Oh gosh, it's late! 3:20 AM. Here is a chapter that tells how Erica and Aeron became friends. Mentions a new friend. And a slight enemy. this chapter's main story revolves around the memories. Oh, before i forget: disclaimer: i own only the other characters made up in my head, i do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! Now on with the story! YAY!
Chapter 7
A Bit of Filler and Thoughts of Friendship
It had been two weeks since Christmas, two weeks since I last saw Aeron (at my house).
We both had been pretty busy. We each had so much to do for the coming New Year that we only had time to say "Happy New Year" over the phone.
Aeron had told me that when she visited her father on Christmas, the guard said he was due to be let out within three weeks of the New Year. She had been preparing since.
I had been preparing for a new club I was going to join. Heck. I'm starting it. I'm the president. It's the Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Club at our school. We never had one before. So I'm starting it with a good friend of mine, Eldred Portobello. He is the vice president.
The club is due to start in March. Ra, who knew that there was so much to be done to start a fan club?
It is January 8, 2010. And I am sitting in class waiting for the lunch bell to ring.
I yawned. Math was boring. I'd rather be asleep.
My mind started to wonder off. I started to daydream about Yu-Gi-Oh! I remembered the funny parts from the abridged series. I closed my eyes to get a better grasp on the images.
The next thing I know, I heard a loud swack! right next to my eardrum. I woke up with a loud snort.
My hands shot up to my reddening face as the other students laughed.
Mr. Eglantine, my math teacher, silenced them with a sharp wave and screamed at me. "STEVENSON! I KNOW WE HAVEN'T BEEN IN SCHOOL THAT LONG, BUT YOU WILL NOT SLEEP IN MY CLASS! ONE MORE ACTION LIKE THAT AND YOU'LL HEAD STRAIGHT TO THE PRINCIPLE'S OFFICE!"
I stuck my tongue out at the short, porky man's back as he walked away. Truthfully, that was the first time I did that this semester. So he had no right to judge.
At lunch, I sat next to Aeron at our usual lunch table. We were talking of why spoons were called spoons before Aeron piped up and said, "Hey, Erica, it's your boyfriend!" she pointed over at Eldred, who was wandering the cafeteria aimlessly looking for me.
"He's not my boyfriend!" I snapped. I stood up and called his name, waving him over.
He saw me and practically tripped his way over. Eldred was clumsy. He was also a geek. He wore beige suspenders over top a white button up collar shirt; long, white knee-socks; and brown penny loafers. He also had on these ginormous black glasses which defy the laws of physics by actually staying on top of his little nose.
Aeron turned away when he walked up and pretended not to know him. I spun her back 'round and gave her a glare that said: "Be nice, your rep's already ruined by hanging out with me anyway."
"So, what'cha need Eldred?" I asked him as he sat down.
"Other than contacts?" Aeron scoffed under her breath. I jabbed my elbow in her ribs.
"It's about the club." Eldred simply said. Anytime he's around Aeron he says everything simply. He learned that was best, if he didn't want to be bullied, a long time ago.
"Shoot." I said in a business like manner. After all, this was club-business.
"Well," he began, "It appears that nearly the whole school has joined. Except for the Yu-Gi-Oh! haters. Who knew such people existed? I had tried to rent the Gym Friday evenings for the meetings. Apparently, that will get in the way of the Spring Sports. So, for the whereabouts of our club meetings… I'm all out of ideas."
Eldred's brow creased in frustration. Ra, he always worries like this.
"Eldred, it's okay. We have nearly two months. We'll figure up something." I reassured him. He smiled half-heartedly.
"Anything else you want to tell us. Anything not referring to you being a level six wizard… which ain't nothing to be proud of." Aeron teased.
"What's that?" I asked her.
"Level ten actually." He told her.
"Again, nothing to be proud of."
"What are you two talking about?" I was on the brink of screaming it. I hate it when they do that.
Eldred sighed; he was used to her picking on him about that. "Answering your question, no, not really."
"Then leave." She said, bluntly.
"Aeron!" I jabbed her again in the ribs.
"What?"
Eldred just rolled his eyes and brushed it off. He could take nearly anything from Aeron, but he'd crumple at any other bully's feet.
After the school day had ended and the work on the club was finished for the day (in general we were far from being far from done), I went home and took a thirty minute nap. I had planned to shoot for an hour nap, but something woke me up.
I sat up in my bed and wondered what in the name of Slifer the Sky Dragon had woken me up. Really. You couldn't comprehend on how heavy of a sleeper I am. Nothing could wake me up. Except anything Yu-Gi-Oh! Anything Yu-Gi-Oh! will wake me up.
I scanned the room, my room, with my eyes. Perhaps a video tape had fallen off a shelf or the CD player went off again playing my Yu-Gi-Oh! CD. Stupid thing.
Perhaps. Scanning the unchanged room was enough to tell me- nothing.
What then?
Maybe someone called my cell phone, which was down stairs.
As I prepared to get up out of bed to check, my eyes caught sight of the golden box.
You know the feeling you get when you are taking a test and you don't even know what the question is talking about? The feeling you get when you scan the answers and one catches your eye? The feeling you get when you want to say the answer is one of the other three? The feeling you get when your mind tells you that one answer is the correct one (even though it's not)? The feeling you get when you really want to pick one of the other three but pick that one? The feeling you get when you can't stop thinking about the answer you chose three questions later?
That is the feeling I had at that one moment. I wanted to say my cell phone woke me up, but deep in my heart, I knew it was that box.
I stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of my clothes. I walked over to the box, picked it up, and brought it over to my bed where I flopped down to take a good look at it.
I looked at it and looked at it. It did nothing. I asked myself, why the heck am I staring at a lifeless box? It does absolutely nothing!
"Do something." I told the box. I felt silly afterwards. I felt like a two year old talking to her dolly.
I stared at it for a few more moments until a recent memory came to me.
"All right. Don't open it till I come back. I'll be coming back sometime in the next couple of weeks anyway."
Aeron had said that the last time she was here. I thought to myself that day, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Truthfully, I was and still am scared to open the thing. Aeron had known that. She told me yesterday.
Memories began to flood back. Memories from the distant past. Memories of Aeron and me and Eldred. All from when we were little.
As I ogled at the eye looking mark on the box, the memories seemed to show themselves to me like a movie, clear as day.
A small, blond haired, kindergarten girl played on a swing set. Swinging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Getting higher and higher and higher each time she swung. The next thing she knew, she was knocked off the swing. She began to cry. She turned her crying head to see how the swing faired. She saw that a brown haired girl in boy's clothing sitting in the swing the blond girl had been in just moments before.
The cute, little blond picked herself up and brushed off the frilly pink dress she wore of woodchips. Tears streaming down her face, she stared at the strange girl. She didn't stare with anger or hatred though. She stared with curiosity. Who was this weird girl? Why was she in boy's clothes? Why'd she pushed her out of the swing when there were plenty here in the park?
The brown haired girl noticed this and demanded, "What?"
"Why'd you push me out of the swing?" the blond said without any anger, without faltering for sadness. She was more curious of the girl than she was angry or sad or hurt.
"Because I like this swing." The brunette said without hesitation.
"Why didn't you just ask to use the swing?"
"Why would you give it to me willingly? It's easier to take things then ask for them."
"Why do you say that?"
"Why do you always ask why?"
The fair-haired girl thought for a moment before coming up with an answer that satisfied her.
"Because, when you want to know something, a reason, you ask why."
"Not everything has a reason." The dark haired girl looked confused by the girly-girl's talk.
"Of course everything has a reason. Do you think God flooded the earth for no reason?"
This caught the brown haired girl off guard. She had heard of this religious thing, but she never actually grew up around it. This frilly-frill must have.
Well, no duh, a voice said in the back of the tomboy's mind, look at the way she's dressed. Says church-goer all over it.
"Is there a reason why you love your dad?" she finally said after much hesitation.
"Yes."
"Really, what is it?"
"Because he is my dad and without him, I wouldn't've been born."
"That's a good reason."
After much silence, the girly inquired with that extreme bluntness and ignorance only a child has: "Why do you take things? Why are you mean to others?"
"Eh."
"Honey! It's time to go!" the blonde's mother called. She had just come back from shopping in the dollar store across the street.
The blond ran towards her mother and left the brunette flabbergasted. She asks me a question and then leaves. Odd.
But that wouldn't be the last time they meet.
Ha-ha. I was a little ignorant when I was little. That was the very first time I met Aeron. It wasn't the last either. Many other times we had met, on the playground, the park, stores, even at school. Each time we met, I would ask her questions and it'd confuse her. She began to think it payback for all the times she'd bully me, which was every time we met face to face.
Soon later, when I began to hang around Eldred (which was mainly because I was curious of his ways, like I was with Aeron) she'd bully him too. She'd seem meaner, though, with him. Maybe it was because he didn't ask her wacky questions. Maybe it was because she actually liked me and only bullied me because that's the way she grew up. I always hoped it was the second one, but I knew that the first was more likely.
It took me a few years, but I truly felt we were friends in third grade, although she still bullied me. That's also when he came.
Francisco Herrera. He was a large third grader who came from Mexico. He had a rather big crush on me and when he saw Aeron bully me at recess one day, he took action the next day.
The third grade girl swung on the swing at recess. All alone she was. Her friend, Eldred, sat inside for recess. Heaven knows why. Her bully wasn't even there. Where is she? The blue eyed girl wondered. She's usually here by now. Wonder what happened. The girl jumped off her swing on decided to search the playground for her.
She didn't see her around anywhere. She checked under the slide, in the towers, in the jungle gym, behind benches, everywhere! Everywhere except behind the shed. Not many went behind there. Some fifth graders would, but no one else.
"It's a long shot." The third grader mumbled but headed there anyway.
What she found there was a shock. Her bully lay against the side of the shed. She was roughed up, her eyes were closed, but she was breathing.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF OSIRIS!" the sapphire eyed girl shrieked. She peered around the area to see who did whatever they did to the bully. She saw the culprit. Francisco. "Francisco! What have you done?"
"She hurt you, I hurt her back. She deserves it." he said simply.
"No one deserves that!"
Francisco didn't seem to hear the girl. "You should finish her off. It's only fitting."
"What!"
"You want to, don't you?"
The brunette opened her eyes for a second. "Are you happy now?" she asked. Her hazel eyes filled with pain. The blond was surprised that they weren't tearing up. But tearing up or not, those eyes pierced her heart.
"No." she muttered. "No, no."
"Alright. I'll finish her myself!" Francisco roared. He clenched his fist into a tight ball and began to strike.
As fast as a striking snake the blond jumped in between the two with her arms stretched out to the sides. "NO! SHE'S MY FRIEND!"
Francisco's hand stopped before it reached my face. He did not lower it though. Which was a huge mistake, for the teachers came around to the shed to see what all the commotion was.
That is how Aeron and I finally became friends with one another. Francisco was punished for what he did and I guess you could all say we lived happily ever after. Except Eldred. Aeron still bullies him. Although, you can see a hint of kindness in her eyes while she does it.
That wasn't the true end though. We're only 13. We have plenty of adventures to look forward to. And I have a feeling our biggest adventure yet has something to do with this box.
Aeron, I have one thing to say. Hurry up! Come over here soon! The adventure is waiting and I fear it might be growing impatient! Let's not wait and let it pass us up!
Guess what's coming up next!!!
