..."
We had more comfortable conversations and became friends after that. After a few minutes, mom came back and took our mugs and told me to lead them to the underground fortress. At first I was confused of why I should bring Arnold. Sandy's been down there before, she's a spy too, code name: S-S-one-three-five. But Arnold? I just met him. But I trust mom so I brought him down anyway.
I lead both of them to a wall at the end of the hall. I pressed my hand against it, after a while, it opened and I lead them into a secret elevator that was colored gold with blue circuitry.
On the way down, my brown hair turned gold and my blue belle eyes turned metallic yellow while Sandy's platinum blonde hair turned white and her eyes turned grey. But what weirded me the most was the fact that Arnold's neat red orange hair ruffled and turned colbat blue while his baby blue eyes and red quake glasses both turned ultramarine.
"Okay [sigh], what's your code name," I asked him.
"B-six-seven. You," he replied in a stern voice.
"A-eight-eight-one."
"S-S-one-three-five," Sandy replied.
Once the elevator stopped, me and my friends and I entered a dark gold-colored room with blue circuitry. In the center was a polygonal black table with blue circuitry at the boarder. On one side was Audrey beside my father with metallic yellow eyes and gold hair. On another was Sandy's mom, dad, and brother with white hair and grey eyes. On another was a man with ruffled colbat blue hair and ultramarine eyes and a woman with colbat blue hair in a loose French braid and ultramarine eyes Sandy and I never met
"Hey there, sweetie, Sandy," dad greeted, "I see you've met B-six-seven also known as Arnold O'Neil."
Sandy and I stopped on our tracks. "You know him and you didn't tell us," we asked.
Arnold walked ahead and bowed. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Agent. My father was spoken highly of you."
"I've heard," dad said.
"Sweetie, Sandy, meet Arnold's parents," dad gestured to the man and woman, "Kyle O'Neil and May O'Neil. Also known as K-six-eight and M-M-O."
"Um...h-hi...?" I greeted.
"Hey, I'm Sandy Smith," Sandy said, walking towards Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil, "Nice to meet you," she said, extending her hand.
"Nice to meet you too, S-S-one-three-five," Mr. O'Neil said, apshaking Sandy's hand.
"Look, sis," Audrey said as she walked over to me, "we couldn't meet them before becuase they never came. They said that they were trapped in New York."
"By an evil super villain," Tyler exclaimed, slamming his hands on the table. Tyler was Sandy's little bro. He was thirteen and tell you a little secret: like likes Audrey.
"Well...not exactly," Mrs. O'Neil said.
"But close," Mr. O'Neil added, "... In someway. I guess."
"But that's not why they're here," came my mom's voice. I turned around to see her with gold hair and metallic yellow eyes walking until she reached the table, where I stood beside her, "they're here becuase we *must* disucuss about this." She pressed a button under the table edge. A circle at the center of the table decended and when I came back up, it beared a small red rectangular object that had a timer that was at 00:00 and glowed lime green.
