Hello all, I'd like to take a moment to say that I appreciate the criticsm, negative or positive, and I will take each and every review into account when writing new chapters. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 2: Middle School Friends.
April 29th, 2019. It has been exactly one week since Cindy Maxwell and her family made their fresh new start in Los Angeles. And even after setting up her room, helping her parents move the furniture in and actually exploring the city some more, Cindy still needed more time to adjust to Los Angeles; she has to get used to seeing the US bank tower in the distance rather than the Space Needle after all. But despite all that, there is one thing she was excited for, the one thing she marked on her calendar.
"HOLY CRAP, TODAY IS THE DAY!" Cindy leaped out of her bed and flung open her closet door, pulling out her St James middle school Cardigan and shirt from within. The T-shirt was light grey with a shield in the middle that was split into four quadrants containing the schools initials; S was in a yellow quadrant, J was in a pink quadrant, M was in blue and S was in purple. Her skirt was dark purple too. "I have a crush and her name is education." She gleamed as she took off her PJs and put on her school uniform.
"Mornin' sweetie" Cindy's mother greeted Cindy as she sat down to eat her breakfast; scrambled eggs and bacon. Hard to go wrong with that, Cindy thought as she scooped up a forkful of egg.
"Check this out." Cindy's father showed Cindy's mother a cat video he found on Facebook. "Look at his eyes!"
"Dawww!" Cindy's mother cooed as she watched the video before she turned her attention to Cindy. "Are you excited for your first day in your new school?" She asked.
"You betcha!" Cindy smiled after downing her OJ. "Discord friend goes to school and is in the same grade as me."
"Ya see?" Cindy's father said, feeling vindicated. "It wasn't as bad as you thought it was, oh only if you last week could see how you're feeling now." He laughed whilst sipping his coffee.
Cindy laughed before she got on her phone to see the good morning DM she got from Marcy, this time it was accompanied by a selfie of her in her St James uniform. Marcy was a Taiwanese-American who stood five foot and three inches tall with olive skin, shiny black hair that included a green hair clip on her left side. Her eyes were dark brown, just slightly lighter coloured than Cindy and wore eyeliner, much like Cindy. Her St James uniform differed in that it was a hoodie with the school logo on the right side and her skirt was green. She also rocked ankle socks with black shoes. The photo she sent to Cindy was captioned with "This is me with the uniform btw, lmao."
"Lookin' swag!" Cindy DMed her back whilst she finished eating her bacon.
7:50AM. Cindy's mother kisses Cindy on the forehead as Cindy swung her backpack on. "Have a good first day Cindy." She smiled as she bid Cindy farewell. "I love you guys!
"I love you too!" Cindy replied as she stepped into the truck and closed the door, sitting in the front seat next to her father. With a push of the pedal and a turn of the steering wheel, they were now on their way.
"You know, when I started Middle school back in '87, I wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as you are." Cindy's father said.
"Oh really?" Cindy replied, curiously.
"Mhm, I was actually kinda scared. Just before we finished elementary, my fifth grade teacher kept going on about how "oh the standards are so much higher" and "oh they'll put you through hell and back" when actually, it's not that bad. If anything, I sorta just slacked off until the very end. But don't do that!" Cindy's father laughed. "Life doesn't take kindly to slacking off, and I learned that the hard way."
"Damn, can you tell me about it?" Cindy asked.
"Well, one time, I kept missing assignments so much but the teacher didn't notice so I thought she didn't give a damn..that was until she revealed that she was keeping track of who did and didn't do their homework the entire semester. And guess who missed 70 out of 100 assignments?" Cindy's father asked.
"Jeez, guess you got grilled to hell and back." Cindy's eyes widened slightly at the revelation.
"Yep, we basically had a one hour detention plus couldn't go out on the trip to New York." Cindy's father continued. "I sobbed my eyes out the entire time, stuff was harsh back then. So don't do what I did, even if it's not as harsh as it was back then. You'll thank me later."
Twenty-five minutes later, the red truck pulled over in front of the middle school car park before Cindy disembarked.
"Alright, have a good day love." Cindy's father said, kissing his daughter on the cheek before closing the door. "See you later."
"Oki doki, love ya dad!" Cindy called out before her father drove off. When she turned around, she beamed from ear to ear upon seeing a familiar face, a face that made her call out…
"MARCY!"
"CINDY!" Marcy yelled back, running towards Cindy with a big fat grin on her face before embracing Cindy in a hug. "It's so awesome to see you in person!" She smiled."Same here girlie!" Cindy said back "How are ya? Nervous?"
"Not at all, I'm doing awesome! What about you?"
"Feeling great now that you're here!" She took a glimpse at Marcy's backpack. "Uhh, small problem, your backpack is open."
Marcy turned her head to see that her backpack was open. "Oh crap!" She took it off her and frantically searched it. "Whew, nothing fell out this time." She sighed.
Then, the two heard a bike pulling up. The rider was a twelve year old Thai-American girl with brown poofy hair and light brown skin. Her eyes glistened a dark brown, even darker than Cindy's. She was also roughly the same height as Cindy. Her clothing was that of the SJM uniform, similar to Cindy albeit with a skirt that was lighter purple in colour and had two yellow sneakers.
"Sup Anne!" Marcy greeted as Anne parked her bike.
"Hows it going MarMar? And whats your name?" Anne asked them.
"Doin' swag and that is Cindy. Cindy, Anne. Anne, Cindy." Marcy introduced. "She's someone I met on Discord back in January."
"What's good Anne?" Cindy introduced herself, laughing nervously.
"I'm doing pretty good." Anne replied. "Guessing it's your first day here?"
"Yup." Cindy said. "I'm from Seattle. Washington state."
"Ooh, that's pretty cool. Lived in LA my entire life." Anne said, pointing at herself.
"Same here." Marcy said. "Have you ever gone on the space needle?"
"Surprisingly, not that much. Last time I went was when I was te-"
Suddenly, the school bell echoed through the entrance, signalling that it was time for the day to start.
"Dawh crud. Meet us at those benches over there, that's our usual hangout spot." Marcy said, pointing at the benches towards the southern area. "Alright, see ya Cindy!"
"Have a good one!" Cindy said.
"See ya later!." Anne waved as the trio parted ways for now.
Recess. Cindy darted through doors amongst the stampede of 12-15 year olds like a herd of gazelle. She then looked past the corner and smiled upon seeing the familiar faces of Anne and Marcy and…another girl. She was visibly taller; taller than her, Marcy and Anne. She was fair skinned with blonde hair that was chin length, styled into a ponytail and parted on her right side plus a beauty spot on her right cheek. In addition to the St James Middle School uniform, now with a pink skirt, she also sported a blue cardigan. Taking a deep breath, Cindy strutted towards the trio.
"How's it going guys?" Cindy greeted with a smile.
"Oh hey Cindy." Anne said. "Cindy, Sasha. Sasha, Cindy." She introduced Cindy to Sasha Waybright and vice versa.
Sasha smirked. "Wassup Cindy, you're that online friend from Seattle that Marcy met, right?"
"Heya Sasha, and yep, you guessed right." Cindy chuckled. "Been here for a week and I'll admit, this place is growing on me."
"Glad to hear that." Sasha said. "Why did you come down here anyway?" She asked curiously.
"Dad got a new job and that required my entire family to move down here. Felt bummed about it initially but like I said, this place grew on me. Besides, I get to meet you guys up close and personal." Cindy explained
"At least we got that going so it's not all bad." Marcy smiled at Cindy.
Suddenly, Anne got a notification on her phone, she quickly pulled it out before gasping in awe and excitement.
"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODDDD!" She squealed. "SUSPICION ISLAND 2 IS COMING OUT THIS AUGUST!"
"FOR REAL?!" Sasha screamed in joy.
"HELL YEAH!" Anne squeaked. "CINDY, PLEASE TELL ME YOU WATCH SUSPICION ISLAND!"
Cindy paused briefly. "Uhhh, I used to, but I lost interest by the second season. Just not for me y'know." She couldn't really get the appeal of reality television shows. After all, many of them are scripted garbage. Why call it reality TV when it's all written?
Anne frowned, as did Sasha slightly. "Ah well, each to their own I guess." Sasha shrugged.
"Yeah, like what you like, dislike what you dislike." Anne shrugged.
"Have you ever had something that you defended vehemently only to realise you look stupid because it's actually garbage?" Marcy asked the group.
"Yep." Cindy replied
"For sure." Anne added
"Realsies." Sasha said.
"For me, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode One. The saying "rose tinted glasses" definitely applies here. Can't believe I defended what amounts to a ripoff of classic Sonic zones." Marcy shuddered.
"Don't feel bad about yourself, besides I defended Sonic Forces a while back." Cindy laughed.
"I honestly don't think that game was bad." Anne defended Sonic Forces. "I mean, sure it was by no means good but not exaclty that bad. If anything I found the custom avatar thing pretty cool." She gave an awkward smile.
Cindy tilted her head at Anne. "Alright then, you do you I guess. I mean, I gotta admit Sonic '06 is a guilty pleasure of mine. You gotta appreciate it for what new stuff it tried bringing to the table. Besides, the soundtrack kicks ass!"
"True, but cmon' you can't exactly defend the game that has a human kissing a dea-" Anne was about to point out the penultimate cutscene's major flaw.
"DON'T EVER BRING THAT UP!" Marcy and Cindy interrupted Anne in unison.
Recess came as quickly as it went and the newly formed quartet went back inside and parted ways. At least that's what Cindy thought until she entered biology class. As she sat down in the front row, she turned to see Anne Boonchuy sitting in the same row as her. Her face lit up upon seeing the Thai American girl in the same class as her.
Anne turned next to her and beamed upon seeing the Puerto rican girl sitting on the same row as her; in both their minds, this otherwise mediocre class just got one hundred times better.
"Alright, open the specimen container and turn to page 38 on your textbook." The teacher said whilst turning his own textbook.
Cindy opened the container to reveal a navy coloured newt with their chest cavity split open with all their innards in their gory glory. She recoiled slightly in disgust. "Charming." She remarked.
Anne flinched at the gruesome sight, it's one of those times she'd rather be copying from some boring textbook than cutting up a dead animal.
"Anne, waddya want to be when you're older?" Cindy asked curiously whilst she dissected the newts digestive tract.
Anne paused for a moment. "I'm not actually too sure." She said, "I do like animals so maybe something to do with animals. What about you Cindy?" She queried.
"Me? NASA." Cindy said confidently, "Not like an astronaut, but at JPL, I'm a big engineering buff. Michael Reeves and Mark Rober are my inspos."
"Ohh, that's awesome!" Anne grinned, "Like on the Mars rovers and stuff?"
"Yep, and other spacecraft. I hope I soon get to work on Dragonfly, it's going to Titan which is a moon of Saturn. It's a drone that'll fly around and stuff while doing science." Cindy gushed.
Anne however, tilted her head. From her perspective, Cindy descended into gibberish, not in the annoying kind but in the dorky kind; like Marcy.
"Uh huh. Anyway, when is your birthday?" Anne asked. "I'm June 12th. Am a Gemini."
"November 10th 2005." Cindy replied whilst chuckling. "I'm pretty old."
"Ayy a scorpio." Anne said. "Not as old as Sasha, just a month older than you. So, what does your dad work as now?" She asked.
"Construction site overseer or something like that." Cindy replied. "Before that he used to be a site inspector for about 4 years before he found a better paying job and thats
why we moved here. What about you?"
"My parents actually run a Thai restaurant called "Thai go", why not stop by at some point?" Anne replied whilst showing a photo of her family in front of the restaurant.
Cindy's eyes widened and gasped. "Oh my god you have no clue that I am such a sucker for east asian food, it frickin' slaps."
Anne's face formed into a wide open grin. "Really?"
"Mhm!" Cindy said. "My favourite Thai dish in particular is Thai Chicken Satay, it's simply dope as hell."
"Well Cindy Tindy, you are in luck, can I call you that?" Anne smiled. "That, my friend, is one of our top dishes."
"Sure and hell yeah! I'll ask my mum if I can eat there sometime." Cindy said before giggling lightly.
Lunchtime came sooner than they thought and with that, Anne and Cindy went to get their food. Surprisingly, the food was pretty decent; it's a private school so the food was in higher quality than the publicly funded one, afterwards, Cindy and Anne met up with Sasha and Marcy at the lunch table.
"How was Maths for y'all?" Cindy asked before taking a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
"Ughhh" Sasha groaned. "As if anyone gives a crap about standard form or whatever it's called." She took a sip of her water.
"I don't find it that hard to be honest." Marcy added. "You just gotta make the number lower than ten via adding a decimal and then count the zeroes."
"Yeah, but who other than scientists or math people are going to use that in the real world?" Sasha pointed out.
"True that." Marcy replied. "What about you two?"
"We had to dissect a newt." Anne cringed.
"Never again." Cindy shuddered.
Sashas face contorted in disgust whilst Marcy cringed, recoiling slightly. "Hell to the no. I am not doing that." Sasha shook her head.
"Yea I'm not the one to dissect stuff." Marcy also shook her head.
"In unrelated news, who here is excited for the Minecraft aquatic update?" Cindy asked, trying to lighten the mood.
"I'm pretty hyped!" Marcy beamed. "I voted for mob D, it seems pretty cool and much, MUCH less annoying than whatever mob B might be." Marcy scoffed.
"Haven't been playing Minecraft all that much." Anne said. "Updates have been kinda bleh, but this one hopefully should get me back into it."
Sasha yawned. "Haven't touched Minecraft since fifth grade, pretty sure that game died."
"Actually this update is bringing back hype for the game." Marcy showed Sasha that Minecraft was trending on twitter. "See, look at this."
"Hm, maybe I'll give it a shot soon." Sasha nodded her head slowly.
"Speaking of which, me and Marcy might start a realm soon, you two are free to hop on if you wanna." Cindy offered.
"Sure why not." Anne replied.
Lunchtime ended as quickly as it came and with the conclusion of history class, that being her last lesson, her first day at St James Middle School came to a close. Just before Cindy departed though, Marcy came to bid her farewell.
"Hey, so before we start this Minecraft realm for you, me, Anne and Sasha, I was thinking we could also have a Minecraft private server for just you and I, how does that sound?" Marcy offered.
"That sounds pretty awesome!" Cindy beamed. "Can it be modded? With Galacticraft and Tinkers construct?"
"Oh my god, why haven't I thought of that?" Marcy laughed.
Cindy giggled. "Well then, I'll start the server as soon as I get home. Thanks for letting me into your friend group." Cindy smiled just as she heard the all too familiar honk of her fathers truck. "My dad's here, gotta go." Cindy said only to be taken by surprise by Marcy embracing her in a hug. "You're welcome, I'll see ya tomorrow" Marcy pulled away from the hug before she and Cindy departed.
During the ride home, Cindy's head was a stew of emotions; she's known Marcy for three months on discord, had several voice chats with and some video chats too; but never, never in those three months did she anticipate feeling like this when meeting her in person. Her heart was racing, her cheeks were a rosy red and her brain desperately searched for answers; she couldn't be developing feelings for Marcy…could she. Besides, Marcy is a girl and so is Cindy, she didn't really see herself as being bisexual, but reality seems to have other plans.
"How was your first day at your new school?" Miguel asked, his eyes still focused on the road.
"It was actually pretty good." Cindy replied, quickly trying to recollect her thoughts.
"Did you learn anything new?" Miguel asked.
"Well, we did learn more about the Spanish inquisition. That's all." Cindy claimed that this was all she learnt today, omitting the fact that she also learnt something else, that being about herself.
"Did you expect it?" Miguel teased.
"Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!" Cindy snorted. "Dad, during the entire lesson all I could think about was that meme."
"But did you watch the show where it came from?" Miguel asked. "It's from Monty Python's Flying Circus, it was a pretty funny show if you ask me. Shame they don't make em like they used to." He sighed.
"I'll check it out at some point." Cindy noted. She wasn't exactly the one to watch old late 20th century sitcoms, in fact, things like those were the things she prioritised least at the moment; right now, the person on her mind at the moment is Marcy Wu.
Upon arriving home, Cindy went upstairs, flicked on her computer and prepared to set up the Minecraft server. Halfway through sorting out the mods, she receives a notification on Discord.
"Heya! How's the server going?" Marcy messaged. Immediately upon reading that it was a DM from Marcy, Cindy's heart began racing again as her cheeks lit up in a vibrant red.
"I'm halfway through installing the mods." Cindy replied. "I also added Rei's minimap."
"Sweet!" Marcy messaged back.
Cindy could feel her heart rate increase with each passing moment, it was as if every single message sent by Marcy and every single sighting of her was enough to make her "gay panic" as one would say. If simply DMing Marcy over discord was enough to make her feel this way, then one could only imagine how she'll feel tomorrow once she reencounters Marcy in school. Regardless, the mods were finally installed and the server was now operational, just for her and Marcy.
"Wanna VC or just use text?" Marcy asked over discord.
Cindy impulsively typed "Yes. I mean no. I mean…bleh, brain cannot brain." Her mind was abuzz with activity, neurons working around the clock to figure out what to say next.
"LMAO, mood." Marcy replied. "What's the ip?"
" " Cindy DMed back.
"I see what you did there lol" Marcy said cheekily. And within the span of a few minutes, Marcy was now on the server, rocking a Yoshi skin for her Minecraft character. Suddenly, Cindy's cheeks flushed a deeper red upon hearing the all too familiar discord ringtone.
"Can you hear me?" Marcy asked through the microphone.
"I can hear ya!" Cindy spouted out.
"Uhh are you alright there?" Marcy asked, curious as to why Cindy's tone is off.
"O-Oh I'm fine I'm just a bit exhausted from setting it up." Cindy tried to make an excuse which seemed to have worked. The next three hours were spent mining, crafting and assembling a shelter. Their house being a simple build of wooden planks and logs, not too dissimilar from an early game minecraft shelter before constructing a farm shortly thereafter. Their next task was to venture underground to find resources for what Cindy dubs "Cindy and Marcy's awesome factory." Unfortunately…
"Oh, dad is calling me, I have to get off now. That was really fun." Marcy said as she disconnected from the server.
"Oh dear, you wanna continue tomorrow?" Cindy asked
"For sure!" Marcy accepted. "Alright, I gotta go." Marcy bode Cindy farewell
"See ya later MarMar!" Cindy said as Marcy disconnected from the voice call.
"Sweet dreams sweetie" Cindy's mother said as she kissed Cindy on the forehead.
"Goodnight Mom." Cindy replied as her mother shut the door and she drifted off to sleep.
"Huh-oh not this again." Cindy once again found herself in the all too familiar void of space, this time however, the three figures were all staring right at her.
"Ok, what is this? What do you want from me? And why do you keep coming back?!" Cindy yelled at the figures to absolutely no response. Suddenly, one of the figures began reaching out to her; this time it was the figure with the blue spark, and like before, just as Cindy and the figure were about to make contact.
"HUUHH?! Oh ok.." Cindy shot herself awake momentarily before she flung herself back to sleep.