Chapter 4: Flood Water
Tai showed up in the middle of the game, yelling something about needing Kari's help. I guessed it was about the digital world, but we couldn't say anything because Will was there. Anyways, Kari had to go with him, and we were all getting tired. Cody had to get to his Ken-Do practice, Ken had to start his homework, and Yolei had to help her family at their store. That left Will and TK there with me. It didn't make much sense to play with only three people, so instead we began walking back to the school. TK and I said that we needed to get some books from our lockers, which Will was surprised to hear from me. Of course, we actually were going back to find our digimon. We were hoping to split up with Will on the way there, but he didn't have anything important to do and we couldn't think of a good way to get rid of him.
"So what books did you forget?" Will asked.
"Uh, heh. Just my math book. I gotta make sure I review the, uh, uh . . ."
"Distributive property," TK finished for me.
"Yeah, what he said," I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "But don't you have to be getting home? You've got to have a lot of homework."
"Actually, I did most of it before I met up with you guys earlier. I hardly have any left," Will said.
"How? We only waited five minutes for you!" I protested.
"I'm really good at math. I can help you if you like," Will offered.
"No, that's alright," I said as I arrived at my locker. "Okay, uh, what was I here for again?"
"To get your math book," TK reminded me.
"Oh, of course. The disturbitive property," I said.
"Distributive," They both corrected me at the same time.
I rummaged around in my locker, looking for my math book which I hadn't seen in weeks. I finally found it and shoved it into my pack. It barely fit with my soccer ball.
"Alright then, I guess we should get going now. Will, why don't you start and we'll catch up with you," I made one last feeble attempt to get away from him so that we could get our digimon, but it failed.
"No, I can wait. I've got nowhere that I have to be," Will said casually.
"Uh, yeah, okay, um . . ." I had no idea what to do. "Well, let's, uh . . ."
"Sorry Will, but we didn't really come here for books," TK said. I stared at him, wondering what he could be thinking that could get us out of this.
"I figured that. Davis doesn't seem like the type who would go back to school to get a book," Will and TK both laughed.
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.
"Calm down Davis. Anyways Will, we had some stuffed animals hidden in one of the classrooms. We came back for those and were a little embarrassed to tell you," TK said.
"Don't be. I've got a whole bunch of stuffed animals at my house. Some were gifts, others just look weird, but I collect stuffed snakes," He said with a grin.
"That's great Will," I said, looking at TK for some sign of how we were going to tell Demiveemon and Patamon to act like toys. He just winked at me.
We walked quickly toward the room, both TK and me hoping for the best. Then TK put his plan into action.
More to the door than to Will and rather loudly, he said, "This is the room Will. Our stuffed animals should be in here." He waited a few seconds before opening the door. I prayed.
As we walked into the room, it was completely silent. TK and Will walked in first, and I followed quickly. The two digimon were sitting on two of the desks, perfectly motionless. I let out a big sigh of relief. They had heard TK through the door and had the presence of mind to figure out what was happening.
"Those are some weird looking toys. What are they supposed to be?" Will asked.
"Just some weird monsters or something," TK said as he picked up Patamon and carefully slid him into his book bag. I then started to move toward Demiveemon, but Will picked him up first.
"Hm, seems pretty soft, probably not breakable. Hey Davis, catch!" Will yelled as he tossed Demiveemon at me.
"AH! NO!" I screamed. Luckily, Will had a fairly good arm, and I was able to catch him very easily. Amazingly, he didn't make a sound. "Are you nuts? What was that for? You could have hurt . . ."
"I could have hurt what? You? Davis it's a stuffed animal, what could it hurt?" Will asked. I was halfway between understanding his ignorance and tackling him in a fit of blind rage. Once again, TK came to the rescue.
"Davis is just a little sensitive about his stuff," TK explained.
"Oh, sorry man. I didn't mean any harm," Will said. He had a weird look on his face, almost confusion, but with a hint of curiosity. I knew I had made a mistake yelling out like I had. Of course, I wanted to protect Demiveemon, but in the process I had risked blowing our cover.
"That's okay, I guess," I managed to mumble. "Don't worry about it."
We were oddly silent as we walked out of the school. Will had a really weird look on his face. It wasn't confusion or surprise, but some kind of understanding; as if he thought he had learned something but had no proof of it. I was afraid that he thought Demiveemon was real. TK couldn't come up with anything to say either, so when we reached the corner where we had to separate, we said quick goodbyes and went in different directions. At least Will and TK did. I doubled back and caught up with TK as he walked.
"Man that was close," I said as I caught up with him.
"Yeah, it was. I thought Demiveemon would get hurt," TK said.
"He's fine though. Right now I'm more concerned that Will doesn't buy the stuffed animal story any more. It's one thing to explain Gatomon as a cat, but Demiveemon doesn't look like any animal out of our world. What if he calls animal control or something?" I asked.
"I don't think he'd go that far, but he might begin asking questions. For now, I think we should have our digimon stay at home, or in the digital world. If Will ever decides to pick one up and look at it closely, he might notice that they're breathing. We're lucky if he didn't notice that today," TK said.
"Yeah, we'd better have them stay there, at least for a little while." I agreed. "Should we get in touch with everyone else? It might be bad if Cody and Yolei and Ken show up with their digimon."
"Good point. I'll call them tonight and fill them in. I'll call Kari too and tell her to . . ."
"No don't do that!" I yelled quickly. TK gave me a funny look, and I had to scramble to think of a reason why he shouldn't. "Look, we'll, uh, just tell her at school tomorrow. Will already knows that Gatomon is alive and thinks that she's a normal cat. If Gatomon doesn't show up that could make him more suspicious."
"I'm not sure that makes sense," TK said.
"Of course it makes sense! If Gatomon disappears Will will be more suspicious than ever," I tried to explain.
"Well, alright. But we've got to get there early enough to explain this to her. We don't want Will to show up and hear what we're talking about," TK said.
"Right. I'll see ya tomorrow TK," I said as I turned to head back toward my apartment.
"See ya," he called as he walked away.
The next morning I couldn't get out the door as quickly as I had wanted to. I ran most of the way to school, trying as hard as I could to get there before Kari so that I could meet her at the door. I was too late though. When I walked in she and TK were talking next to TK's locker.
"Kari! I've got . . . something to . . . tell you," I gasped, tired out by the running.
"Don't worry Davis; TK already explained everything to me. I think it's a good idea for Gatomon to stay here too," Kari said.
"Really? I told you so TK," I said with a grin. I guess I showed him.
"Yeah. It wouldn't be a problem if I could just leave her at home, but Will is coming over to help me with my math after the soccer game today, so he'd probably wonder where she is," Kari said.
"WHAT?" My outburst temporarily caught the attention of some passing students.
"Don't worry Davis, you can come too. I know how much you need the help. TK and Yolei are going to come too," Kari said, giggling at my reaction.
"Oh, okay. But why couldn't Ken or Cody help?" I asked.
"Ken has to do some project at his school, and Cody has Ken-Do practice again," TK explained.
"Jeez, doesn't that kid have anything better to do?" I asked.
"The martial arts are very important to Cody. I think it's great that he's so dedicated to it," Kari said.
I temporarily entertained the thought of joining Cody, but the idea of discipline made me decide not to.
"We had better get going," TK said. "I don't want to be late for class."
"How can class be starting already?" I asked, surprised.
"Well, you were really late this morning, Davis." Kari said.
"Yeah, what happened to getting here early?" TK asked.
"Uh, ya see, it's kinda like . . ." but the bell sounded before I could finish. "Up, to late. Gotta run. See ya!" And with that I bolted toward class.
I was surprised when Kari grabbed my arm and pulled me aside after school got out, but she had a good reason.
"Joe and Izzy are here. There's a problem in the digital world. They're going to meet us in the computer lab. If you see Cody or Yolei, tell them. I already told TK. Be there in five minutes, okay?" she told me.
"Okay, but what's . . . huh?" I didn't get a chance to ask what was wrong because she bolted right after she told me, probably to get Gatomon. Not having any idea where Cody or Yolei were, I decided to just head to the lab. It was deserted except for Joe, who greeted me warmly.
"What's up Davis?" He said, smiling.
"You tell me. Kari sent me here because she said something's wrong," I replied.
"Well, it's not a really serious problem. I mean, it's serious, but it's mostly under control. It's not a problem with a digimon, just a dam," Joe explained.
"A dam? They have dams in the digital world?" I questioned.
"I was surprised to hear it too, but apparently there's one on File Island, and it's getting clogged up for some reason. We're going to see what's wrong and try to fix it," Joe smiled. "Don't worry too much, it probably won't take long."
Just then Kari, Izzy, and Cody walked in. "We couldn't find Yolei," Kari said. "It's weird; I didn't think she had anywhere to be."
"Maybe she's getting an early start to the game," I offered.
"Maybe," Kari said.
"It doesn't matter right now guys, we've got to get going," Izzy said. He and Cody were starting up the computer, and Cody used his D3 to open the digiport.
"Hey Kari, where's Gatomon?" I asked as we walked over to the computer.
"I didn't have time to run home. We'll be okay without her for now," She said right before she fell into the computer. I followed suit.
Veemon, Tentomon, Gomamon, and Armadillamon were waiting for us when we arrived.
"Hurry up everybody, I saw the problem," Gomamon told us.
"Well what is it?" Joe asked.
"Fish. There are tons of dead fish clogging up the dam," Gomamon said.
"Doesn't the dam have some kind of safety mechanism to prevent that?" Izzy asked.
"Well, yeah, of course. But there are so many fish that it couldn't handle them all. I've never seen so many dead fish!" Gomamon said as we arrived at the top of the dam.
"If we don't do something, the lake could flood. Or even worse, the buildup of water pressure could cause it to break!" Izzy said.
"So what are we going to do?" Cady asked.
"Simple," Joe began, "We clear away the fish. Ikkakumon and Submarimon should be able to out swim the dam's current and clear the fish away. They'll bring them up to the shore and the rest of us will clear the shore. Eventually we'll put all the dead fish in the sea so other fish or digimon can eat them."
"Good plan Joe. Tentomon, you can help by rounding up the rest of the digimon. We'll need all of their help to get the fish all the way to the sea." Izzy said.
"You guys, that'll take all day! I've got a soccer game to get to!" I protested.
"Well then just help until you have to leave, Davis. We really need every person we can get," Joe said.
"And besides," Gomamon said with a smirk, "You wouldn't want to leave Kari here to do all the work, right?"
"GOMAMON!" But he dove into the lake before I could catch him.
"Now that that's settled, let's get started," Cody said.
Armadillamon armor digivolve to…..:Submarimon!
Gomamon digivolve to…..:Ikkakumon!
The two champion level digimon dove underwater. They returned, dragging piles of fish up with them. Those of us who were on the shore began piling the fish away from the shore so that they wouldn't have to climb all the way out of the water to drop the fish. We worked at a good pace for almost an hour, until Izzy reminded me about soccer.
"Davis, you had better get going. You don't want to be late," he said.
"No, I don't want to leave you guys all here, I can miss the first half," I said.
"Don't worry Davis I'm going too. I don't want to miss the game," Kari said.
"You two have been a big help, but we'll be able to take it from here. Ikkakumon and Submarimon are almost done clearing out the fish. The water is already starting to flow again. We can manage from here," Joe said.
"Alright, thanks," I said. "Bye."
"Bye everyone!" Kari called out.
We walked back to the digiport and stepped through it. We landed hard on the floor on the other end, but we were used to that by now. What we weren't used to is being questioned upon our return.
"When did you two get here?" Will asked. He was sitting at a computer a few rows in front of the one we had come out of. "I saw this big flash of light and when I turned around you two are lying all over the floor."
"Well how did you get in here? We locked the door," I said.
"I snuck in a window. My home computer's not set up yet, so I had to use the school's. Why'd you guys lock the, oh wait, do I even want to know?" Will said as a weird look came across his face.
"Will it's nothing like that. We just didn't want to be bothered while we, uh, worked on this report," I said, thinking that I was safe.
"Then where have you been for the past half hour? I didn't see you when I snuck in, and there aren't very many good places to hide in here," Will asked.
"Well Will, we were, um . . ." Kari started, but couldn't think of anything either. We were caught in a real pickle. I did the only thing that could possibly work.
"Well why are you sneaking through a window into the lab? Tell me that," I said, hoping he wouldn't press the question.
"Like I said, I needed, oh forget it. I guess it doesn't matter," Will finally said. "Don't you have to get going to that soccer game Davis?"
"Yeah, I do. See ya later," I said as I headed for the door.
"Not that much later, I'll be at the game," Will said. "I just gotta finish something up on here."
"Okay, see ya there," I said.
"Bye Will," Kari said, and we both walked out the door.
