Chapter 9
Monday
"Alright, it's morning." Ulrich said as he sat down at the table with his friends.
"Not till everyone gets here." Odd said, shaking his head.
"What?" Aélita asked.
"Odd had to work on something last night, but won't let me know what it was." Ulrich said.
"Was it about the voice acting thing last night?" April asked.
"I an't telling." Odd said, shoving his breakfast into his mouth.
"Ug! Did you get dressed in the dark or is this just poor American fashion you're showing everyone." Sissi asked, seeing April's outfit and stopping.
Everyone looked at April's outfit of a pink tank top that had suns on it and a blue and yellow plaid shirt used like Ulrich's style. Her pants were camo cargo and baggy.
"It is my style." April said, putting her hand to her chest. "If you do not like it, than deal with it."
"Uph." Sissi snorted before walking away, Herve and Nicolas behind her.
"Nice." Jérémie said, surprised she was able to stand up against Sissi after only one day.
"You don't really care about what people thing about your outfit, do you?" Ulrich asked.
"Nope." April said, smiling. "I like to be different. It makes me who I am."
"Too bad you can't tell the world that." Aélita said.
"You French people have it made with the food." April said after taking a bite out of her breakfast.
"What's sad is that Rosa took that out of a box." Ulrich said, pointing to the crescent she had just taken a bite out of.
"Ya, but crescents are hard to get over in America." April said. "You guys get them every day."
"Odd couldn't live without his." Aélita said, smiling as the rest of their friend's laughed at that.
-.-.-.-
"Alright Odd, we're all here now." Aélita said as Yumi sat down on the bench. "Tell us what you've been dying to tell us."
"The movie's called Contact." Odd said. "You remember when Sissi didn't like my last movie so much. Well, I finally came up with how the next movie would be."
"And you want us as actors?" Jérémie guessed, looking over his glasses.
"Well...voice actors." Odd said. He looked over at April and said, "I got the idea to do a cartoon last night."
"I know!" Ulrich said. He looked at his friends and explained. "He was up all night working at drawing all of us in his cartoon movie."
"It's only going to be five minutes long since I've never done a cartoon before, but why not?" Odd asked, pulling out the scripts he wrote up last night.
"Can I see one of the scripts?" April asked. Odd handed her one and she skimmed through it. "Why does it have our real names in the spot of the character's name?"
"Because I use real people in my movies." Odd explained.
"Though I like the story line." April said, reading more of it. "I get possessed by some mysterious being who wants to get into contact with you guys. Than we find out that it is a ghost who has died many years before but needs help because his daughter is in danger. You all try to get me from the nurse but find that I have been taken by the ambulance because they do not know what is wrong with me. Yumi and Odd rescues me and takes me to his daughter, who does not believe a word of Ulrich and Jérémie in till I come in saying that my name is Franz Hopper." She looked up at Odd and asked, "How you are going to fit all that in five minutes. It took me longer than that to summaries it."
"Ok, so it might not stay at five minutes." Odd admitted. "So will you be the voices for it?"
A minute past as his friends thought about it and how close it was to what really happened. But since they had had to do a return to the past, no one but they even remembered any of that.
"Sure, why not." Ulrich said, holding his hand out for a script.
"I'm in." Yumi said.
Odd gave them both scripts and looked towards Jérémie and Aélita.
Aélita looked at Jérémie, wondering if he was going to do it. Jérémie gave the smallest of nods and Aélita smiled.
"We'll need microphones." Jérémie said. "I only have one."
Odd smiled as he gave them the last two in his hands.
"I have got one mike with me, and a splitter." April said.
"I'm sure the computer lab's got something we could use." Yumi said.
"Can you check now?" Odd asked as he pulled out one more script. "I need to see if Theo and Emily still want a part."
Odd grabbed his bag and headed off for Sissi's group, knowing how much Theo liked Sissi.
"I'll come with you, Yumi." Ulrich said as Yumi threw her bag back on her shoulder and stood up.
Yumi smiled at Ulrich before the two walked away to the computer lab.
"They like each other, do they not?" April asked, watching the two walk away.
"They do, but clam to be 'just friends'." Aélita said.
April smiled, understanding.
RING
"Well, we better get going to class." Jérémie said, standing up.
"Where is Odd's class?" April asked.
"Don't worry." Aélita said as the three started off towards the arcade for classes. "All of us, but Yumi, have the same classes."
"Nice." April said.
The three walked into Gilles Fumet's history and geography class room. Aélita and Jérémie sat at their usual seats in the center front row.
April sat at the desk to their right and sat her stuff down on the floor beside her.
Not long after, both Ulrich and Odd rushed in right before the bell rang for class to begin. Odd sat next to April, leaving Ulrich to sit next to Jean-Baptiste, behind Odd.
Mr. Fumet walked in, reminding Odd of what today's lesson was about.
Odd leaned over to April and whispered, "You should have it easy today. It's US geography."
"Not really." April admitted. "I do not even know all fifty states."
Odd looked at her, surprised, but couldn't say anything because Mr. Fumet started to speak.
"Today, class, we have an exchange student with us." Mr. Fumet started off. "Could she stand up and introduce herself to the class?" He motioned to the spot next to him.
April got up and went to the spot he pointed to and looked at the class of 25 students. "Uhm, G-Good morning. My name is April Morgan. I am from the US."
"Thank you Miss Morgan." Fumet said as she went back to sit down. "You should have no trouble with today's work since we will be going over the United States. We'll start today with a pop quiz to see what you learned with your homework."
Mr. Fumet past out the papers as April leaned over to get a pen out of her bag. She looked at the paper and saw that it was a blank page of the US. At the top it told them to place in the state's names.
Right off the bat, April was able to get New Mexico, Arizona, California, Washington, North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maine, DC, Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, Colorado, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Rode Island. On the side of the paper she wrote down Mississippi, Louisiana, Iowa-
"Jérémie, is everything alright?" Mr. Fumet asked.
April looked up and saw that he had filled out every one of the states.
"Yes sir. I'm done." Jérémie said.
"Me too, sir." Aélita said.
Mr. Fumet collected their papers and said to the rest of the class. "Hurry up, only five minutes left."
"Ehr." April said under her breath.
Odd put his hand up to his head and whispered to April, "Where is Vermont?"
"Thank you." April said, trying to remember the names. She wrote it down on the side of her paper and looked around the northern end of the east coast and found the little state that reminded her of a V. She pointed to it with her pen as if to say 'here'."
April went back to trying to remember the list when she wrote down New Jersey, New York, Maryland, than stopped to draw lines to connect the words to the state too small for even one letter.
"Alright, times up." Mr. Fumet said, starting to collect the papers.
"This just proves that American schools need help." April said, looking at her paper.
"How many did you get?" Odd asked.
"28."
"Ouch." Odd said. "I got 43."
"And you never lived in America, have you?"
"The closest is Canada."
"Miss Morgan! Since you are new here, than I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn't know there is no talking aloud in my class or any of the other classes here at Kadic." Mr. Fumet said, somehow appearing in front of the two's desk.
"Sorry sir." April said as he collected her paper.
"And you, Odd, should know the rules, you've been here long enough." Mr. Fumet said, turning his head to Odd. "I'll be lenient and only give you one hour detention today."
"Sir." April said, drawing all attention to her. "If anyone should get detention, it should be me. I said something first, almost forcing Odd to answer me."
Mr. Fumet was taken aback by her chose. "Fine than." he said to recover himself. "Then you shall join him in the library."
"Yes sir." April said, looking down at her lap.