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Chapter 14

Part Dos

Odd's POV

Sissi and I had actually begun working as a team. It was amazing how Sissi, who I really hated and who really hated me, and I could think the same way. Take right now for example.

With Jim hot on our trail, we both simultaneously shoved aside the guy working the hotdog stand as we stopped to chuck rubbery hotdogs at Jim, then jumped over the bench in front of us and continued to run.

It was unfortunate though, because for a few hours we had lost Jim completely and were free to do whatever we wanted… which meant just arguing with each other. But he had just found us again, and now we had to find a way to shake him off.

"Let's go in there," Sissi said, pointing to the monkey house. I noticed a sign as we passed saying the monkey house would close at 5, which was in about 10 minutes. Maybe, if we were lucky, a big group of people would be leaving the monkey house and we could just blend in with them.

But we had no such luck. The monkey house was nearly empty, except for a couple of small families, and loud, pounding footsteps alerted us that Jim was coming.

Hmmm… with those loud footsteps, Jim might just be able to pass as a gorilla. I wonder if he ever dressed up as one in a carnival or something… I could see that.

I looked frantically around for a place to hide when my eyes fell upon an open door.

"Come on!" I whispered, yanking Sissi through the door. She muttered an "Ow", holding her arm as we entered a large glass room. We heard Jim's yelling, and both leapt behind a large hollow boulder in the corner of the room. How handy!

Jim stormed past us, running through the rest of the monkey building, so we sighed in relief. Then I began looking around.

"Hey, where are we anyway?" I asked strolling around the room, noticing vine-like things hanging from the ceiling and a giant rubber ball on the other side of the room.

Sissi slapped herself on the forehead as she followed me. "Odd, are you really that stupid? We're in a monkey cage!"

"Ohhhhh," I said, coming to the realization when I noticed a glass wall on the other end of the room. A little girl was looking in through the glass, horrified by seeing people in a cage. She ran off to go get her mom, who was looking at the gorillas in the cage across from us.

"Hide!" Sissi shouted, pulling me back behind the rock in the corner.

"Sissi dear," I asked, "why are we hiding?"

She scowled at my mocking use of the word 'dear' and explained slowly as if I were a very small child, "we're hiding because we don't want to get caught in a monkey exhibit. People aren't supposed to go in animal exhibits at the zoo. They get in trouble."

"Do you understand?" she asked, over exaggerating the clarity of her words. I glared at her.

A sudden slamming of a door echoing around the cage we were in brought Sissi and I to our feet. We saw the little girl and her mother were gone, and now only a zookeeper who was walking away with a long chain of keys remained in the monkey house.

He had just shut and locked the door we came into the exhibit in.

Sissi and I both ran to the glass, pounding on it as loud as we could, but the zookeeper continued his whistling as he locked up outside doors of the monkey house, leaving us behind.

Sissi and I were locked in.

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Ulrich's POV

Melanie was still dazed, now trying to feed William a bottle of milk, and William was still out cold. Alarge black and blue bruise now adorned his eye, thanks to Yumi. I was proud of her.

Yumi was sitting on the grass just gazing up at the sky. She looked so serene and perfect… and I didn't want to ruin this beautiful moment, but I knew now might be the only chance I'd get to talk to Yumi without her being able to run away. So, I sat cross-legged next to her on the grass that she was sitting on.

She tensed up the moment I sat beside her, making me feel bad. I lay back down on the grass, looking up at the clouds shapes and sizes. She fell down beside me, settling down to look at them as well. She looked a bit more relaxed.

"That cloud," she said, pointing up at the biggest cloud in the sky, "looks like a dragon." I looked up at the cloud she was looking at, puzzled. It looked nothing like a dragon to me.

"I don't know Yumi, I think it looks more like a sheep." It looked puffy a white like a sheep, at least.

"A sheep?" she asked. I glance over at her and noticed she had raised an eyebrow. "It looks nothing like a sheep."

She propped up an elbow to look at me, as if to argue more with me, but when she caught my gaze she didn't speak. I assumed the same position as her, propping an elbow up so we were eye to eye.

I stared at her intensely, challenging her to break our gaze. She stared back for a moment, but then fell back to look up at the sky again.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked, suddenly curious about what was going on inside her head when she saw me.

She looked up at me for a split second, but then looked away, back at the clouds. "Nothing," she responded.

I moved closer to her, still propped up on my elbow laying on my side, and looked at her. I smirked, knowing she was lying. "So, what is nothing?"

"Nothing is…" she paused, her pearly gray eyes looking up into mine, "you."

"You're thinking about me?" I asked, looking down at her in thought.

She sighed, sitting up. "I don't know what that kiss the other day was about Ulrich, but if it's just some stupid joke, then you're taking it way too far."

I felt a stab, feeling hurt that Yumi thought I would actually take a joke that far, but bounced back as quickly as I could.

"And what if it wasn't a joke?" I whispered quietly into her ear.

She flinched back away from me, standing up. "Ulrich, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you!"

I stood up feeling confused. "Yumi, I-"

"Ulrich, don't. Don't even bother. I don't know what you're trying to do to me, if you're just trying to torture me, or fry my brain from thinking about you so much, or if you just wanted to prove to all the other guys you could fuck all the girls in school, even me."

I took a step closer, "Yumi no, it's not like that-"

But she interrupted me again, her voice faltering. "I don't care, Ulrich!" I noticed tears welling up in her eyes, threatening to fall down her pained face and flushed cheeks. What had I done?

She brought her composure together in almost seconds, something that would never cease to amaze me. She could be completely open with you for your entire life, but then just close herself off from you in only a moment. Yumi had always been open with me, even if it was insulting me, or just sarcasm… she'd never needed to close herself off.

"Ulrich," she said icily, "stay the hell away from me."

And I knew I'd messed up big time.

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Odd's POV

I watched in half amusement, half boredom as Sissi chucked rocks against the solid glass walls of our cage, grunting and screaming furiously. She really could be funny when she wasn't trying.

"What, are you planning on breaking a hole through the wall with rocks to get us out?" I asked with a smirk. She glared at me, and I felt the edges of my mouth stretch into a bigger smile.

We had been stuck in this monkey cage for a few hours now. There really was no way to tell, but seeing as all of the lights turned off except for some dim lights in the cages, I assumed the zoo had closed. Everyone from Kadic must've left hours ago… and forgotten us.

Sheesh, hadn't anyone noticed the amazing, Odd Della Robbia was missing?

The good thing was, we had used a few hunks of scrap metal we found in our cage to break through the chains binding us by our wrists. Apparently they were pretty cheap chains… but I mean, what did you expect from a school anyway?

"Hey Sissi," I said in a slightly bemused tone, "see that gorilla over there?" I pointed at a gorilla looking at us through the glass in the cage across from us.

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "What about it?"

"Isn't it your mom?" I asked, trying to hold my composure. Sissi's face turned a deep shade of red as she glared at me furiously. I burst out laughing, bending over and holding my sides.

"I can see the resemblance," I added through fits of laughter. I began laughing so hard I fell on the ground. Tears began welling up in my eyes.

A hard object pounded at my side, with enough force to roll me over. I recognized the object as Sissi's shoe when I heard her speak from above me.

"Odd, you are so stupid!" she screamed, kicking me again.

I rolled over into something wet and jumped up to my feet immediately, my laughter ceasing. I looked down at the ground to see I had rolled into a small pool of water.

Sissi looked me over and suddenly fell victim to a fit of giggles. I saw the water stains on my jeans and groaned. It looked like I wet my pants.

"Aw, wittle Oddy… did you have a teeny weeny wittle accident?" Sissi asked in a mocking voice. Now it was my turn to be laughed at.

Greaat. My dream of being stuck in a monkey cage with Sissi and being laughed at has now come true.

…If you didn't figure it out, I was being sarcastic.

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Aelita's POV

She didn't talk on the way home. She didn't even look at me on the way home… or anyone else, for that matter. She just looked out the window with that hazy look in her eyes, like she wasn't actually there, but lost in her thoughts. Like how Odd looks whenever Mrs. Hertz talks.

But instead of looking simply dazed like how Odd looks all the time, she looked sad. And her looking so vulnerable and sad just freaked me out.

After the deathly experience of Jim driving the bus home, everyone got off the bus, looking tired. Everyone except Melanie… she looked a little confused, actually. She kept asking where we were, and what time it was. She must've fallen asleep at the zoo or something, because she didn't remember anything that happened there.

A few minutes later Yumi and I were entering her dorm room. I decided I needed to visit her to find out what was going on.

When we got in the room, she kicked off her flip-flops, laying down on her bed and turning away from me. "What do you want?" she mumbled.

I walked up to stand by the bed beside her, watching her curl up beneath her blankets. "I want to know what's wrong."

"I'm tired," she said in an unconvincing lie, "can we do this later?"

"No."

There was silence.

"Yumi?" I asked, thinking she might've fallen asleep.

"What?" she asked, sounding annoyed.

I turned her over on her bed so she was facing me, then looked directly into her eyes. "What's wrong?"

She pulled her pillow over her head, muttering something that sounded like "Mmmphhmm" to me. "What?!" I asked, feeling more confused than ever.

"ULRICH!" she blurted out, lifting her head from the pillow. I looked behind me expecting to see Ulrich in the doorway or something, but no one was there. Did that me she wasn't just yelling at Ulrich? That the problem was Ulrich?

Now I was really confused. "Ulrich?" I asked. Maybe Ulrich wasn't the problem, maybe Yumi was just being delusional….

But she nodded, and began explaining the whole story to me…

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Odd's POV

Another few hours had passed. Well, maybe another few hours had passed… but you know how when you're waiting for time to pass, time seems to go ten times slower than it normally does? So I'm guessing… about 30 minutes had passed since the whole "Odd had an accident" ordeal.

I looked around the cage, feeling anxious about just sitting and waiting for someone to come help us. Sissi had mostly given up on breaking through the glass with rocks, and was now just sitting beside the glass, pounding on it effortlessly.

My eyes fell on some thick green vines hanging from the ceiling, vines that I assume monkeys hung from. Hmmm… but would they hold my weight? It was worth a shot.

I climbed up a high boulder on one of the sides of the cage, reaching up to the vines above me. I tugged on the thickest vine I saw, making sure it was sturdy, and hoisted myself up onto it.

"Odd, what are you doing?" Sissi asked incredulously. I pulled my legs up to the vine, knowing I would need both my hands and legs to be able to climb across this vine.

"I'm climbing, what does it look like I'm doing, Sissi?" I asked, annoyed. She must have stood up from the place she was sitting next to the wall of the cage for a moment, then started looking around for something.

I didn't bother watching to see what she was planning on doing, and slowly began sliding myself down the vine. Wow, I could really get the hang of this! I sped up a bit.

Then, I felt something cold and mushy on my butt. I nearly fell off the vine trying to look around at it. When I finally caught sight of it, I saw a thin green vine hanging from my butt.

"A tail?" I asked Sissi, as she began laughing. She stuck a tail to my butt? I ignored her and continued climbing around. I sort of liked my tail… I wonder if I could surgically get a tail attached to me.

But would that mean I would have to cut holes in my pants to stick my tail through? That would get a little annoying….

The thought of having a tail distracted me, causing my legs to slip down so I was just hanging by my fingertips. "Hey, Sissi… a little help here?"

"DADDY!" I heard her scream in delight. "Hey, I'm not your-" I began, but I stopped abruptly when I saw Mr. Delmas standing on the other side of the glass. Oh shit.

Here I was, in Mr. Delmas's plain sight, hanging from a vine, with a monkey tail, and a huge wet stain all over… well, you-know-where.

Just then my vine snapped, sending me flying across the cage like Tarzan. And can you guess who I ran into, right in front of Mr. Delmas? Sissi. His daughter.

After crashing into her, I leapt off her immediately, apologizing over and over, feeling guilty about her now slightly bleeding skull. Mr. Delmas, who had entered the cage now, ran over to Sissi, helping her stand up as he shoved me away.

"Sissi… Sissi, what happened?" he asked frantically. I shrugged at her from behind Mr. Delmas's back, mouthing, "we're screwed".

But she narrowed her eyes and pointed to me, saying accusingly, "It was Odd. He dragged me in here." My jaw dropped.

"I didn't want to come in here, Daddy, I swear, but since we were chained together and all… he made me."

I felt my mouth fall open even wider than it had before. "Is this true, Mr. Della Robbia?" Mr. Delmas asked. I was too shocked to respond, and he gave me and evil look.

Ohh, Sissi… you are so going to pay for this.

so... bit of drama between Yumi and Ulrich, eh? lol I had originally planned for them to have a little fluffy moment... but I kind of lost control of my story and let Yumi take over. Oops.

I really don't have much else to say... so, review please!!

--bRoK3n h3aRt--