"I still can't believe I have a big brother!" Mike nearly squealed in her seat once Jamie took them to a pizza place.
Lu didn't respond. She sat at the table, fiddling with her plate, waiting to be assisted. She seemed to be very nervous around Jamie.
"Lu, you okay?" Mike turned to the island girl.
"Huh?" Lu seemed to have forgotten Mike had been sitting with her. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine, Mike... Just... Thinking..."
"That you should've given my brother and me some space and you stay on the island being the only kid next to Og?" Mike asked, resting her cheek under her hand, her elbow on the table.
Lu glared at her and rolled her eyes. "Pleeeease... I just wanted to protect my favorite big city girl!"
"Really? Favorite?"
"What're we eating anyway? Your brother's been gone for hours!"
"He's getting the pizza."
"What's a pizza?"
Mike expected her to ask that. She was always the one to introduce the islanders to her cultures just as well as learn theirs. She had shown them hot dogs, she remembered, but she didn't say anything about the best food a kid could ever have in their life. "Pizza is an Italian dish with rich tomato sauce, nearly burnt, but sticky cheese that'll get caught in your hair for probably hours, and there's toppings. Zesty pepperoni, spicy hot jalapeño peppers, sweet and sour pineapple... You can have the pizza deep dish to a crunchy unforgettable taste and get the same melty cheese deep within the crust..." Mike licked her lips, feeling even more hungry during her explanation. "My goodness, it's beautiful... Nothing can make you lose your appetite when it comes to pizza."
"Does it come with coconuts?" Lu asked, sounding hopeful.
"I just lost my appetite for pizza..." Mike muttered.
Jamie came back with a hot at the bottom pizza box. He smiled at the girls, opened the top to show the sticky cheese nearly glued to the top and the steam gave off the powerful smell. Mike sniffed with utter delight and moaned, ready to devour the food.
Lu sniffed too and plugged her nose. "What smells like fish jumping high in the island sky?"
"Sorry, kid, I ordered my side with anchovies," Jamie chuckled. "I got Mike some classic pepperoni and Lu, I don't know what you like, so I got you cheese."
"Awesome!" Mike licked her lips again, her mouth-watering. "Thanks, Jamie!"
"Yeah, thanks..." Lu blushed with a nervous smile to the older boy.
"Anything for my little sister and her classmate." Jamie smiled as he cut the pizza.
Lu's eyes widened. "WHAT are you doing!? The pizza was just fine as a round circle, now you're ruining it!"
"Huh?" Jamie glanced at her from her reaction.
"Could you excuse us?" Mike smiled nervously, grabbing Lu's shoulders. She then went from the booth they were sitting in farther away from Jamie as he cut the pizza for all of them to share. "What are you doing!?"
"He's ruining the pizza!" Lu pointed an accusing finger to Jamie. "Arrest him! Execute him! Stone him! He's ruining the most best dish since Marjorie's pea cake!"
"That's how you prepare a pizza, Princess! You cut it into triangle shapes so everyone can have a piece of the pie!"
"You said it was pizza, not pie!"
Mike grunted. "Just calm down, okay? He's not gonna hurt it or anything..." she went to sit back down.
Lu sighed and went to sit next to Mike as Jamie kept cutting the pizza and giving them and himself a few slices.
"Okay, you two, dig in!" Jamie told them, then started to pig out on the pizza.
Lu cringed slightly at Jamie's voracious eating. She then took a quick look at Mike as she ate her pizza nearly the same way, making a mess at their table. "I see the family resemblance now..."
Mike stopped eating a minute as the cheese stuck to her snub nose and some dripping from her pigtail. "Come on, Lu, I thought you were hungry!"
Lu scoffed, folding her arms and looking away with her eyes shut. "I, the Princess Lu, am far too civilized to accompany you and your brother to consumption of this peasant food!"
Mike looked at her, then shoved some pizza in her mouth.
"MIKE! How, could you-" Lu stopped, letting the pizza surround her mouth. The burnt cheese seemed repulsive to hear about, but actually wasn't so bad. She slowly munched the food and swallowed, licking her lips. "Not tell me about this sooner!?"
Mike smiled at her cheekily, then continued to eat her share of the pizza.
Lu moaned as she ate more and more pizza. "Oh, my gosh... That is... The best thing I had ever put in my mouth!"
Jamie chuckled at Lu, then kept eating his pizza until his slices were all gone. "So, Mike, I heard you live on a desert island these days?"
"Uh-huh," Mike answered, taking another slice. "I live on the island where nobody goes. Lu's from there."
"I thought you seemed different." Jamie looked at her.
Lu gulped the slice she had been eating once she noticed Jamie was looking right at her. "Oh, uhh... Yeah! I-I'm the island princess. Impressive, huh?"
"Island princess?" Jamie wondered.
"Don't encourage her," Mike advised her older brother. "So, Jamie, how come I never heard of you before?"
"Well, little sister, it's a long story," Jamie smiled. "You see, when you were born-"
Suddenly an alarm began to ring.
"Could you excuse me?" Jamie stood up before the girls. They looked at him as he walked off.
"What was that about?" Lu asked, watching Jamie leave.
"Maybe his girlfriend was calling him." Mike guessed.
"WHAT!" Lu whipped her head to the red-headed girl.
"I'm just sayin'!" Mike held up her hands in defense.
Lu hummed, then furrowed her brows at Mike. "Don't joke like that ever again!" she growled, taking another slice of pizza.
Jamie came back. "Sorry, girls, I was called by some friends of mine. I'd like to take you along, but-"
"Please, Jamie, can't we go?" Mike begged. "We're here for the week after all!"
"I don't know if that'd be a good idea..." Jamie sounded uneasy.
"Please, Jamie! Please, please, please!" Lu pleaded. She was even on her knees with her hands together.
Jamie looked at them and sighed. "Okay, you can come. But don't say anything to anybody, okay?"
"Okay!" Mike and Lu promised.
"Good, come on then." Jamie smiled.
And with that, they left the pizza shop. They came across the street to see a bulky older guy with wicked blonde hair, a near beard, and he looked like a comic book geek of some type. He had a white shirt with a red plaid vest on with loose blue jeans and brown shoes.
"Hey, Jamie," the man greeted, then noticed Mike and Lu. "Uhh... Who're the kids?"
"This is my little sister Mike and her friend Lu." Jamie introduced the little girls with him.
"Your sister?" the man raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you had no sister, Jamie. Well, can't you send her at your mom's place or anything? You know this is private business."
"I know, but they promised not to tell anyone." Jamie explained.
Mike and Lu pulled innocent faces to make the man agree to let them come along.
"Well, okay, but you're responsible for them." the man told, waving a finger.
"Okay, okay, geez, you sound just like your mom." Jamie laughed, walking with the girls down the street with the guy.
The man glared back at him and kept walking. "Hello, Mike and Lu, interesting to meet you. My name's Harold Cooplowski, but you can call me Coop."
"Okay, Harold." Lu agreed.
"Seriously," Coop got in her face, with a sharp look in his eye. "Call me Coop!"
"Uh, Coop it is!" Lu said nervously, then waved some of the air before her. Coop's breath was a lot worse than she could imagine, and Queeks back on the island would use bat guano for common products such as toothpaste.
Coop hardened his gaze at her, and put his eyes forward.
"So, Coop, you got Megas?" Jamie asked, feeling excited.
Coop looked around, feeling best they were alone. "Yeah... Whatya say we show him to the girls?"
"Wicked!"
The two shared a high-five.
"Who's Megas?" Mike asked. "You just mentioned this guy and a girl named Kiva in your letter, Jamie."
"Oh, you'll see, little sis." Jamie assured her. "You'll see."
Coop nodded, agreeing with a chuckle.
"Mike, this walking in sandals feels unnatural," Lu mumbled to the city girl as she walked. "Can't I go barefoot?"
"If you go barefoot, your feet will catch on fire from the heat on the sidewalk." Mike cautioned.
"Oh..."
"Sorry, Princess, it's a sacrifice we all have to make."
The girls suddenly bumped right into Jamie as he had stopped walking. They were standing in front of a garage now.
"This is Megas." Coop said, turning his garage door on to move the door up.
Mike and Lu watched. Lu seemed to be the most captivated because she hadn't seen a garage door opening in her life. Both girls suddenly gasped and went wide-eyed as they looked up to see a blue robot of some type with a flame design.
"Megas..." Mike and Lu whispered with shock.
"Totally." Coop nodded.
"Boy, are you crazy kids playing in the garage again!?" a voice sharply snapped.
Coop groaned and rolled his eyes. "We're fine, Mom! We're grown men, now, you don't have to treat us like children!"
"I'm just looking out for my baby and his bestest friend! Does anyone want cookies want cookies and milk?"
"Chocolate chip, PLEASE!"
"Okay!"
Mike and Lu glanced at each other. Jamie's best friend lived with his mother at his age. How rather pathetic.
"This might be too dangerous for you," Jamie turned back at the girls, then took out some money. "Why don't you two go hang out in the mall and we'll meet you there for dinner with Coop's mom?"
"I can handle danger, my role model is Action Guy!" Mike took the money, assuring her brother.
Jamie and Coop laughed suddenly.
"Action Guy!? I haven't heard that name since I was your age!" Jamie laughed a little. "How do you know about him? That show comes on at reruns at 6:00 nowadays."
Mike smiled and took out her Action Guy action figure. "I've been hooked ever since I was five and Mom stopped making me watch those educational programs."
Jamie bent down and looked at the figure. "I really wanted one, but I never got to have one. Things were different when I was a kid."
"Come on, Jamie, we gotta get Kiva and save people, Jersey's a dangerous place nowadays." Coop called from inside of Megas.
"Gotta go, kids," Jamie smiled apologetically at the girls. "We'll see you at the mall later."
"Okay, bye Jamie!" Mike took the money and waved.
"What's a mall?" Lu asked.
Mike took her hand to lead her there. "I think you'll really like it, Lu."
Lu looked at the camera with a worried look on her face.
The girls were then inside the mall, looking at the swarming people all around a store. There were sales on all types of clothes, there were greasy smells in a food court, it looked exotic. Mike knew Lu enough to know if she wasn't an island girl, she would spend every minute of her life in the mall before being dragged off by her father.
"This place is HUGE!" Lu beamed, her voice echoing.
"I just knew you'd love it," Mike smiled a little. "I'm going to the arcade, here's your cut." Mike handed some of the money to Lu and walked off.
"Wait!" Lu cried once Mike was gone. "What am I gonna do without you? What will I do? MIIIIIIKE!" she then found herself bawling that she was alone in a big place like the mall with no sense of guide or directions.
"We like your clothes!" three voices spoke up.
"Huh?" Lu sniffled. "Who said that?" She then turned to see three different girls behind her.
One girl had short dark brown hair which barely touched her shoulders. She wore a pink zip up sleeveless jacket with white short sleeves with a white purse, a light periwinkle skirt with purple dress shoes and white socks.
The other girl had curly blonde hair in a high ponytail. She also wore a sky blue top like Lu's, but had gray shorts, white socks and red and white sneakers. She also seemed to have been wearing blush.
Finally, the third girl had black hair worn down and reaching her shoulders. She had a gray headband on and had on a black short-sleeved shirt with a skull on it that had a pink bow on top of it. The girl also wore coal-black shorts and had black boots on.
"Oh, hello..." Lu sniffled, trying to have a friendly smile. "I am the Princess Lu."
"Princess Lu?" the girls asked.
"Your daddy must spoil you." the brown-haired girl spoke up.
"Well, he is the governor." Lu shrugged.
The girls suddenly gasped. They joined together in a huddle while Lu waited for them. The girls then looked back at her with smiles.
The brown-haired girl came next to Lu and put her arm around the island girl. "Lu, why don't you hang out with us?"
"Why would I wanna hang out with you?" Lu asked, rather rudely.
"Because we're the cool girls of the mall!" the blonde girl said.
Then the three girls struck a pose to show how cool they were.
"Oh, okay, let's do it, girlfriends!" Lu said with a smile.
The girls giggled, then walked with Lu to the dress shop.
"I'm Samantha." the blonde girl said.
"I'm Lauren." the brown-haired girl said.
"And I'm Briana!" the black-haired girl said.
"We're all gonna be such good friends, I know." Lu smiled as she walked with the girls, forgetting about Mike.
A/N: Meet the snotty girls I created for this story. They are named after and loosely based on girls I went to elementary school with. Samantha was the main alpha 'witch' of school and was flat-out unappreciative and snobby. Kinda like Lu... Samantha wasn't even that rich, her father just owned the property she and Lauren lived on. Lauren was a friend of mine, but she often hung out with me and she wouldn't let me come over sometimes because she couldn't be seen with me since I was unpopular and Samantha would be judging her for hanging around me. Briana was Lauren's best friend, we sometimes got along, but I can't say we were friends, like she came to my tenth birthday party, but often bullied me into peer pressure and we were only like nine and ten years old. Anyway! Read & Review.