AN: Hey, guys! Welcome to the first chapter! I hope you enjoy it! Note that from this chapter onwards, the chapters will be written in Toby's POV.
I don't own Gormiti or its characters.
September 7, 2001
I was standing outside the gates of Venture Falls Junior School with my mom and my little brother Nick. We were both wearing backpacks - mine was blue and Nick's was yellow.
Nick wasn't even supposed to be starting school until next year. However, Mom had explained to us that the classes for next year and the year after were apparently too big so they had to make some of the kids start this year instead. This meant that I would soon be sharing a class with my little brother - so it made it easier for me to keep an eye on him and to tease him...sometimes. After all, what were older brothers for?
Mom seemed to be trying not to cry as she practically crushed us in a hug. "Oh, I'm so proud of my boys! You're both growing so fast!"
"Mom!," I whine, attempting to free myself as she starts attempting to smooth my hair and clothes - blue t-shirt, jeans, and trainers - before ruffling our hair and planting a kiss on each of our foreheads.
Just as she turns to leave, however, Nick and I are knocked to the ground by a stern-looking blonde woman talking on the phone. She marches on without looking back or stopping to apologize. I hear Mom rushing towards us and Nick's quiet sniffles beside me as he tries not to cry - Nick always has been a bit of a crybaby and I was proud of him for trying to grow out of it.
"I'm sorry." A girl's voice sounds from behind us. I turn my head and take the hand that was offered and allow the mysterious girl to pull me to my feet. She turns away from me and helps Nick up too.
After we both thank her for helping us, I study her features from behind. She had fair skin and blonde hair that was several shades paler than mine. She wore it in a single braid that hung down her back with a lilac ribbon on the end. Her outfit consisted of a lilac t-shirt, matching boots and blue dungarees.
"Wait!" I ask, confused. "Why are you saying sorry? It was that mean woman who knocked us over, not you!"
She turns around to face me and I can't tell if she's angry or sad as she says quietly, "That 'mean woman' is my mom." I try to apologize but she waves me off.
Mom smiles at her and asks what her name is. The girl opens her mouth to reply but, before she gets the chance, we hear brisk footsteps and I see the woman marching towards us, looking seriously angry. She grabs the girl's arm and starts practically dragging her away from us, all the while glaring at us as though we were dirt she had accidentally stepped in.
"That poor dear!" Mom exclaims as we hear the woman apparently scolding the girl. I see them in the glass and watch as the girl lowers her head, nods and runs inside the school. At some point, I had caught a glimpse of her face - her eyes were filled with unshed tears or at least they were really bright - and I had never seen a sadder person in my five years of living.
For some reason, I want to see her smile. I want to be her friend so I can make her happy. Why? Because, to me, it looks like she's never been happy in her life and she seems like someone who could do with a friend.
The bell starts to ring as Mom hugs us once again. I lead Nick inside the school, both of us waving goodbye to her as she walks away.
We head into the cloakroom and hang up our backpacks next to each other. I see the girl from earlier and open my mouth to say hi when a woman comes in.
"Are you the last ones?" She asks kindly and I immediately find myself liking her. Her brown hair is tied in a ponytail and her brown eyes are warm and kind. She almost reminds me of Mom.
"Uh, I think so?" I reply as I look around. Aside from the girl - whose name I still don't know - Nick and I are the only ones there. "I'm Toby and this is my little brother, Nick."
The woman takes out a sheet of paper from her clipboard and runs her finger down it. "A-ha!" She exclaims. "Toby Tripp?" She asks me and I nod. She then tries to find Nick's name on the same sheet, shaking her head when she apparently reaches the bottom of the list. I watch as she pulls out a second piece of paper and skims through the names. "And here's Nick!"
She looks up at us smiling. "Well, Toby, you're in my class and Nick, you're with Mr. Russberg next door."
I look at my little brother who had started fiddling with his brand-new glasses whilst staring at the floor.
The teacher seemed to misunderstand the situation as she says comfortingly, "There's nothing to be afraid of, Nick. Mr. Russberg is really nice!"
I shake my head. "It's not that, Miss," I pipe up. "We thought we'd be in the same class." She smiles at us as a man - probably Mr. Russberg - comes out of the room she had pointed out to us before.
"Aah, so which one of you is Nick?" He asks and I gently push my brother forwards. "There's no need to be nervous, my boy! I intend to make this year the best for my new students!"
The woman walks up to him and begins a hushed conversation. At some points, she pointed over to us. Mr. Russberg ran a hand through his unruly black hair. "Hmm, that is a problem," he says at last. "Tell you what, give us a week or two to see what we can do about getting you two in the same class, okay?"
I look at Nick and we both nod. If it's the best they can do, then I don't see any point in arguing. "Excellent!" He clapped his hands together. "Follow me, Nick." He addresses my brother.
Nick looks at me and I say, "It'll be okay little bro! I'll see you at lunch, alright?" He grins and finally follows Mr. Russberg inside the classroom.
I was left standing there awkwardly as I hadn't yet been told where to go. My new teacher walked past me to talk to the girl and ask for her name. The girl mumbled something I couldn't hear - probably her name - and the teacher scanned through both lists before cheerfully declaring that she was in her - and my - class.
She walks toward the other classroom and instructs us to follow her. I walk beside the girl, unable to tell if she's still upset from before or nervous about her first day. Maybe it's both.
"Are you okay?" I ask her and she nods slowly. We walk into the classroom and sit down at the only empty desk left right at the back of the room. The teacher stands at the front smiling at us all.
"Good morning, kids! It's nice to see you all here today!" She greets us. "My name is Miss McAllister and I am thrilled to be your teacher this year!" She pulls out a sheet of paper - the same one she had before - and begins calling out our names one by one.
The kids respond with either "Here, Miss!" or "Yes, Miss!" as their names are ticked off on the register.
"Jessica?" Miss McAllister calls out and the girl next to me quietly responds. So that was her name. It was nice to finally know what it was.
The rolecall continued on until my own name was called - I was apparently the second to last person on the register - before Miss McAllister told a girl with auburn pigtails named Dolly to take the register to Reception.
When Dolly came back, Miss McAllister started handing us a blank sheet of paper each. "Now, since it's the first day, I thought we'd start by drawing something fun we did over the summer, okay?"
I reached for a pack of crayons and a pencil. Holding the pencil in one hand, I emptied the crayons onto the desk and began to draw.
For the next hour, all that could be heard was the scratching of pencils and the occasional scrunch of paper. I stared proudly at my work, before deciding to go over it a bit more with a black felt-tip pen.
Miss McAllister eventually clapped her hands and told us to stop drawing. She told us to come up to the front of the class when she called our names and tell everyone what we'd drawn.
One by one, people described what they had done. One dark-haired girl had drawn herself on a sail-boat with an old man she proudly declared was her granddad. A blond boy had drawn himself helping his mother with his little sister who had been drawn wailing and screaming, clearly in the middle of a tantrum.
When it was Jessica's turn, she quietly explained that her favorite thing about the summer was looking for shapes in the clouds. She held up a drawing of herself gazing up at differently-shaped clouds - there was a bird, soccer ball, gnome and a flower. She then rushed back to her seat before Miss McAllister could ask her any questions, looking terribly embarrassed.
At last, it was my turn. I eagerly went up to the front of the class and held up my drawing. "This is when we went to Santalina Island this summer. We go there every year on holiday." As I described each part of my drawing, I pointed to what I was
talking about : "That's me swimming," - pointing to myself paddling in the sea, "That's my mom relaxing," - pointing to my mom on a deckchair underneath a beach umbrella with a big, floppy white hat, sunglasses and a magazine, "That's my little brother looking for shells and stuff," - pointing to Nick holding up a shell with a bucket full of shells beside him, "and that's my dad buried in sand!" - pointing to my dad who was buried up to his neck in sand. A sandcastle Nick and I had made stood not too far away.
"That was wonderful, children!" Miss McAllister said happily. "I'm glad you all had such wonderful holidays!"
At lunch
As I promised Nick, I went to wait for him at lunch. When he came out, I saw him talking with a familiar boy.
"Hey, little bro! I guess it wasn't all that bad then!" I call out and Nick turns around, his face brightening when he sees me.
"Toby!" he exclaims. "Lucas, come on!" he says to the boy who runs alongside him towards me.
I grin at them both. "So how have you been, Lucas?"
The mixed-race boy looks up. He has curly dark brown hair and green eyes. He was wearing a green shirt with khaki shorts and brown sandshoes.
"Good, thanks!" He responds.
"I bet you guys are glad to be in the same class, right?" I ask, happy that Nick has a friend. We knew Lucas through our parents and he and Nick had been in the same class at nursery so he was a good friend. He had often stayed over at our house when his parents had to be somewhere and they didn't have a babysitter available.
They both nodded as we collected our backpacks and headed outside. The sun was shining and there were only a couple of clouds in the sky.
As I sat down and pulled my lunch out of my backpack to eat, I began looking around. While we ate, we told each other what we had done in class - both Nick and Lucas had told me that their teacher was really funny.
I was about to open a bag of cookies when I finally spotted Jessica. She was sitting by herself in front of a tree, holding daisies in her hands, and still looked sad. I noticed the blond boy from my class walking up to her.
"All by yourself, weirdo?" he asks loudly. I watch her look up and ask him to leave but he just laughs and rips her half-finished daisy chain out of her hands, tearing it into pieces.
When I see her eyes well up with tears, I stand up and walk over to them. I tap the boy on the shoulder and he turns around. "What do you want?" he sneers rudely.
"Stop picking on her!" I yell, seeing Jessica look up in surprise. "What did she ever do to you?"
The boy smirks at me. "Oh, and what are you going to do about it - fight me?" He laughs. "Yeah, right!"
"Maybe I will!" I snap as I move closer, both of us glaring at each other.
Just as the boy went to shove me, I felt a hand pull me back. "Ike Pinkney and Toby Tripp, what do you think you're doing?"
Miss McAllister stood between us, holding us apart and looking angry. "What were you doing?"
Ike immediately started trying to blame everything on me, claiming that it was all my fault.
"That's not true!" I yell when, to my surprise, Jessica speaks up.
"Ike was the one who started it, Miss," she says, speaking slightly louder. "Toby was just trying to stand up for me."
Miss McAllister lets us both off with a warning and walks away. Ike runs off after glaring at us and Jessica looks at me, confused.
"Why did you stand up for me? No one else did." She asked and I smile.
"That's what friends are for, right?" I exclaim, looking at her.
"Friends?" she echoes, before frowning. "I've never had a friend before."
"Seriously?" I ask and she lowers her head sadly. "Well, in that case, I'll just have to be your best friend!"
She looks at me and, for the first time, smiles. "I'd like that." She says happily.
I take her hand and lead her to where Nick and Lucas are still sitting. "Is your mom always that mean?" I ask and Jessica sighs.
"Only when she forgets her medicine. Most of the time, she's alright but if she doesn't take it, she gets all mean and nasty like today." She explains. "She can't help it." She adds as we sit down.
After I introduce Jessica to the others, I open the bag of cookies and offer some to the others who accept and begin munching on them happily.
When the bell rings, we all stand up and exchange smiles, new friendships having formed. As I headed back into the classroom with Jessica, I thought I saw a small lizard scampering into the bushes but when I looked again, it had gone.
For some reason, as I sat down, the lizard seemed really familiar to me. I couldn't put my finger on it. Had I dreamt about it?
Where had I seen it before?
AN: Well, that took a long time to write! Remember: any questions - leave a review here or an ask on Tumblr (gormitifangirl . tumblr . com (remove the spaces)) Thank you so much for reading and see you next time!