Chapter Twelve
A Substitute Teacher
“No, Wyatt! Stop!” Mai yelled as she ran over to Wyatt, who was sneaking more food from the picnic basket. Dakota and Celie laughed as Mai grabbed him by the arm and yanked him away, one cupcake still in his hand. “I’m serious Wyatt. Your new name should be Wyatt the Pig,” Mai said, crossing her arms.
Dakota laughed again. She’s so funny, he thought.
That boy really does like to eat, said Amo, shaking his head. Celie and Dakota nodded their agreement, though Dakota’s thoughts were more on Mai at the moment than Wyatt. He was an interesting person, but lately, he couldn’t take his mind off Mai.
Hey, watch this, Tito announced. He ran forward, leapt, and in midair, grabbed the cupcake out of Wyatt’s hand.
“Hey!” Ignoring Wyatt, everyone laughed. Dakota heard Tito humming contently as he ate the cupcake. He was glad that they could all have a good laugh together, despite the hard times they were going through. It had been a long time since he had been able to have fun. He had never been allowed to do anything while he lived with the Fire Tribe, so he was having a blast.
“Well, where are we going now?” Celie asked.
“I was thinking we should go into a big city, to do those tryouts I suggested yesterday,” said Dakota. He hoped that Mai would like his idea; he wanted to impress her, and make her think he was great.
“Hey Dakota, how much do you know about the Chosen Ones?” Celie asked him, looking at her finger nails.
“Not very much, just the basics: they have two powers; plus a Defensive Power, which is triggered by sadness, threat, or anger; they can talk to animals and they can join forces with the other Chosen Ones.”
Celie smiled. “That’s pretty good, but I could tell you more.”
Mai walked up to her. “Really? You know more than that? That’s great, isn’t it Dakota?”
Dakota nodded eagerly. He was excited to learn more about what he was—even if he had never wanted to be it in the first place.
“First question; have you ever had an urge to go somewhere, like something was calling you?”
Dakota thought for a minute. There had been many times where he had felt like this, but most of the time he ignored it. Though sometimes it was very hard to do this; sometimes the feeling would get so strong that he thought his head might burst. He had always wondered if there was something wrong with him. “Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Actually, that was a sense you had. The Chosen Ones get them when another Chosen One is in need of help, or if they are looking for the others. This sense will get really strong sometimes. That’s how I knew to come to that park and help you. You were in trouble. So if we both really concentrate on finding the others, they’ll get a really strong sense and they’ll come looking for us as well. So we won’t have to search the entire world to find them.”
Amo nudged Dakota. I think we should start moving again; we’ve spent too much time here. Dakota told the others what Amo had said.
“Here Tito,” Mai called to the fox-squirrel. Tito ran over to her and leapt onto her shoulder.
“I can’t believe how well he listens to you, Mai.” Dakota said brightly as Mai patted Tito on the head. Tito hardly ever obeyed anyone but him, and he wondered why he was listening to Mai.
“Neither can I,” Mai said, giving Tito a confused look. “I’ve never had any experience with animals before, and I don’t have any special talents with animals, so it doesn’t make sense that he listens to me.”
Tito, why do you listen to Mai? Normally you don’t listen to anyone but me, Dakota asked Tito as everyone picked up their luggage and started walking again.
You know I can understand everyone, don’t you? Tito said, turning around on Mai’s shoulder to look at him.
Of course I know that, Tito. But all I’m saying is that you never LISTEN to anyone. Someone could tell you to eat something and you would ignore them even if you were starving, just to be rebellious. It was true; Tito was the last one Dakota would expect to follow orders. Once, Tito had broken his leg, and Dakota’s mother had told him to lie still so it could heal. But within a matter of seconds, Tito was running around the house as fast as he could go with his cast on. Dakota’s mother was furious, so Dakota had to calm the fox-squirrel down before he hurt himself even worse.
Tito cocked his head to one side and said, I don’t know why I listen to her, she just seems different somehow.
Dakota raised one eyebrow. What do you mean? He wanted to know what was so ‘different’ about his friend. Tito normally wasn’t the one to get senses, or visions, it was normally Dakota. This made Dakota very curious.
She seems different than all the other people I’ve met, other than you of course. Dakota had not expected to get a straight answer from Tito; it was very rare that Tito gave straight answers. Even thought Dakota had not gotten his hopes up, he was still disappointed. He shrugged and walked beside Celie, as Tito leapt off Mai and onto Wyatt’s shoulder.
“So, how long have you known you were a Chosen One?” he asked her. He now realized just how little he knew about his new friend. Even thought he had known her for a few days, he didn’t know much more than her name, her tribe, and that she was a Chosen One.
“Since I was, like five. When my parents found out, they started panicking. They thought that Romokka would find out I was a Chosen One and lock me up, and they hardly let me do anything. That’s why it was so hard to convince my dad to let me come with you. But all I had to tell him was that I wasn’t going to sit quietly while there were people who needed my help. That really got him.”
Wyatt looked over to them. “Hey, where was your mom anyway? I sure didn’t see her anywhere.” Mai shot him a dirty look. Dakota understood it to mean ‘that wasn’t a very nice question! What if her mom had died?’
“My mom is away. She’s working on the other side of the world, in the Plant Tribe capital, Anasu. I haven’t seen her since I was little. I also used to have an older brother, Andy. He went to fight in the war, and we never saw him again. His whole troop disappeared.”
Mai put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and said, “We know how you feel. We’ve all lost someone. Wyatt and I lost our mom, and our step mom and little brother have been kid-napped, and Dakota lost both his parents.” Dakota felt his stomach squirm; guilt filled his mind, momentarily blinding him from the outside world. It had been his own fault his parents had died, and he had to live with that guilt every day of his life. He tried as hard as he could to push unwanted memories from his mind before he started to relive them.
Celie looked up at Mai and smiled. “Thanks, Mai.”
Mai smiled back. “Anytime.”
Wyatt set his suitcase down and sighed. “This thing is so heavy!”
Mai rolled her eyes. “It wouldn’t be so heavy if you hadn’t packed so much stuff. Besides, look at poor Dakota. He doesn’t even have a suitcase. Instead, he’s stuck carrying the picnic basket.” Dakota was able to suppress a smile. He didn’t really care if he had a suitcase with him or not. All of the things he owned now were Fire Tribe clothes. He had no toys or games, and certainly nothing he would want to bring along with him. In fact, if he had had a choice, he would have left all of his belongings at home anyway.
Celie grinned. “Mai’s got a point, Pig.”
“What did you call me?” Wyatt asked, outraged.
“Mai said your new name should be Pig, so I thought I should give her idea some extra support,” Celie said in a business-like tone.
Wyatt crossed his arms. “Humpf.” Dakota thought he looked very comical. By now they had come to the edge of the forest. In front of them now lay a huge, grassy field with a few trees here and there. There was also a large pond in the center. Way off in the distance they could see the faint skyline of San Diego, and behind it, a thin gray line that was the ocean.
“Well, there’s the big city. I haven’t been there since I was little,” said Mai, making her hand into a visor.
“Can we stop for a while and have some lunch. That is, if Wyatt didn’t eat all of our food by now,” said Celie, shaking her head.
“Let’s eat under that tree!” Dakota said, pointing over to a tree near the pond. He always loved picnics, even though he had only been to one, with Sam’s family. And he was more the slave that day anyway, so it was fair to say he had never been to a real picnic.
“Okay. That looks like a good spot,” Mai observed.
Wyatt groaned. “I can’t carry this anymore.” He leaned against a tree and looked sadly at his suitcase.
Amo, can you carry Wyatt’s suitcase for him? Dakota asked. He thought it would be a nice favor to relieve Wyatt of his heavy burden.
Well, if that will keep him quiet. Amo walked over to Wyatt’s suitcase and picked it up in his mouth.
“Hey, that’s mine! Put it down!” Wyatt shouted, running over to Amo. He grabbed the suitcase and attempted to pull it out of Amo’s mouth, but Amo was too strong.
“It’s okay Wyatt, Amo’s going to carry it for you,” Dakota explained, a slight laugh distinguishable in his voice.
Wyatt let go of the suitcase and sighed. “Good, because I can’t carry this thing anymore.”
Mai lifted her own suitcase and said, “If you would have used your smaller suitcase, you wouldn’t have this problem.”
“Come on, I’m getting hungry. Race ya there, Dakota!” Celie shouted as she started running towards the tree, swinging her suitcase behind her.
“Hey, no fair!” Dakota called after her. He started running, but then sent a blast of air behind him, propelling him forward until he caught up with Celie. He slowed down for a second and waved at her, then took off again, leaving Celie in the dust. He had always been able to run very fast, it was a part of his Wind Powers, as Celie had told them all a few days ago. But she had also said that he could learn to run even faster, and he couldn’t wait to do that—only he had no clue how to.
“Hey!” she called to him, but he was already at the tree. When Celie caught up, she was winded and was clutching the stitch in her side. “You got lucky that time. But next time we race, don’t use your powers, I want to see whether you can beat me on your own.” Mai and Wyatt came running up to them a few seconds later, with Amo galloping behind them, Tito on his back and Wyatt’s suitcase in his mouth. Dakota set the picnic basket on the grass and opened it. He pulled out a large sub sandwich that Celie’s father had made for them. Then he took out a small butter knife, divided it into four pieces, and handed one to each of them.
“I think my dad also put some drinks in there, didn’t he?” Celie said, leaning over to look in the picnic basket.
“No, there’s nothing else in here—“
“WHAT? We’re out of food?!” Wyatt shouted frantically, making a sudden lunge for the picnic basket.
Dakota pulled the basket out of Wyatt’s reach. “No. I was going to say, there’s nothing else in here except for the food we already had.” Even though Dakota liked Wyatt, it was starting to get a bit annoying that he only cared about food. Sometimes he wished Wyatt could be just a little more serious at times—just a little more. Dakota was starting to wonder why Wyatt was like that.
“Phew. I just got scared for a second there. I’m good now,” Wyatt said, leaning back against the tree.
Mai shook her head. “Sometimes Wyatt, I start to wonder if food is the only thing you care about.” Dakota wondered if Mai had been reading his thoughts, because he had just thought the same thing.
Wyatt shrugged. “I care about a lot of other stuff, but that still doesn’t mean I don’t care about food.” Mai rolled her eyes. Suddenly, Dakota felt very tired. He felt like he had missed a night’s sleep and was having trouble keeping his eyes open while he was eating his sandwich. He hoped it would go away, but it didn’t. It stayed through all of lunch. When everyone was done eating, Mai started putting things back in the picnic basket, and Wyatt and Celie went over to play in the pond.
“I don’t know why, but I’m really tired. Can we stay here a little while so I can rest? Just like fifteen minutes?” Dakota said, stretching his arm. He would have liked to do nothing more than to sleep for the rest of the day, but he knew he couldn’t sleep that long—they had things to do.
Mai closed the picnic basket and said, “Why are you tired? You got plenty of sleep last night, didn’t you?”
Tito came running over to her and jumped onto her shoulder. “Yeah, I got lots of rest. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m going to fall asleep any second now,” said Dakota, fighting back a yawn.
“Wow. Well I guess if you’re that tired we can wait while you sleep.”
Dakota smiled. “Thanks.” Mai nodded and stood up. She smiled at Dakota then turned and walked over to the pond too. She’s so nice, thought Dakota. He laid his head down in the grass and closed his eyes. The splashing sounds coming from the pond were soothing and lulled him to sleep. The dream he had was very strange. Almost like a vision. It seemed so real that when he woke up, he was confused about where he was at first. But after a few seconds, the dream made sense to him.
Dakota was running along the beach, the warm sand flying behind him. He could see Mai in the distance. When he finally reached her, he stopped and stood beside her as she looked out over the ocean. Dakota thought she looked very pretty. She had her hair down. It came all the way down to her hips and was blowing freely in the breeze. She was wearing a different set of robes. The top was light blue and sleeveless and the bottom a long red skirt that came down to her ankles. She was also wearing her mysterious locket. Dakota smiled at her.
“Dakota,” Mai said to him. “Look there, what do you see?” She pointed over the ocean.
“Water?” guessed Dakota, feeling a little awkward. Mai gave him a gentle smile; there was a twinkle in her eye.
“Look harder.”
Dakota squinted as hard as he could and still saw nothing but waves. “Mai, I still don’t see anything.”
Mai’s expression did not change as she said, “Don’t look with your eyes; close them. You have to sense it.”
Dakota gave her a confused look, then closed his eyes. He stood there for a few seconds, feeling like it might be a trick, but then he felt something calling out to him. He took a deep breath and felt a strong gust of air. He opened his eyes and saw himself, a second Dakota, standing with his eyes closed, with Mai looking at him. He held his hands up and gave out a surprised yell when he saw that they were see-through. He looked down and saw that his whole body had become see-through. He looked back out over the ocean and saw a dragon about one hundred yards away, standing on the water. That must have been what Mai had wanted him to see.
He carefully started walking forward to the water. He looked back over his shoulder at Mai, who was still looking at the other Dakota who was standing next to her. Dakota took a deep breath and began walking into the water. But to his surprise, he was walking on top of it like ice, but it was still moving beneath him. It was like someone had put a glass path on top of the ocean. He kept walking until he was twenty feet from the dragon. He could now see what the dragon looked like. It was light blue, long and thin with red and gold wings. It had webbed feet, a tail that seemed to be made of water, and an amulet with the Fire Tribe insignia on it. The dragon bowed its head to Dakota, and Dakota, not knowing what else to do, bowed back. The dragon raised its head and slowly started walking to Dakota, who was slowly backing up.
Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you, the dragon said to Dakota with its mind. It had a girl’s voice. Dakota stopped backing up and let the dragon approach him. It then touched its nose to Dakota’s forehead. Dakota suddenly saw an enormous wave.
Dakota sat up underneath the tree where he had fallen asleep. He felt strange, but he knew what he needed to do. He felt completely refreshed, and he was no longer tired. He had just gotten a sense; his dream had told him what his second power should be. He had to tell the others.
“Mai!”
Mai, who had been playing in the water with Celie and Wyatt, came running over right away. “What is it Dakota? What’s wrong?” she asked frantically.
“Nothing’s wrong,” said Dakota. Celie and Wyatt had stopped splashing to listen.
“Then what is it?” Mai asked.
“I know what my second power should be!” Dakota said excitedly. He watched with pleasure as Mai’s face changed. She was excited, Dakota could tell.
“Wow, that’s great! What is it?” Mai asked.
Dakota paused for a dramatic affect. He always liked to build up the suspense; it was a fun thing to do. “Water!” he said finally. He saw Mai’s face light up at these words. When she smiled like that, it seemed to fill Dakota’s heart with joy. He grinned back at her.
“Really?” Celie asked, walking over to them, with Wyatt right behind her.
“Yeah. I had a dream and now I know my second power should be water. But I have no clue where I could find a Water Master to teach me.”
Mai made a small coughing noise and Dakota looked over at her. “Maybe I could teach you. I mean, not like an actual teacher, I don’t know very much. But I could at least get you started.”
Dakota felt a strange feeling in his stomach. Mai, teaching him! He stood up and said, “That would be great! When can we start?”
Mai looked over her shoulder at the pond. “Right now, if you want. This would be the perfect place.”
Dakota nodded eagerly. He couldn’t believe that she would be teaching him, it made him feel strange, but in a good way. He had never felt like this before in his whole life, and he wondered why he felt this way now. He didn’t know what to think of it, was he really having his first crush?
No, he thought, it’s different than that.
“Alright, well, I’m going to change into my bathing suit first. Do you have something you don’t mind getting wet?” Mai said, crouching down next to her suitcase and opening it.
“Yeah, I can just take off my robes,” Dakota answered. He pulled of his robes and threw them in a pile on the ground. He was left wearing a red t-shirt and short gray pants. He hated having to wear his Fire Tribe robes. He hated thinking that he had once lived with them, that he had been like a servant to them. Though, as he thought about it, Fudo had never treated him like a servant—he had treated him like an unwanted animal. But still, that was better than a servant.
“Hold on, how am I going to change?” Mai asked as she pulled her swimsuit out of her suitcase.
“I can help with that. Here,” Celie said. She sidestepped and brought both her arms up very fast. Then, with a rumble, a large chunk of earth came out of the ground and was shaped like a small cave with a very small entrance.
“Wow, that was cool,” Dakota said, walking over to the small earth-tent. He was just a bit jealous that he would never have Earth Powers.
“Ha! You bet it was!” Celie said proudly.
Dakota peeked through the opening, then crawled through and stood up. It was just big enough to fit one person and had a small hole at the top for light. Mai looked in through the opening.
“Impressive.”
Dakota nodded. “Yeah, it is.” Though he was still looking at Mai out of the corner of his eye. He was very grateful to her as well. If it hadn’t been for her—as he now realized—he would still be a servant for the Fire Chief’s family.
“Hey, Celie,” Mai said, “won’t this look suspicious? I mean, if someone else comes along, like the Fire Tribe or something, and sees a cave in the middle of a field; won’t they know there was someone from the Earth Tribe here?” Dakota crawled back out of the earth-tent and sat down next to his pile of robes.
“No, I can take it back down and you won’t even know it was there,” Celie replied.
“Alright then, I’ll be right back. Is there a way for you to close the opening once I’m inside?” Mai asked her.
“Yep, just holler when you want out.”
Mai nodded and walked into the earth-tent with her swim-suit. Celie lifted one arm and held it out. There was a rumble and a rock the size of the opening came out of the ground and hovered in mid-air. Celie lowered her hand and the rock dropped in front of the hold, hiding Mai from view. About a minute later, they heard Mai call to Celie, and Celie lifted the rock back up and by quickly moving both her hands down, made the rock go back into the ground. Mai crawled out wearing a blue, one piece suit with small, red flowers on it. She also had her hair down.
“Okay, ready Dakota?”
Dakota stood up quickly. “Yep, let’s go.” He followed Mai as she walked into the water. The deepest point in the pond came up to Dakota’s waist. Amo and Tito, who had been lying in the long grass, came over to the edge of the pond to watch, while Celie and Wyatt sat under the tree. Mai pulled an orb of water out of the pond.
“Okay, well…um… first off, you know how to direct energy, right?” Mai asked, raising the orb higher.
“Yeah, Master Chung taught me that,” Dakota answered, remembering the few times he had had training with Master Chung. He didn’t know why the Fire Chief had allowed him to have those lessons, maybe just to keep him out of the way for awhile, while the Fire Chief made plans or had meetings he didn’t want Dakota to know about. It made him curious.
“Right, so first try and take control of the water ball. I’ll hand it to you and you keep it up, got it?”
Dakota tilted his head slightly. “Yeah, I got it.” He got in his horse stance.
“Okay, here you go,” Mai said, moving the orb forward toward Dakota. Dakota moved one hand up and supported the orb and Mai lowered her hand.
“Wow, you sure got that fast,” Mai remarked.
“Wow! I got it,” Dakota exclaimed. He was so excited he almost dropped the orb into the pond.
“Alright, now let’s try a Water Snake. The trick is to keep it thin.”
Dakota pulled a steam of water out of the pond and began moving it around it different patterns. Mai, who hadn’t seen Dakota, made her own water snake and began moving it in slow circles around her head. “It took me over half my lesson to get this move so don’t get mad if—“
She stopped abruptly when she saw Dakota who had decided to play around with the Water Snake a bit and was twirling it around. Mai let her Water Snake fall back into the water. “You’re really good at this. It took me a lot longer to get it that good,” Mai said, putting her hands on her hips.
Dakota let his snake fall too, he was glad of her praise. It made him feel good. “Thanks. But it helps when you have a great teacher.” He saw Mai blush. Dakota thought she was very cute when she was embarrassed. For the next hour, Mai taught Dakota all the things Master Chung had taught her and some moves she had made up. Dakota got every move right away. Mai was happy for him at first, but after awhile, it seemed she was getting annoyed. As soon as they were done, Mai changed back into her normal clothes in the earth-tent. Celie made it disappear the same way she had with the other rock. Dakota used his newly learned Water Powers to pull all the water out of his clothes and dry off. He put his robes back on as Mai re-braided her hair.
“You know,” Mai said as soon as they were done, “I still haven’t seen you use your Light Powers, Celie.”
Celie shrugged. “If you want, I could show you now.” Mai grinned and nodded. Dakota did as well, even though Celie had not been talking to him. He wanted to see them just as much as he suspected Mai did. “Alright, first you should know there are two different styles to Light Powers: the Bright Style, and the Dark Style. I’ve already learned both. My mom was from the Dark Side and my dad was from the Bright Side,” Celie explained. “First I’ll show you the Bright Style.”
She lifted one arm and held it straight, her palm facing up. Then a small, yellow, glowing ball appeared in her hand. She threw the ball and it landed on the grass as if it were a liquid, and made a splash. But as it soaked into the ground, they noticed that all the grass had been burned away. Everyone clapped.
“If you thought that was good, check this out!”
Celie made a big wave of glowing liquid appear behind her. Then she lifted it over her head and threw it at the grass. There was a loud boom and all the liquid slowly sunk into the ground. And once again, all the grass had been burned away, leaving a large bear spot.
“One more,” Celie said, cracking her knuckles. She lifted both her arm up straight, palms facing the sun. A bright beam of light shot out of both her hands. She turned around and shot a beam of light in another direction.
“That’s neat!” said Dakota excitedly. “It’s like lasars!” He knew he sounded a bit childish as he said this, and he wished he hadn’t
“Yeah it was! Okay, now this is the Dark Style.” She suddenly turned to Wyatt and reached her arm out. Her eyes were glowing white, like headlights. Wyatt’s whole body was submerged in black and the only thing they could see of him, was a white outline. To Dakota, it looked like a large, tar bubble with Wyatt’s outline inside it. Celie moved her arm up and the bubble followed it. Wyatt was remaining perfectly still through all this, in fact, he had not moved and inch. Celie moved the bubble ten feet in the air, then let it drop, but stopped it just before it hit the ground. The glow in her eyes slowly went out, and at the same time, the black bubble faded away. Wyatt stood, speechless, staring at Celie.
“That… was…awesome!” he cried.
“That was amazing, Celie!” Mai shouted.
“What was the black thing? It looked like a black bubble,” said Dakota. He wished that he didn’t always ask so many questions.
“I never thought of it that way, but yeah, it sort of does. That was Black Light. I can use it to control whatever I use it on,” Celie explained.
“So that’s why I couldn’t move!” Wyatt remarked.
“Oh, so you couldn’t move. That explains a lot. I’ve never seen you so still in my life,” Mai teased. Wyatt ignored her.
“I think we should get moving, we’ve stayed here too long,” he said.
“Wyatt’s right, we should go,” said Celie, picking up her suitcase. Mai took her suitcase, Dakota took the picnic basket, and Amo took Wyatt’s large suitcase. As they started walking, Tito jumped onto Dakota’s shoulder.
Dakota likes Mai! Dakota likes Mai! Tito said in a singsong voice.
Dakota stopped walking to let the others get ahead. His first response was going to be ‘so what’, but he thought better. I do not.
Tito gave him a menacing look. You do to. I heard your thoughts while she was teaching you. ‘She looks so beautiful’ and ‘I’m so glad she’s the one teaching me. I’d pick her over anyone else’, shall I continue?
Dakota gave a quick glance at Mai then said, You won’t tell anyone will you? He didn’t want anyone to know about how he felt; it probably wouldn’t result in anything good, so he just wanted to keep it quiet.
Tito shrugged. The only other person I could tell would be Celie. But I won’t tell her if you don’t want.
“Dakota!” Mai called back to him. “Is something wrong?”
Dakota ran to catch up with them. “No, nothing’s wrong.” Mai shrugged and kept walking.
You should tell her, Tito urged, in a whisper so Celie and Amo couldn’t hear.
No, I can’t tell her, Tito! Dakota whispered back to him. He wished that Tito would just drop the subject; it was uncomfortable to talk about.
Why not?
Dakota hung his head. I just can’t. He was starting to get a little annoyed with Tito’s persistence.
Tito cocked his head. Why do you like her?
Dakota was getting tired of this conversation, but he answered anyway. I’m not sure, but something about her seems familiar.
Tito raised one eyebrow. What do you mean?
Dakota shook his head. I’m not sure but it seems like I know her really, really well. Better than if I knew her less than a week, which is how long I’ve known her. Like I knew her a long time ago....It’s hard to explain. As they walked,Dakota tried to remember where he had seen Mai before, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. She seemed to remind him of someone he had once loved, but that made no sense. He had never loved anyone before, other than his family, so why did he feel this way. He was very confused about it.
“Look, we’re almost to the city!” Dakota shouted about five minutes later, picking up his pace. He just wanted to get going. They had been walking in forests for days on end, and it was starting to get boring. He wanted something exciting to happen. He wanted to find the other Chosen Ones.
“Dakota wait,” Wyatt said in a tone Dakota didn’t hear him use often. It was a serious tone.
“What is it?” Dakota asked, turning around. Whenever Wyatt used a serious tone, he meant what he was saying, so Dakota thought it wise to listen to what he had to say. Everyone had stopped, and Tito had jumped off Dakota’s shoulder and landed on Amo’s back.
“I don’t think we should go into the city,” Wyatt said, looking out at the tall building about half a mile away.
“Why not? I think we’d be fine.” Celie chimed in.
“I think we should stay away from any big cities. We would be too noticeable. We’d stand out like a bear-coon in a litter of kittens.”
“Wyatt’s right, we aren’t exactly dressed in the latest fashion,” Mai said, looking down at her robes. Dakota laughed at her sarcastic comment, she could be very funny at times, but also serious.
“We’d be too easy to spot,” Wyatt continued. “Besides, the Fire Tribe is probably expecting us to go into the city. We should stay on the outskirts of town, that way, if there are any Chosen Ones in San Diego, they can come to us.” The other nodded their agreement.
“Come on, we should find a place to stay for the night, it’s probably only a few hours till it gets dark, and it’s starting to get foggy,” Mai observed.
“I can make another tent if you want,” Celie offered.
“That sounds good. That looks like a good spot,” Dakota said, pointing over to a small group of trees that would hide them from view.
“Alright, let’s go,” Wyatt said wearily. As soon as they reached the trees, Celie made another earth-tent, this time, less tall and big enough for four people to sleep in. She also made a small ball of light, which she stuck to the roof as a light bulb. Tito and Amo would sleep outside, under a large tree. The four of them crawled inside. It was very homey and would be perfect for sleeping in. As soon as they ate a small dinner, they decided they would just sit in the tent and talk until it was time to go to sleep.
But when it was finally time to turn off the light, Dakota thought, Where do I know you from, Mai?
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