Cinder: A Close To Normal Life

Chapter 6

Cinder's POV

I'm not going to lie, creaming Kai at alphabet improv felt really good. I was pretty pleased with myself when I won, but then the whole class burst out laughing. Even Mr. Greenlee chuckled. Kai was still looking dazed, but then he blinked a few times and shook his head. He started laughing too.

"Nicely played, Cinder. Nicely played."

I smiled, glad that I didn't make him feel totally embarrassed and humiliated, but before I could reply the bell rang signaling for class to end.

"Alright class," Mr. Greenlee shouted over the rustle of the students packing up their things, "Next time we will finish up alphabet improv with the people who have not gone yet!" My classmates barely took notice to him as they all shoved their way to the door. In the scattering of the people, Kai and I were pushed away from each other. I sighed and went to get my books. Before I could leave the classroom, though, Kai called out my name.

"Hey, Cinder! Wait up!"

I turned around and watched him trying to shove some papers in his book while hobbling toward me at the same time. I laughed making a bet with myself that Kai would probably drop something before he got to me. And I was right. I laughed and walked towards Kai helping him pick up the papers he had dropped.

"Nice job, klutz," I teased.

He raised an eyebrow and said, "Who are you calling a klutz, klutz?" then he swung his foot under mine so I tripped and fell on my butt. I was silent for a moment in shock and Kai seemed to get uncomfortable, "Sorry, I was just-" but before he could finish his sentence, I burst out laughing. Then so did he. Before I knew it we were rolling on the floor hysterically laughing.

After we calmed down, we quickly got Kai's stuff together and rushed to mechanics class before we were late. We plopped sown into our chairs right before Mr. Kimmel walked through the door and yelled, "Okay class has started! Everyone, sit down!" He walked to the front of the classroom before saying anything else. "I was looking through the things you made yesterday and surprisingly everyone did a pretty good job." Kai glanced at me and smiled, his eyes saying thanks again. "Anyways," Mr. Kimmel continued, "I have decided on your first project. You and your table partner will be making an android." I sat up feeling excitement coursing through my veins. An android! How exciting! I was thinking about all the cool complex wiring it was going to have when Mr. Kimmel started passing around sheets and chips and instruction books.

"Okay class, the chips are personality chips that you'll be putting into your android. Now before you start trying to piece your android together, you need to fill out the sheet first! Alright, you can get to work now." Mr. Kümmel finished talking and sat down behind the desk.

Kai and I both reached for the paper at the same time and our hands touched. Kai started blushing but I was able to control myself from reddening too. It took some practice but I can control my emotions really well. I ended up taking the sheet while clearing my throat.

"Okay, first things first, our names." As I wrote down our names I also said what I was writing. "Kai...and...Cinder"

Kai looked at the next question, "What are you naming your android?" He looked at me, but I just shrugged my shoulders, there wasn't a particular name that I had in mind. Then Kai smiled and said, "How about Iko?"

"Yeah sure. That's good with me." And I really did like the name. It was short and sweet.

For the rest of the hour the two us just kept filling out the sheet. The questions varied from 'how big do you want the android to be?' and 'what is the android's job?'. We ended up making her 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide. And her job was to be a personal assistant.

By the time the bell had rang, Kai and I was done with the sheet. Just as everyone was about tot rush out the door, Mr. Kimmel called "Remember! Your androids are due in two weeks! Don't procrastinate!"

As Kai and I walked towards our lockers, we made plans to work on our android, Iko. "Is it okay with you if we work on Iko tonight? Maybe you could swing by my shop and we could work on it there?" I asked Kai.

"Yeah, that sounds great! I'll bring the pieces and instruction book." The teachers started herding the students into the classroom. "Well I guess I'll see you later. Bye, Cinder!" Kai called as he walked to his next class.

"Bye!" I called back as a wave of people pushed me to my next class.

After school, I headed to the shop for work. It was a pretty slow day, only one person came in for help with their phone. Then I remembered that I still had to figure out what was going on with Kai's phone. Honestly, I thought it was a miracle that a teen could last so long without their phone. After tinkering around with it and trying all the usual stuff the screen suddenly went black. At first I thought that maybe the battery had died, but then the screen turned purple. It was only purple for a few seconds before it went back to black then the phone restarted itself. I was pretty confused as to what happened but when I tried to open an app it worked fine. I did it with a few other apps and they all worked too. I decided that everything was normal, but it still bothered me not knowing what the purple screen was all about. His phone was doing that before too and I haven't seen any other things have that problem. But I decided to let it go.

Right after I put the phone aside, Kai walked into the store with a big box of parts to build Iko. I smiled, "Hey, Kai!"

"Hi, Cinder! I got the parts. Oh man, this is going to be so awesome!" Kai said as he set down the box on the ground.

"I'm excited too, Iko is going to end up being so cool!" Then I remembered his phone, "Oh, by the way, I finished fixing your phone." I said while tossing him his iPhone. I thought about mentioning how I still thought the purple screen thing was weird, but then I thought against it. It's probably nothing and I didn't want him to worry over it."

"Thanks a bunch! Are you sure you don't want me to pay you?"

I shook my head, "Positive."

He sighed, "Alright fine. C'mon let's get started on Iko!"

I smiled, "Let's do it."

After about 2 hours on working on it, we decided to call it a day. We were about 1/6 done. Every now and then I would have to help a customer with something so I had to stop working on Iko for a bit.

Kai looked out the window as if seeing something, then said, "I'll see you tomorrow, Cinder!" Then he picked up the box with the pieces, threw in the instruction book and left the store.

I still had one more hour of work, so I couldn't leave just yet. While I waited for more customers to help, I put in my earbuds, took out some homework and tried to focus. But something kept bothering me. It was the purple screen thing that happened to Kai's phone. I don't know why I feel so bothered by it though. So I tried to push the thoughts away and tried to work on homework.