They'll Never Hear a Word We Say: Part Nine

Over the summer, Mel and Sam wrote letters to each other nearly every day. Sam told her how great Mystery Island was, how it was so much better than Terror Mountain. How it was sunny all day long, all year round, and how the beaches were so lovely, and how everyone there seemed happy and there were no troubles at all.

    Mel couldn't help but be jealous of Sam, who seemed to have a perfect family. Whenever Mel was over at the blue Uni's house, her siblings never yelled at her or played pranks on her, and were never annoying. And then Mel was always arguing with her own siblings and could never get any peace and quiet in her small Neohome. She also wished that there were beaches in Terror Mountain. Or that she at least lived somewhere warm and tropical. But then when she thought about it, she actually really loved the cold and snow. A vacation would be nice, though.

    The summer passed with Mel feeling quite lonely. Even though she had Kira for company, it just wasn't the same without Sam. She then began to wonder if she would end up in the same class as Sam for sixth grade. They hadn't been in the same class for two years. Two painful years, full of trouble, jealousy, competition, and fights. If she and Sam didn't wind up in the same class that year, she was sure she would go insane.

    When summer was nearly over, Mel, Sam, Kira, and the rest of the gang all went over to Sam's house to open their letters from school that told them which teacher they would have for sixth grade together. There were two sixth grade teachers for their school that year, so there was a fifty percent chance that Mel would be in the same class as Sam.

    "I wanna go first!" Chad yelled. All of the pets were sitting on the ground in a tight circle. The red Lupe ripped open his letter and rummaged through the papers inside, until he found the strip that held his new teacher's name. "I got.... Mr. Ticker."

    "I'm next, I'm next!" Krystal exclaimed. She opened her envelope carefully and took out the strip of paper. She was silent for a few moments until Sam demanded her to tell her which teacher she had gotten. The red Krawk sat there, snickering, and after she felt she had built up enough anticipation, she finally revealed that she had gotten Mrs. Larsen.

    Garret went next, and his new teacher was Mrs. Larsen. Mikey and Kira got Ticker. Now only Mel and Sam were left. Sam decided that she would see what teacher she had gotten first. The blue Uni opened her letter, took out the slip, and smiled.

    "I got Larsen!"

    "YAY!!!" Krystal shouted, clapping her hands.

    Oh, great... Mel thought, as she rolled her eyes and sighed.

    "All right, you go now, Mel," Sam told her best friend, prodding the white envelope that Mel was grasping tightly.

    The yellow Usul nodded. She hastily opened the letter. Her whole body was trembling with excitement. She wiped her sweaty palms off on her fur and fished out the slip. Please, oh please, oh please, Larsen, Larsen, Larsen, she thought. She unfolded the piece of paper, and sat there, showing no emotion whatsoever.

    "Who'd you get? Tell us!" Kira urged.

    "...Larsen!"

     Sam jumped as high as a Cybunny into the air, and squealed with jubilance as she hugged Mel. "Yay! I'm so HAAAAPPPYYY!"

    "Humph," Krystal growled. She folded her arms across her chest and scowled at Sam and Mel. Garret cocked an eyebrow at her suspiciously, but when she gave him an even dirtier look, he gasped and ran to the opposite side of the room away from her.

    A while after that, Sam told everyone to go home, as it was getting late. She secretly asked Mel to stay for a while though. They were sitting on a large and comfortable couch in the living room. Sam turned to Mel and smiled hopefully.

    "I just wanted to tell you something," the blue Uni said. "I think that we need to try extra hard this year to keep our friendship strong, because in the past, we've struggled.... a lot. And I know it's going to be hard, because the past couple years have been difficult for us, but I think if we try hard enough, we can do it. And being in the same class this year is going to be helpful too."

    "Yeah," Mel agreed. "It's going to be difficult." Especially with Krystal, she thought worriedly.

Krystal and Mel

    It was about halfway into the sixth grade year, and all was going well with Sam and Mel. Krystal didn't seem to be destroying their friendship, as Mel had thought she would be doing. In fact, Krystal had been getting along quite well with Mel. The yellow Usul now sort of considered Krystal as her friend. But she still didn't trust her entirely.

    Another good thing about that year was that the Cool Kids Club was no more.

    "It makes us look too shallow," Sam had said. "And we should be able to talk to whoever we want to. The Cool Kids Club is now officially, like, so last year."

    It didn't really matter that the Cool Kids Club was dead anyway, because Mel and Sam were as popular as anyone could be. And since they actually started to talk to people who weren't their friends, they started to become respected, because the other pets found out that they were actually very, very nice.

    One day after school, Krystal came running up to Mel, who was stuffing a couple of textbooks into her backpack. School had just gotten out, and Sam had too much homework that evening, so she couldn't go over to Mel's house. Mel smiled at Krystal. "Hey," she said.

    "Hi," Krystal replied. She hugged her books to her chest, looking sort of nervous. That was unusual for Krystal. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to the mall with me today..."

    Mel thought about this. Why would Krystal want to hang out with her? Sure, they had become nicer around each other, and kind of considered each other as friends, but they had never actually hung out before. Mel bit her lip. "All right, sure!"

    "Great! Well, I'm meeting my sister like, right now, so it would be best if you came with me now. Can't you just tell your brother to tell your owner that you're coming with me?"

    Mel nodded, and looked around for Koru, her older brother. She spotted the blue Zafara around a bunch of fifth graders, and she approached him to tell him that she was going shopping with Krystal.

    -

    "I'm so glad that we are finally hanging out." Krystal beamed as she browsed through the rack of clothes. They were in one of the most expensive stores in Terror Mountain. Krystal only wore clothes from there, and Mel certainly couldn't afford clothes like that. The yellow Usul was standing off to the side while Krystal was collecting a mountain of clothes to buy.

    "Yeah... me too," Mel said softly, wondering why Krystal was suddenly being so nice. It was almost a fake kind of nice, and Mel was starting to become suspicious.

    "Hey, you can pick out some clothes," Krystal suddenly said. "Because I know you and your family, like, aren't the richest people in the world, and I really want to do something nice for you because I feel like I've been mean to you for the past couple years."

    "Huh?" Mel gasped. Krystal was offering to buy her some clothes? But why? Mel thought. "No, no, it's really okay... you don't have to, Krystal. But thank you very much for offering--"

    "No, no, no! I am buying you some clothes, Mel! I mean, I have so much allowance money I don't know where to put it all!" She chucked to herself. "You know how rich my owner is, Mel... believe me, it wouldn't hurt if I just bought you a few items of clothing."

    Mel's eyes widened. She was hesitant, but finally agreed. "All right, I guess."

    "Yay!" Krystal exclaimed, and then grabbed a handful of shirts off of the rack. She threw them on top of Mel, who went off into the dressing room to try them on. The yellow Usul was nervous about Krystal buying her all of these clothes. It would surely cost her a few thousand Neopoints for all of the shirts, coats, and scarves Krystal was insisting on buying for her.

    It turned out that buying Mel some clothes was all that Krystal had to do to get Mel to like her. The two of them started getting along much better at school, and were actually becoming real friends. Sam was overjoyed.

    "Finally, my two best friends actually like each other," the blue Uni had said one day at recess. Mel and Krystal grinned. They were making a snowman, as they did every day. There were so many snowmen in the field on the playground that it would take years to count them all. Making snowmen was almost everyone's favorite thing to do during their break from school, aside from snowball fights, but Sam refused to participate in any such thing. So they made men out of snow and chatted during recess.

    Kira had sort of moved on after the Cool Kids club separated, so Mel hardly saw her anymore. She was always off playing with her other friends, the pets she had been friends with before she met Mel in fourth grade. Mikey, Chad, and Garret, on the other hand, were always thinking up ways to sabotage Sam, Mel and Krystal with their huge stockpile of snowballs.

    Though Mel and Krystal were friends now, Mel couldn't help but still be just a little suspicious. For it is hard to come to trust someone you have not trusted in for a long time.

To be continued...