“Unbelievable!”

 

Once class let out I decided to head straight home. My blood was still boiling and handling my other classes was extremely stressful. I barely kept a level head through it all. When I got home, Tipsy finally decided to finally show up and ask how I was feeling.

 

“Horrible!” I exclaim.“I’ve never gotten anything lower than an A-. Who does she think she is?”

 

Throwing my backpack on the couch, I sit down next to it, irritated and unable to think clearly. The homework I got from my other classes gets carried through till next Monday, so there was no hurry on it. I was also in such a rush I didn’t even stop to say hi to Cocoa on the way home. Some friend I was.

 

Tipsy could tell I was down, as she always could thanks to the sensitivity chip I put in her. She leapt up on to my lap to try and calm me down, and at first I wanted to push her off. But after I let my blood simmer down, I begin to pet her and try to forget about the events at school.

 

“Are you feeling better, miss Random?” she asks in her soft but firm voice.

 

I could tell Tipsy was worried about me. To tell the truth, I was a little worried about myself. I’ve never let my anger get the better of me. I didn’t know if it was because of Mrs. Natsume or if it was because of Cocoa spending a lot of time with Jasmine and Avery.

 

“Water?” I whisper, wiping my eyes.“Oh, they’re my tears. Hehe…”

 

Why am I laughing? There’s nothing funny about it. Even Tipsy is looking at me like I’m crazy. I’ve never been so helpless before… Mom, Dad, where are you…

A knock from the door brings me back from to my senses and I quickly wipe the tears from my eyes; it would be embarrassing if someone saw me like this.

 

“Random, are you home? Are you okay? I didn’t see you at school after class, so I came here as quickly as I could.”

 

I didn’t believe it. Cocoa came over even after I’ve avoided her all day. While I’ve been drowning in my own sorrow she’s been able to come over and see if I’m okay. Selfless as always.

 

“Hi, C-Cocoa,” I barely get out, sniffling the whole time. Cocoa has only ever seen me like this a few times, but I believe this was the worst. In fact, she’s the only one who’s seen me like this.

 

“Random, what’s wrong?”

 

“Cocoa!” I barely get out as I throw my arms around her.

 

“Um, R-Random, it’s k-kinda hard to breathe.”

 

“Oh, right.”

 

I quickly let go and draw away to give her room to breathe. I was just so overjoyed to see her that I didn’t know what to do.

 

“Come on; let’s get you something to eat.”

 

She proceeds to lead me to the kitchen and gets a meal of lasagna ready. Unlike most of the foods I have, lasagna cooks a little slower. She then set her backpack down and pulled up a chair next to mine.

 

“You feeling alright? I didn’t see you at school today. I missed you, you know. We’ve been friends for 3 years. If there’s anything, ANYTHING, on your mind, you can tell me about it,” she says as she places her hands on mine.

 

“I missed you too. I saw you talking with Jasmine and didn’t’ want to interrupt. You two seemed to be pretty close, so I didn’t want to interfere.”

 

After I finished, she started to chuckle and I began to blush. I didn’t see what was funny about it.

 

“You wouldn’t be interrupting anything,” she explains.“The only reason I’m working with Jasmine is because she’s a wiz at Photoshop. That’s about all she’s good at,” she lets out a laugh. “She may be good at Photoshop, but you’re amazing at a multitude of things. Photoshop just isn’t one of them.”

 

We both laugh as the buzzer goes off and our lasagna comes out from the counter with two glasses of soda. I apologize to Cocoa and we both dig in, forgetting the events of today and looking forward to the following days.

 

The next two weeks were a little more pleasant. Mrs. Natsume had finally warmed up to me a little and we were finally getting on good terms. Even Cocoa and I have been hanging out more at the park and around the hot chocolate shop. Whenever we go get some hot chocolate however, she’ll constantly test the knowledge she’s been gaining from classes. It was a little annoying when I tried talking to her, but I’m glad she was happy, and that we were getting time together.

 

“Another project, another day,” I tell Cocoa as I close my locker.

 

“I’m glad you and Mrs. Natsume are getting along together. I thought you two would end up fighting the entire school year.”

 

Classes had just finished and Cocoa and I were swapping stories of what’s been going on in each other’s classes. She’s halfway through her first assignment, needing only to explain and demonstrate how a water powered engine would function and benefit us. She also has to work for 20 hours at any job she can over the course of two weeks, something that wouldn’t be too hard for her. What I had to do is explain intermediate robotics in Mr. Bit’s class and we get a pop quiz in Mrs. Natsume’s class, so I didn’t know what to expect. I also had to study the differences in AI and how they functioned differently in different machines. Childs play.

 

Along with these few classes, Cocoa and I have been talking about taking a class together that benefits both our talents. We hit on a few ideas, but couldn’t really put the nail on the head of what to do.

 

“Is it me or is it cold out?” Cocoa asks.

 

“It’s cold.” I reply, shivering.

 

I guess this wasn’t the best time for me to try out my new, light blue tank top or my dark green jeans, installed with built in wifi that links to my home from any distance through a satellite I built and my light blue high heels. Cocoa wasn’t wearing anything much warmer either, just a tan skirt and dark brown shirt with a dark blue jacket over top and a pair of black shoes with brown stripes.

 

“Why did it get so cold all of a sudden? It was close to 80 degrees when we left this morning.”

 

Cocoa was right. The sudden drop in temperature wasn’t normal. We tried to ignore it as we headed to my home, but dark clouds started to roll in and the wind began to pick up. We barely made it home when a tidal wave of rain began to pour down. No matter how fast we were, we still got caught in it.

 

“My word! Miss Dadalian, Miss Vanswell, are you alright?” gasped Tipsy as we rolled in through the sliding door, close enough to qualify as soaked.

 

“We’ll be fine,” I reassure her. “Could you please get us some towels?”

 

Without question she raced over to the wall, hit the dispense towel button, and two towels dropped down from the chute in the wall, already neatly folded.

 

“Thanks Tipsy.”

 

I grab one towel and hand the other to Cocoa before we sit down and turn to the weather channel to see if we can find out why it’s so cold.

 

“Welcome to the central news network, bringing you up to date weather around the hour.

Today we bring you a live weather report from Hitomi, Straven with Jake. Jake, you’re up.”

 

After the announcer finishes, the scene switches to downtown Hitomi, showing the intense rain storm. The weather reporter is wearing a heavy yellow rain jacket and is still drenched by the fierce storm. It’s so fierce he has to yell just so we can hear.

 

“Thank you, Ginger. Hello, I’m coming at you live from downtown Hitomi where a fierce storm has just surfaced not too long ago. Where it was just 81 degrees earlier today has dropped down to 56 degrees in this past hour and steadily dropping. With a 25 degree drop storm clouds began rolling in and a whipping wind not far behind it.”

 

Some birds blew past the announcer right after he announced the winds.

 

“As you can see, winds are reaching dangerously high levels, getting to 30 mph and gusting close to 50 mph. I’m even finding it hard to stand still. And my camera man looks like he’s about to-”

 

He was unable to finish as the screen went dark and switched back to the news station. It was obvious to Cocoa and I that the camera man was blown over.

 

“Well there you have it. Water levels are planned to reach up to 6 inches if it continues on like this in the next 6 hours. We advise you to stay indoors if you are not already in and to keep all windows and doors shut tight. If you have travel plans, we advise you cancel them, as this storm doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop anytime soon.”

 

After the final announcement I turned off the TV and turned to Cocoa. She looked back at me with a blank and confused stare. Nothing like this has happened in the 3 years I’ve been here, and even Cocoa has never heard of anything like this happening before. It was a very, very strange phenomenon, and something about it just wasn’t right.