Episode 20: The Tri-Sisters of Potrero
“I’m serious! I was in a chat room filled with people I didn’t know. They said they see me in class sometimes but I never notice.” Matt was telling Jen about his first time in a chat room with a bunch of people he barely knew, or never knew at all. He went on, “That Peter guy… there’s more to him than just someone who hangs out with that crazy Joey guy.”
Jen giggled, “You’re just not used to gaining new friends or what?”
“It’s just that having an AIM chat room conversation with a lot of people we’ve never met gives you a different feeling, especially when they were always just right there – in your classes.”
Jen looked away, “No one invited me, what the heck.” She said to Matt, “How many people were in there anyway?”
Matt thought about it, “There were about ten people but I knew about six people. Let’s see… they were me, Stan, Yessenia, Shirley, Joey, and Peter. The other four are probably just strangers. I forgot their AIM screen names already but the easiest one was probably ‘Money’… Money something.”
Jen tried to think, “Hm? That screen name is familiar. Stan must have asked me a few days ago who he or she was.”
Matt corrected her, “I think it was a ‘she’. But anyway, Stan knew about her screen name for awhile?”
Jen nodded, “Mhm. Stan was in a few chat rooms for weeks now.”
Matt was surprised, “Wow, he’s way ahead of me. We still play those online RPG games together but I didn’t know he had another life out of the computer.”
Jen joked, “And yet you’re still in your computer life. You need to go out more.”
Matt crossed his arms, “What about you?”
Jen froze, “Um… uh… I go home at six o’clock almost every day.”
“I’ll believe you. But that’s because you have to. You got your own running schedule.”
Jen screamed, “Whatever, Matt! I’m only making my own running schedule because I’m not in any sports yet. I’m too scared of the competitions.”
“They’ll crush you like a bug.”
Jen slapped his left shoulder, “Idiot!”
~~~
As Matt was walking towards his third period class with Stan, Matt suddenly stopped. He looked around and Stan asked him, “What is it? Did you forget something?”
Matt shook his head, “Hm? Nope.” He continued walking as he thought to himself, “(I feel like I’m being followed or something. It’s those kind of feelings when a person know someone is behind them but no one is there in my case…)”
As Matt was in his Science class, the class room split up into groups to work on a lab. Matt scratched his head, “Wait a minute… That feeling is still here?” He started biting his fingers, which was one of his bad habits. This time, he was biting his fingers only because he was getting nervous, “It doesn’t feel right… that feeling…”
Yessenia slapped Matt’s back, “What are you doing?”
Kalpesh and Stan were in Matt’s group. Kalpesh questioned Matt, “Yeah, what are you doing? You were supposed to use the stop watch for us.”
A hand was placed on Matt’s shoulders and Matt froze, gasping in surprise. Matt turned around and a girl waved at him, “Teehee, hi Matthew!!”
Matt was still frozen. He quickly face-palmed himself, “Wha- It’s just a little girl.”
The girl stomped her foot, “What?! I’m not just a little girl. Don’t you know me?”
Matt shook his head, “No…?”
“It’s me, Van! Heehee.”
Yessenia blushed, “(She’s so… tiny and giddy…!)”
Matt turned back to his lab, “Anyways, I’m back to normal. What am I supposed to do again?”
Kalpesh handed Matt the stop watch after he reset it, “Here you go. Let’s do this again.”
Stan rolled his eyes, “Yeah, so stop wasting time. We need to get this finished fast. I don’t want to get late to fourth period.”
Matt shrugged, “What? I have all the time I need. I can stay to do it because I have first lunch so lunch is after this for me.”
Kalpesh responded, “No, that won’t do. I have fourth period next too so you’ll be alone and it’s impossible to do this lab on my own.”
“Watch me.” Matt said, “What do I have to do?”
Kalpesh grabbed a beaker, “You’re supposed to measure the mass of the changing heat of water. You start out with the cold water and then you have to grip it with your hands. But the gripping takes minutes. And with the grip, you only have one free hand. You need two hands to finish the lab on time. Those two hands are supposed to be for other duties while you grip the beaker. As if now, Matt, you are the stop-watcher, Stan is the one holding the beaker, and I’m doing the rest. Therefore, it’s impossible for you to finish the lab on time even after your lunch time.”
Matt thought about it as he smiled, “Oh yeah? Watch me.”
Kalpesh gave Matt the directions, “Alright here. We are only halfway done and whatever is not finished, you have to do the rest if that’s okay with you.”
Matt smiled, “Yup, it’s totally fine!”
~~~
As first period lunch and fourth period class began, all of the classmates left. The teacher told Matt that she is going to eat with her teacher friend across the hall. Matt shook his head at her and said ‘Okay’.
Matt quickly looked at the beaker, “Alright, it’s time to do this. I’ll prove Kalpesh wrong, hehe.” He looked at the directions, “I still have a lot way to go. I’m not even halfway done. I thought I was supposed to be finished?” He then thought of how Yessenia bothered him the whole time, causing the lab to slow down, “Oh, right… hehe…”
The little girl nearby spoke to her lab member, “Aw man, I accidentally broke the beaker again. This is the third time.”
Matt eavesdropped on her, “That Van girl… she’s pretty clumsy.” Matt measured the mass of the cold water in the beaker then as he did so, he turned his back on Van’s group, who were the only ones left in the class. Matt gripped the beaker with both his hands as he started using his fire powers, “Finally, something useful coming from my fire powers.” He used the thermometer to measure the water to seventy-six degrees Celsius. “Alright, time to measure the mass for this too. I didn’t need to wait. Hehe.”
“OOH you’re almost done aren’t you?!” Van had her head over Matt’s left shoulder.
Matt jumped in astonishment, “Gah!! How long have you been putting your head there?!”
Van stood away, “Geez, only for a second, really. You’re so mean.” Her friend next to her began to giggle. Van reached for the glass, “It’s a pretty hot beaker. Hotter than most of the groups’ beakers.”
Matt stopped to think then he chuckled, “Shh, hehe. I blew in it to make it even warmer.” He looked away, grabbing onto his collar in guilt, “(Pretty good lie, I guess.)”
Van placed the beaker on the table, “Really? Wow… Come on, Jenny! I want my beaker as warm as his. I think the warmer, the better!”
Jenny giggled, “Heh heh, yaaay.”
Matt was surprised when he saw Jenny, “(Guh! So tall…! They’re like complete opposites. But hm… I heard ‘Jenny’ before… Oh well.)”
~~~
Stan looked at Matt’s calculations and measurements, “Oh? How did you do all this in time?” Stan started copying down the measurements.
Matt gave a nervous chuckle, “Eheh, well it’s a long story.”
Kalpesh started writing as well, “Long story? Haha, a long story on getting the measurements?”
Matt shook his head, “N-no, a long story on… something else.”
“But we’re talking about the lab.” Stan corrected.
“ANYWAYS, compare the measurements with the empty beaker. Is it close?”
Kalpesh looked at the two measurements, “Yup. They’re close. I think this is correct. But seriously, it doesn’t really matter how accurate we are. It matters most on our wording and word choice. We have an awesome Science teacher but she is super strict on the lab.”
Matt scratched his head, “Erh… so you mean it wouldn’t matter if I finished the measurements or not?”
Kalpesh shrugged, “Eh, I guess. I mean, we can always copy or write a number close to someone else’s lab.”
Stan rolled his eyes with a small laugh, “Heh, didn’t you notice that we were not going crazy on if you finished the lab or not?”
Matt frowned, “(I risked the publicity of my fire powers for nothing then?!)”
~~~
As Matt was walking down the hallway, a girl was screaming at someone, “I told you! I don’t care if you don’t have to feed your pet on Neopets. It’s sad to leave them hungry.”
Matt took notice of her comment. “(I have a Neopets account but I barely go on it. I didn’t know other people still go on it in high school. I’m focused more on Gaia Online now.)” He took a peek at her.
The girl continued, “Really, Peter, you’re so evil to your pets.”
Peter laughed, “It’s a virtual website and there’s no penalty for not feeding your pets! It’s just a waste of money.”
Matt said to himself, “He’s not wrong… Wait a minute…” A quick thought came into his mind, “Actually, Peter was talking to this other girl in the chat room. They were talking about Neopets. Could that be her?”
Peter took a step away, “I have to go with Joey to play basketball now. Talk to me about this tonight. I’m in a hurry, Maggie.”
Maggie clenched her fists, “So basketball is more important than talking to me?! You know how rare it is to find another Neopets browser in high school? It’s even rarer that a guy has it! You’ve got to be a girly guy, right?!”
Matt glared at Maggie, “What the heck did you just say?”
Peter suddenly ran across from Maggie, “I-I’m sorry. I really have to go.”
Maggie face-palmed herself, “Fine. Whatever. I’m going to meet my friends anyway.”
As Peter ran to the center of the hallway from his English class, he turned right and ran into Matt. Matt fell to the ground, feeling his forehead, “Argh, that hurt…!”
Peter stood up and helped Matt up with his hand, “Oh, sorry. You’re Matt right? I only talked to you in those chat rooms. I’ve… seen you a lot at school, heh.”
Matt gave a fake laugh, “(Awkward. Talking to someone after only talking to them through the internet…) Y-Yeah. I see you talking to Joey a lot.”
Peter pointed at his face, “OH! Wait, you’re the guy that goes to Columbia! You’re that quiet one, aren’t you?”
Matt looked away, “What the heck, is that how people describe me to others?”
Peter laughed and waved, “Well, I have to go to the large gym. See ya!” Matt waved back at Peter.
~~~
Matt turned around and Maggie stared closely at him. Matt yelped, “BLUH! What are you doing?!”
Maggie gave an evil smile, “Bwehehehe, so YOU’RE Matthew from the chat rooms eh?”
Matt took a step away, “You can just call me Matt, eheh…”
Maggie poked his stomach, “From what I remember, that Matthew guy goes on Neopets too. Don’t tell me that guy is you~ HAHAHA. I can’t believe it. A guy goes on Neopets just like Peter, Yessenia, and Jon.”
Matt’s stomach suddenly started hurting as he became super surprised, “J-Jon!”
Maggie tilted her head in confusion, “What’s wrong?”
“I-It’s nothing. Hey, you’re the third one, right?”
“Third one?”
“Yeah. There’s Van… and um, Jenny, and then there’s you, right?” Matt questioned her.
Maggie realized what he was saying, “Oh yeah, yup. That’s us!” She patted Matt on his shoulders, “Welp, it’s time for me to meet them at the library. By the way, it’s so strange that your waterproof jacket is so warm. Usually it’s cold, isn’t it?”
Matt was surprised, “What? What are you talking about?”
“Haha! I’m just kidding. You must have done something to it. I know these days it gets pretty cold. Anyways, bye Matt! I’ll see you on Neopets too. Muahaha! I mean, hahaha!” She started walking away.
Matt was scared, “Geez, she’s the scariest one of them all.”
~~~
Matt thought about all three of them to himself, “Although something is wrong. It’s not getting any safer keeping my secret from anyone. If the secret goes as far as the police and the FBI and even worse, I’ll end up being some kind of animal to them. That Jon… he seems a lot closer to Maggie than I thought.”
He then thought of Van and Jenny, “Them too. Because of what I was reading in the chat room last night and a few days before, it seems as though Maggie likes to gossip. If that’s true, then it’s possible that Jon is close to Van and Jenny too… and if that happens, I’ll be exposed three times as much with these… these… tri-sisters! Not only that, Van and Jenny might have seen me use my fire powers but they could have pretended they did not see it back then in our Science class. If one of them finds out, it will lead to Maggie finding out. Maggie will tell everyone! With those three girls around my life now, I feel as if I’m even more in danger. What am I gonna do?” He thought of Santi, ShirleyC, Danny, and Yessenia with their own powers as well. He became entirely worried…
~~~
---- Next chapter preview:Matt: On the next chapter, Yessenia is found behind the Double Freeze restaurant, fainted. It's time for her to teach us power users about Arkon's Magic!
Yessenia: It's a big jump forward to figuring out how all this power stuff works.
Matt: Alright, let's go to Arkon's Magic then! Next chapter, The Path to Arkon's Magic!
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