This was written by Christopher "Wani" K and may only be used on my site (http://skistory.atspace.com). SKI, Super Kids Initiation and all other names are trademark of Waniou. If SKI or SCI, or any event in this series take place, or are used somewhere else, it is entirely by coincidence. I don't own McDonalds, though I wish I did. I'd be rich! --- Story #30 --- To the memory of my Nana Groot, who passed away while I was writing this. -Prologue- I looked at the colours on the wall. A simple person would think there were seven of them. I knew that there were millions. A rainbow, displayed beautifully on the wall through a prism. I sighed looking at it. It didn't help me much. Actually, it gave me one idea. Not a good one, but an idea none-the- less. Ideas were what my sister and I needed for our latest project. How to travel very quickly between New York and Philadelphia. How to reach our former leader very quickly. "You like that?" a voice came from behind me. I jumped; we were usually a little jumpy, especially since the Monsters knew who we were. It was a guy, about fifteen. Not too bad looking, but as I've said before, I have no real interest in guys. No time. And yet... ---*Rita's New Friend*--- "Hurry up, Amy!" I moaned, stomping my feet. Sure, I was acting immature, but I was feeling it too. "Rita, do you want to finish this or not?" said Amy, looking around more on the internet. Taspiar. That was our latest topic. We needed to learn about it. It could only be made artificially, and, it seemed, only the Monsters knew how to. "You've been on there long enough, it's my turn!" I complained, looking at the clock. I was running out of time! "Fine, if it'll make you shut up already," my sister gave in, closing off her user. I leapt into the chair, logging onto my own user. "What is so important about it anyway?" Amy asked, as I opened up my chat program. Like MSN, but since we didn't use Windows, it wasn't exactly MSN. It could chat to MSN though. "whatrulookin@hotmail.com would like to add you to his/her MSN list." I clicked yes. Yay, he remembered me! "Wow, somebody can't spell," Amy muttered, looking over my shoulder. "Shut up you," I shot back. "'No! I destroyed you! I watched you die!' has just logged in." Yay! That certainly wasn't anyone on my list. Well, the only other people were Mike and Dharma... A quick check of the e-mail address confirmed it. "So, who's this guy?" Amy asked, as I double-clicked on his name. "A friend," I said. "Now go away." She didn't, and I greeted "No! I destroyed you! I watched you die!". "errr... who r u??" came his answer. I smacked my head on the desk, and Amy laughed. "I'm Rita," I typed back. "We met today, at that science fair, remember?" "ooo i remember now" "hi" I silently wished he could spell a little better. "So, you met this guy today, huh," Amy said. "It is a guy, right?" I nodded. "Ooh, Rita has a crush!" Amy sang, drumming on my back. "I do not!" I said. It was true, I didn't have a crush! He was just a really cool guy... "Where'd you get him from?" Amy asked, as if he were some sort of computer appliance. "That science fair I went to today. Now bug off already!" "Hey, guess what!" Amy shouted, running into the SCI building. "I'm the only one here, and I'm about to leave for school?" James replied as I followed my sister. I did not have a crush! "Oh, right," Amy replied. "Well, good luck. I'll tell you all later." As soon as James left, I set back to work. We had to make Taspiar, since we were sure it was going to help us. "Why is it so special...?" I muttered to myself, heading straight for a search engine. I couldn't search for Taspiar, we'd tried that. Didn't get anywhere. Nothing showed up at all. Which was, of course, a shame. In the whole day, we didn't find anything; in fact, it was a pretty boring day. Until the others arrived. "Hey guys, guess what!" Amy shouted, as soon as everyone arrived, and I smacked myself on the head. I did not have a crush! "Rita's got a boyfriend!" "I do not!" I shouted, and everyone laughed. Everyone except Duncan, who, of course, was jealous. "Okay, explain," he said. "I have this friend, who happens to be a guy, so Amy's decided I like him," I explained. It was the truth. I did not have a crush! Olivia laughed. "Is he cute?" "Or, more importantly," said Duncan, "is he a Monster?" That shut us up. We hadn't thought of that. He could be a Monster spy, trying to get close to me. But still, he seemed so nice... Dharma sighed, sitting down on the ground. "And it's times like these that make me miss Mike even more." James, our new leader in Mike's absence, looked around, one by one, at everyone. "In all reality, without Mike, we can't really do anything. So, Rita, what's this guy like?" he asked, suddenly changing the topic. I shrugged. "He's a bit of an idiot," I began, before Duncan inquired whether that was compared to them or me and my sister (To me and my sister), "but he seems to be interested in light." "Light?" Duncan asked. "Why do we care?" Amy opened her mouth to speak, but James interrupted, in a psychic kind of way. Amy shut her mouth quickly, nodding slightly. "Hey James, if you can be psychic, why can't you read minds?" James shrugged. "It's kind of hard for me. And besides, I don't want to wind up too much like Mike; unable to control his powers." Just then Mr Matthewson arrived, and our normal SCI activities began. When I logged on MSN that night, the first person to talk to me was not Brian (He does have a name, you know), it was Mike. "hey, how r u all?" he asked, and I called over Amy. "We're all good, you?" I typed back. "good, good "hows it going?" I knew what he meant by it. Our project. Of course he knew about it. "Badly," I frowned. "We're scientists, not magicians." "yeh, james takes care of da magic" "There's an idea," said Amy. "Can James do that?" I shrugged. I wasn't too fond of that idea. James still wasn't my favourite person... "u could always drive :)" he added, and we laughed. "Hey, I wonder if he can find anything out about your boyfriend," said my sister. I did not have a boyfriend! But still, might as well ask Mike. "Hey, I've met this guy who seems nice and all, but he might not be that great." "so? "oh wait, i get it. i cant tell im not dat good :P" Amy shrugged. "It was worth a shot." Just then Brian did log in, and he opened a message box to me. "hi there! how r u?" "Good, talking to an old friend," I said. Might as well introduce him to Mike. Maybe Mike could work some of his magic after all. "really/ good friend?" Amy sighed at his bad spelling, and I replied with a yes. "mf?" "Eh?" "guy or girl?" I "ah"ed, and replied that Mike was a male. Was Brian getting jealous...? Amy sighed. "I'm out of here." Then Brian typed a new message to me: "oh, btw, r u doin nething saturday?" "No." I typed back. The truth. "u wanna do something with me then? like go to a movie?" I almost fell out of my chair. He *was* interested in me! In fact, he was asking me out. "Sure, I will." Then Amy suddenly spoke. "Okay, going on a date, that makes it official! You have a boyfriend!" "I thought you were out of here," I shot back. She laughed, then left for real. Saturday, that was only four days away. When Dharma arrived at the SCI, I pulled her into a corner. "Hey, I need some help, but you can't tell anyone?" "Is it to do with your boyfriend?" "I do not... Yes," I suddenly changed my mind. "Well, he's asked me out on Saturday, and I want to look nice." Dharma suddenly laughed, and, naturally, I was a bit offended. "Rita, you're finally acting like a girl. How much money do you have?" "Enough," I said. Which was true, our research was very well funded, and from some of our inventions we'd sold, we had a fair bit of money to ourselves. "Good, when's your date?" "Saturday." "Saturday morning, we're going shopping!" Dharma doesn't forget, as I discovered. She arrived at three past ten, Saturday morning, looking very eager. I slowly began to wonder if I'd made a mistake... "You got everything you need?" she asked. A silly question, I never forget things. Of course, my brain had been acting up on me lately... "Good, then, we're off!" Amy shouted a few sarcastic words of encouragement, and out we went. Dharma knew where to shop, I had to admit that. She found all the right places, got all the right deals, and, after it all, I looked great. At least, Dharma said that. I felt quite stupid. She'd bought me a long black dress that reached to my knees, earrings, and, for the first time in my life, I was wearing make-up. So I felt pretty stupid. But she said Brian would love it. I hoped she was right. After shopping, I returned home. I had to reapply my makeup before Brian arrived (You can't do anything with makeup on, so I still don't see the point in it), and five minutes before he did arrive, I felt as if I was about to confront all of the Monsters at once. What if he didn't like me? What if I did something stupid? What if he didn't show up? What if he *was* a Monster? As I waited I found my mind trailing back to Monster recruitment. I'd been the only one who'd encountered their "recruitment", but still we didn't know what it was. Would Brian try to recruit me? He arrived a few minutes past seven o'clock, dressed up. "Hi, you look great," he said, looking me over, making me feel nervous. "Thanks, I don't usually dress up," I said, and heard Amy coughing loudly from the next room, then a yelp of pain. Dharma's work. "You look great too," I said, feeling confused. Confusion is a strange feeling for someone as smart as me. Trust me on this. "Anyway, come in," I said, and we moved into the living room. "So, this is the guy you won't shut up about," my mum said, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. I blushed a little, and invited Brian to sit on the couch next to me. "So, do you mind McDonalds?" he asked, looking about as nervous as I felt. "It's all I can afford..." "No, of course not," I said. He sighed deeply. "That's good, I was afraid you were a vegetarian." "Why?" "Well, I figured that you since you were so smart, you would be all against killing animals..." I laughed suddenly, then stopped myself. "No, of course not, the opposite, I know that it's just survival of the fittest. Eat or be eaten." Brian blushed a little, then nodded. "Anyway, how about we go?" I nodded, and off we went! My mum gave us a ride down to McDonalds, and we got out. He ordered a Big Mac, fries and Coke, so I ordered the same. "So, what have you been up to?" he asked. As much as my research was very interesting, I'm sure he didn't want to hear all about it. "Oh, not much." "Really? What about that research project you talk about?" I scratched my head a little. "Oh, that's going fine." Well, no it wasn't really, but oh well. "Really? Actually, you never told me what you're trying to do..." I smiled a little, and took a big bite of Big Mac. "I'm trying to turn something invisible." "Wow? That sounds interesting." So much for him being bored by my research. "Yeah, but it's quite hard to do." "How are you trying to do it?" he asked. He certainly seemed to be interested, but I was starting to get a bit suspicious. Dharma had warned me something like this might happen. "I'm trying to refract the light around the object, but it's hard to do," I explained. "I need the right sorts of mediums so that it'll refract at the right angle, then refract back out again at the same angle without it distorting anything." Brian nodded, and I have no idea how much he actually understood. "So what kind of medium are you using?" "We don't know yet, it's hard to find a suitable one," I said, beginning to wonder just how much he knew. "How much do you know about the properties of light?" "I'm studying them in school at the moment, so a bit," he said. "It's all quite interesting." I nodded, then my mind wandered back to what Mike had said. Leave the magic to James. Could I? James had always (Well, not always) been the direct opposite of everything I stood for, but accepting him... "What's up?" Brian shook me from my thoughts. "Oh, nothing, just thinking." "About?" I sighed, deciding to speak my mind. "I have a way to solve my problem, but I don't really want to do it." "Why not?" "Well... It's a bit hard to explain. It's kind of like a Christian asking Allah for help," I said, twiddling my thumbs a little. Brian smiled. "Well, maybe the Christian needs to swallow her pride if Allah's the only one who can help her." I nodded a bit, noticing that we'd both finished our McDonalds. "Anyway, shall we go to the movie?" The movie wasn't that bad really; Brian had seen it before, but I hadn't. Afterwards, he walked me home. "So, did you have fun?" I nodded straight away. Yes, I had had fun, and hadn't even done anything sciencey. "So, I'll see you online later, okay?" I nodded, then he took me and kissed me on my lips. A *very* strange experience for me. But I smiled. "Thanks," I said, not knowing what else to say. He smiled back, then turned and left. "Bye!" I watched him leave. I'd never felt that way before, it was... strange. I guess it was love. I don't know. Then something else came into my head. The Christian needs to swallow her pride. I nodded. Yes, he was right, amazingly. I had to accept James' help. If he'd give it. Then we could begin. --- END ---