Terra pondered the fortune cookie's wisdom. She usually just read them for fun but the message in the one she ate the night before rang eerie in her head. Whatever, people in factories were making up fortunes and writing them to be injected to the cookies and shipped massively to every Chinese restaurant in the country—they didn't have any idea what they were talking about, just trying to sound mystical and deep.
Don Wilson, Bus driver, was doing his morning rounds and stopped in front of the Matters Sisters' stop. He opened the doors, greeted them and their lovely selves before moving on to suburbia. They were inner city. Gail sat diagonal from Terra and Warren was perched in the back, still sleeping in. Byrn conveniently sat herself across from Warren. Rayne sat wherever. She hated riding the bus—she was a senior.
They picked up all the middle class undercover kids in suburbia. Some geeky looking kid perched himself in the seat in front of Terra. She stared out the window and couldn't let the fortune cookie get out of her mind, the thought of it kept buzzing around her brain. After some stops, Will Stronghold boarded (HE decided to ride the bus instead of fly), and his plant girlfriend, or so Gail had described her. Terra didn't see anything wrong with the plant girl. She had natural red hair in pigtails and looked like a genuinely nice person…that is until she saw Gail. The look she gave Gail was of pure dislike.
Since they were the last to get on, they got the last seat left, in front of Gail.
"Hi Will," Gail brooded when they sat down in front of her. Layla crossed her arms and tried her best not to make any trees break through the windows to beat some sense into Gail.
Don Wilson, bus driver, started up the jet sequence to the bus as they took off.
Will started up a harmless conversation with Gail. Layla looked across the aisle to Terra, the other strange sister. She noticed Terra had a retro scarf around her head. Layla was into retro fashion.
"So, where'd you get that scarf?" Layla tried striking up a tête-à-tête.
Terra slowly turned her head to look at her. Yikes, her orange stare unnerved Layla. "The thrift store on Glazer Street."
"Oh, I get my clothes there sometimes," Layla was amused and had her mind off Will and Gail.
"Nice," Terra said. She wished she could have sounded nicer but Gail didn't like her already. For certain reasons if one sister didn't like someone, the rest of them didn't either.
"Hey Layla, do you know where Zach is?" The geeky kid looked back and asked.
"Didn't he get on the bus?" her attention turned off of Terra. Terra's attention was on the conversation about Zach.
"No, he didn't get on the bus after school either. I don't know, it was like all of a sudden something caught his attention," the geeky kid explained. Terra knew exactly what his attention was caught on after school—her. She became worried for Zach.
"His Dad called me wanting to know where he was last night," The geeky kid added, which made her more worried. It was a strange thing, worrying for someone else besides one of her sisters.
Layla thought about it and turned to Will, "Will, have you seen Zach since school yesterday?" What she didn't know was that she had interrupted Gail's attempts to flirt.
"Excuse me, I wasn't finished," Gail said stonily to Layla. Layla sighed and seemed fed up.
"Don't you realize that Will isn't interested, he has me," Layla scowled.
"Well, isn't someone full of themselves," Gail snapped, not appreciating Layla's words. There was a sophomore behind Gail's seat that was holding a Venus flytrap for his biology class, Layla was almost tempted to make it grow gi-normus and eat Gail. Instead she just said 'Hussy.' It was true though; Gail was being impudent, trying to steal Will. Nevertheless, Gail heard and so did Terra. Gail sort of deserved an insult like that, but no matter what it was still an insult. Terra felt her eyes getting glazy-- she tried to fight it. A breeze started up in the bus but Will broke into Gail's fury and tried to get her to stop being mad. Terra didn't hear what was going on she was startled. Everything in one instant could have been revealed if Gail would have stayed offended. Curse her bonds with her sisters.
They stepped off the bus once it had landed. The bell hadn't rung yet. Terra was shaky as she started walking on the sidewalk. What was Gail trying to do? Why couldn't she just choose a different boy to chase after? She adjusted her book bag and looked at her new, hero class schedule. Maybe it was a good thing if she was apart from them. She loved them all dearly, but they caused trouble. She walked past a bench with a sleeping kid on it; she didn't care at first but the bright blonde hair made her notice, stop walking, and back up. His visor was over his face and his legs stuck out over the bench.
"Zach?" she pushed his shoulder. He groaned and mumbled something about 'Wal-Mart'. She raised an eyebrow and lifted his visor up. His eyebrows were knotted. Apparently he was thinking in his sleep. Thinking way to hard. "ZACH!" she cupped her hands and said.
He jumped up and looked around wildly. He saw Terra's concerned, orange eyes and chants of 'Tropicana. Tropicana. Tropicana. SUNNY D!' ran through his mind. He fell back down dizzily and smiled, "EY" She smiled at him. He liked it still. Damn, Terra's smile was amazing.
"People are looking for you. It seems you didn't show back home yesterday," Terra said.
"Oh…yeah. I missed the bus and didn't have anyway of getting home. Unless I would have jumped off the building…but then I would have died." He yawned and stretched his long arms. Sleeping on a bench left him achy; a couple of cracks sounded up his arm as he popped all the kinks.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't jump off," she said and sat down next to him.
"Thanks," he did the same with his other arm and swiftly jerked his neck one way and the other making two sharper popping sounds. "What's up with you? You're shaking."
She looked down at herself. Indeed she was. Her fingers were all unstable and wobbly. The incident on the bus had really freaked her out. "Oh…I'm fine…"she said quietly.
Zach wasn't one to be fooled, even if he was a fool. He grabbed her hand to make her stop shaking. "You can tell me. I'll listen to any advise, monologues, or secrets you throw at me…and I will keep it to myself." He nudged her. He was so nice. She hardly knew him but out of everyone in the school she knew him the most.
She inhaled deeply; maybe she could tell him…keeping it to herself was heavy on her. "You promise?"
His blue gaze widened in surprise, he didn't think she'd actually tell him any secret she had. He'd keep it though. She looked around to make sure no one was nearby.
"Zach, we're a lot more powerful than everyone thinks."
He knew that subconsciously. There was no way freak-a-leek eyes was a strict breeze conjurer, Goth girl a puddle master, and red thug a shocker. He knew they had to do something better. Besides, Terra could produce tremors and now it all made sense.
"Go on," he urged when she was silent again.
"At our old school we had everything under control, but my sisters' tempers are short and once we get insulted…everything breaks loose and a lot of damage is caused," she explained and looked sad.
"What kind of damages?" Zach asked because he wasn't quite sure.
"Rayne controls water, she can cause floods and horrible thunderstorms when she gets angry. When Byrn is crossed, she pretty much torches everything she can and creates a blazing inferno that destroys everything in its path. When she is severely pissed off, Gail creates furious winds of a tornado scale," Terra explained. Zach was impressed and more than slightly frightened. She could tell by his fearful stare.
"Hey, that's neat…their names match their powers," he noticed.
It was true. Rayne made in rain, Byrn could burn, and Gail caused gales.
"So…how does yours fit in?" Zach wondered.
"Terra is Latin for 'earth' and… I can do more than tremors…" she admitted.
Zach gave her a wondrous glance. "I make earthquakes and mudslides…it's a big mess." Well that explained things.
"It's amazing," Zach said with awe, "you all have the ability to create natural disasters, except Tsunamis and hurricanes."
"Oh, we can do that. If Rayne and I use our powers together it'll create a tsunami and if Rayne and Gail pair up, it results in a hurricane." Terra explained.
Zach's eyes were big. He was intimidated of nothing he'd ever been before. He knew one thing: Mother Nature kicks ass no matter what, and he was staring into the orange eyes of a beauty that could control an aspect of it. He swallowed slowly, so his Adam's apple bobbled up and down his throat. He'd keep this to himself for sure; he was afraid what would happen if he didn't. Terra looked at him with sorrow, she could feel his tensioning. But there was more she wanted to say.
"Also, and I don't know why but for whatever reason, our existence is pointless without the other three. We have some sort of freaky connection that's more than love or trust. If one of us gets severely angry, the rest of us will back her anger and that's how the destruction happens."
"Wow," was all Zach could say.
