Remember, this is my first fan fic. If you read this chapter it will get better after this. This is where the main plot begins. Please R&R. Enjoy!
Chapter 3 Where Did You Get This Knife?
The next day at school, Shinju's friends all gathered together in the hall before homeroom. Shinju was late because she decided to spend the night at the palace and missed the bus. As a result, her mom had to drive her to school late.
"Shinju smells a lot like smoke." Sara said.
"Do you think she started smoking over the summer because she was depressed about Erich?" Jenna said.
"Yeah. That's another thing. How did Erich suddenly heal from a
perminate neck paralyzation?" Haley questioned. "That's really odd too."
"She also looks almost a year older too." Alexa declared. "And that huge scar on her back."
"I think that we should go tell the principle, then he could tell her parents who probably don't know that she's been smoking." Sara said, "And I know that her parents will defiantly stop her."
The school was also very suspicious about all the changes that happened to Shinju over the summer and planed on a locker search. During Shinju's lunch time, the principle asked the janitor to open locker 3589. They looked to the inside of the door and saw a Naruto comic of Kakashi, a picture of her and her friends on last year's the end of the year harbor cruise, and her schedule. Nothing suspicious. Then they searched though her backpack and found the average iPod and binders. A Fruits Basket manga, a pencil case, and a hairbrush. After they searched most of her backpack, they went to the front, small pocket. They unzipped it and the principle stuck his hand inside and rested his hand on a handle. He pulled the handle out to bring out the knife with the inscription "Never give up without a fight" on it.
"Hey! Why is my locker open? I swear I closed it." Shinju said as she walked toward the math classroom.
"I don't know. Sometimes, I think the lockers pop open." Jenna said.
"Oh well. As long as no one stole any…" Shinju looked at the front of her backpack and saw that the small, front pocket was empty. She reached inside the pocket to reassure her fears that the knife Zuko had given her was gone. "Fuck!" she whispered under her breath.
Shinju started to franticly search the bottom of the locker, looking through her gym bag, and going through the rest of her backpack.
"Shinju? What's wrong?" Jenna asked. Quickly, Shinju got up and stared at her, searching for an answer.
"Nothing. I just thought I left my… ah… binder at home. But here it is." She answered holding up the binder that was with her at lunch.
"Right." Jenna said in a sarcastic tone, eyeing the binder. Shinju closed her locker with a slam out of frustration for losing the greatest gift she probably ever received.
Shinju couldn't concentrate on the math test that she was taking and had only answered two questions. Instead of focusing on the test, she was slowly burning her pencil and swearing at herself inside. Her thoughts of hate were only interrupted by the obnoxious beep of the teacher's phone.
Damn! I hate that thing. Please let this be me being called down to the office. Then again, it's never me. I'm not important enough.
The teacher crossed the room over to the phone and picked it up. "Hello. You would like Shinju. Okay." Shinju raised her head off the desk quickly to face her math teacher. In surprise she asked, "Me? They want me? What for?"
"I don't know dear, but they want you down now."
"Okay…?" Shinju slowly got up and headed toward the door until she heard sniggers in the back round. "Shut up!" she said to them as she passed their desk.
Shinju slowly started down the hallway wondering what was wrong. How could Zuko give me his most prized possession? How did my locker opened when I know I locked it firmly, and… wait, how did the knife get into my backpack in the first place? I put it next to my nightstand, in my room. And my backpack was in the west wing of the palace. How could it travel that far without me knowing?
By the time she done collecting her thoughts, Shinju was already at the door to the office, about to touch the doorknob when the door swung open and she saw the principle standing in the doorway.
"Hello Shinju. Come right into my office."
Whoa. The principle's office? I thought I was here to pick up a binder that my mom brought from home.
Shinju slowly walked toward the principle's office confused and anxious. She sat down in one of the chairs and looked at the principle with a calm face even though her mind was franticly zipping around.
"Shinju. A lot of your friends and some of the staff have noticed that you have changed in many different ways over the summer that has
concerned us. First, you have defiantly grown this summer. You've grown three inches and look like you've aged eight months over the span of two."
Shinju took a fast, short breath. Stunned at how accurate they were about all that had happened to her this summer.
"Also, a lot of people yesterday notice that you've gotten a huge scar on your back." Shinju touched her back and winced when she felt a pain run through the scar. It made her think how much Zuko's felt. And his was on his face. "How did you get that huge scar?" The principle could see Shinju's brain working hard to try to find an excuse.
"Ahh… Umm… Well, you see, on the Forth of July, my uncle was setting off fireworks and one of them hit me in the back. I had to go to the hospital and have stitches." Shinju completed her lie with a face that looked nervous and scared. She didn't want anyone in this world other than her family and Erich to know about the Avatar World. Sometimes she thought about what would happen if someone found out. A war might break out between the worlds or some other benders and I could be taken into some science lab to be tested on. And also, my friends might not accept me anymore. They might think I'm a freak or a threat. And if not them, their parent probably won't want them to hang out with me.
"Well," The principle said with a look of doubt on his face, "the reason I called you down to my office is because a lot of your friends have come to me and told me that they've noticed that you have been smelling like smoke and thinking that you started smoking." Shinju never thought that the smoke smell would cause them to think that she was smoking. She continued to listen hard at what else her friends had discovered. "So, since smoking under the age of 18 is illegal, we did a search on your locker and found this." And then the principle held up Zuko's knife that said in Chinese calligraphy "Never Give Up Without a Fight."
Shinju's breathe started to quicken when she saw the knife come up behind the principle's desk and he started to examine it. "We had one of the teachers who could read Chinese calligraphy translate it and she said on one side it said never give up without a fight, but the other side says made in earth kingdom. There is no such place called the earth kingdom. Why did you bring this knife to school?"
So that's what happened, the school searched my locker. But I still don't see how it got into my backpack. "I'm so sorry! I don't know how it got into my backpack I swear I left it on my nightstand at… home. I never had any intensions of harming anyone." The principle gave Shinju this blank expression. He could see that she was nervous, but not for the reason that she was nervous for.
"Well, Shinju, that still doesn't explain what this earth kingdom is. I'd like to know more about it." That really made Shinju lose her creativity to create lies, how was she supposed to cover up that?
"Well," Shinju started, "It's this legendary… um… place in the Chinese… umm… religion."
"Okay," The principle did not sound convinced. "That still doesn't explain why you smell like smoke." There was silence in the room for about 5 minutes. Then the principle asked, "Where did you get this knife?"
Sinju's mind completely went blank. She couldn't think of anything, she just sat there silent while the principle looked at her not believing that what Shinju was saying was the truth.
"Well, if your not going to answer to me, we're just going to have to bring the police into this." The principle reached for the phone when, without control, Shinju broke a pipe in the wall by bending the water in one of the water pipes and freezing the principle's hand.
"What the!"
Then Shinju bended more water around his mouth and froze it so he couldn't shout.
Shinju burst though the office door and down toward her locker. When she reached her locker she quickly opened it and got her water casket that she brought with her everywhere. As she ran down toward the back doors, some teachers were looking out the doors to their classrooms, wondering what was going on. When she reached the door, she tried to turn it but found it to be locked. Panicking, she created a huge ball of fire and ripped open the doors. She ran down the parking lot with a bunch of teachers screaming at her, telling her to stop. Among the voices, she heard Erich's the most.
"Shinju! Stop! What are you doing!" For a brief moment, she stopped and thought what am I doing? But then she saw Zuko and Katara's face flash in her mind and thought, No. I can't stay here. It's too dangerous. I can't have all of them, in the Avatar World, worrying about me. I have to keep running.
"I'm sorry, Erich." Shinju whispered and she kept on running to the end of the fence and turned around into the forest and kept running until she was far enough from the school to open the portal.
Thank you so much to DEATHOF1000LIGHTS for giving me my first review. I'm very surprised that I got my first review in one day of this story being up. It took one of my friend about five days till she got her first review on her first fan fic.
