Gakuen Alice is the creation of Higuchi Tachibana. Kodomo no Omocha is the creation of Miho Obana. Read or Dream is the creation of Hideyuki Kurata. Ginban Kaleidoscope is the creation of Rei Kaibara. This parody is not intended to cause any damage to these properties.
This is the sequel to another story of mine called A Clockwork Tangerine.
Chapter two: Missing Sister"Is this close enough for you?"
I opened my eyes and saw a pair of violet eyes looking at me from centimeters away. It was that girl Hotaru, and worse yet I had an arm around her.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I rolled away from her and saw that we were still in her bed, in her room. The events of the past night flashed through my head, "Close enough? It's Mr. Narumi. He made us do this."
"As I said last night, he can't make me do anything I don't want to do."
"You wanted to sleep with me?"
"I wanted to try something out, but it didn't work."
"Uh, what?" I twisted my fingers together nervously. Did she intend to become my girlfriend?
"Your sister Mikan could ease all my pains with a smile."
"Like this?" I smiled at the awkwardness of the moment.
"Yes, nothing. You're useless to me." Hotaru got out of bed, put on a pair of bear slippers, took some pills out of the pile of medicine bottles on her dresser and swallowed them down with a bottle of water from her mini-fridge.
"What's the matter, do you have cancer or something?" I mentally kicked myself and was glad that Babbit didn't pop up to point out how close that was to my line from the TV movie.
"Oh, how I wish. They can cure cancer here. Don't tell anybody outside about that. It's an Alice and not something they can bottle, yet. It's just that I overused my Alice last night."
"But all you did last night was talk to me. Well, I did most of the talking. Wait, did you use your Alice on me?"
"But of course." Hotaru smiled at me like I was a thousand yen note she'd found on the street.
"You wanted me to sleep with you. Do you have a mind control Alice like Mr. Narumi's?"
"No, something far more useful. I have a design Alice. It lets me start with a crude mental sketch and then quickly resolve it into a working model under the constraints I impose."
"That doesn't sound like something you could use against somebody else."
"Designing gadgets is easy," Hotaru waved her hand past the piles of electronic and mechanical parts scattered on the tables and shelves in her room, "Building a model of how a human mind thinks is much harder."
"You're trying to frighten me."
"Go ahead and fear me. It will give me an additional prod to move you around."
"Why bother with me? I'm not that rich or famous and my Alice doesn't do very much."
"I'll leave it to you to figure that out. Now hurry up Sana, If you're late to class on your first day they'll withdraw your application."
"In that case I'll sleep in. Wake me at lunchtime."
"Just kidding. The only way you'll get out of here before you graduate is in an urn and yes cremation is mandatory for dropouts."
"Now you're kidding."
"Oh, how many superpowered delinquents wandering loose on the streets of Japan have you heard about? Now get out of my bed you slacker. You don't want to know about the things they do to misbehaving students here."
Hotaru was changing in front of me, so I doffed the pajamas I had borrowed from her and changed back into the school uniform I had worn briefly the previous night.
"Go get your schoolbag." Hotaru pointed towards the door to her room.
"What?"
"Do you know where your room is? You'll have one of these in there."
"Oh, right!" I ran off to my room and by the time I got outside I saw that Hotaru was riding a skateboard that curved up to a swan's head that had handlebars sticking out the sides of it, and was racing down the path from our dorm.
I ran after her as quickly as a I could, "I still can't believe I let you talk me into your bed so easily. Oh Akito, I'm such a dreadful girlfriend!"
"Whoever this Akito person is, they must not be very important, because you didn't mention them at all last night."
I stopped. She was right. In my haste to update Mama's story with the details of my Alice I had neglected to add back in the personal friends Mama had left out of her book.
When I looked up again Hotaru was gone so I settled down to a walking pace and continued in the direction she had been going.
A boy ran up to me. He was around the same age as me and wore a very similar school uniform, only with shorts instead of a skirt, and a shorter trianglar collar. He had brown eyes and light brown hair and wore granny style glasses, "Good morning, have you seen your sister?"
"No, I -"
"She's supposed to be starting classes today. Let's see if Mr. Narumi's found her." He grabbed my hand and we dashed back the way he came.
"Uh, I..." I decided to just tag along as he seemed to know where he was going.
Mr. Narumi was waiting just a bit further down the path and waved when he saw us.
"I'm sorry sir." the boy stopped in front of the teacher, "But I wasn't able to -"
"I see you've found her."
"What?"
"Yuu Tobita, this is Sana Kurata, our new student. As you can see, she's not just Mikan's sister, but she's also an identical twin."
"No way." Yuu looked at me and adjusted his granny glasses, "Pleased to meet you Miss Kurata. Sorry about before."
"No problem. No harm done. I'm pleased to meet you, Yuu."
"Well now that we've all met, let's move a little ways off the path so that Yuu can show you the Academy."
"Yes." Again I felt that unnatural urge to please Mr. Narumi and be with him.
"Could you close your eyes for a moment, Sana?"
"Okay."
"And you can open them again."
We were floating a few hundred meters above the school.
"Eeek! Don't drop me!" I grabbed Yuu and wrapped myself around him.
"Sana," Babbit popped up, "This is an illusion."
"Yes, this is Yuu's illusion power." Mr. Narumi didn't seem bothered at all to be floating in midair.
I turned to Babbit. "Are you sure this is an illusion?"
"Yes Sana, I can see you three standing exactly in the same place as a few moments ago. I don't see Yuu's illusion at all, but I can see it in your memories."
"That's odd." Yuu looked closely at Babbit.
"Sana's Alice is a little strange, but now we'll have the chance to make sure she's propely trained."
"Yeah, that's my Alice, his name's Babbit."
"Pleased to meet you, Yuu. Now Sana, can you feel the ground under your feet?"
"Yes." I put out a foot and stepped away from Yuu on what seemed to be an invisible ledge.
"I'm sorry I frightened you like that. I didn't know you were afraid of heights." Yuu blushed.
"Sana isn't afraid of heights," Babbit explained, "So long as there's something solid under her. She always asks for the window seat when flying. What she is afraid of is falling."
"Well, why don't we continue this tour on the ground, Yuu?"
Yuu nodded at Mr. Narumi's request, he blinked and we returned to the ground.
I almost stumbled at the abrupt change in apparent location. Babbit seemed to be hiding a smirk behind his wing so I banished the little demon.
Yuu motioned with his hand and a table appeared in front of us with a scale model of the Academy on in.
There was a beep and Mr. Narumi removed a cellphone from his pocket." Oh it seems that something has come up. Can you finish the introduction then show Sana to class, Yuu?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Be seeing you." Mr. Narumi waved and walked off.
I found my arm waving back to him and yanked it down.
Yuu pointed to the table, "The Academy is surrounded by a wall and inside that is a forest. The Academy buildings are in various clearings inside that."
"How did they find so much forest inside Tokyo?" I asked.
"Oh the Academy's been here a long time. The Academy is divided into three schools, the Elementary branch with class A for ages 3 to 9 and class B for ages 10 to 12. The Middle School covers ages 13 to 15 and the High School covers ages 16 to 18."
"No college?"
"Don't worry, they have an excellent placement program. Alice students are just about guaranteed to be admitted to any University in Japan. Now here's the Elementary dorm." The model on the table zoomed in to one building."
"That's where I stayed last night."
"And then here is the Elementary school proper." The model zoomed down the path I had taken then zoomed out to cover the entire Academy as Yuu continued, "And these are the Middle and High schools. This is Central Town, which is a kind of shopping mall on campus."
"And what's this?" I pointed at a small log cabin in the woods north of the Elementary school. I attempted to lean on the edge of the table, but I fell into the table instead and landed on my face.
"Oh, sorry about that." Yuu waved his hand and the table vanished from above me. "But why would you assume that something that appeared out of thin air was solid?"
"Of course creations are solid!" I jumped up, summoned a two-handed mallet and bonked him lightly on the head.
"Oww! That hurt. What's it made out of?"
"It's a thin layer of plastic, but it's mostly just full of hot air, like Babbit. It's harmless, see?" I handed the mallet to Yuu.
"This is neat. So what else can you make?"
"Oh, just things." Crude plastic things like the mallet or Babbit and nothing to match Yuu's effortless masterpieces. My things looked and felt fake or plastic while his illusions seemed to capture details too small to really see. I snapped my fingers and made the mallet disappear with a pop before he could think to wield it against me.
A bell rang in the distance and Yuu looked up from his empty hands, "We'd best be getting to class now. I'm the class president and most of the students call me Mr. President."
"That's so cute, Yuu." I glanced at his collar as he passed me then I tagged along, "So you've got three stars. Does it go from one to five stars or something?"
"No, the only higher rank is the special star and there's only one Elementary student at that level. He's our branch representative." Yuu looked back at me for a moment then continued, "It's unusual for a new student to start with two stars. Did you have really good grades at your old school?"
"No, not really."
"Then it must be your Alice." Yuu held the school door open for me, "Even when you were off balance you managed to project an image to talk yourself out of the problem. I couldn't do anything like that. Well, here we are." Yuu pointed to a door with wooden sign with the English letter B carved into it, "Let me introduce you to the class."
As we stepped into the classroom I saw so many strange things that I couldn't focus on just one. Students were floating in midair, surrounded by crude floating drawings and strange sounds, while others chatted and one gray haired woman in a student uniform was dancing on a desk. How many years had she been held back?
Then it all stopped. The two floating boys and the one standing on the wall jumped down to the floor and the images faded away as the entire class turned to me, except for Hotaru who was reading a book.
"Good morning class." Yuu said, "I'd like you to greet -"
"Two stars!" A green eyed girl with dark green hair that had those silly curled bangs stalked towards me from the back of the class. "You killed a teacher and they gave you two stars? Do you know how hard it's been for me to get to two stars? It's beause you're Mr. Narumi's pet, isn't it? What did you do, sleep with him?"
"Miss Shoda," Yuu moved between us, "This is Sana Kurata, she's Mikan's twin sister. And I'm sure that neither one has slept with older men."
"If you don't count Rei." Did I think that or did a boy in the class say it?
Miss Shoda shoved Yuu out of the way then dropped to all fours as dog ears popped up through her hair and six long whiskers sprang from her cheeks, "Impossible!" She sniffed at the hem of my skirt, "She smells exactly the same as always!"
"I've seen dogs sniff at your leg Sana," Babbit popped up, "But other girls?"
She fell backwards and sat on the floor. "What's that?"
"That's my Alice, Babbit."
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Shoda."
"Don't try to fool me, Yuu." She stood up, swept her hand just in front of Babbit and he popped. She jerked back. "That was solid?"
She haddn't touched Babbit, had she? And he wouldn't have popped from a glancing blow at such a low speed, so what was wrong with my Alice?
"Like she said, it's her Alice. This isn't Mikan."
Miss Shoda glanced at Yuu, then turned back to me. "Have your fun, Mikan, but I'm not fooled. I'll be watching you and when you slip up, you are going to be in such big trouble." She returned to human form, crossed her arms and walked back to her seat.
"That's a strange girl. Her name's Sumire. Thanks, wait, are you reading my mind? Yes." A boy with a frizzy dark blond hair stood up. "Don't worry, she's not Mikan, her mind is different. Thanks for that at least. Will you stop this please?"
"Don't worry Sana," A girl with wavy light red hair spoke up, "Yome does this with every new student he meets. It's kind of a nervous habit."
"Thanks, uh"
"Her name's Anna. Anna, is she from Europe or America? Will you stop that? Okay, be that way. You think you're so special just because you've got an Alice that can blab out my innermost secrets? Well I've already got one of those, so you're nothing new under the Moon."
"You mean under the Sun." Babbit popped up over Yome's head, "Especially as it's daytime at the moment. Wait, do I still have to correct Sana when somebody else is talking for her?"
"Well Son," Another Babbit, with a mustache and three piece suit popped up behind a tiny desk floating in midair, "Your contract does say all verbal utterances originating from Sana. It doesn't mention anything about her saying them herself."
"But she's had a worldwide TV show and millions of people have been exposed to her errors."
The lawyer Babbit and his tiny desk vanished as the generic Babbit sobbed.
"Why can't I feel you telling them to say those things? Babbit's got a mind of his own. But I can't feel that either."
"You can't read animals," Hotaru put down her book, "Can you, Yome?"
"Or crazy people and some Alices like yours or Mikan's can block mine, but Sana's mind is wide open and there's nothing there."
I could hear Sumire giggling from the back of the class at that last comment.
"One way to settle this." Hotaru turned around in her seat. "Babbit, what do you think of that poor blond boy sitting all alone and neglected at the back of this class?"
"This guy?" Babbit flew back to a blue eyed blond boy who was holding a rabbit. "He smells real good."
"Good. Now Ruka, order Babbit to kill Sana."
"What! Are you nuts?" Ruka pointed at Babbit. "Go away."
"Whatever you say Ruka dear." Babbit vanished.
"That settles the question. Babbit is a talking animal, just like Sumire."
"What? Why you-"
"Okay, let's put Sumire down as a maybe on the talking part." Hotaru wrote something in her notebook.
"How did that boy control my Alice? Oh this again? Are you really going to repeat everything I think? Fine. There was a young lady from Brazil, whose suitors all fell deadly ill. You're not going to make me say that one are you? Go ahead and finish it. No I won't. Then shut up. Okay I will."
"That was brillant Sana," Anna said, "But what would you have done if he had said it?"
"Well he'd be the one saying it, not me."
"Oh, you think you're so smart," A boy with a buzzcut got up and started walking towards me.
"Don't do it, Moju."
"Why not?" Moju turned to Hotaru.
"Sana has a phobia about falling."
"Then why shouldn't I bounce her around a bit?"
"She also has a much stronger Alice than yours. If her panic response trashes the classroom then I'll make sure that you fix everything that breaks."
"Those little bats are stronger than my Alice? You are nuts."
"Last warning, Moju. Return to your seat now. You'll get your chance to bungee her later outside."
"Whatever," He turned back and glared at Hotaru, "I don't take orders from you." From my acting training I could see that he was putting up a brave front, but was deathly frightened of Hoatru.
"Let me make one thing clear," Hotaru got up and stood next to me, "This girl is also my property. If you think she needs to be punished then tell me about it and if I think it's warranted I'll punish her myself. But if your suggestion is sufficently amusing then I'll let you watch." She took her seat again. "That's enough fun for now. Let's get class started. Yuu?"
"Yes, miss Imai." Yuu opened the door and said, "Sir, you can come in now."
"Thank you, Yuu." A man in his early twenties with glasses and his dark hair tied back in a ponytail entered, "You are Miss Kurata, correct?"
"Yes sir."
"Please write your name on the blackboard then. I see we have three absences today, Miss King?"
"She still has a cold sir," Anna answered.
"And Mr. Hyuuga and Miss Sakura are still missing."
My sister was missing? What had happened to her?
"Class, we have a new student joining us today. Her name is Sana Kurata and as you can see she is Miss Sakura's identical twin sister, though they were raised separately. Miss Kurata, could you tell the class a little about yourself?"
"Well I'm just an ordinary girl. I was the co-star of the weekly television show Kodocha, I've been in made for TV movies, I had a single that hit number fifty on the Japanese pop charts last year and my mother wrote a book about my life that was the best seller in Japan all through September." I looked at the blank expressions on the faces of most of the students. I had somehow landed in the one spot on Earth where nobody had heard of Sana Kurata and it was inside Tokyo.
"Now where should you sit?"
"Teacher, the seat in front of Mr. Nogi is free."
"Yes Miss Imai, she can have the seat her sister used to have before she moved next to her partner." he pointed at the seat right in front of that blond boy who had controlled my Alice.
As I walked to the back of the class, I found that Hotaru had returned to reading her book and the gray haired woman was just a girl no more than a year older than me, with a youthful face and eyes that seemed to look down on me from ages of wisdom. Anna was sitting next to a blue haired girl and I wondered what country she must be from. Sumire glared at me and I caught this Ruka Nogi staring at me, but he turned away and blushed when I caught his gaze. I sat down and thought I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
The seat next to me was empty, who was that third absence the teacher had mentioned?
"Miss King." Yome smiled at me.
I turned away from him and looked only at the teacher as he began the language lesson.
The second session teacher asked to see my ID before begining his lecture on science.
The third session teacher glared at me then began a lecture on math. He wrote down two equations then said, "Miss Kurata, what is the common solution to these two equations?"
"Uh."
Babbit popped up. "X is 29 and Y is 65."
"I did not ask your Alice, Miss Kurata. Please do not interrupt class with such displays again."
"Mr. Jinno," Hotaru stood up, "Please accept Babbit as a part of the class."
"Preposterous."
"Miss Kurata has a learning disability and is severely delusional. By the laws governing education in Japan you must make resonable accommodations for her special needs. She uses an imaginary friend as a crutch and her Alice animates it. It's really no different than allowing students to use perfect recall or telekinetic writing during class."
"Very well, but I will allow no disruption of class. Mr. Babbit, can you write with a pencil?"
"Yes sir."
"Then take Miss Kurata's notes for her."
That was something I hadn't thought of before and I watched as Babbit wrote during the rest of the class, filling in extra detail for concepts that I had trouble grasping. Since this was math there was a lot of those.
There was only one further interuption that class when I caught Babbit looking back at Ruka. I poked Babbit on the top of his head with my finger.
"Is there some problem, Miss Kurata?" Mr. Jinno asked.
"No sir."
When the bell rang the students got out of their seats and headed for the door.
I caught up with Anna. "What's up?"
"It's lunchtime and we're heading down to the cafeteria. This is Nonoko." She indicated the girl with long blue hair.
"Pleased to meet you."
"Gee," Nonoko said, "You've really had it rough today."
"Yeah," Anna said, "Hotaru's been really grouchy and bossy ever since your sister left, but this is a bit much even for her."
We went through the line and collected our lunches.
"How come you two got less than I did? Are you both on diets?" I asked Nonoko.
"No Sana, Anna and I are both one-stars, so we get less."
"That's so unfair. I've got plenty so you're welcome to some of mine."
"Thanks, but that's not allowed. Actually we should go on diets. You see Anna is allowed to cook as much as she likes and I'm always helping her eat the results."
"When I've made a batch of singing and dancing cookies we really do have to eat all of them. When they go bad they're a bit much to handle."
"That sounds interesting."
"You're more than welcome to join us. Anita's been sick these past few days so we've had to struggle to take up the slack."
"So what is my sister like? Did she really kill a teacher?"
"Persona wasn't really a regular teacher," Anna looked around then continued, "He was more like the manager for the Dangerous Ability students."
"Dangerous Ability?"
"It's a fifth group of students. Nonoko and I are Techincal Ability students."
"And I'm Special Ability."
"Just like your sister started out as. I don't know why you're in that category. Most of the students who animate things are considered Technical Ability. Well anyway, your sister had recently transfered to the Dangerous Ability students and one day Persona walked up to Mikan and Natsume and she had an argument with him. I don't know what it was about but at the end she pointed at him, shouted 'Die!' and he was disintegrated. Then she and Natsume ran off and it's been all hush hush ever since."
"Natsume?"
"Natsume Hyuuga," Nonoko explained, "He's the boy who sat next to your sister. He was her partner and trainer and maybe her boyfriend."
"Trainer?"
"When Mikan joined our class, Natsume's gang ran the place and bullied the other students. She thought he was evil and he thought that she was naive and stupid."
"So she challenged him to an athletic competition for control of the class?"
"Have you heard this before, Sana?"
"Just a lucky guess." Actually I had lived it before with Akito.
"So he won and she agreed to do whatever he wanted."
"What!"
"He turned away from his gang and devoted the time he had between missions to training her. At first her power wasn't much but she kept getting stronger and stronger. So it wasn't much of a surprise when she could kill somebody with her Alice."
"Do you think Mikan nullifed the molecules in Persona's body?" Anna asked Nonoko.
"I suppose it is possible, but I don't know much about the Nullification Alice, as my Alice is more passive."
"What was that about missions?" I asked.
"The Dangerous Ability students were set up to do missions outside the Academy, but Natsume never told us what he did on them."
The bell rang and the students all headed back to their classrooms.
I caught up with Hotaru after the last class. "Why didn't you or Yuu run when you thought I was Mikan?"
"That's an excellent question," she smiled, "We all saw Mikan commit murder in front of our eyes and it didn't change our opinions of her at all. What kind of person do you think your sister must be like to cause that?"
"She must be a very nice person."
"So now you know what your sister is like and what she looks like. Any other questions?"
"Her power, she has an Alice that heals and kills?"
"No, that's my brother's power."
"If your own brother has a healing power then why did you bother to sleep with me?"
"Oh, I'm going to be the one to sleep with my darling big brother." Hotaru stopped, crossed her legs, leaned her head against her folded hands, closed her eyes and smiled again, but it wasn't as nice of a smile this time. Then she straightened up and looked at me. "No thanks. He's a creep and his power can't help with my problem. Now, why are you following me?"
"I don't know, where are you going?"
"To my Alice class, with the other Techincal Ability students. You need to get to your class. Look, there's a girl from Special Ability, she can show you the way."
The girl was slightly older than me with a blue skirt and tie rather than the red of the Elementary branch. She had shoulder length redish brown hair and brown eyes. She saw me and walked up. "Hi, good to see you're back. Have you seen your sister?"
"No, I..."
"Well I guess it's okay for you to hang around with us today. I hear that your group is still recovering from that mess you left. Let's head back to my group, while the rest of me looks for your sister."
I decided to follow along and play dumb, to test Hotaru's theory that the way people treated me when they thought I was Mikan would tell me what Mikan was like. I wanted to ask what she meant by the rest of herself, but figured that if I asked I would blow this chance.
"This is such a nuisance. They never tell the new students where to go. The other groups have plenty of students so they can just follow them around, but we've only got a handful of Special Ability students in Elementary. And Mr. Noda's gone missing again. If you sense him going by could you reach out and grab him to now?" We entered another building, that was slightly larger than the Elementary branch school. "Well, here we are. I'm sure that everybody will be happy to see you again." She opened the door labeled Special Ability group. "Hey gang, look who's come back for a visit."
A boy of around the same age as the girl who brought me, lifted the black knit cap away from his eyes and took out the lollypop from his mouth. "Hello, Sana."
"What?" The girl looked behind us, "Where is she?"
"Sana is standing right next to you."
"No," suddenly there was two of that girl, looking at me from both sides, "Way."
"Hi," I waved to the group of Elementary and Middle School students, "I'm Sana Kurata."
"Pleased to meet you Sana, I'm Tsubasa Andou and those girls who brought you here are Misaki Harada. As you can see her Alice is a lot like yours."
"Oh", I looked at the two copies of Misaki who were studying my face.
They turned to Tsubasa and spoke in perfect unison. "How did you know she wasn't Mikan?"
"Sana has two stars. Mikan still only has one, if she isn't demoted again when they finally catch her."
"Pleased to meet you Sana." "So, you have an Alice like mine?" Another Misaki appeared, "You can make multiple copies of yourself?"
"Not quite," A Babbit popped up in front of each Misaki, "She can make multiple," "copies," "of," "me." "This guy's name is Babbit." "And he's Babbit also."
"They're illusions?"
"No, they're solid enough. Go ahead and grab them."
"Oh, this is interesting," the three Misakis grabbed the three Babbits, "We have students who can summon solid things." "And students who can animate things." "But the only other student who does both is me." "And I only make more me." "How many of these can you make?"
"More than I can count," I looked around at the decorations, food and drinks, "Is this a party?"
"Yes," Tsubasa waved a hand at the other students, "We're a small group in a big school so we stick together. We all want to meet you."
"In that case," I closed my eyes, "Why don't I meet everybody all at once?" When I opened my eyes again there was a Babbit in front of each student.
I grabbed a glass of punch and a slice of cake then went around the room as the Babbits each introduced me to the student they'd been talking to.
An hour later as the party was breaking up Misaki walked over to me, "Can I show you back to your dorm?"
"Sure, if you don't have anything else to do."
"That really isn't ever a problem, since I've always got enough me to go around. That's some amazing control you've got there. What sort of meditation do you use?"
"Meditation?"
"You know, the duct tape to hold your mind together after you split it into a bunch of parts and then shovel them all back into one pile at the end."
"But I don't split up my mind."
"I saw your Babbit puppets talking with a bunch of different students at the same time. How could you possibly keep track of all of that?"
"But I don't. That's just Babbit."
"Don't you see what he sees and hear what he hears?"
"No. But if he finds something interesting he'll pop up and tell me about it, when I need it."
"So you don't just remember everything Babbit does?"
"No, but he remembers what I do and when the Background Babbit is awake his memory is one hundred percent accurate. Otherwise his memory of what happens to me is no better than my own."
"Background Babbit?"
"That's what I call it. It never speaks to me, but I can feel it in the back of my mind. It used to be a struggle to have even one Babbit at a time, but one day the Background Babbit woke up and now I can just think at it when I need some Babbits and it's all handled offstage. When I want objects I can just create them myself, but Babbit's actions are complex so I need the help."
"You can create objects as well as Babbit?"
"Sure," I summoned up my Babbit styled keyboard and sang, "Sana used to be a star, but now she's just an ordinary, uh, Special Ability Student."
"That's astounding."
"No, it sucks. Usually I do better at coming up with lyrics."
"I mean that you can create something so complex so quickly."
"It took me months to come up with the design. At first I had it float in midair, but I get a better touch response by wearing in on a strap. It's just a thing, unlike Babbit, so it just sits there unless I play it."
"You said you had a TV show?"
"Once a week, right after class."
"That explains why we haven't seen it. Only a fool would skip Alice class to go watch TV." Misaki stopped when we heard a sneeze from the Elementary dorm. "That sounds like some cold. Well, catch you tomorrow." She waved, wavered, then vanished.
A robot was waiting inside the door, It had an egg shaped body with metal accordion style arms and legs. "Welcome back, miss Sakura. Correction, you are miss Kurata."
"Uh, hi?"
"My name is Takahashi. I am the matron of the Elementry school dormitory. Please obey my instructions as you would obey the instructions of the teachers. If you strongly believe that my instructions are in error you may appeal to any teacher, but they are usually very busy so please do not bother them with trival matters."
"Did Hotaru make you?"
"While miss Imai's inventions are quite extraordinary, I am almost as old as she is. I was created ten years ago by another student who now works for a major Japanese company. I am not allowed to divulge anything further about my creator. Let me show you to your room."
"Thanks, but I've already seen it."
"I am sorry that I was not available last night as I was taking care of a sick student."
"If she's that bad then why isn't she in a hospital?"
"While the Academy's hospital is the best facility in the world for treating Alices, the best treatment we can offer for the common cold is bed rest and proper nutrition. Our students can receive these with the least stress in the familiar comforts of their own rooms. Do not be alarmed, as I have taken care to disinfect myself since seeing the student in question."
"Do you mean Anita?"
"I am not permitted to divulge health details on specific students without permission. Here is your room. Dinner will be served in thirty two minutes and fifteen seconds in the cafeteria on the ground floor at the north end of this building."
"Yes, I went there for lunch..."
But Ms Takahashi was already walking away.
Next: Chapter three: Paper Kitten