Hey.

So… where have I been for nearly a year?

Well… long story short… life got in the way. I got so stressed out with my sophomore year of high school, that I began to reject my responsibilities and stopped enjoying writing for a while. I got so depressed and in November of 2020, I started seeing a therapist and I had some, uh.. Thoughts. I got Covid, and I'm still suffering a long-term effect of it called parosmia, which makes a lot of things taste and smell very unpleasant.

But I'm better now. I'm a junior now, I'm sixteen, starting to come to terms with certain aspects of myself. I'm hoping to update my unfinished fanfictions more frequently now. And I'm considering writing a story for another charming kids' show that's recently gained some traction: The Backyardigans.

There's a comment I have to respond to.

Q: I have not watched the recent episodes of PJ Masks, mostly because I don't get the old classic feel that initially made me fall in love with the show, and because the new voices of characters like Catboy and Romeo have strayed so far from the originals. I've heard of Newton Star, but I have not seen him in action yet.

I don't have much else to say; I won't keep you waiting any longer. I am proud to present: Chapter six.

Get ready for a whole lot of dialogue...

Chapter Six—Curiosity Killed the Cat and the Lizard

The day after Connor and Greg's interrupted presentation, their teacher called them to stay a few moments after class for a short conference. She offered them an opportunity to present their project again, only without Amaya, and she would allow Amaya to do a make-up project if she was still unable to present. The two boys happily accepted the offer, feeling fortunate that their teacher was forgiving on both them and their distraught friend.

Unfortunately, Amaya had not come to school that day for an unknown reason. When Connor knocked on her door that morning, rather than answering, she had her mother answer the door. The woman would not reveal anything beyond the fact that Amaya was staying home from school. Connor assumed she wasn't coming due to mental stress, or she had conveniently gotten sick. He was leaning more towards the former, as it is highly likely that anyone who'd had a day as egregious as Amaya's would not want to return to the place at which the day was spent.

"Man, it's a good thing we aren't in trouble for that, Amaya could have been called to the principal's office or suspended for running out like that," Greg sighed, squeezing the straps of his backpack as he followed Connor out of the English classroom. The halls were pouring with students eager to reach their next classes, papers occasionally flying out of backpacks. A wad of paper nearly hit Greg in the head.

"Yeah. We still need to find out what's up with her, though," said Connor, worried. "This isn't like her."

"Why are we so stuck on her, anyway? She's too stubborn to tell us what's going on. Coercing her into talking isn't gonna solve any problems. If anything, we—"

"Hold on." Connor yanked Greg to the side of the hallway and ushered him into a moderately odorous bathroom lined with five stalls and dirty gray tiles.

"Hey, what are we doing in here?" Greg interrogated, somewhat indignant.

Connor glimpsed the bathroom, examining each stall before turning back to Greg. "I don't want anyone in the hallway overhearing anything about our nighttime lives," he whispered, narrowing his eyes. "That's just what I wanted to talk about—I've been thinking, do you think Night Ninja had anything to do with Amaya being . . . you know? It might be a tiny bit of a stretch, but it's a possibility."

"Should we ask her about it directly?" asked Greg, tilting his head to his right. "Maybe she'll actually give a response beyond 'I'm fine.'"

"We'll ask her eventually. Wait, no, I will. I don't want her to feel more pressured with both of us confronting her."

"Okay. nice talk, but I have to get to class."

"Yeah, you might want to hurry."

. . . . .

Amaya had indeed stayed home from school that day. It did not make her feel any better to stay home than it would have felt if she'd gone to school, but with what had recently happened, she couldn't bring herself to return.

She figured she could somehow make up for the project grade without having to repeat the presentation, as her teachers were thankfully lenient. However, she wasn't even certain she could complete that assignment in time. It pained her to dwell on the thoughts of how much homework that would have been piling up within the next week or so, and how she'd have to drag herself to her desk and plow through each assignment as if they were field burdens. The slightest hint of a thought of that work subdued any motivation.

To cope with the thoughts that day, she turned to her diary. Amaya found that it was less difficult to flood the pages of her diary with feelings than it was to speak aloud, and she almost didn't emerge from her room. Her hand gained searing red blisters from the pressure she applied to the diary with her mechanical pencil, which she occasionally clicked for more lead. All the while, it was a challenge to blink back tears or rip her hair from her scalp out of frustration like weeds. Sometimes, she took a break from writing diligently to set her pencil down and shake her hand so that it did not feel so stiff, only to get right back to writing.

This went on for several hours on Wednesday, until the evening, when her mother finally had the will to step into her room. The sound of the door creaking open startled Amaya, and she turned from her desk to face her mother.

"Amaya, I've been concerned about you," she sighed, approaching her daughter. Amaya's mother had the same gentle, benevolent brown eyes, like rich soil dampened by a light rain, and medium-length chestnut hair. She'd passed the poor eyesight gene down, but unlike her daughter, she wore contact lenses. "You've been locking yourself in your room for days, and . . . normally, you're so social and don't come back to your room until the end of the day. Is anything wrong?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, avoiding eye contact. Eye contact was something she seemed to despise whenever she was upset—the longer she maintained it with another individual, the more pressured she felt, the more of risk there was of her bursting into tears. It was like something that mysteriously provoked her eyes to send cascades of water down her cheeks.

"Nothing's wrong, Mom," she said simply, voice cracking.

"Are you sure?" Her mother inched closer, eyes filling with more worry.

"I am very sure that nothing's wrong." Amaya tried sounding as serious and emotionless as possible, but speaking past the swelling in her throat was quite the task. "I'm just . . . a little stressed out by school, is all. I had a presentation yesterday, and it made me really anxious."

"Oh, well, that's normal. Do you want a snack, a drink? Come and socialize a little to get your mind off of it?"

Amaya was quiet, until she spoke again. "No, I have some homework to do."

Her mother knelt down and abruptly wrapped her in a hug, before standing up. "Well, I suggest you take a break soon. Staying up in your room so much won't help you." With that, she strode off, gradually shutting the bedroom door behind her.

Instantly, she seized her diary and thumbed through the pages.

. . . . . . .

It was a night of dubious silence for Greg and Connor. The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. They had been on the phone for half an hour, awkwardly twitching on their beds. Any attempt at a conversation was suppressed by dubiosity, to the point where they thought they would never revive any topic.

Finally, Connor had to put his foot down and address the elephant in the room.

"We can't keep going like this," he declared, slipping off his bed and pacing around his room, feet firm beneath him. "We know what we really want to discuss and know, but we aren't talking about it."

"You mean the whole thing with Amaya?" Greg asked, cocking his head in perplexion.

"Exactly. There's something up, and I am going to find out what it is. Even if I have to resort to more assertive methods." Connor stood up, firmly planting his bare feet on the floor.

"Connor, no. If you wanna find out what's wrong, we have to wait until she's ready. If we try to be forceful and direct, she'll only stray further away from telling us what her problem is."

"I don't believe she'll feel better, if she is feeling down, until she actually talks to us. This has been going on long enough, I'd like to put it to an end."

Greg only sighed; there was silence from his end for a brief moment, and he spoke.

"You're right," he uttered, "Amaya has literally never acted like this before, even when upset. We'd better encourage her to talk . . . and I mean gentle encouragement. We can't be direct, Connor. It just won't work. You know how uptight she can be when she's annoyed."

"Mhmm," Connor grinned, placing two fingers against his phone screen. "Sorry for pressuring you a bit, I'm just kind of stressed."

"It's fine."

"Now, Greg, I know you may not agree with this, but . . ." Connor drew in a hiss, teeth clenched behind his dry lips. "I say we reason with her tonight."

"What?" Greg nearly dropped his phone, hand trembling as his already fair face paled. "Tonight? It's late. It's dark. There are no villains to fight tonight. Come on, you know better! Night is not the best time."

"Why do the villains come out at night?"

"They . . . um . . . because no one will catch them in the act? No one comes out in the night."

"Right. Right. No one comes out in the night, except for the villains. That means no one will be there to disturb us if we confront Amaya. No one to distract. Greg, did you notice how solemn she looked that Friday night? Something happened. She started acting strange after that night."

"What if she's just on her—"

"She's never acted like this, mind you!"

Greg sighed again, a habit he could not shake. He gently pushed a few strands of flaxen hair out of his eyes, then said, "Okay. I get it. But can we at least transform to get to her house? I don't want her parents getting suspicious seeing us walk through the house at night."

Connor agreed with Greg's set conditions, and so, their rooms glowed with beams of colored light and they simultaneously met at the red house between them. The moon was waning, but still shone down on them with its rich silver light.

"So," Catboy began, tossing a line of his Cat Stripes up to Amaya's bedroom window, "I'll climb up there first. Stay down here."

"What? Why!"

"Remember what you said about just one of us doing the confrontation?"

Gekko opened his mouth to speak, holding up his index finger, but then stopped, and looked down. "Yeah, yeah."

Catboy placed a hand on his shoulder with a sympathetic smile, then climbed up the Cat Stripe as though it were a rope suspended from the top of a cliff. Once he reached the window, he withdrew his Stripe and poked her head through.

"She's . . . asleep."

Amaya had indeed been asleep. Her pink blanket was draped over her still body, but she looked distraught in the way she slept. Catboy planted his feet on the floor of the bedroom, then silently made his way to the bedside.

Beside the bed was a varnished spruce nightstand, occupied by a porcelain lamp and an assortment of other objects Amaya seemed to need—her glasses, bottles of eye drops, and . . .

A book?

Catboy looked at the little title-deficient book on the nightstand, open and face-down, pages sprawled across the wood. With slight hesitation, he picked up the book, using his fingers to hold it open, and almost immediately recognized the handwriting. Then he got an idea.

"Gekko!" he whispered from the window. "Come up here, I gotta show you something."

He extended his arm, holding the book out for Gekko to see. The reptilian hero frowned in displeasure.

"Catboy, is that what I think it is?" he asked, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.

"Maybe. Just c'mere."

Gekko sighed, activated his Super Lizard Grip, and began to scale the wall of the home in a similar fashion to an actual lizard. He leapt through the window, landing quietly on the floor. Catboy spread the book open and let Gekko soak in the information.

"No no no," the latter said. "This isn't—this is—we can't."

"We have to," Catboy pressed. He began to thumb through the pages of the book, keeping his place on the page at which Amaya seemed to stop writing, and turned to the very first.

It was her diary.

"Catboy," groaned Gekko, "you know girls. They love their privacy. If Amaya catches us reading this, we're toast. Plus, nobody would want people getting into their personal stuff."

"But I have a feeling we'll find out what's up. Now, let's see. . ." He began turning pages, briefly scanning each one and listing off the dates written. "August 30th . . . September 7th . . . September 21st . . . Ah, here, October 6th. Most recent."

Gekko looked over the taller boy's shoulder, and they simultaneously read the excess of paragraphs. But they really wished they hadn't. The more and more they read, the more and more shocked and repulsed they felt. Gekko had gotten the urge to gag, and Catboy wanted to strangle someone with his bare hands. They both twitched in sheer discomfort, attempting to flush these horrifying words out of their heads.

Once they were finished reading, Catboy, trembling, set the diary back on the nightstand, in its original face-down position. He felt like vomiting. How someone as cheerful and perky as Amaya could possibly have faced, much less written about these sorts of things was utterly beyond him. Gekko was even paler than normal.

After a few moments of silence, Catboy looked at his conscious friend.

"We have to pay a visit to Night Ninja. Now."

Wowie. It feels great writing this again after 11 months or so. I was about 80% finished with this chapter before I started working on it again, so I'm glad I didn't have a long way to go.

Next chapter will be pretty important, if I don't disappear for a year again! I promise I won't, or at least I'll try not to. I won't be as busy dealing with eight classes, I only have four now. Bye.