Marie shook her head angrily and Julia just sputtered after hearing what happened.
"I should've just stayed, but I got so mad!" Julia stamped one foot onto Kat's foot.
"OW, what'd you do that for Julie?" Kat cried out.
"Get a better comeback! You need to learn how to fight back, or Tala's gonna keep bugging you until you're an old lady." Marie nodded in agreement.
Kat hung her head low. "I dunno, I'll see you guys later"
Marie watched and turned to Julia helplessly. "Don't worry" Julia seemed to puff with pride, "I got a plan"
Marie maintained a skeptical look but followed Julia to wherever she was going.
Kat's eyes stung with the constant tears flowing. She needed to be stronger and not care as much what others think.
"But they already know who I am, I can't change" Kat thought bitterly. She checked her pockets and grabbed the key, but before opening the door she glanced at Kai's house. It was a large white one with double doors and who knows how many rooms. Three houses were bought and bulldozed to make it, almost like every other house around there besides Kat's. It was funny how between the large grand houses was a much smaller ( and more comfy) one, with flowers and herbs spilling over the rocks that Karma, Kat's mother, used as a fence.
She already knew all this, but she was something else that made her stay outside. Kai was muttering angrily to himself, obviously he lost his keys. Kat wondered where he would go if he was locked out.
"Duh, he would go hang out with his popular friends"
As Kai made no progress, Kat remembered how her older brother, Liberty, taught her how to pick locks, just for fun he told her before he went to jail.
"This is how I could start" A thought suddenly came. It might backfire but Kat's body wasn't paying any heed to what Kat wanted. She walked through the incense smelling house into her older brother's room and took the small picklock case before walking next door.
Kai was busy with lighting a cigarette when he watched Kat come up and spread out the picks.
She quickly took the right tools and began to work the lock, feeling the tumblers fall into place. She took out the picks and opened the door without a word and left.
As day turned to night, Kai sat on his huge bed working on math problems he didn't really care about just so his grandfather wouldn't be on his case. The house was always empty, making Kai wonder the point in having it in the first place.
He looked out his window into the ones next over, the hippie house. He could see a lean tall man with tan skin and long black hair tied in a ponytail, his silver eyes dancing with warmth as he watched his wife and daughter smile and laugh.
The woman, Karma as she introduced herself the day Kai moved here, had waist length shimmering blue hair and fair skin, as far as he could see.
Kai never really noticed Atlantic, Tala's little victim, but in that room with her hat off, though sweater still on, she glowed with laughter and the crystals hanging erratically around the house sent little rainbows onto her face and made her short blue hair shine almost as brightly as her mother's.
He put on a dark blue shirt to cover his naked chest and walked out of the house aiming towards his next door neighbor.