Element Guardians *To-Be-Edited*

35 ~ Don't dwell on the Future

School had surprisingly been uneventful but then again, it was Friday: everybody was tired, annoyed and glad that it would be the weekend as soon as the last bell rang.

And when it did, I ran for my skates hidden in my locker, jammed all my unnecessary books into the metal box and locked it up securely. The sudden rush of eager students let out of school had me squashed against my locker for a few minutes until I could finally escape and squeeze through, managing to follow the flow straight to the front of the school.

The skates were sort of weighing me down in my bag but it didn’t matter; it only meant I’d be home faster and the four of us would all look forward to finding the next Crystal and finally getting some proper answers from Sidara about the last Crystal!

As soon as I reached the pavement flooded with students loitering around, I whipped out my skates, strapped them on and tossed my shoes into my bag. I waited around impatiently, crossing my arms and felt self-conscious as older students passed me by, giving me weird looks. Only Ash and I bladed to school which sort of made us the odd ones out – wasn’t really a good feeling but we’d deal with it.

“Sorry I’m late!” Ashleigh gasped, appearing from the front entrance to my right. She stumbled out on her skates, a goofy grin on her face. “I was being chased through the school by a teacher when she caught me rolling through the corridors in my skates.”

Laughing, I took her arm and dragged her out of the way from the pouring flood of students, many more yet to come. “Naughty, Ash!”

She smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “It’s Friday, what can you do?”

“Rose, Ash, over here!”

The two of us turned and scanned the crowd until we found Felix and Cale waving frantically across the street by the local dairy. Grinning, we skated across the tar road and rolled alongside them casually, nattering to each other randomly.

“Excited about the Crystal for tonight?” Cale questioned with a smile.

“Who isn’t?” Ashleigh exclaimed. “It will get us one gem closer to the last Crystal!”

“But we still need to decide who gets it,” Felix pointed out.

“Not the point,” I said impatiently. “We still don’t know how the wind will reveal it to us.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see – but until then, stock up your stomach and prepare to go to the Base,” Cale advised. “We’ll be out all night like last time, I’m guessing.”

“But what about dad?” I questioned. “He said he’d try a bit more because mum’s not really making any progress.” The words escaped me before I could register them. A sharp pain stabbed at my chest, my throat starting to thicken with tears. “Never mind.”

Cale pulled me into a hug after we stopped halfway on the route back home. “She’ll get better. You just need to figure out how to use your powers.”

“Right,” I muttered, pushing away and grabbed Ashleigh’s arm. “Race you back to the house!”

None of us were surprised when we found my Dad absent in the house. The four of us fell into a moment’s worth of silence then started gathering food from the pantry, several bottles of water and some night gear into duffel bags we found around the house. I took my skates on and laid them by the front door. Trudging around in my socks, I turned the TV on to add a little more life to the house and ran upstairs.

I passed the gaping open door of my parents’ room to find that the sheets were crinkled, unmade and obviously slept in. I paused, peeking around the doorframe and almost smiled. Dad had obviously slept in the house last night but left early before I could say hi. At least he had a better sleep . . . I’m assuming.