The Mysteries of

Love,

Time,

and

Fortune Cookies

Everyday is always the same. Go to school, take a nap in class, come home, pretend to do homework, eat dinner, watch tv, and then sleep. Big whoop. I’ve always wished that just once something, different would happen. Of course, my big adventure just had to happen on the one day I ran into him before school. And it just had to happen when in a different way than I’d ever expected.

Chapter 1: Our Adventure Begins

Amber sighed as she swung her schoolbag, on the way to another boring old day in class. It wasn’t that she had no desire to learn that made her so reluctant to get to school; she was an okay student, slightly above average, but nothing special. No, it was the fact that school was so tediously repetitive that made it so unappealing to the girl.

Every day the teachers would teach would bless their students with knowledge that was from the chapter after the chapter they had studied before, and, as always, the information would be completely useless. There had yet to be a day, or even a single second of a day, where Amber had found a use for Calculus or knowing the properties of the element Bismuth or other such knowledge that were not related to school in one way or another.

School was boring. Boring, boring, boring.

This stinks, she thought, kicking a stone that was in her path. Why can’t all the teachers decide to play hooky and skip school? Or why can’t a space ship show up and take the school to an inter-galactic zoo, or…

POW!

She had been so focused on daydreaming, that she neglected to watch where she had been going. She paid dearly for that carelessness by walking face first into a lamp post.

“Ouch!” She shouted, a hand flying to cover her nose which definitely felt as though it had grown to the size of an apple. Or a watermelon. Either way, it hurt. “Who put that there?”

Amber glared accusingly at the innocent lamp through blurred eyes. Obviously, it could not give her an answer, being an intimate object, but she wasn’t really expecting one. Her nose was not broken, fortunately, and now, all she wanted to do was get far, far away from the lamp and pretend the embarrassing incident had never occurred. Any hopes that she had walking away from the incident with her pride intact, though, were shattered when she heard the laughter.

Oh, great, Amber thought, trying to compose herself as she quickly spun around. There are 973,672 people in San Jose, and the only one to see that was him.

And sure enough, who else did she see when she turned around, but Will, wearing the same smirk he went through life with on his lips.

Amber did not like Will one bit, not since the incident in kindergarten when Will had told her she could fly if she jumped off the top of the slide and believed hard enough. Amber never got over the mortification of actually believing him and attempting it, resulting in a broken wrist. Will never forgave her for taking him seriously and getting hurt, leaving him in a boat load of trouble. He was convinced she had done it on purpose. She was convinced that he had corrupted her innocent young mind.

Amber turned around again, intending to ignore him and continue on her way to an oh-so-wonderful day at school. She did not want to ruin her day this early on by talking to him. But Will of course had to ruin her plan.

“Is it ok?” he asked, appearing next to her. He slung the school bag he had been carrying in one hand over a shoulder so that both of his hands were free. Just in case.

Amber blinked, startled. “What?” Was he actually being nice to her?

Will’s smirk widened as he answered. “I meant the lamp post. Do you know how expensive they are to replace and just how many of our resources they deplete?”

Amber turned bright red with anger. Only her intense dislike of cursing stopped her from calling him very vile names. But she had no opposition against violence. She raised her hand, intending to punch him into the next century. Or at least into the next week. Anywhere that was not near her was fine.

“HEY!”

The unexpected shout startled her so much that she missed her target and ended up uniting her face with the sidewalk. She whimpered and rubbed her poor nose as Will laughed, several feet away from her. Her nose was never going to be the same after this horrible morning.

“Goodness, you’re so violent, Amber.” A familiar voice said, as a hand entered her vision. She grabbed it and pulled herself up. The owner of the hand, her child hood friend Ruby, shook her head at her in mock disappointment.

Ruby and Amber had been friends since even before the two had been old enough to be held captive in school. Like Amber, Ruby cared very little for school, though in her case, the dislike was connected more to the fact that it involved actually working than to boredom. The young girl disliked anything that involved her having to do any sort of labor, physical labor especially. Most likely, it was that trait that had led the two girls to stay friends for so many years; Amber was too clumsy to be of any good in sports and Ruby couldn’t be bothered to even try. It was hard not to become friends when you’re always the last two picked for teams in gym.

“But only to Will,” Ruby continued on, tapping her check with a finger. She gave her friend a knowing look. “I wonder why?”

Amber brushed the dirt from her clothes, turning her head away to try to hide her pink checks, and replied dryly. “I refuse to even consider what you’re implying.”

“That’s Amber alright” Another voice interrupted. Amber didn’t have to turn her head to know that it was Edward, one of Will’s annoying friends. He was the undisputed class clown in school and even outside of school. In Amber’s opinion, the only one more annoying than Edward was Will. Her morning was entirely ruined now.

Edward elbowed Will in the ribs, causing him to wince. “Always using big words that no one understands to change the subject.”

Ruby frowned and looked down her nose at him. She was the tallest girl in their grade now, a fact that she loved to lord over to the boys. “Well, I understood her perfectly. Not everyone has the vocabulary of a two year old.”

Edward glared right back. “Oh yeah? Well, we all can’t be nerds like you two.”

“We’re not nerds, we’re intellectuals!”

“Nerds! Geeks!”

Will and Amber simply stood and watched their friends who had interrupted their fighting engage in battle themselves. They had learned from experience it was best not to get involved in their fights.

Ruby and Edward did not despise each other like Amber and Will did, but no one could say that the two got along. Ruby hated immaturity, while Edward’s entire existence seemed to revolve around it. Ruby hated to move unnecessarily while Edward was forever jumping around like a hyperactive teddy bear. Ruby took great care to be neat and clean; Edward still had last month’s lunch hidden somewhere in his mess of a backpack. No, those two did not get along at all.

It was likely that their verbal war would have gone on far longer if not for a fortunate interruption. Though, once Amber saw exactly who had made the interruption, by no means would she dub it fortunate. Her morning was entirely doomed now. There was no salvaging it.

“Will you all just shut up? Noise is a form of pollution you know!”

The unintentional peacemaker glared at them from behind her spectacles. It was Trinity, an undisputed bookworm who rarely was seen anywhere without a book in her possession. She had been trying to get past the four for awhile now, but everyone had been too caught in Ruby and Edward’s fight to even notice her. And, now, she was understandably quite annoyed with them all.

Though, truthfully, Trinity was always annoyed at somebody about something. Amber had never seen Trinity smile, she wasn’t even sure of the girl knew how to. The bookworm rarely talked to anyone; she was always studying, getting the best grades in the class, her nose always buried in a book. Amber was certain that Trinity loved going to school if only for the fact that it gave her an excuse to be near books.

“Look, there’s the biggest nerd of them all.” Edward said, only to hide behind Will a second later as Trinity sent him a bone chilling glare.

Edward didn’t like Trinity for the simple fact that she was at the top of the class and, in his opinion, thought she was too good to talk to anyone of them. Amber had once been under the impression that Trinity spent all her time alone because she was shy. One minute in her company had completely put an end to that assumption. Trinity was by no means shy; she just preferred the company of books over people. And she had no problem with letting others know that.

“Just wait,” she replied, continuing to glare at him, her hands on her hips. She looked quite menacing for a high school kid. “One day, you’ll be working for me. And I will remember each and every insult and deduct it from your paycheck.”

“Scary.” Edward whispered, still ducking behind his half amused half scared friend. Amber and Ruby giggled at the sight; it was always amusing to see those two put in their Trinity turned her gaze onto them. Her eyes zeroed in on the bag hanging at Ruby’s side/.

“Where did you get that bag?” she snapped, pointing at the clearly new black bag, lined with white fur.

Ruby beamed and launched into a detailed explanation. She loved to show off her stuff whenever she could. Anytime she got went into this mode around Amber, the girl would just shut her ears and wait for her to tire out. For someone who hated to work, she sure could talk.

“Isn’t it cute? My father imported it for me, all the way from France! No one else here has it--”

Trinity interrupted before the explanation got any more detailed and long winded. Pointing at the fur lining, she declared. “I don’t care about that. That’s real animal fur isn’t it? It’s from the Alaskan white wolf! They’re so close to becoming an endangered species! You can’t kill them fur to make a bag that can’t even hold all your school books!”

Ruby ignored her, pretending to yawn. “Big deal. Who cares if there aren’t a few more scary old wolves in the world?”

Amber decided to attempt to make peace before the argument got any more heated and troublesome. She knew from experience Trinity did not like it when people causally dismissed what she considered huge issues. “Come on, let’s just forget about this and get to school.”

The two girls ignored her in favor of glaring at each other. Edward and Will stood off to the side, far enough to not be involved, but close enough to see the entire show. They were pleased that the bookworm had forgotten all about them but were not about to just leave and miss what promised to be a very amusing show.

“Not with that puppy-killer.” Trinity said turning her head away from Ruby, who repeated the gesture, in the opposite direction.

“No way am I going to be seen with that Big Bad Wolf supporter.”

Everyone turned their heads to Ruby who blinked at the sudden attention. “What?”

Amber shook her head in exasperation; sometimes her friend said the oddest things. Pushing that aside ,she attempted to stop the fight once again.“C’mon, let’s just--OW!”

Something quite heavy, and much unexpected, bounced off of Amber’s head before landing neatly onto the ground at Edward’s feet.

“What is that?” Edward asked curiously, picking the object up.

“A bag?” Will said, coming closer to get a better look.

“That hurt” sobbed Amber, rubbing her head which, she was sure, was sporting a huge bump. She was completely ignored.

“Let me see.” Ruby snatched the bag from Edward, using her height to her advantage, and opened it to discover….

“Fortune Cookies?”

“Why would anyone throw a bag of fortune cookies on Amber?” Will mused taking the bag from Ruby. He smirked at Amber who was a bit miffed at having been ignored. “Hope they didn’t break.”

“I’ll show you what breaks!” Amber shouted, losing her tempter then and there.

Will jerked backwards, laughing as the punch aimed at his head narrowly missed him. Unnoticed by anyone, one cookie slipped out of the bag and fell onto the ground, near Amber’s right foot.

“Hey, let me see.” Edward said, shoving Will forward in order to get the bag.

Unfortunately, he pushed a little harder than necessary and sent his friend stumbling into Amber, who hurriedly tried to move away from her arch nemesis. However in her hast, she tripped and headed face first to the ground, completely crushing the cookie in the process.

“Owww…”She moaned, clutching her nose. Her nose was sure to be severely disfigured now, she thought morosely.

“You broke it!” Ruby said, rushing forward.

“No, I think my nose is fine.” Amber started.

“I meant the cookies” Ruby interrupted, picking up a piece of paper from the crushed remains. She completely missed Amber’s embarrassed and annoyed face. “Oooh, the fortune!”

Trinity snatched it from her hands. “Give me that, I’ll read it.”

The boys decided that it was in their best interest to just agree from a safe distance. The bookworm pushed her glasses up her nose and read:

“Adventures come incognito,

Yours shall begin with a mystery.”

“What does that mean?’ Amber said, standing up and brushing her uniform off.

No one had a chance to answer. A swirl of light surrounded them, and then they were gone.