Ok, I had dealt with weird kids before, but by the end of the day I was thinking what the heck, man?! I had never met kids like this before and I sort of wish I never had, though fate seemed to be in a bad mood and decided to screw up my day just for the hell of it. It was as if life said "Well, time to make Alice's day worse than it was probably going to be!" . Love you too, Life.
When I got on the bus for school that morning, I was still rubbing sleep out of eyes and my mind was still reeling over the dream about the Arceus. I didn't even notice the boy in the seat next to me until we hit a bump in the road and he grabbed my arm to balance himself. I jumped in surprise and yanked my arm away, looking up at his face as I did so.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay?" he took my arm in his hands and I studied his features. He had pale skin and medium length black hair that swung down into his reddish-brown eyes. He smiled and examined my arm, inspecting it to see if I had gotten hurt. My cheeks grew warm and I slipped my arm out of his grip.
His eyes glittered happily as he stuck his hands into his khaki pants, "Well it looks like you're fine! I apologize again for grabbing you like that. By the way, I'm Nicky. I didn't catch your name, so would you mind telling me?"
"…Alice. It's nice to meet you." I was reluctant to tell my name to a complete stranger, but he told me his, so I didn't want to be rude.
"Alice…that's a lovely name." he said, grinning "Do pardon me Miss Alice, but have you seen any white rabbits around here? I've been expecting one, and he seems to be late for this very important date."
I rolled my eyes; people have used that joke on me a million times before, but for some reason I couldn't suppress a smile. I wonder why that is? The question popped into my head but it was immediately pushed to the corner of my mind.
"So Nicky, I don't think I've ever seen you at this school before. Did you just move here?" I decided it was a good time to strike up a conversation, especially since I really had never seen him in the area and I knew most everyone in town.
He leaned back in his seat, scrunching up his black and silver sweater vest, "I suppose you could say that. Let's just say I'm not from around here." His gaze was distant; he was obviously thinking about where he was from. I wanted to ask more about it, but I didn't try to because the way he worded it made me think he didn't want to talk about his home at the moment.
We sat in silence during the remainder of the bus ride. When we finally got to the school, I got off and started to walk to class, but a hand grabbed me. I turned and to find Nicky smiling behind me.
"Hey, I think I have the same classes as you. Can you show me the way to homeroom?"
"Sure." I led him down the hall to Ms. Kitty's classroom, "Ms. Kitty is our homeroom and math teacher. I will help you find the other classes when the bell rings."
"Ok, thanks."
We walked into the class and towards the back of the room where my desk was. I pointed to an empty desk across from me and Nicky sat down. He pulled out a journal and a pencil and began to write down the assignment on the board. I decided I should probably do the same and I took my book out of my back pack.
I scribbled down the assignment quickly, poking my head up every now and then to make sure I had spelled everything right. Then I heard a chorus of girly giggles and I lifted my head to see Purrlisha, Gabby and Gracie strut through the door. Purrlisha paused when she saw me, then turned to the twins and whispered something. They suppressed another round of giggles as they looked me up and down.
I felt my cheeks grow hot as I stared down at my T-shirt; I didn't realize I had grabbed my old Teen Titans shirt as I rushed to get dressed this morning. I was surprised Nicky hadn't said anything about it. Speaking of Nicky, Purrlisha was now staring at him from across the room. However, it wasn't that hungry look she usually gave new boys; it was more of a suspicious look. She narrowed her eyes at him then turned back to talk to Gabby. My stomach started feeling weird; something about that look didn't seem good to me.
"Hey, Doom!" A voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I turned to see two girls walking towards Nicky and me. He looked up from his writing and grinned. They stopped in front of his desk, smiling warmly.
"Hey there, girls! How's it goin'?" He got up and started chatting quietly with them. Judging by the way they chose their words, I guessed they were talking about something important. Then Nicky turned to me "And this is Alice!"
Both the girls turned to me and smiled. I smiled back nervously "Hello, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too." The girl on the left held out her hand, which I shook awkwardly. Her blue-gray eyes sparkled with delight as she took her hand out of mine and brushed her auburn hair out of her face. She was kind of short with remarkably pale skin wearing a purple-plaid button-down shirt and a turquoise hoodie.
I turned to the other girl who had dirty caramel hair and bright blue eyes. She smiled, and as she shook my hand, it felt like her eyes were staring right through me, looking into my soul. It wasn't a bad look, but it made me feel funny. I felt a tingle go up my arm and I pulled my hand back, the look in her eyes fading. She was pretty in a dark kind of way; her long hair flowed out over her black t-shirt and her jeans were laced with little designs.
"Alice," Nicky pointed to the first girl "this is New Moon," he pointed to the girl in black "and this is Ramagious. New Moon and Ramagious, this is Alice".
New Moon? Ramagious? Those are their names? "Uh, cool. So, you guys know each other?"
"We're siblings," New Moon glanced at Nicky.
Siblings!? But they don't even look alike! I pushed the thought aside; I wasn't going to question it. If they say they're siblings, then I guess I have to believe them.
"Oh. So you all just moved here, huh? Was there any particular reason?"
"Yes. We heard there was something 'special' in this town and we wanted to see what it was." Ramagious spoke for the first time, her long hair curling over into her eyes. She brushed it casually away.
Special? I thought, what on Earth does that mean?
"Anyway, I'm glad you guys could get here!" Nicky turned to the girls and smiled, "I thought you weren't going to make it!"
Ok, now I was really confused; he talked like he didn't think they were coming to school. Surely if they were siblings they lived together and would know whether or not they were going somewhere, right? And why didn't they ride the bus? Definitely suspicious, especially considering the events of the past few days. I gave my head a little shake to scatter those thoughts; I wasn't going to let my day be ruined by totally weird stuff like that. Or so I had thought.
New Moon and Ramagious (still really strange names) chatted with Nicky for a few more minutes until the bell rang for class to start. We sat through most of math without saying anything, and when the bell rang to switch classes, Nicky and I shuffled out the door behind the other students. I showed him to his locker (a few down from mine) and we switched books to get ready for social studies class. The girls told us they had classes elsewhere and took off in the opposite direction.
Too bad, I thought, they seemed nice, and I'm sure they would make Nicky feel better if they were in the same class. Oh well. I shrugged and escorted Nicky to the next class.
"HEY!" I jumped when a voice greeted me as I walked through the door. A girl in a pink flowery top and white jeans ran right past me and stopped when she got to Nicky.
"OMG, Doom! Hiiiiiiii!" She grinned larger than I had ever seen anyone smile before in my life as she bounced on the tips of her toes. Her big green eyes sparkled excitedly.
Nicky smiled really big "Oh, hey Meadow! Nice to see you!"
What? He knows her, too!? This day just keeps getting stranger…
"Come on, we already picked a seat for you!" Meadow grabbed Nicky by the hand and practically dragged him to a desk in the corner of the room where two other kids were waiting for him. I walked over as he chatted with them: Meadow stood next to a medium height boy with short, brown, fuzzy hair and a blue t-shirt with some sort of shell on it, while on her other side was a tall girl with short, dark hair and a red and black sweatshirt.
They turned to look at me as I stopped beside Nicky. Meadow bounced on her heels, the girl grinned about as big as Meadow had, and the boy nodded and stuck his hands into his pants pockets.
"Alice," Nicky waved his hand at the kids, "these are my sisters Meadow and Arya, and this is my brother Mikey."
"Wait, they're your siblings, too!?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Sure, New Moon and Ramagious might be his sisters, but all these kids, too? How is that possible? I rubbed my forehead; I got a headache just thinking about it.
Nicky chuckled. "Well, yes. But I understand your confusion. You see, we aren't biologically related."
Oh, of course! I felt like an idiot. What was I thinking? "Oh, so were you guys adopted or…?"
"I guess you could say that," Arya said, glancing at Meadow and Mikey, "We grew up together and had the same dad so, yeah I guess so." I noticed she hesitated on the word 'dad'. I take it they don't like to talk about their relationship with their father.
"Cool. By the way, I'm Alice," I shook each of their hands in turn, "Um, by the way, just how many siblings do you have?"
Nicky thought about this for a couple seconds, then said "A lot."
"Really?" I asked; does he really have so many brothers and sisters that he has forgotten how many he actually has? Sheesh, and I just have one brother and sister. Who knows what it's like to have so many you've lost count.
Nicky looked like he was going to say something else, but he was interrupted by the loud ringing of the bell. I found my seat (now next to Arya's) as the teacher passed out worksheets for us to work on while he graded our quizzes from the other day. In other words, busy work. I sighed; yay me!
I wrote furiously; I wanted to be done with this work as soon as possible. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arya lean over and whisper something to Nicky. Being curious as always, I leaned over to listen in. I know it's not polite, but honestly, with the things that have been going on, I sort of had to. I could only hear bits and pieces, so I leaned closer, just far enough so they wouldn't notice.
I looked at them out of the corner of my eye; Arya and Meadow had both leaned over and were whispering hurriedly to Nicky. Mikey was reading quietly but still seemed to be listening to the conversation.
"So, what do you think? Do you think she's 'it'?" Arya whispered. Nicky nodded and glanced at me. I quickly averted my eyes and stared down at my paper to pretend I was doing my work. I felt his gaze leave me and he turned back to the group.
"Good, I don't want to have to go here longer than I have to." Arya paused to look around, "This school is so tiny and the hallways are too skinny; it gets crowded. I had to climb through an air vent to make it to first period this morning!"
Meadow giggled at Arya's last comment, but I felt my heart pounding in my chest thinking about what she said. The way she was talking about someone being "it", and when Nicky looked at me like I was the person they were talking about. It just made my stomach turn. And what the heck was the air vent thing about!?
I've had just about enough of this stuff. First the Arceus, and now this? I swear, life just likes making me as confused as possible.