"You astonished us all with how you came through and preformed tonight," the reporter said to me solemnly. "What is it that encouraged you to put your a hundred and ten percent into this match?"
I flashed the camera a confident smile. "Well, first of all," I said raking my mind for something to say, "I really wanted to prove to myself that I could pull through till the end. Also, many dedicated friends have inspired me along the way." That has to be like the perfect answer that every reporter would die to put on television.
"What a brilliant young man you are!" the reporter exclaimed. "Many professional teams were scouting you today, hoping to recruit you in later years because of your amazing leadership skills! What is the key to leading your team?"
"Being a leader," I totally whipped up, "you must be a good example. You can't tell others to something, if you don't do it yourself. You have to make sure your teammates respect you as a person." Yeah... I was pretty good at the whole sermon thing.
The reporter beamed at me. "I am Paige Turner, with the Britain Sport Network," she said into the camera, "and this concludes our tonight's broadcast." I excused myself from the reporters and ran up to my teammates. They cheered and slapped me on the back as we paraded to our horses.
Thirty minutes later, I had just walked into the door and was sprawled on a luxurious couch watching Natalie do her hair in a mirror. Pretty exciting stuff!
"I am glad you won your match and all but eww!" said Natalie. "Go take a shower this instant! You are... sweating!" She cringed as she said the word.
I couldn't help but smirk. "No matter how much Old Spice I drown myself in, I am bound to sweat once and a while," I said coolly.
"Well then go sweat in the shower!" she insisted.
As if I wasn't already going to do that! I smiled at her smugly and stepped into our elevator. On the ride up, I leaned against the railing exhausted. I had put all my worth in to the polo game and it had so paid off. They had even covered it on television because it was the championship, and my team's picture would be on the newspaper. I had a pleasant shower that completely refreshed me, and then got changed in to some casual clothing (or at least what I considered casual). I sat outside at a white marble bar that was located on a modern looking balcony with my laptop. Though the sun was shining brightly, it was extremely chilly. The wind wasn't as harsh as it had been last week and a lot of the snow was melting already. All the wind I breathed in was fresh and crisp. Add in a warm drink and a blanket, and it was perfect.
"Can I get you anything?" asked a waiter properly.
"I'll have a double cappuccino, half-caf, non-fat milk, with enough foam to be aesthetically pleasing, but not so much that it leaves a moustache," I replied.
The waiter scribbled furiously on a pad on his hand and hurried off. The first thing I did was check my email. Just seeing who the first message was from made my good day soar even higher. No, it wasn't from Amy, I knew what you were assuming. It was from a kid that shares a name with a famous prophet! I couldn't help but wonder, how is the name Jonah gangster in anyway? However, I don't claim to be educated in the field of gangsterism so I keep quiet about it.
It took a couple readings for me to completely comprehend what he meant with all the slang. However, I was disappointed to find that the email wasn't the jolly agreement to take me to the Janus stronghold that I expected. Then again, it kind of was. I suppose the only way to really explain it is to show you what the email read.
"Yo Ian! Zup homie! Haven't heard from you in forev! Whats the dillio? I am sad to say that even I can not get into the Janus hq. My mom isn't exactly getting my grill. My pops and I have had to flee from concert to concert or she will bust us up! We let the clue hunt just slip out of our fingers 'corrdin to her. But cuz, I have want to get in the hq too and u r just the man to help. I think we should team up, u know? That would be pretty fly! Should we do this fo rizzle? J-Dub"
I could relate to Jonah for once. The dude was being locked out of his own branch similar to how I am. And his mom... we are starting to have more similarities. Well, both of us really wanted to get into the Janus stronghold in Venice, and as far as I was concerned, we were going to get in!
"Your latte sir," announced the waiter coming out from behind a wall made of obsolete glass. I noticed that the cream was mixed in a tad too much but for once in my life... I didn't say anything.
I got out my cellphone and called Jonah, hoping he'd answer. I had called him once before, but the line had been busy so I had left a message. After about a million and seven rings, he finally picked up the phone.
"Yo! This is the Wiz-Kid!" he said. "Who's hitting me?"
I am not really that ashamed to say, I didn't really get it. "How am I supposed to know who is hitting you?" I inquired. "Are you in trouble?"
"No dude, chillax. I mean who's calling."
"Oh. It's... Ian," I said.
"That's spanking!" yelled Jonah. "Are you on board with the plan dog?"
What was it with him and forms of pain? "Um, yeah. But can I ask you a quick favor?" I said. "Is there any way you can tone down the slang a tad?" I hoped I didn't sound too lame.
"Yeah..." Jonah said almost... releifed, "sure."
"Thanks," I said with a laugh of gratitude. "So what time do you want to meet in front of the stronghold? We can find a way to get into to that thing easily! I have thousands of files that could help."
"Perfect!" Jonah said. "That's just what I wanted to hear! I am sending a link of the flight times now. What works out for you?"
It was almost creepy! He sounded so different when he wasn't enforcing his gangster image. Together, we planned up a storm.
"You did!" cried Amy happily. "That's wonderful!" She clasped her hands together on her lap with a big smile on her face.
"What's wonderful?" I asked with a smirk. "That I won my polo match or that Jonah and I are finally meeting up?"
"Both," she said with a tiny laugh. Is there a word for when someone doesn't full out laugh but talks with a amused edge in their voice? I need to discover that word. "I am just so thrilled that you and Jonah can get to know each other better and team up! It may be small, but un-n-ion between the branches is just what we need!"
I smiled at her. She got so excited about little things like that. "Do you want to something odd?" I asked suddenly.
"How odd-d?" she asked with a grin tugging at her lips.
"Well," I started, "I asked Jonah if he could talk less gangster because I kept on misunderstanding what he was saying."
"How polite of you," she put in slyly.
"But anyway," I continued, "he was totally fine with it!"
"Hmm..." thought Amy out loud, "I do recall him enjoying Shakespeare. Maybe it was kind of like a break for-r him to be normal." She really knew how to put herself in other's shoes.
"Yeah," I said looking at her thoughtfully. "That might have been it." She was by the same window she had been by last time and sunlight just cascaded down her shoulders and shone off her hair. Realizing how intently I was looking at her surroundings, I turned away to stare off the balcony, hoping I looked casual.
"By the way," said Amy, "where are you right now? The view is so gor-r-geous!" It was? I had never really noticed. I looked at it some more taking in details I had never bothered to look at. Evening was just starting to fall. The green campus was speckled with patches of melting snow. Various trees by a white gazebo, though barren, were strung with glowing lights. They were always strung with lights because of moth... Isabel's dinner parties. It had a rather mysteriously pretty effect.
"I am on our dining balcony" I said. "I never really noticed how pretty it was from up here!" She stared at me as if I were crazy. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
"How can you n-n-ot?" she asked. "Your house is amazing! What is your favorite room?"
I had never really thought about that. "Well," I said thinking, "it would have to be this one room that I found."
"Oh!" said Amy in a cute sarcastic voice. "The on-n-e room!"
I smiled. Let us just assume that I smiled at everything she said. "Well" I said, aware I was about to trespass on to a slightly uncomfortable topic, "when I came back after the clue hunt, my parents were gone." No really? That was already obvious. Her lip frowned slightly for me. "I had never really been able to... go through all of our house before. Though I had picked the locks to their file room before, I knew they had put cameras in other areas. As soon as I could, I explored everywhere. The curiosity I had been saving up for years was killing me!" I was always curious. I always checked things out, and that was the number one thing Isabel had resented about me. I had always wanted to know the why behind all her plans.
"What did you find," she asked, intrigued.
"I discovered most of the rooms that contained weapons and junk like that. However, one room was our old nurse's room. Under the bed, there were normal pictures of Natalie and me as children. I don't mean the posed pictures where they would put me in a mini tuxedo and stuff. I mean the pictures of me just... playing." Amy's green eyes shined slightly with pity and I absolutely hated it. All of a sudden she laughed slightly to herself.
"What?" I asked curious. I had to smile, her laugh was so contagious.
"I'm just trying to imagine a mini version of you in a diaper," she said slowly.
Now what was I supposed to say to that? I tried to imagine what she would look like in a diaper... as a baby of course. She would probably have thin auburn hair in little pigtail on top of her head! "I can almost picture what you'd look like as well!" I said chuckling.
"I just have to see a baby pictur-r-e of you!" Amy smiled. "Pretty please!"
"Only if you show me yours!" I said.
"I don't really have a lot of baby pictures... or pictures at all. But, I think I have one," she mused.
For the next ten minutes, we were showing each other pictures. I had much more then her but each one was hilarious. I had never had so much fun since... the time I had last talked to her. Wow, that's just sad. Anyway, she was the cutest baby in the world! She looked like a tiny version of herself. She looked mellow, but playful. Some of her pictures had Dan in them. He was hilarious! He was laughing at the camera in every photo.
"Oh look!" I said holding up a picture. "Here is one of me pulling Natalie's hair! It is the last picture of the bunch."
"Wow! That picture's classic!" exclaimed Amy. "The nurse took a lot of you of you guys!"
"She eventually got fired," I said thinking. "What a shame. Maybe I could track her down when I get the time."
"Speaking of time," Amy said, "it is already six o'clock."
I stared at the time on the computer screen surprised. I realized it was a little darker then it had been a minute ago. We had been talking for about a half hour! The weird thing was, the conversation wasn't forced at all like I would have imagined it to be... it was natural.
"Wow! I didn't even notice how long we have been talking!" I said out loud.
"Yeah..." said Amy thoughtfully. "So I guess I'll talk to you later?"
I nodded. "I'd like that."
Amy blushed slightly and raked her hair behind her ear. "Well, I better help Nellie with dinner," she said. "She is finally back from Puerto Rico."
"Cool," I said. "I should probably get Nat so we could eat dinner as well."
"All right then," Amy said in a British accent, "cheerio!'
"Cheerio Miss Cahill!" I said with a smile. And that was the end of that.
Though I hadn't meant to, I had left out the classic L-word this time. I vaguely wondered if part of Amy wanted to be called love, but discarded the thought right away. I looked out over our large lawn and suddenly realized how incredibly chilly the air had become. Closing the laptop, I called Natalie's phone.
"Where do you want to eat?" I asked her as she picked up. "It's steak night."
"I don't think I want steak," Natalie pondered. "I hear too much red meat is bad for you!"
I scoffed. "Red meat isn't bad for you," I protested. "Now greenish-blue meat, that's bad for you!"
"Either way I think I will settle with the salmon," she said. "I vote we eat in the dining pavilion."
"Very well!" I said. "See you in a few!" As I hung up the phone, I couldn't help but wonder what Amy was eating at the moment.
Amazing right? I can imagine it happening in their real lives! Nice and long too! 13 pages in Word, with size twelve font! Worked all day! Praise the lord! (It was so emotional I decided to add that.)
For those of you who requested it, I think I might insert some plot that can be interpreted as a Danalie hint, but only for those who want to. I don't care for them as a couple personally, and know the books won't end up pairing them. Thanks for all the reviews and favoriteing!
I will keep on trying to update, but travel lacrosse conditioning has started, so I have it two hours everyday. Also, soccer will start up soon. On the bright side, I am almost finished writing, Dan's 100 Things to do in Math Class, so I will be able to focus on this fanfic more. I like to type in gibberish and see what spell check thinks I could be trying to say.. It is fun. Spellcheck thinks fanfic could be, fanatic, fungi, fang, funfair, and NFC (how the heck did it get that). By the way, I was expecting spellcheck to underline "gangsterism" but it didn't! Apparently it is a real word!
I started a section on my profile, where I do book reviews, outlooks, and summaries. Just saying. Well! Any suggestions for the story? Items you want to see in the plot? I LOVE reviews!
I dare someone who never reviews anything, to leave a review the only says, "Cottage cheese dude! That's the stuff of champions!" Just cause that would make me laugh. And guys... respect the zombies. You haven't been treating them very well lately. Bye friends and foes!
Where Adventures Begin...
Alex Almighty