Chapter 7: The Next School Day

"Ok. So, I just found out yesterday that the place we landed in yesterday is called Gorm." Nick explained to Toby while they were at the school cafeteria. "The creatures that we just spotted were called…I think…Gormiti?"

Toby raised an eyebrow at his brother in confusion. "Anything else you found out, little bro?"

Nick steadied his glasses, then continued. "Apparently, from the tomes, the Gormiti lived in five tribes; air, water, forest, earth and fire."

"Right. At least we know about the place and creature but what else did you discover?"

That's when Nick lowered his head in disappointment. "That's all I can find at the moment. All of the books I've looked at said nothing about our current situation."

Toby also felt disappointed. Although they had the first parts, something was still missing like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. What else could it be?

Nick was about to say something when he noticed Jessica and Lucas heading towards their table.

"Hey guys!" Jessica smiled at both of the boys as she sat on their table. "How did lessons go?"

Toby blushed at the sight of Jessica's face. "Oh yeah! Literacy was fine and I guess Maths went…ok?"

Lucas let out a little giggle before sitting down with his lunch. "Ok. Enough with lessons. How did you manage during the storm?"

"We found out-"

Nick placed his hand over Toby's mouth rapidly before Toby could say anything else. "We manged on fine! Didn't we?"

Toby nodded, his mouth still covered by Nick's hand. His words muffled from Nick's palm.

"Um, Toby?" Jessica asked, confused by the muffled words.

Nick felt it was right to let his hand be free which allowed Toby to let out a couple of breaths before stretching out.

Nick had to raise one eyebrow at his brother for a moment. He felt quite annoyed at Toby for almost revealing the secret passageway so he had to gesture him to talk about something else like…

"Umm….we did our usual thing! Playing games in the pantry room. Well, of course I did get a bit of reading time from Nick of course." Toby found himself turning pink even more now.

"Anyway, since we had no power in the house, I just spent my time looking at the window," explained Lucas, skipping over what the brothers had to say. "I wondered why it is just one natural disaster after another,"

"I had the same problem," added Jessica. "I tried to contact Gina one day but no signal! It was due to the heavy rain damaging the signals that were used to allow people to call,"

Lucas listened to what Jessica was saying. The name Gina sounded familiar to him as she always had a crush on him since he started junior high. Although he wondered if Jessica said something about Gina during breaks, if he had the time to ask.

"Do you guys know what is going on at the moment?" he asked specifically. "All of these natural disasters keep going on in Venture Falls and I would like to know what is happening."

Jessica found herself standing up. "I would like to know too," she replied. "This whole storm thing is getting far too much!" She slowly went back to her seat in case she got spotted by everyone else. "There's got to be at something that-"

Nick raised a hand to let Jessica know that the school bell went.

Toby nodded his head and grabbed his school stuff. "Do you two want to come over to our house this weekend?"

Lucas gave the brothers a smile. "That sounds like a great idea!"

Jessica stood up from her seat again as she swung her school bag over her shoulder. "So, shall we see you both then?"

Both Nick and Toby gave them a thumbs up.

"Of course!" Toby waved goodbye and then both brothers headed to their respective classes.

As promised, Jessica and Lucas both came round to the boys' house for weekend. Jessica pretended it was like a sleepover with the boys only expect without the girly stuff she and Gina always do. The boys didn't mind it though, Jessica was the only female in their friendship group so they allowed her to her thing, even if it was quite annoying.

That afternoon, the kids decided to watch television in the brothers' living room. Nick decided that to keep Toby happy, they watched one of Toby's many favourite shows about super monkeys. Everything seemed to be going fine for them until…

"We interrupt 'The Super Monkey Show' to bring you this breaking news."

Nick felt exactly what his older brother was thinking. Upset about the fact that they have to watch the news. Yet again.

"Although we had just experience the storms from the past couple of week, we are getting reports that yet more natural disasters are yet to occur."

"Another one?" moaned Lucas, his eyes looking towards the television. "Since when we did we have enough of these?"

"Shhh!" whispered Jessica, swiftly turning her head towards Lucas, finger on her lips. "Do we need to make it even worse?"

While Jessica and Lucas were talking, the brothers looked at each other, still with the breaking news on.

Toby blinked. "Do you think we sho-"

"Absolutely not!" hissed Nick. "They'll tell everyone else there's a secret world underneath! Let me deal with it."

Toby sighed in a huff, but then suddenly had an idea.

Nick turned towards to both Lucas and Jessica with an unsure smile. He tried to think how he could say something about…

It was then he forgot and suddenly found himself unable to think.

"Earth to Nick?"

The sound of Jessica's voice allowed him to get his brain back into focus mode. He blushed at the sight of both her and Lucas, trying to get him to speak.

"Well…we actually do have something to discuss! Heh, right Toby?"

But as soon as Nick turned around, Toby was gone.