Resident Shrink and Chalupa King
- Posts:
- 4,603
- Group:
- Global Moderators
- Member
- #5
- Joined:
- Feb 7, 2009
- Gender
- Female
- Favorite Character
- Catboy!Near
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CHAPTER 6
Spoiler: click to toggle “Wh-where is it?!” she squealed, tearing apart her suitcase and looking through the unused drawers, looking for her lost bear. A wave of panic began to overcome her. What if someone was hurting it? What if they were writing mean things on it? Or- or what if they threw it away and she never found it again? That thought was the worst of all. That teddy was all she had left of her beloved father. If anything were to happen to it, well…
“Eek!” She opened her door and looked all over the hallway for anything white and fluffy. “Teddy bear?” she asked quietly, looking under a server in between her room and someone else’s whom she hadn’t met yet.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t there either. “Aw…Where could it be?” Fera’s brown hair swished behind her, growing even messier than it already looked as she tore down the corner, keeping her eyes peeled. She even went to the place where she had tripped over Matt, hoping to find it there, but no such luck. It had been moved.
“Darn it!” she muttered, stamping one foot on the ground in utter frustration. “Where is it?”
“Hey, Little Bear!” a familiar voice called from behind her. Fera turned to face it.
“Dilan!” she squeaked. The older boy came over to her and patted her on the head, grinning.
“Where’s your fluffy little friend?” he asked.
“I was gonna ask you that,” she replied, looking down. “I tripped and dropped it here, but I guess I forgot it when I went to my room to take a nap. And now I can’t find it anywhere!”
“I’ll keep an eye out for it,” Dilan promised. “It’s a little weird to see you without it.”
“I feel weird without it,” she responded, turning and looking through a crack in someone’s door. “Darn, it doesn’t look like it’s in there, either...”
“Maybe someone took it?” Dilan offered.
“Oh, no,” she moaned, holding her head in her tiny hands. “I hope whoever did isn’t doing anything mean to it…My daddy give that bear to me.”
“We’ll find it,” the gray-haired teen assured, taking her by the arm. “Come on, let’s look around.”
Reluctantly, she followed. “Okay…I dunno if we’re gonna find it…”
“We won’t know until we look, right?” Fera found it odd that he was more enthusiastic about looking for the lost teddy than she was. Did that say something about her? She wasn’t sure, and to be honest, she didn’t really care all that much at that moment. All she wanted was to hug her teddy bear and never let it go. She felt like it was her only friend.
Dilan walked with a bounce in his step. He was so sure that they would find that teddy…Fera grinned a bit, speeding up to match him. Maybe they would.
They entered the common room and Dilan clapped his hands loudly. “Oi!” he shouted, and most of the children inside turned their heads, if nothing else. “Anyone here seen a cute, white, fluffy teddy bear? Fera’s lost it.”
“No, sorry,” seemed to resonate from the group. Fera frowned. No one had seen it, at all?
Dilan looked down at her. “Don’t worry, it’s just one room. Let’s keep looking.”
Fera sighed, losing hope a bit. “Okay…” She took his hand and they walked around back toward the dining hall and kitchen.
Dilan poked his head into the kitchen, a dumb grin on his face. “Sama!” he chirped.
“What do you want?” she growled, turning away from the stove to face him, wooden ladle at her hip.
“Have you seen a white teddy bear around?”
“What do you think?” she retorted shortly. “I’m in this damn kitchen all day. You think I have time to look around for te-”
“It’s Fera’s,” Dilan interrupted. “She really wants to find it.”
“M-my daddy gave it to me,” she squeaked.
Sama let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry, kids, but I haven’t seen it.”
“Oh,” Dilan replied. “Ok then. Sorry to bother you.”
“Th-thank you!” Fera chirped as Dilan began to walk towards the dining hall. They asked every kid they saw and looked around the entire place for two hours, and not once did it turn up during that time. Fera was greatly disappointed.
She and Dilan walked into the dining hall once it was time for dinner. Her head hung low and her hands were shoved into her pockets. I just want my bear back, she thought sadly. She felt like a part of her was missing without it. With a sigh, she was about to jump up in her chair when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Hey, you dropped this a while ago.”
She turned around and her eyes met Matt’s plastic goggles. In his hand was her teddy bear.
“Matt!” she chirped with joy, taking it out of his hands and hugging it to her chest. “You found it! Thank you!” Fera wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, filled with glee. “Thank you so, so, so much!”
Matt squirmed uncomfortable out of her embrace, scratching the back of his neck. “It was nothing,” he said lowly, staring at the carpet, blushing a bit. “You just forgot it after you tripped over me. It’s not like I searched the entire house for it.”
“Matt, what are you doing over there?” Mello called from across the room. He sounded irritated, but Fera inwardly rolled her eyes. When wasn’t Mello irritated?
“Gotta go,” Matt said to her. “See ya.” He walked past her and went straight to Mello, like a dog answering his mater’s call.
“All right, sit down, you lot!” Sama shouted, clapping her hands together as she walked in the room. Fera squeaked and jumped up in a chair next to Dilan again. She hugged her bear tight to her, grinning up at Dilan.
“M-Matt found it!” she said to him with joy.
Dilan smiled, ruffling her hair. “What’d I tell you? We found it!” He elbowed her shoulder. “Gotta trust the D.”
“The?” she replied, giggling.
Dilan opened his arms in an exaggerated manner. “The one and only,” he answered with false arrogance. Fera laughed.
Sama walked back into the room with a large bowl, hitting Dilan on the head with her spoon. “The one and only biggest fathead I ever saw,” she replied.
Dilan chuckled. “You know you like me, Sama,” he said with a sing-song voice.
“Shut your mouth,” the cook answered, looking like she was about to smack him. “I remember when you used to be as much of a troublemaker as Mello, so don’t you start with me.”
“I’ve cleaned up my act!” Fera enjoyed watching their playful banter. Even she could tell that for as much Sama tried to assert that she didn’t like Dilan, it was obvious that she held a soft spot for him.
Sama hit him on the head again as she left to go get something else and Dilan chuckled, watching her go with a grin on his face.
“You guys seem like good friends,” Fera remarked, tucking her bear under her chin.
Dilan laughed. “Heh,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s a fine one,” was all he said, puzzling the young girl.
Tilting her head to the side, she wondered, What could he mean by that?
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The next day, Fera began her classes. She nearly fell out of her seat at the difficulty of Intro to Analysis – they used words she didn’t understand, and talked for nearly two hours about one picture and literally everything in it, from the color of the sky to the fact that one man’s shoelace was untied. Oh, it seemed very interesting once they pointed out all the different events that could have occurred based on everything that the photo presented, but it seemed so difficult.
Then again, when she saw a head of white hair in the front row, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. After the class was over, she walked up to Near with a smile, holding her bear tight. “Hi!” she said happily.
He looked up at her with a blank expression, maybe subtly surprised but she honestly couldn’t tell. “Hello,” he responded, taking a lock of hair between his fingers and twirling it.
“How are you?” she asked him warmly.
“Fine, thank you.” He got up from his desk and began to walk towards the door, and seemed a little either unnerved or surprised that she followed him.
“That’s good. Hey, you never told me you took this. Isn’t this easy for you?”
He shrugged. “I put off taking it for a while and decided to get it over with. It’s so ridiculously boring.”
“You think so?” Fera asked him. “I thought it was kinda interesting.”
“Hm,” he responded. “I really don’t care about could-bes or might-happens. They’re irrelevant unless you don’t already have the data, and even then information you already have can gear you towards the correct answer. There’s no point in pulling every single situation out of it.”
Fera blinked, speechless. Near talked like an adult, and she had to admit, she found it admirable. A paper fluttered out of her hand and she went to pick it up, embarrassed. Near simply watched, not offering to get it. She looked down at it, reading its contents.
“Oh!” she squeaked. “I’ve gotta go, I have my next class.”
“What class?” Near asked, seeming mildly interested.
“Uh,” she stammered, remembering Roger’s reaction and feeling embarrassed. “Er, Cr-Creative Writing?”
Near closed his eyes, nodding wordlessly. “I see.”
Fera backed up a little bit, unsure of what he was thinking but fearing the worst. “Um, y-yeah, I’m just…gonna go now…See ya, Near!” She chirped the last bit, waving to him. Near took his free hand and moved it through the air once, then letting it drop at his side and he turned away. Fera felt herself hiding her face behind her bear as she ran off, and felt a slight tingling in her cheeks, writing it off to nervousness for her classes.
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She looked inside the classroom shyly before stepping inside. There weren’t many children taking this class, maybe seven or eight at the most. They all seemed friendly and vibrant, having a loud, boisterous conversation. Their chairs were set up in a circle and Fera approached that circle, not talking for fear of interrupting.
“So, then what happened?” a girl a little younger than Dilan, it looked, asked, blowing a bubble of green gum. The pop made Fera’s eye twitch, disgusted by the sound.
“Haha, yeah, so she said to me, ‘Oh, get out, you,’ and she hit me with the spoon! And I had my pants on the whole time!” The boy she was talking to laughed, and he turned his head to the side. “Well, look who it is!” he greeted, and the other children turned their heads to look at her.
“Hi, Dilan,” she said quietly, hugging her bear tighter. She felt horribly self-conscious. All these kids were older than her!
“Guys, this is Fera,” Dilan said, gesturing with his arm towards her. She noticed he was still wearing the same green jacket. Didn’t he ever wash it? He looked at her again. “You’re into writing, Little Bear?”
She stammered, dragging one foot in a circle on the floor. “Um, w-well, I thought I could give it a try,” she answered, feeling like she was dodging the question.
“You’ll love it,” the girl with the bubblegum said to her. She held out her hand for Fera to shake. “I’m Annie,” she said. “But everyone else calls me Bubbles. I wonder why?” she added sarcastically. Fera laughed a little and took her hand, noticing that her fingernails were yellow from highlighter.
Dilan jumped off his chair and put a hand on Fera’s shoulder, turning her to face the rest of the class. “The kid with the sock puppet is Jack,” he said, pointing to a boy with dark brown hair and narrow eyes. He grinned and allowed the sock puppet to mouth something at her. “That girl’s Roach,” he continued, motioning to a girl younger than Annie with pin-straight black hair and dark clothes and makeup.
“I have a collection of dead butterflies,” Roach said, staring blankly at Fera. “Wanna see?” Fera shook her head “no” very quickly. What is it with these names? she thought to herself.
Before Dilan could finish, a skinny woman with wild brown hair skipped into the room. She clapped her hands. “Good morning, everybody!” she chirped. She looked as though she was in her twenties, and she was very lively. “Did you all give me something wonderful to read?”
“Uh, Ms. B?” Dilan interrupted.
Ms. B turned her head in his direction. “Yes, Dilan?”
“We kinda..have a new kid…standing right next to me…”
The woman blinked golden eyes, finally noticing Fera. Fera squeaked a bit and hid behind her bear. “A new, budding author! Hello, dearie!” she exclaimed. “What’s your name?”
“F-F-Fera,” the young girl replied, shifting her weight uncomfortably.
“Welcome, Fera. I’m Ms. B – don’t bother even trying to pronounce my full name, no one can do it unless they have seven tongues. You have an interest in writing?”
“Uh-huh,” Fera replied, nodding. Well, uh, actually, I just wanted to take something I knew I could pass easily…
“Excellent!” Ms. B nearly shouted, a bright smile on her face. “Writing’s a great tool for so many things, Fera. You’ll find it very useful in your future, I’m sure.”
“Uh, y-yeah, okay,” Fera responded, sitting down like everyone else had. She’s crazy. Poems and stories and stuff, how’s that helpful? What the heck could anyone do with that? I just wanna pass and be as smart as the other kids. That’s all I want.
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