Shooting Star
Chapter 1: Shock
February.
An ordinary month among many other months.
The month when something unexpected happened.
A certain classroom in the Springdale Elementary School, precisely the Class 5-1, was currently having a history lesson.
"As the number of railroads increased, people were able to transport more products to their destination than what had been possible by using just horse carriages," Mr. Smith read from the book while standing in front of the class. "Human passengers weren't immediately taken on board because there weren't suitable seats for them yet. Besides, some people were afraid of the train's speed and it was even claimed that the speed would have negative impact on human health."
A sound of bell ringing made students turn their attention at the clock on the classroom's wall. Mr. Smith glanced at the clock as well.
"That was everything for today," Mr. Smith stated as he closed the book. "Do the excercises from 1 to 4 in the book. We'll continue the rest of the chapter next time. See you tomorrow."
The students began quickly collecting their school supplies before leaving the classroom.
"Hey, Isabel. Do you have anything important to do right now?" Chloe asked with a smile as Isabel, Sydney and she walked down the stairs with other students. "I thought that we could go shopping."
"I have nothing important to do, so sure. Let's go shopping," Isabel agreed calmly.
"Great! I saw a wonderful dress that seemed like it was made for you on the website of a certain clothing store yesterday, Isabel," Sydney told eagerly as the girls arrived at the bottom floor and headed towards the door.
"I'm looking forward to see that dress," Isabel replied with a smile as they passed two girls who were standing next to the wall and chatting.
Just when the trio had passed the girls, one of the girls, who had blonde hairs tied in ponytail, said with a loud voice: "Do you know what I hate the most in the world? Rich, spoiled little snobs."
Her friend, a girl with brown shoulder-lenght hairs, grinned. "Same here. They think they're something special just because they have a rich daddy but they can't do anything else but waste their daddy's money and look pretty."
Isabel's eyes widened as she stopped. Were those girls talking about her?
"True," blonde haired girl continued with a smirk. "Spoiled little princesses never do anything useful."
"Hey!" Chloe snapped as Sydney and she turned to glare at the girls. "Isabel has done many useful things! She's our class president!"
"Yeah! And in addition of that she visits different charity events with her family!" Sydney added sharply.
However, the girls didn't stay to listen Isabel's friends until the end but instead they headed towards the door, chuckling together.
Isabel and her friends watched as the two girls left the school building, Chloe and Sydney glaring and Isabel with unhappy expression. Isabel didn't know those girls but since they were taller than Isabel and her friends, she concluded that they were from the sixth grade.
"Geez. Those two were such a jerks," Chloe huffed while holding her hands on her hips.
Isabel said nothing. She just walked sadly to her locker to get her jacket.
While they were walking home, Isabel tried to focus on the conversation about their shopping trip with Chloe and Sydney but the girls from before and their words forced themselves back into her mind.
"They think they're something special just because they have a rich daddy but they can't do anything else but waste their daddy's money and look pretty."
"Spoiled little princesses never do anything useful."
"-bel? Isabel?"
Isabel snapped out of her thoughts before turning her attention back at her friends who were staring at her expectantly. "Oh, sorry. I was in my thoughts," she apologized.
"Are you feeling unwell?" Sydney gasped worriedly.
"No, no. Nothing like that," Isabel assured with a slight wave of her hand. "How about we get something to drink from Everymart?"
Chloe and Sydney's faces brightened.
"Oh, Isabel! You're always so thoughtful!" Chloe praised.
Isabel smiled at her friends before the girls headed in the direction of Everymart.
As they arrived at Everymart, the girls were greeted by an unexpected sight. An unusually large amount of candy wrappers, plastic wraps, juice bottles and other kinds of trash had been scattered in front of the store.
"How disgusting," Sydney noted with grimace.
"This wouldn't be accepted in Everymart in Breezy Hill," Chloe snorted in disgust.
"True. It's sad that some people still don't bother to put their trash in the trash bin," Isabel agreed with displeased expression. "But... Let's just try not to step on trash while we're here."
Isabel took a couple of steps forward before she suddenly stopped as Isabel felt her foot hitting a soda can she hadn't noticed, causing the can to fly a short distance forward.
"Oh! Sorry."
It was then when Isabel and her friends noticed Nate who hurried to the can and picked it up.
"I didn't notice this," Nate said to the girls before tossing the can into the trash bag he was holding in his hand. After this Nate walked away in the direction of Bear and Eddie who were collecting trash a short distance away.
Isabel stared at the boys when she suddenly felt Chloe grabbing her arm.
"Let's go get the drinks quickly so we don't have to be in this environment for long," Chloe said as she began leading Isabel towards the door of Everymart.
"Yeah. Who know what kind of bacteries these trash have," Sydney added with disgusted expression.
Just when they had reached the door, Isabel glanced once more in the direction of Nate and his friends. "I know those boys. They're from our school," she thought as she watched the boys working before glancing around. "It must be really hard work to collect all this trash. Should we offer to help them?"
These were Isabel's last thoughts before she was pulled into the store and the door closed after the girls.
"My, my. Seems like every cloud indeed has a silver lining," Whisper commented cheerfully while floating in the air.
Nate rose his gaze at his yo-kai butler. "What do you mean? I don't see anything good in this situation."
"But cleaning up the front of the store gives a good impression of you and some people have already noticed it," Whisper informed.
Nate's eyes widened. "Like who?"
"Well, like those girls who just entered the store. Especially that blonde, fancy looking girl glanced in your direction a couple of times."
"Oh. You mean Isabel and her friends."
Whisper's invisible eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you know her? And you have never mentioned her to me?"
"Isabel is from the class next door to mine and at least half of our school know her because she's so rich and popular. And the reason why I have never mentioned her to you is because we have never talked with each others," Nate explained casually.
"Oh… Perhaps I overestimated the positive impression you were giving," Whisper thought aloud. "After all, when considering your averageness-"
"Hey! Don't forget that I befriended with Buck and Dorothy when we were in BBQ," Nate reminded Whisper with a glare but soon his expression turned thoughtful. "Although, Isabel seems to be pretty different compared to Dorothy. She seems so distant and serious. I'm pretty sure we don't have anything in common that would make us friends."
"Hey, Nate!"
Hearing his name called, Nate turned his attention in the direction of Bear and Eddie who were standing in the store's parking lot.
"What are you doing there? There's still so much trash to collect!" Bear shouted.
"Coming!" Nate replied as he hurried to his friends, followed closely by Whisper, while thinking sourly to himself: "Darn Messyrai… Causing this mess with his Inspiration and then leaving it for us to clean it up."
"I knew that that dress would be perfect for you!" Sydney praised as the girls stepped out of the clothing store with their shopping bags.
"You looked like a princess!" Chloe completed eagerly.
"Thank you," Isabel thanked her friends. But as she glanced at the clothes she had just bought in the shopping bag, a rose patterned white and pink dress Sydney had showed her at the top, Isabel thought with a slight frown on her face: "I didn't actully need these. I already have so many clothes at home. But… I don't want to hurt their feelings…"
"Let's go to the shoe store next, Isabel," Sydney proposed.
"Sure," Isabel replied with a smile but inside her mind she thought little unsurely: "I don't need any more shoes either…"
"Hold on, Sydney. The shoe store of this place is currently closed due to the store's electrical works," Chloe reminded suddenly.
"Oh yeah! I completely forgot about that," Sydney gasped before she fell silent thoughtfully. "There is that another shoe store in this area but it's located a short distance away from the central station. It will be a bit of walk."
"It's okay for me if you want to go there," Isabel stated calmly.
"Okay. Let's go then," Chloe decided.
The girls walked along the Sunset Mall's corridors, passing different stores and going around people as they headed towards one of the doors of the mall. But when the girls were passing a book store, Isabel suddenly stopped.
Among many books in the display window there was a picture book with many people wearing different professional clothes on the white cover. The book's title, written with big red letters, was 'What am I going to be when I grow up?'
As she studied the cover of the picture book, Isabel remembered a moment in the schoolyard some time ago. Isabel and her friends had been sitting on the bench and chatted when Isabel had noticed Hailey and Jessica a short distance away from them.
"When I grow up, I'll go to work at NASU!" Hailey had announced in her usual lively way as she bumped her fist towards the sky.
"That's quite a dream, Hailey," Jessica had said good-naturedly. "You have to study a lot to get there."
"No problem! For my dreams I'm ready to study any amount of physics, astronomy and everything else!" Hailey had assured cheerfully. "Working at the space station has always been my dream!"
"Isabel?" Chloe's voice asked, returning Isabel back to present. "Did you see something interesting in that book store? Do you want to visit there?"
"Oh, not this time," Isabel replied as she glanced at the picture book one more time. "Hey. What you two want to do when you grow up?"
For a moment Chloe and Sydney seemed surprised by Isabel's sudden question but then Chloe replied: "Well, we definitely still want to be friends with you."
Isabel smiled. "That's nice to hear and I would be really happy if we could be friends even as adults. But I was thinking about what you would like to do as your profession?"
"Oh. I want to run a shopping mall," Chloe told.
"And I want to create my own cosmetic brand," Sydney replied.
"Those are really great dreams," Isabel praised.
"How about you? What do you want to do, Isabel?" Sydney asked, looking very interested.
Isabel fell silent. She lowered her gaze while she tried to think about the answer.
"That's right… What's my future dream…?" Isabel thought with a frown.
But no matter how much she thought, her mind just couldn't give her the answer. Finally Isabel rose her gaze back at her friends.
"I don't know," she confessed with a sigh.
"Well, don't worry about it. Luckily your family is so well off that you don't probably even have to get a job," Chloe stated casually.
"Huh?" slipped from Isabel's mouth as her eyebrows rose.
"But you're so gorgeous, Isabel, that you would be a wonderful model," Sydney announced eagerly.
"That's great idea! But Isabel could easily do much better; she could become the next Miss World!" Chloe noted with sparkling eyes.
"That would be amazing!" Sydney gasped in delight as she clapped her hands together.
"Uummm… T-thank you, you two," Isabel thanked with an awkward smile, her smile not reaching her eyes. "How about we continue to the shoe store?"
Chloe and Sydney agreed immediately and the girls continued their course towards the exit of the mall.
While they walked and chatted about their shopping plans, Isabel thought unhappily: "Don't I really have any dreams?"
"By the way, I just remembered something," Sydney said as the girls stepped out of the mall. "Megan told me yesterday that-"
Isabel had just turned her attention at her friend when she suddenly felt somebody colliding with her from the side.
"Ah!" Isabel gasped as she staggered from the force of the impact.
"Woah! Sorry!"
Isabel turned her gaze and and noticed apologizing looking Nate standing next to her.
"Sorry about this! I wasn't looking where I was going," Nate explained hastily before he turned his gaze in the direction of the street. "I have to go now! Sorry one more time!"
And with that Nate sprinted away.
Isabel stared speechlessly after Nate while her friends glared at him.
"What a jerk! Running into Isabel like that. And he didn't even apologize properly," Chloe snapped.
"Yeah. He probably did that because that would be the only way for a loser like him to get close to Isabel even for a moment," Sydney speculated as she shot a venomous glare at Nate who had stopped at the crosswalk.
"Give my watch back!" Nate shouted angrily at somebody.
Everything happened so fast.
Nate rushing to the crosswalk. A gray van approaching. The screeching of brakes. A thump. People shouting.
"Hey, boy! Can you hear me? Wake up!"
"I-I didn't see him… He just suddenly ran in front of my car…"
"Somebody call an ambulance already!"
Isabel took a step backwards, feeling something bad tasting in her throat. She couldn't do anything else but stare at her unconscious classmate lying on the ground as more people began gathering around him.
Luckily the ambulance arrived soon and with that come also a police car. Paramedics moved Nate to the ambulance while a pair of police officers collected eyewitness accounts from those who had witnessed the accident.
Only when the ambulance had headed towards the hospital Isabel turned her attention back at her friends. Chloe was white as a sheet and Sydney was leaning against the wall of the mall, looking like she was going to throw up. Some of their shopping bags had fell on the ground.
"You know…" Isabel began carefully. "I-I don't feel like shopping anymore…"
"M-me neither…" Sydney said.
"Same here…" Chloe muttered.
The girls collected their shopping bags and headed silently towards the Seabreeze Tunnel.
Meanwhile in another realm, somebody else had also followed the situation. After seeing what had happened, an ominous laugh echoed around.
"Wonderful! The Yo-kai Master is out of my way! Now nothing can stop my plan!" The laugh eased. "But I should still be careful. Lord Enma must not notice anything until the most important part of my plan has been executed."
In Springdale people went about their day and naturally nobody noticed a small ballerina who seemed to appear on the street as if out of nowhere. The ballerina tiptoed forward, stopped and curtsied with a smile.
"Hello there, everybody! Spoilerina here!" Spoilerina greeted cheerfully. "And I have some juicy spoilers for you guys over there on the other side of the screen! That's right, I'm talking to you guys who are sitting there and reading this story!" Spoilerina's smile turned mysterious. "For those who fear the worst, Nate Adams isn't dead. He's just-"
Just then five huge trucks from BBQ passed Spoilerina, the sound of their driving overpowering the yo-kai's voice completely.
When all the trucks had finally passed, Spoilerina announced: "And that's the end for the first spoilers! I'll see you again when I have more spoilers to share with you! Bye~!"
Spoilerina curtsied again and disappeared, probably to spoil some poor person's day.
To be continue...
I have had this story in my head for a while and I decided to start writing it now. For your information: Updating will be slow since I'm busy with school stuff.