Things Change

     I have the best friend in the whole world: Annabel the Orange Aisha. Plus two other best friends: Juliet the Pink Cybunny and Lola the Green Poogle. Oh, and a boy named Jordan, a Shadow Kougra.

     Oh, and I wrote a little story last year that was one of two fourth-grade stories to be printed in the class book fair. Not the Times, I'm not ready for the Times.

     What more could I need?

     Nothing. I'm at the top of Neopia (er, not really, Neopia Central is kinda in the middle).

     Well, there was the fact that Jordan had moved to Mystery Island towards the end of fourth grade. We're nearing the end of fifth grade now. He sent me a shell bracelet that I wore all the time, and my class was going on a camping trip there this week. We'd leave today. Maybe I'd see him.

     I was sitting patiently in Mr. Weston's classroom and the yellow Skeith was going on and on about some stupid rules written on the whiteboard:

     - Do NOT leave the reserve without permission

     - Do NOT egg the teachers' cabin

     - Do NOT leave trash lying about on the reserve

     Blah-blah-blah. I probably should've been writing them down in my fuzzy notebook, but I was too busy remembering what Annabel and I discussed at last week's sleepover.

     We were talking about ways to find Jordan, and what I'd do when I saw him, and—

     "Sage?" Mr. Weston said irritably.

     "Yes?" I asked, picking up my mechanical pencil from the little pencil tray on the desktop for whatever reason.

     That was my habit: when in doubt, pick up a pencil. Being a writer, it came naturally. But nothing I ever started was good enough to form a whole story ever since "The Last Goodbye."

     "One of your bags is leaking."

     I looked next to my desk, and sure enough, the water bottle in the mesh pocket of my explorer backpack had been punctured by something and the ice-cold, slowly melting liquid was spilling out onto the dirty tile floors of room sixteen.

     "Cheap plastic," I grumbled under my breath as I picked up the freezing cold bottle and dropped it in the bent-up rusty trash can.

     How on Neopia was I supposed to carry water on the hike now?

     -

     It took me a while to carry both suitcases and my backpack to the group of Eyries lugging our baggage to the island, but once I saw Annabel standing by her red Blumaroo teacher, Mr. Zepeta, I knew the trip was going to go just as planned, despite my having to borrow a not-frozen bottle of water from the class set Mr. Weston had splurged on.

     The teachers had also splurged on renting out some weird contraptions from the Virtupets Space Station called space shuttles. They'd cost a great deal of funds, but it was better than flying us all out on individual Eyries. The shuttles would take us from here to the island, each shuttle seating four pets—the Fab Four to be exact.

     I called our group the Fab Four because there were four of us and no doubt we were all fabulous. I originally called us the Inner Circle, but that sounded non-inclusive, and non-inclusion is apparently highly frowned upon by teachers and staff.

     "Sage," the Aisha said as I approached her, "they're assigning the groups for the shuttle."

     Didn't see that one coming.

     It hit me like a blow in the Battledome (which I'd never been to, but by reading the Times I could only imagine).

     They'd let us pick every other group for the trip: free cafeteria seating, choose your hiking groups, choose your cabins—but assigned shuttles. It figures that they'd do that.

     "Oh…" was all I could manage to say.

     "I'm with Terrah, Nina, and some Brown Ixi named Margo," the Aisha continued.

     Terrah the Pink Mynci and Nina, the Red Uni, were our friends just on the outside of the inner circle. I'm not sure why, but they just didn't fit in the circle, but were also good friends of ours.

     I looked over at Juliet, who was boarding a shuttle with a skunk Usul, an island Wocky, and a starry Scorchio. Lola was boarding with a spotted Gelert, a Royal Girl Cybunny, and—

     "Sage," Mr. Weston looked up at me and then back at his clipboard, "you're in that shuttle."

     The Skeith was pointing to Lola's shuttle! We would be on the same shuttle—although she was the quietest of the group, she was still a Fab Four member, and one of my best friends.

     "Hey!" I said as I slid onto the metal bench next to the Poogle. "Isn't this great?"

     She pulled out a book from her green Backpack, not even looking in my direction. "Sure."

     I reached for my backpack, but then I remembered that I had accidentally handed it to the luggage Eyries. This was going to be a boring ride. I tried to peek over at Lola's book, but she was turning the pages too fast. All I could tell was the title (Unpredictable), so I decided to read the back of the book.

     'Chey thinks she has it all, but when she sets out to find her one missing piece, she finds out that—'

     That's all I could read because Lola's paw was in the way. I rolled my eyes and sat back on the bench just as the shuttle began to depart. Some instructions bleeped over a loudspeaker-type thing:

     "Welcome to the shuttle," a robotic voice said. "Please donate gobs of Neopoints to the Virtupets Space Station to keep this service available. Should you encounter some evil fuzzles along your journey, then you are not in the right shuttle; you are playing Evil Fuzzles from Beyond the Stars. Unless that was your intention, you should probably send your score and get off the shuttle."

     I decided not to pay attention to the instructions. They were boring so far.

     "You can borrow this book," offered a spotted Gelert sitting behind me. "I just finished it."

     The title read 'Battle for Meridell: A Complete History'.

     "No thanks," I said.

     "I'm Catarina," she replied.

     "Sage," I replied solemnly, keeping my eyes focused on a poster promoting the adoption of Grundos.

     We barely associated with pets outside the circle besides Nina and Terrah because they lived on Annabel's street.

     "You're usually at the jungle gym, right?" Catarina asked.

     "Yeah," I nodded.

     That was where the Fab Four usually hung out. It wasn't really a jungle gym; it was a weird green arch, a layer of vertical green bars connecting to another arch, then another layer of that. Everyone always just called it the jungle gym rather than the weird green arch with the two layers of vertical bars.

     "I read your story from the book fair," Catarina replied. "I really liked it. But you mentioned that there would be more…and that was last year."

     "Writer's block." I rolled my wrists around a few times, usually how I stretch before trying to write something.

     "Ah."

     The most interesting thing that had happened since Jordan told me he was moving was…well…him actually moving.

     "Maybe you could write about this trip," the Gelert continued. "Your old one could've been in the Times!"

     "Meh." I sighed. "I'm not really a Times person. But thanks."

     She smiled. "Sure."

     The shuttle finally began moving at a constant speed. We were on our way.

     "Ooh, a speaker!" She noted a slot on the wall of the shuttle. "Do you like the Twisted Roses?"

     Everyone had heard of the Twisted Roses. Their music wasn't really my thing. I was more of a Grundo fan.

     "Who are the Roses?" asked the Royal Girl Cybunny next to Catarina.

     "Do you live under a rock?" Catarina asked.

     The first song on Catarina's CD didn't sound at all like the Roses. It was more like Chomby and the Fungus Balls (retro version) meets Gruundo.

     *I don't know your name

     But you should know things change…*

     "You sure these are the Roses?" Lola asked.

     "It's their first album, before they were famous," Catarina explained. "I'm a total Roses freak! Never missed a concert, have all the merchandise, know every tidbit of information—they dabbled a bit in soft rock before they made it big."

     I shrugged. "I like it."

     The CD took up most of the ride, and before I knew it, we were in Mystery Island at the harbour. This must've been where Jordan ended up after the last time I saw him.

     After we all claimed our luggage and ate our lunch on the beach, Mr. Weston, Mr. Zepeta, and Mr. Nichols, the Yellow Techo, gathered us for the instructions.

     "Our entire trip will take place up in a reserved area," Mr. Zepeta began.

     "You may not leave that area without permission, and one of us must go with you," Mr. Nichols added.

     I was looking around to see if maybe Jordan was on the beach, but it was Monday, so he was probably at school.

     "The reserve," Mr. Weston concluded, "is up there in those mountains away from the residential and commercial areas."

     Of course it was.

To be continued…