"Shayna honey, can you and Sora help me with something?" called my mom, "coming mommy!" I said, jumping off the couch, dragging Sora by the arm away from the tv. "What do you need Miss Shayna's mom?" Sora asked, looking up at her, "I need you too to taste test this for me" she said, holding uot half of a paopu fruit for each of us, "but mommy! what about the legend?" I asked, looking at her, "oh, that's just a silly story" she said, "I don't believe it" she continued, "but.. but..." me and Sora protested.
"There's nothing to worry about, there's no proof it's true, and if it IS true, then, well, I'll break the spell thingy with my 'Mommy Magic.' And if you taste test it for me, you can play until 10 instead of 9 tonight" she said. "If you say so..." I said, grabbing my piece, looking at Sora and eating it. "See? Nothing bad. You eight-year-olds are so superstitious," she said, "now go play, it's only around 11:00 a.m. so you have all day" she said, shooing us out the door, "did the paopu fruit taste good?" she asked as we walked out the door. "Yep!" Sora said grinning, "You're so adorable!" My mom said.
"Let's go find Rik..." I said, stopping as me and Sora tripped. As we started to fall, Sora grabbed me and hugged me closer to him as he fell into the sand. "Ha ha ha!!! I got you!" Riku said, laughing like crazy. "You're mean Riku..." I said as I helped Sora up. "Why'd you do that?!?" Sora yelled, glaring at the silver haired 9-year-old.
"Cuz it was funny, why did you grab Shayna like that? You got cooties now!!!" Riku retorted, making invisible shapes on his arm, "circle, circle, dot dot now I have my cooti...Hey!!!" he yelled as I hugged him, causing him to loose the effect of his 'cootie shot'. "Now you both have cooties! Ha ha!" I said, standing with my hands on my hips before getting tackled by the boys. "Let's go to the Secret Place!" Sora said, runnign ahead of us, "Sora wait!" Riku called after him, "we have to check around for Selphie, Tidus and Wakka first" I said, looking around, "no we don't, they're all at home cleaning with their moms" Sora said, grinning at the thought.
"Oh... ok!" me and Riku said, shrugging our shoulders as we ran to the Secret Place. As we reached it, I pulled back the vines and crawled under, waiting for Sora and Riku. As we all crawled in through the little hole, we walked around the winding path and all of a sudden I felt a sharp pain shoot through my cheek. As I fell backwards, I started crying as my cheek started bleeding and swelling a little. "Shayna? Are you ok?" Sora and Riku asked, pulling me the rest of the way into the lit main part of the Secret Place. "I hit a really sharp rock!" I said between sniffles as Sora sat with me while Riku went to get band-aids and peroxide. "Are you sure you're ok?" Sora asked worriedly, reaching to touch my cut with his hands, which were just a little bigger then mine.
"Uh huh... It just hurts..." I sniffled, smacking at a fly the wouldn't leave my arm alone. When Riku came back, he put the peroxide on my cheek as I screamed and thrashed around, then and he put the band-aid on, I looked at the boys "thanks, but you still have cooties!" I said, grinning. I stood up, running around the big stone room as Riku and Sora chased after me and each other.
About a half an hour later, while we were talking about how my mom had made us try a paopu fruit and how Riku thought it was the funniest thing ever, we heard a woman's voice, "Riku!!! C'mon! We have to go to the store and get stuff for the party at Sora's house tomorrow night!" came the voice of Riku's mom. "I gotta go now, bye bye!" Said the nine-year-old. "Riku? Riku, where are you?!?" his mom asked, "I'm playing in the waterfall mom!" he said as we heard him jump into the waterfall's pool right outside the entrance of the Secret Place.
"Where are Sora and the other kids?" asked his mom, "they're all at home cleaning up" Riku said, lying about me and Sora in the Seret place, laughing as quietly as we could at the fact that Riku was getting in trouble for being soaking wet. "I guess they're getting ready for the party too" his mom said as they walked off.
"Riku? Riku where are you?!?" Sora said mockingly, laughing as we copied Riku and his mother. As we laughed, we found some chalk rocks and decorated the walls more, adding on to what Riku and the two of us had first put on the walls when we found it a few months ago. It was a hide-out just for the 3 of us, we wouldn't tell anyone about it, even Tidus and the other children. All of a sudden we were quiet while we drew. As Sora yawned, I glanced at him through the corner of my eyes, smiling a little more without realizing it. As we drew, we both ended up drawing each other, more or less, without the other one noticing until we were done, "I like your drawing" we both said, pointing at the other one's artwork.
Then, seemingly out of no-where, we hugged. We both wrapped our arms around each other's shoulders and pulled our tiny bodies closer together. Then, as fast as we had started hugging, we broke apart, both red as Sora's shorts were. "we need to go yell at my mom..." I said, as Sora stood up, "let's go" Sora said grinnign his usual grin, holding out his small hand to mine.
"Yeah!" I said, grabbing his hand and walking behind him out of the Secret Place, silently vowing not to lead the way first until I knew the way all the way through without getting hurt. As I thought of it, I rubbed my cheek with my free hand. As we climbed through the hole, Sora held the vines out of my way for me, then, knowing we had to, we both jumped into the waterfall real quick, then climbed out.
"Aww! Look at Sora and Shayna!" said Selphie's mom as she looked through the window, "huh?" Selphie looked out the window, her green, 6-year-old eyes looking at the 2 as they ran towards Shayn's house hand in hand, "eww! She's gunna get cooties!!!" Selphie said giggling as she brushed her hair.
"Mommy! Mommy!" I said, running through the open door as she sat in the kitchen wiping flour off her hands onto her apron. "What is it honey?" she asked, looking at the two of us, her eyes traveling down to our connected hands and grinning. "Mommy! The legend of the paopu fruit is true! I hugged Sora and I don't have cooties!" I said, out of breath from running so fast.
"Shayna, what have I told you? You're such a silly little kid..." she said, shaking her head at us, "No! It's true Shayna's Mom! I can prove it!" Sora said, "She tripped and I caught her and didn't get cooties, but she tackled Riku and erased his cootie shot!" Sora said, panting from not taking a breath before continuing his sentence. "Oh my, now that's a problem," said my mom, looking at us with a confused look. "Let's try my 'Mommy Magic', close your eyes" she continued. As we did, she put her hands on our heads and said, "Oh great Mommy Magic, remove the spell of the paopu fruit!" She said. "Ok, now open your eyes" she said.
"Do you feel any different?" Sora asked me, looking over at me, then up at my mom, "no, do you?" I asked, looking at my hands then at my mom like him. "Hug for a minute, and when I say so, let go" she said. As we hugged, we turned red, especially because we were so used to only hugging for prizes like candy bars from the other kids, after a well placed cootie shot of course. "Ok, let go" my mom said. As we tried to let go, we had to physically try to separate. "I take it your mommy magic didn't work?" Sora asekd questioningly. "I have to look in my spell book on how to break the spell of the paopu fruit, I'll try the magic again later, just g on and play with the kids who aren't cleaning, and if the rest are busy... uh... oh, please catch some fish if you can!" she said, once again shooing us out the door.
6 years later
"Mom?" I asked sleppily, coming down the stairs to get a cup of coffee. "Yes you can go out and play with Sora and Riku, good morning honey" she said, as we laughed as we did every morning, "that's sad, you say yes or no before saying good morning" I said, laughing as I mixed sugar into my coffee.
"Well, after the whole Paopu incident, I can't seem to separate yo... oh... duh! Selphie moment there" Mom said as she smacked herself in the head remembering the point of the legend. "Ok, I'm gunna just go, k?" I asked, getting ready to head out the door, "wanna change out of your pajamas?" she asked. I looked down and realized I was still wearing my pajamas, which consisted of a t-shirt of my mom's and some old shorts.
As I laughed, I went up the stairs, "that was my Selphie moment for the day" I said, climbing up the stairs. As I went into my room, I expertly stepped over and around random drawings, piles of clothes, CDs, and other junk I still had to clean up. As I reached my dresser, I took out my usual playing outfit, a purple tank-top, blue shorts, a T-shirt for incase we decided to have a swimming contest, and my blue shoes, resembling Sora's, just no where near as big.
As I looked over the stairs, I heard my mom humming to herself as she read her newest novel obsession on the couch. Then, I did what I always did, grabbed my wooden sword in one hand, and used my other hand to hold onto the rail of the steos, slide halfway down on my hand, then jumps the rest of the way and take off running out the door.
"Bye mom, be back later!" I called over my shoulder as I ran out the door. As I reached the end of our porch, about to step out onto the sand, I stopped and stood up straight, listening for igns of an ambush. "Hn... It's quiet... too quiet..." I said, narrowing my eyes and stepping about 6 feet into the sand. That's when I heard the 'battle cry' of Sora and Riku (which just consisted of yelling 'I got ya!' at the top of their lungs) As I turned around, I saw them jump off the roof of my porch, and as I took off running, they tackled me, knocking me down, but I still had a grip on my sword, which was, in my opinion, much stronger then their's, so as I swung it around, I stopped and caused them to stop their barrage of counter blows. "What is it?" Riku asked in a whisper, "intruders..." Sora whispered back, reading the look on my face.
"You know what that means" Riku said, standing up and pulling me and Sora up too. As we all stood back to back, covering all iewpoints, we watched as we heard Selphie, Tidus and Wakka shout and yell as they attacked us. As Sora tried to block Selphie's 'nun-chakus' (which was just a jump rope whether or not she'd admit it...) and Riku tried to knock out Wakka with his blitzball by knocking it back at him, I easily defeated the youngest of them, who happened to be Tidus. "Dang it!" Tidus said, pouting as he sat on the sand, Wakka and Selphie joining him soon. "Ha ha!!! We are once again victorious!" I said, holding up my sword, Riku and Sora's above mine since I was the shortest up the 3 of us, while Tidis, Selphie, and Wakka pouted on the ground and jumped into the water to go play on the mini island about 80 yards out away from where we were at the moment. As soon as we were sure they wouldn't see us, we snuck off to the Secret Place.
As we crawled through the vines, I stood ahead of the boys and lead my way through. "Don't run or you'll slice your cheek open again like you did 6 years ago" Riku said, grinning in my direction. As I rolled my eyes, I took off running and went straight to the main corridor without any problems, for we had cracked off the sharp rock that had given me the scar on my cheek, pounding it to bits with other rocks until it was small enough to run by without getting hurt.
"Don't be a jerk Riku... even though you do it SO well..." Sora said, grabbing my hand and running with me. As we sat in the middle of the room, we did our usual ceremony, lighting a fire in the pit we had created in the exact center, where, at noon the sun would shine exactly through the hole in the ceiling, and the same would happen during a full moon. After the fire was lit, Riku did the same thing he'd done 1 or 2 times before and lifted me over his head, "please accept this virgin, supposedly, sacrifice" he would say, glancing at Sora in mid-sentence, then put me down and laugh when I punched or bit or kicked him. Then, as we sat around the firse, we all threw in sand made up from crushed rocks of all kinds, which would, for brief periods of time, make the fire turn different colors.
As we turned to fire silver, we danced around it just doing random moves and ask the fire for random wishes, today's were- "Give Riku a concussion" from me with a huge grin, "make Shayna shut up" from an annoyed Riku, and "Let us pass our tests when school starts back up" from Sora.
"Ok you guys, time to measure our height again" Riku said like a parent, getting our favorite chalk rocks as we all stood in our specified corner of the cave and recorded our height with a line where our head was. "Awesome! I grew 3 inches!" Sora said, jumping in the air, "I grew 4, ha ha!" Riku said, sticking his tongue out at Sora, who jutted out his lower lip and pouted. "What about you?" Sora and Riku questioned, looking at me as I pouted like Sora, "I only grew a half inch..." I said glaring at my wall. As Riku laughed, Sora walked over to me and hugged me, "it's ok, Riku's dumb... you know that" he said as he kissed me. "That's true", I said, hitting him over the head with my wooden sword, leaving a bump as I fell down laughing.
"Let's go have a swimming contest, that's the only reason I brought this dang T-shirt and I don't wanna carry it around all day" I said, waiting for the boys to leave the Secret Place before I changed into the shirt. As I joined the boys outside, me and Riku looked at Sora to tell him that it was his turn to choose our ending point. "Uh... right there!" Sora said, poiting at the patch of tall seaweed growing about 100 yards out into the water. "Awesome" I said, tying the back of the shirt into a knot so it didn't get in my way, "Ha ha, you're a girl so you don't get to take your shirt off!" Riku said, "well, girls can, it's just got a completely different consequence..." I said, muttering about how my mom kept trying to get me to wear a bathing suit under my shorts instead of completely soaking all my T-shirts,
"Ok... Ready, go!" Riku yelled as we all jumped in the water. As we swam as fast as we could, I opened my eyes under the water, which was a mistake because I knew it was salt water and I didn't have goggles with me. As I threw my head out of the water, I Sora back behind me and Riku holding his leg and hopping back to shore muttering about Riku being a huge retard.
"Riku!" I yelled, pulling his head up, causing him to take in a bunch of water coming up because I had scared him. As he coughed, I dragged him back to shore following Sora. "What was that for?!?" he asked as he finally could breath again. "Why is Sora calling you a retard? What did you do now?" I yelled, pointing at Sora, who's leg was bleeding, "oh, I kinda pushed him into some sharp rocks when I passed him... oops..." Riku replied, shrugging his shoulders. Wakka and the others, hearing the fight, ran over to watch what would happen and see who'd get hurt. "Nice support you guys..." Riku muttered as I beat on his head. "No problem man!" Wakka said grinning, "Wakka, he was being sarcastic you moron!" Tidus said, "I know that, so was I" Wakka said, getting the 2 into an argument similar ot the one me and Riku were having, Sora and Selphie watching and laughing.
After Riku was half unconscious, I ran over to Sora, who's leg was still bleeding, "Sora! Are you ok?!?" I asked, trying to clean the gash with the edge of my T-shirt. "Yeah, I just cut it, it's nothing that hasn't happened before" Sora said, glaring at Riku then wincing as I put some salt water on it. "I'll go get my mom's first aid kit" Tidus said, running off towards his house. As Selphie took Wakka back to his house, I looked at Sora's leg, which had a 6 inch cut on the side of it. "How does that not hurt?" I asked, looking at hm like he was insane, "because like I said, I've gotten hurt before, you know that... And, like this, alot of it was because of the Smart One over there" Sora said, nodding in Riku's direction. As we laughed at our nickname for anyone who did something stupid, Sora looked at me. "Besides, it's not like you and him haven't been hurt before, especially by the evil rocks on this stupid island, remember the day your mom made us try the paopu fruit when you slammed your cheek against that rock we smashed to bits in the Secret Place?" Sora asked, reaching up and touching the scar on my face.
"Most definately..." I mumbled, sighing with relief as Tidus came back with the first aid kit. "Thanks Shorty" I said, ruffling Tidus's hair, "Hey!" the 13-year-old said, pouting as he walked off the make sure he didn't hurt Wakka too bad in their fight. As I opened up the first aid kit, I was amazed at how much stuff fit into the little plastic box, "ready for some pain cutie?" I asked Sora as I held up a bottle of peroxide, "no!" Sora said, closing his eyes, ready for the pain anyways. "I won't make it hurt... much" I said grinning as I poured some on the cut. As the gash bubbled while the peroxide did it's job, I hugged him, "don't worry about it, you know I'm the best at fixing cuts around here, even better then most of the adults, you know that" I said. As Sora winced again while I let go and cleaned off the peroxide, I got out a gauze pad and stuff to wrap up his leg.
As I taped the gauze in place, I stood up, "ok little boy, no more water races until that's healed, got it?" I asked, holding out my hand to help him up. "Yes Doctor..." he said. "Don't be a wise guy or you'll find yourself covered in cuts when I thorw you into the water" I retorted, grinning at him, wrapping my arm around his waist as he did the same, "what about Riku and Tidus's first aid kit?" Sora asked.
"Crap..." I said, letting go of him reluctantly as I threw the first aid kit to Sora, "you take" that to him and I'll get Riku's moron self" I stated as I grabbed Riku by the wrists and dragged him to his house. "Ok, no problem" Sora said as he limped off to Tidus's house. As I watched him go, I glared at Riku, who had fallen asleep, "god Riku!" I said quietly, stopping and trying to figure out how the drag him back to his house. I thought about pulling him by his hair, but decided against it. Fianlly, I just went and asked Tidus and Wakka for help, not wanting Sora to do something stupid and hurt his leg again, like he was prone to doing. "Man! Riku wighes a ton, ya?" Wakka asked, holding him above his head as we carried him back to his house, which was easier since we were all about the same size so we could carry him over our head, despite the fact that we almost dropped him a few times.
As we carried him up to his room, since we knew his mom was out at work at the store, we set him on his bed, Tidus and Wakka leaving to go clean again since they never ever cleaned their rooms until their moms forced them. As I picked my way across his room, I nearly tripped over a pizza box tower, "geez, his room if worse then mine and Sora's combined!" I whispered, even though I had already known that. As I found his desk, I snatched a piece of paper and pen off before his keyboard toppled down onto the floor, nearly smashing my foot. 'Riku, when you wake up, go to the Secret Place so me and Sora can beat you to death... Shayna' I wrote, folding it and putting it in his hand.
Knowing Riku would wake up in about an hour, I went right to Sora's house, "Hi Shayna, how are you? Oh, and thanks for taking care of Sora's leg, you know how clumsy he is" said his mom, as she opened the door, "I'm fine," I said, "and it was no problem, me and Tidus are Sora's guardians, he has the first aid kit, and I use it" I continued, I continued, still a little confused about why she didn't know that Riku pushed him like the jerk he could be. "Sora? Shayna's here!" mis mom called up the stairs. Getting no answer, she rolled her eyes and looked back me, "go ahead and go up, he's probably listening to music again" she said, going back into the living room to watch her movie.
As I climbed the steps, I opened the door as quietly as I could, even though I could break the door in and Sora wouldn't hear me since he was both asleep and litening to his music. Double checking that he was really asleep, I smirked and crouched down, pushing an old pirate flag we had made out of the way. Then, as I jumped, I twisted so that I'd make it onto his bed on my feet, not falling like I did last time.
"Wha? Gah! No more make-up! Get it away!" Sora yelled as I fell down laughing next to him instead of tackling him like I had planned. As he turned off his CD player, he glared at me. "You know, it's rude waking people up like that" he said, tossing the headphones onto the floor. "Oh, and sneaking into my room and putting seaweed in my hair, a fish in my shirt and dumping cold water on my wasn't rude?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips again. "No, but it was funny, I'll give you that" Sora said, giving me his usual grin.
"I wonder why I love you sometimes..." I mumbled. Sora heard me and kissed me, "cuz you knooooow I'm adorable" he said, "you wish..." I said, then remembered why I went over in the first place, "come on, we gotta go to the Secret Place to wait for Riku so we can beat his mean little head in!" I said grinning.