Chapter 2 – A Stroll in the Forest

After school ends, I begin to search for Cody. Has he asked Bailey out yet? Even though it isn't really my business, I tend to make any Cody-related problems a concern of mine.

Though my search for Cody is a complete failure, one good thing has come out of it. I found the girl who he was going to ask out to begin with, Bailey.

"Hey Bailey, have you seen Cody at all today?"

"Yup. He was my math partner today. We were graphing Sine and Cosine curves. He draws each arc with such precision."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds exciting and all, but did anything else happen between you two?"

"Hmmm not that I can recall. Why? Did I forget about something?"

"Nope. Don't worry about it." I say as I begin to turn around.

"Well good luck finding him."

Well that was a waste of time. He didn't even listen to me. He must've chickened out. What more does he want me to do? Does he want me to hold his hand while he asks her out? Whatever the case may be, he'd better have a good explanation.

I swing open the door to my bedroom to find Cody, sitting on the vacant bed beside mine.

"There you are Cody! Why didn't you ask her out?"

"Well, I felt like asking her out when we docked at New York would be more romantic."

"Oh, yeah. Because what better way to ask a girl out than yelling above the sound of a city bus horn, right?"

Cody then turns his head down. I take a deep breath. Maybe I took things too far with my sarcasm again.

"Look. You aren't proposing to her, you're just asking her out. It doesn't have to be under the perfect setting. All you're doing is asking her if you want to go out. Just think of it like you're asking her a math question."

"Oh please, I would never need help in math."

"You get what I mean. Just ask her out. Stop stalling."

Before either of us can continue a sound begins to emerge from the loud speaker.

*DING DONG*

"Attention guests. We have now docked in New York. All students must return at nine o'clock. The S.S. Tipton will be departing on Sunday at noon. If you will be returning, please do so at that time."

A smirk begins to run across my face.

"Haha. Well now we're in New York so I guess you will get the location you wanted. Now good luck out there buddy. As for me, it's time to go girl hunting." I say as I confidently walk out of my room.

I can't wait to explore New York.

I slowly walk off the boat. To my surprise though, the city-like slumber I had imagined was but a mere hoax.

I turn around to spot Ms. Tutweiller who seems excited to break away from her teaching career.

"Hey, Ms. Tutweiller. You lied. You said we were going to dock at New York. This looks like a country land."

"No, Zack. This is upstate New York. We got here by traveling through a tiny bay."

"So where are the cute girls? Then again, where are the people around here?"

"This is the country. Around here there are many very tiny towns separated by huge tree-filled gaps."

"Well then, I'd better go look for a town or two." I say, trying to flee Ms. Tutweiller's geography lesson.

This isn't exactly what I had expected, but I might as well make the most of it.

I make my way to the nearest tree, which isn't necessarily a challenging task since the entire area is engulfed in them, and climb up it to search for civilization from a higher area. I begin to look left and right, until I spot Cody and Bailey, walking together through the leafy pathway they had found. Did Cody ask her out yet? The only way to find out is to listen in on there discussion.

I climb out of the tree and begin to run toward them, dodging the leaves to prevent Cody and Bailey realizing I am behind them. The crackling sound they produce would certainly give me away.

As I approach them, I realize that Cody and Bailey have come to a pause. I decide to climb up a nearby tree to be more securely hidden. Once I make it to the top of the tree, I realize that they have continued to move.

*Sigh* Do I really have nothing better to do than stalk my brother? Well I'm in a deserted forest, so I guess so.

As they walk away I turn around to see a figure in the distance. Could it just be an animal? Certainly not. It is definitely a person.

I remain in the tree. Maybe it is just old person from the ship? Or maybe one of my classmates? I continue to gaze in that direction to find that the person seems to be carrying a basket. It definitely is not a person from the ship if they are wandering alone with a basket.

As the person gets closer, I discover that it is a girl. The girl seems to be younger than me, probably still in Middle School. Well, I'm only a freshman so I could still get away with it. She is very short, probably about four and a half feet tall, and has blond hair which is in two cute little pig tails. She just looks like a true country girl if I had ever seen one.

As she walks past the tree I am in, I slowly dip my head around the branch I am on to see her once she passes. After about three seconds of staring at her upside down, I begin to lose my balance and stumble out of the tree. The girl quickly turns around.

"Uhhh who are you?" She says in a rather petit voice.

I begin to stand up with my hand on my back.

"Are you okay?" She asks as she runs toward me to see if I am okay.

"Yeah I'm fine. The leaves cushioned my fall."

"Do you live around here? I've never seen you before."

"Nope. I attend school on the S.S. Tipton and we docked a little while ago. I couldn't find anything to do around here so when I spotted you, I got completely distracted and…"

The girl begins to giggle at my desperation. "How about you come back to my town? It's definitely more interesting than this forest."

"Sure."

This girl seemed a little to young for me to make any moves on. I felt like I was being a little bothersome to her anyway so I didn't want to scare her away with my Zack charm.

"So… what

"So what's your name?" She asks as we being to talk through the forest.

"It's Zack. How about your name?"

"Theresa. Anyway, so you live on a ship? That is so cool. Do you travel around the world?"

"Sure do. I've been to a lot of different places."

"Lucky! I haven't been to that many places before. As you can see, there isn't many places to go around here."

"So what do you do for fun around here?"

"I don't know. I play with the girls in my town. We're all pretty bored so we all have to find something to do."

"Are there a lot of girls in your town?"

"Sure are. In fact, as far as kids go, all of them are girls. Well, except for my brother. He's the only boy in the entire town."

"Haha lucky him. He gets to be around all you girls."

"Well, not really. He doesn't really have any guy friends and we do girl stuff. He'll probably make good friends with you." Theresa says with a big smirk across her face.

I wasn't really interested in making new friends, but I didn't want to tell her that. She was about to bring me to an entire town of girls. So how could I complain?

"So, how old are you?" Theresa asks. I guess she is kind of curious about me.

"Fourteen."

"I'm eleven. But my brother is fifteen. I'm sure you'll make great friends."

What's with the obsession with her brother? I guess I may as well act nice around him since he has no friends. Couldn't hurt, right?

"Here we are!" Theresa shouts as she extends her arms into the air.

I look ahead to see several small houses lined up with a few tiny shacks with store signs on them. It doesn't seem like much, but this town will surely uncover a new chapter in my life!

I felt like it was only fair that I update this story again since I have been focusing on my first story the most! I am planning to finish that story before progressing much more on this one!

Anyway, just a fair warning, this story will be an M/M pairing! If you aren't into that kind of thing, stop reading now! This story might also have some M Rated material in the future, so beware!

Thank you for reading, and please review this chapter so that I can know what you liked and/or disliked about the chapter. ^_^