Oops! I Caught a Genie!

Chapter 9

Morning. Again. Ugh. I slipped out of bed and put my head in the bathroom sink, proceeding to turn on the cold water.

Once I was fully up, I dried my hair and got ready for school. I gathered the homework papers and looked them over, the handwriting looked identical to my own. It was impressive.

“Fritz!” I called, “School.”

“I’m too old for school.” Fritz grumbled when he appeared on the couch.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Lets not go there…”

“Please?”

He made a grumbling noise that sounded a lot like ‘humans’ and crossed his arms over his chest. I grabbed my waffle from the toaster and stuck it in my mouth. I picked up my school bag and walked to the door, gesturing for Fritz to follow.

I ate my waffle on the way to the car.

The school was as crowded as ever. I drug the reluctant Fritz through the busy hall to our first class of the day. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to put an economics class first is a terrible person. After an hour and a half of that, I sat through my next exciting class: Spanish. Fritz had a free period so I was left alone. Liana only had math, english and athletics with me. After finishing the work in Spanish, I stared at the clock. I willed the small red and black hands to move faster, but no luck.

In athletics we ran laps around the track and skipped wearily up the bleachers. I saw some of the sophomore girls sitting in the corner texting, but I decided that the coach could gripe at them when he saw them. Liana was running beside me, talking and running at the same time. I have no idea how she manages to talk the whole time we run. She caught my gaze.

“In two years, they’ll be back in here. It takes a special skill to fail gym.”

Liana and myself were two of the five seniors in the class. Most everyone else had gotten it out of the way in their first two years of high school, but not us! We had skipped it in favor of other classes.

“Yep. I think they have that skill though. Oh look, there goes coach!” I said.

We tried not to talk trash about others, but sometimes, they kinda deserve it…

After changing out of our gym outfits we hurried to our next class, math.

Fritz was already there, I hoped he hadn't smoked in and scared the daylights out of Ms. Case. When he saw me, he stuck his tongue out.

“How was the workout girls?” He asked us.

“Butterflies and Rainbows.” I said, putting my head on the cool plastic desk.

“Yep. Butterflies and rainbows is a pretty good description.” Liana added with a laugh.

The bell rang and an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Ms. Case had stepped into the next classroom to talk with her teacher friends before the bell and she was late.

Nobody wanted to break the silence, we just looked around and blinked.

“Good morning!” Ms. Case said cheerily on her way in and got right into the lesson.

 

The lunch bell rang, we sprung out of our seats and rushed to the school café. We found a table in a corner and tossed our book bags unceremoniously into the chairs. Fritz agreed (After I ordered him to) to stay and watch our stuff.

I got a tray with a nice big cheeseburger and fries on the side. I had also bought an Oreo milkshake, which I carried proudly to the table, glaring at anyone who got too close to it. Liana had gotten a salad and a protein shake.

We sat down at the table and Liana looked disapprovingly at my food.

“That looks healthy.” She grumbled.

“And tastes delicious.” I said in defense, hugging my milkshake.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Liana asked Fritz, giving up on the health food debate with me.

“I had something during my off period.” Fritz said.

While we ate, we did our homework. Liana and Fritz helped me catch up on the stuff I missed the previous day.

When the bell signaling the end of lunch sounded, we pitched the wrappers and hurried to our next class.

 

Finally, at the end of the day, after we got home, I dove into my bed and covered my head with the pillow. Dog tired.

“Hey. These papers ain't gonna read themselves.” Came the now familiar drawl.

“Go away unless you have caffeine.” I said from under my blue fluffy pillow.

I felt a prod and peeked out of my darkness haven to see a lovely mug of black tea, Earl Grey. My favorite.

“Thank you.” I said and puffed on the top of the liquid to cool it down.

I saw Fritz jot something down and a notebook and looked at it suspiciously.

The human seems to run on hot plant based beverages.  It said.

“Hey!” I complained.

“Mangoo wanted some observations.” He said simply.

“Its called tea. Caffeinated tea.”

After taking a few sips, I crawled off my bed and pulled out one of the large brown boxes containing the research notes.

“Lets go.” I said.

Two hours later-

“No moreeeeeee” I groaned.

Fritz quirked an eyebrow at me and looked down at the empty mug.

“Out of fuel?” He asked me in a drawl.

“Shut it.”

I shoved papers back into the box and put it back under my bed. I stood up and stretched my arms and back.

“I’m getting dinner.” I announced and walked out of my room. I popped a frozen boneless steak meal into the microwave and turned it on.

 

While I waited for it to finish, I walked back to my room. Fritz had put his box away and was laying in the fuzzy rug holding his watch.

I patted my pocket, I hadn't realized that the watch wasn't in it.

“Sorry… Did I lose the watch?” I asked.

“No, I took it today. I found something in the notes saying there was something that had broken and I was looking to see if I could find it.”

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah. There was a piece of paper wedged into a crevice.”

“How did we not notice that?”

“You’re daft and I haven't seen it lately.”

“Hey-”

“This is a storage unit number.”

Horray! Plot! I accept payment in caffinated beverages and pie... Also comments... Comments make me very happy...