[Ian's POV]
"Uh...Adam? Is something wrong?" I asked him one morning while we were eating breakfast.
He turned his attention away from the Cheerios and contorted his face into a smile. "Nah. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I've noticed that for awhile now, you've made a habit of not listening to me and Martin when we're talking."
"I've been really distracted."
"After school, you just lock yourself in your room."
"Is that not normal?"
"It's not normal when you make no sound whatsoever."
"Maybe I'm just playing dead."
"Adam, you're not a dog."
"You don't know that."
I rolled my eyes. "Fine. You're a dog that likes to play dead when we come home from school. Now stop getting me off topic!"
He just shrugged, a smirk adorning his face. "What topic?"
I facepalmed. "Adam, I swear... *sigh* Whatever."
Adam laughed. "Really, I don't know why you always worry about me. You're not my mom."
"Now you be quiet, Mr. Dahlberg, I will worry about you whenever I want!" I chided in a very bad girly voice.
"But moooooooooom!" he groaned, then we both burst out into a fit of laughter. "See? I'm fine," Adam said.
I switched back to a more serious tone. "If you're fine, then why do you get so frustrated whenever you see those three guys, Jason, Mitch, and Ty?"
"It's nothing," he assured. "I just need to talk to one of them."
"Well, then why don't you?" I asked.
"It's complicated. But really, other than that, I'm one-hundred percent good." We both then went back to eating our cereal.
Joanna came running down the stairs about four seconds later, scrambling to grab her coat and purse. She then came over and gave us both a quick hug. "Sorry I can't take you to school today, boys. Work called me in on my day off. It won't be too much trouble to walk, will it? You know how to get to school?"
"It's okay, Joanna," I assured. "We should know the way to the middle school by now."
She sighed. "Alright then. Just be careful. If you get lost, call me." She planted a kiss on our heads then ran out the door.
Adam looked at me then raised an eyebrow. "We know the way to school? That's news to me."
I shrugged. "I think I know the way. Besides, I didn't want Joanna to stress out about us."
"Alright then Ian. But if we accidentally end up ditching school in our second week of sixth grade, it's on your hands."
"You make it sound like we're about to commit murder, Adam. Calm down. We can meet Martin halfway, if that makes you feel better. He should definitely know the way."
"Fiiiine. We're gonna have to leave now, then."
We pulled on our jackets and swung our backpacks over our shoulders, then walked out into the crisp autumn air. Since it was only about seven AM, the sun was just peaking out over the horizon, and because I was still wearing sunglasses, I could barely see. So Adam and I basically shuffled our way over to Martin's street, which took about five minutes. When we got there, Martin was nowhere to be seen.
"Do you think he already left?" I asked.
"Please. Knowing Martin, he's still in bed, if anything," Adam replied.
"Or maybe he's dead," sneered a voice behind us, making me and Adam jump. We turned around to see Martin standing there, laughing. "You should've seen your faces," he said in his Bulgarian accent. "Priceless!"
Adam walked over and smacked him on the shoulder. "Jerk. How'd you know we were coming, anyways?"
Martin smirked. "Well, it's more you guys just didn't see me. I saw you at the end of the road, so I just ran behind you. I'm impressed that you guys didn't notice."
"Hey, we're wearing sunglasses, it's hard to see!" I joked.
Martin rolled his eyes. "I'm wearing sunglasses too, idiot. So, are you guys heading to school."
"No," Adam replied in a sarcastic tone. "We're just wandering the streets of New York. Why would we go to school on a weekday?"
I turned on my motherly voice again, "Sky, stop with the sarcasm, young man."
"Don't call me that," he replied automatically.
"Wait, you're nickname is Sky?" Martin asked.
"No."
A smile came across his face. "Well, then you wouldn't mind if I called you it?"
"I would actually mind that very much, so please don't."
"Whatever you say, Sky." We then headed off towards school, Martin cracking jokes and Adam getting slightly more angry. I just walked along and enjoyed the banter.
We were about halfway to our destination, when in the middle of a Sky joke, Martin fell to the ground. "Hey! Did you trip me?" he yelled at Adam.
Adam shook his head, then looked at me. I just shrugged. "Wasn't me." A clank sounded behind us, and we all turned around. The manhole cover behind us was moving.
"Do you think there's something in there?"
"I heard that there's an alligator in the sewers in New York," commented Martin. "It's probably that."
Adam snorted. "Martin, there's no alligator in the New York sewers."
"Have you ever been in the sewers?"
"No, bu-"
"Then you have no proof that there isn't an alligator in the sewers."
"Guys, shh!" I commanded. "If there is an alligator in the sewers, we're about to find out."
We stood around the manhole, just staring and the fidgeting metal cover. I'm not quite sure what we expected to see. A construction worker, probably. Maybe even Martin's alligator. Either way, we were not expecting what we got. Out of the dark hole came a flash of blue that pushed the cover to the side, then an orange and blue head pushed itself out. Martin, Adam, and I screamed simultaneously, causing the thing to scream too.
It quickly ducked back down into the sewers, but not before Martin called down after it, "What are you?"
The thing came back up, this time pushing itself all the way out of the sewer. It looked like a fish, but it was standing on two legs and wearing a suit. It glanced around, then looked back at us. "Please don't tell anyone I'm here. I just got out of the aquarium, and I don't even want to think about where they'd send me if they found out how I escaped."
"That doesn't answer my question," Martin said, crossing his arms. "You're like, what, a mutant suit-wearing fish thing that developed the ability to think for itself then somehow ran away from the aquarium?"
The thing's eye twitched, but answered Martin in a tone like he had addressed the situation of what exactly he was several times before. "I'm not a fish, I'm an amphibian."
"You don't look like a frog to me," Martin quipped.
The fish/amphibian scowled at Martin. "Aren't you just the sassy one. I don't need to deal with this. Just promise me you won't tell anyone you saw me, and then I can be on my way, okay?"
"We won't tell anyone," I promised, "but where does a talking fi...err…amphibian fugitive go?"
His face softened a bit. "Honestly, that part I'm just kinda winging at this point. I'm just looking for a friend, and hoping he'll help me in some way. If he can't I'll just make a beeline for the ocean, and hopefully not get caught by some miracle."
"Is your friend also a...uh...whatever you are?" Adam asked.
"Mudkip, and no. He's human."
"Well then, what's his name? We might be able to help you find him."
The mudkip looked at us suspiciously. "Why should I trust you guys?"
"Yeah, why should he trust us?" Martin asked.
Adam punched him in the arm. "Because we're not all like you, Martin. I can understand if you don't want to trust us Mr. mudkip thing, but it sounds like you don't have much of a plan. We won't tell your secret, and we could help you. But if you don't want our handouts, we get it."
We were all silent for a second, waiting for the mudkip's answer. Finally, he nodded and said, "My friend's name is Jason, and he hangs out with this kid named Ty a lot. Any chance you know him?"
Martin, Adam and I all looked at each other, then burst out into laughter. "Lucky for you, we happen to be in the same class as both of them," I told him.
The mudkip smiled. "Really? That's great! I'm Husky, by the way."
He stuck out his hand, and we each shook it. "I'm Ian."
"Adam."
"Martin. Nice to meet you, mister fish."
Husky glared at Martin. "I don't like you."
Martin smiled and shrugged. "I guess not many people can handle this much awesomeness."
"Uh...guys?" Adam said. "It's five to eight. School starts in five minutes, and we're still fifteen minutes away."
Martin muttered a cuss. "Well then, let's go!" All four of us then rushed towards the school.
The old red brick school was just across the street, but we were hiding behind some bushes in front of a random house, talking to Husky about how we were going to hand him over to Jason.
Husky was going over the plan for the thousandth time. "Okay, so you guys go into school, do your thing for eight hours while I sit here silently so I don't get found, and then you come out with Jason and Ty to come and get me."
Adam rubbed his temples. "Yes, that is the plan. Now do you understand?"
"...I think so. Just let me go through it one more time."
Martin groaned. "Seriously? You have the easiest part of this entire thing! And we're already like, half an hour late!"
Husky smirked. "Yep. Consider it a bit of revenge for earlier, Martin."
Martin laughed. "Toché. But really, can we go now?"
Husky nodded. "Yeah. But if anyone ends of finding me, don't be surprised if you see a mudkip knocking on your classroom window."
"Okay. See you Husky," I called.
We all slipped out of the bushes, then proceeded to run into the school office. The secretary, a scary old lady with a glare that could scare a demon, shot a look at us when we walked in. "And where have you boys been?"
Adam, who was probably the best talker out of us all, turned on his best apology smile. "Sorry ma'am. It was our first day walking alone today, and we kinda got lost."
She glared at us like she was contemplating whether or not he was telling the truth, then finally grunted and turned back to her computer. "Don't let it happen again."
We all scuttled to our first hour classes, separating us in the process. My first hour was art, and conveniently, Jason is in it. I walked into the art room, gave my excuse to my teacher, then sat down at my seat. I took out my still life drawing (because our teacher is so original), then waited until the teacher told us to walk around the room to look at other people's pieces. I walked over to where Jason was and tapped him on the shoulder. "Psst! Hey!"
He turned around, and smiled at me. "Oh, hey Ian. What's up?"
"I need you and Ty to meet me outside the office after school."
"Uh...okay. Why?"
"I just need to show you guys something. I'll explain later." I went back to my spot at the table, then began to work on my piece while Jason looked at me weirdly from the opposite end of the room. I smiled to myself. Being all secretive and stuff made me feel like a CIA agent or something. A CIA agent protecting a talking suit-wearing mudkip. Seems pretty normal for a CIA agent.
The final bell rang, releasing a wave of middle schoolers from their last class of the day. Martin, Adam, and I met up at our lockers, then headed out to the front office where Jason and Ty along with Mitch, were waiting.
"Alright," Jason said, crossing his arms, "what did you want to show us?"
I gestured for them to follow, then we walked out to the bushes Husky was hiding in earlier. We pushed back the brush, but the amphibian was nowhere to be seen.
"So you brought us out here so we could look at some bushes?" Ty asked me.
"No," I muttered. "He was here this-"
"Hey! Mitch!" A new voice called. All six of us turned around to see a fuzzy thing that looked like Chewbacca, but he was wearing a suit. What is with these weird creatures and wearing suits? He had a huge smile on his face as he approached us from around the corner.
Mitch and Jason looked shocked, and the rest of us were just confused."Jerome?!" Mitch called. "What are you doing here?
"I got bored hanging out in the backyard," he said, "so I came out to see what this school thing was all about, when I found the biggest fish I've ever seen in my life!"
"I'm an amphibian, you furry ingrate!" Shouted a voice behind him. Crap. Husky.
Jerome pulled out the blue mudkip out from behind him, his hands and legs tied together. Jerome rolled his eyes. "A very rude fish at that."
Jason and Ty's eyes widened. "Husky?"
Husky smiled as best he could. "Heeey, guys. You know this thing? Good. Can you ask him to let me go?!"
"Is this what you wanted to show us" Jason asked me.
I nodded. "Well, minus furry man over there."
Mitch crossed his arms. "Okay, first Jerome, release the fish. Second, I want an explanation. How do you guys know this thing?"
"How do you know Chewbacca over here?" Ty asked.
"Call me Chewbacca again and I won't release him," Jerome mumbled.
"We all have some stuff to explain," I said, then looked over at Adam, remembering that he wanted to talk to one of these guys. He shook his head and mouthed not now.
I looked around at the little group of six people and two animals. "Alright, you first, Jerome. I'm curious about how you even exist, so get talking."
