Gina is about to wake up, today’s her birthday, she’s turning fifteen and she’s eager to see the enormous surprises her dad has prepared for her with hard work. She imagines a massive party with multicolored balloons—mostly pink—and a big cake with an endless cup of anmitsu. Gina was that girl for whom small details were not enough.
She gets up happy from her bed. This time, that awful tune wasn’t her alarm. She combs her bangs, says Good morning to her mirror reflection and goes to take a shower.
“I’m ready,” she says while leaving the bathroom.
Getting down the staircase to the dining room, she didn’t notice anything out of place, there it was her father fixing breakfast: tuna sandwiches. That scene repeats itself every morning. Gina got down until seeing her dad, with a smile put on just to receive a ‘Happy birthday, daughter.’ But it didn’t happen.
“Hi, Gina. Your sandwich is ready, have a sit and eat so you can take your bus—she did not ever—,” says her dad with his pitchy voice.
Gina rapidly thought, ‘It’s like in the movies, they first fake they don’t know a thing and then, they surprise you; so great!' The girl was so excited that she wanted to get back from school already. She hurried, fixed her backpack and went on to the door.
“Gina, wait!”
She turned around excited. ‘He remembered, I knew it.’
“I got Mrs Figg’s dustpan, I need you to take it back to her and take out the trash.”
Gina felt disappointed but she didn’t get infuriated like usual. ‘Unbelievable, nobody remembers my birthday, I’m not given not even a pet—she didn’t have one since the accident with Blanca—and I have to take out the trash.’
When Gina gets out the house to take the dustpan to Mrs Figg—that lady lived to the right of the house—, she sees Samantha on the schoolbus. She was sitting on the back. Gina thought of darting to catch that ‘damn old pot’ but it always left her so, she had to walk to school. It was humiliating but she did anyway, school wasn’t so far from Crown St.
When she turned the corner, she noticed the street that separates her house from ‘Miss Fatso’s’, as she whispered her. “Samantha told me this road is a shortcut to school.” She decided to try it to get earlier.
Still with the dustpan in her hand, she ducked into forlorn path. She never took a glimpse at it before, and neither a car nor a scooter went along that place. Suddenly, ‘CRUNCH, CRUNCH’, something in the wood area behind her house was tromping on the fallen leaves. Whichever of the infinite animals left on earth could have been the guilty of the noise, but Gina Belt, alone, unprotected and insecure, kind of feared.
She approached the bushes going to her right, following her detective instinct, feature of hers, and found the direction of the sound. “Who’s there? I have a dustpan, I won’t hesitate to use it!”—she had already forgotten to give it back. Apparently, she was agitated but she was not showing it.
A blueish light lit the bushes and Gina darted more rapidly than any jet zeppelin. She didn't want to start her day this way. The dustpan? No idea. She totally forgot she carried one. At school, it dawned on her that the shortcut actually worked.
“Hi, Gina. Happy birthday, what are you up to today?”
“Thanks, Samantha. At least you remembered it,” Gina was panting, her blue skirt was covered in dirty globs of mud.
“What are you saying? Your dad didn’t?”
“What do you think?”—Gina didn’t usually just say yes or no.
“If you don’t have any plans, why don’t we go to the celebration of the millennium?”
“What? Today is March 28th, the millennium started months ago.”
“It looks like you didn’t live in this region, Gina. Today the meteorite Nettai falls. The mayor will give out the new millennium officially with that. All citizens will gather in the wood area to take a look at the fall. Haven’t you seen the publicity they have made for it?”
Gina got a bit pensive and remembered it was true.
Nettai is a comet that is seen every 100 years by the region of the same name in New Heart Hill. It’s a tradition to use it for the officialization of a century, this year is doubly special because a new millennium gets started. It was a coincidence that Gina got to celebrate the world’s birthday instead of her own. New Heart Hill mayor organized a big soiree to the dusk in the wood area, not so far from Crown St; there’ll be food, music and the so yearning coming of the comet.
Classes were taken as usual, Gina trying to outsmart other students who did outsmart her and dealing with envious looks from her she classmates, especially Cindy Junson, who despised Gina to a ridiculous point that became a mutual grudge.
When Gina gets home and sees not a clue of the big party that awaited her, she stands tall in front of her father and stares at him with the wrath she almost always showed to him; she was waiting for a congratulation. Mr Mitchell ignored her completely, actually; the stubborn man didn’t remember her daughter was on her birthdate. Gina, all gloom, stepped up the stairs to her bedroom, she got messages in her cell from her mom, Ize, Sophia and the nuisance of Derby, even Cindy Junson would certainly remember it. Everyone but her dad.
'What a rage! How’s possible that a father forgets about his own daughter's birthdate?' She thought while she whanged the pillows. She heard her dad come up.
"Gina, I'm gonna deck up. Tonight we'll take a look at the comet so, you must get ready too." The girl only thought of saying she will get him after, that she would pick Samantha up first. She didn't want to glance at him; otherwise, she'd punch him in the face. Those exhibitions of disrespect were way typical from Gina Belt.
By the twilight, Gina was perfumed and dressed, and Samantha waited for her downstairs. The other girl didn't put on too much work instead, still wearing the same sportswear she used to put on. It made her look a little manly.
Walking as far as the wood area was an easy pie, New Heart Hill was a small town indeed and most people lived near everybody. When they arrived, the people from Nettai region were there, some neighbors of Gina's from Crown St and nearby, as well as the mayor and his pompous secretary, Miss Assistant, on a big platform as the hosts of the encounter. Bunches of food were over a large self-service table and Gina started yearning her never-held party.
"Look, Samantha, it's my dad, eating sweet cobs."
"Great, I'll bring some."
Gina's comment fired Samantha's vulgar appetite but our protagonist didn't stop feeling rage as her day had been indeed terrible: the bus left her, her father forgets about her, that strange limousine that soaked her skirt in dirty water before getting school and that eerie UFO-like light that scared her.
Babbling with Samantha, the evening went quick and it was already midnight. People were getting impatient and anxious at the same time for the arrival of the victorious comet, symbol of the good fortune and uncountable legends that surrounded it. A tail of electric blue light peeped in the sky yonder.
"Dear citizens! Nettai is getting close," said the mayor in his droll frail old man's voice. He started to give a spiritful speech meticulously prepared by Miss Assistant, his pillar. Without her, he wouldn't be as solid in his seat as he is.
Gina admired the beautiful tail of light. It should be admitted to say it was the only thing that was worth it seeing today. It was coming slow. Then, Gina set her sight on the bushes from behind. The same sound from the morning. This time, there weren't tracks of unreasonable tremors, even the girl's detective sense was rising up and suddenly, a ray got out of the bushes. It was something that jumped as fast as a hare. Nobody noticed the almost invisible ray that stole the sweet cobs from chopsticks unowned over there. Nobody but Gina, who decided to start a chase after seeing how that ray stole Samantha's cob in her face.
It was such an unremitting thing that was impossible to detect the appearance. It jumped back and from in a white and black ray, until it finally ducked out in the most intricate bushes. A ray! Gina let say. She hated to fail at any task put into practice.
"Citizens of New Heart Hill, I officially declare the beginning of the year 3000 and the New Millennium!" A horde of applauses followed after the mayor's declaration. Gina could hear even from where she was.
However, Nettai came with so much strength that a collision against the crowd was inevitable. Everybody could see how the tail of light was traveling lit up straight to the ones gathered there. When Gina got out the bushes, she could see the stampede that had no exclusive direction to follow but far from the feast. Of course, paying attention to not go too deep into the tenebrous Forbidden Forest. Everyone yelped and darted, the geoid was threatening with slitting anyone in its way in two pieces.
Gina just crouched down and observed the flashy rock crashed beyond the wood area, something that, due to the uproar, nobody seemed to have glanced.
Once the noise leveled down, Gina and her dad had to go home—not so really far—being yet a depressing birthday. The strange happenings the girl in pink witnessed gave her motivation to smirk. She had to investigate by her own the fall of the giant.
---
In the morning, she was still clearly mad. Her dad had fixed tuna sandwiches again but Gina had cereal. Although he was a bit surprised because his daughter left earlier, he didn't ask her anything and started to create new things. Mr Mitchell believed himself an inventor but he would more burn gadgets than anyone else.
Nothing new to tell, Gina took the same shortcut undoubtedly. The high school plunged only in comments about the previous night, but nobody knew more than Gina, who had decided to look for the meteor by herself. She didn't think of telling Samantha.
When Gina got through classes, she got ready to put into practice her detective talent so, left instantly urged to quench her thirst for investigation. That way, by three in the afternoon, Gina Belt found herself in the wood area with a magnifying glass as a Sherlock. It rained earlier so, the floor was pasty, a mixture of mud and loose leaves. It was just a few miles away her home. It didn't take too long for her to find 'clues.' Tiny round prints adorned the pasty floor of the wood area, something rare per se.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Gina didn't muster either any comment nor hypothesis in her mind but she could see that the prints belonged to a puppy in front of her.
image [https://images2.imgbox.com/92/9e/n8lk9Ife_o.png]
"How cute!" She soon took it in her arms and embraced it no matter its feet were soaked. It was quite a time since she didn't link to a pet.
Once she realized she had the geoid in front of herself, Gina rose an eyebrow. There it was, a grayish rock about to crack down. The area had been burned slightly due to the crash from yesterday but it was minor compared to the velocity it threatened in the soiree. A titillating glare suffused, blue like last night and the rock shivered as a bomb bound to burst. Gina figured it out as she quite would, covered her eyes and sank her head. The piece of comet exploded as a pressure cooker and blew apart in a myriad of luminous shards. The uproar seemed only to have been heard by the 15 year-old girl.
The girl stayed a bit pensive, snooping around the explosion area but she couldn't witness anything. It's like what she saw was a product of her imagination or her disappoinment from last day. Not a single thread of funny events to take home, Gina decided to keep her only reliquary: the puppy. With this smooth and spongy finding into her arms, Gina assumed her father wouldn't approve the arrival of a new pet in the Belt house; thus, she decided to keep the dog secretly. She'd definitely keep the Dalmatian. The puppy seemed inert and hadn't barked not once.
At home, she stepped up to her room rapidly and turned the knob to lock herself into and enjoy her pet while thinking of a name for it. The puppy looked at everywhere as if analyzing information. Mr Mitchell called her down.
"Wait here, doggie. Don't move, I'll be back."
She grumbled once in front of her dad: "What is it?" She sounded too surly while going downstairs.
"Your birthday was yesterday and I forgot to congratulate you. Happy birthday, daughter!" Gina's forehead vein was about to travel to space. "I owe you a gift," told her Mr Mitchell once he had her in front of him.
There was silence first.
"HOW DARE YOU? You forget your own daughter's birthday and you think this will cover it? Not even an apology and at least you should've worked harder for a miserable gift. WON'T FORGIVE THIS EVER!" Gina shouted with the mouth open-widened and pauseless to catch breath without losing her rage. Mr Mitchell just got to receive the moans and whinnies from her, sometimes tilting his body for protection like they were lethal weapon and somehow Gina was built like it by the Kamis. She created this whirlwind that pushed him out.
Then, Gina Belt just shut up and elegantly stepped up the stairs with such an air of preponderance. Triumphant.
Half an hour afterwards, Mitchell Belt got into the girl's room to look for laundry. He was mumbling in his mind the way to earn her daughter's forgiveness back because she wasn't going to talk to him in weeks. To scratch Gina Belt in any sense was a tremendous bad choice. A few know that. This girl irradiates tenderness and softness, unless you mess up with her.
He heard murmurs from the bedroom but Gina was in the bathroom. Is it Samantha? She usually walks along the house unnoticed. When entered, he glimpsed a fussy bedroom and onto the bed, a small Dalmatian. The dog turned around and saw him, they both saw each other. Mitchell was about to yell at Gina but grumbled instead: "How's it possible that this girl has brought a dog? Without my permission! I'm gonna nag her for disobedient. She knows, no pets."
"I'm not a pet," said the dog.
"What?"
The room stayed silent a few minutes. It was pretty clear for Mr Mitchell that yet living in the year 3000 and many 'strange things' could occur with so many worldwide advancement, it wasn't common for a dog to speak. And he wasn't hallucinating. He could clearly see the Dalmatian move its mouth to produce words.
"GINAAAAAA, YOUR DOG TALKS!!" And left the room darting, nonplussed, throwing the folded clothes.
She heard him but didn't rush, neither getting out nor making conjectures.
"What's up, dad?" Gina asked wet-haired while coming out the shower.
"I'm not a madman, Gina. I heard your dog talking."
"Are you nuts finally?" They both were downstairs.
"No, Gina, I saw it! I heard it talking!" He was indeed nervous.
Gina took him up instantly. She saw the dog in the same place, it was a mess that he already had found about it but it was a matter of time. The dog, around the unfolded clothing and the disarrayed sheets, did nothing, not a single bark.
"See, dad? Nothing. Hey, dog, speak!" She joked. "Jeez, my dad thought he heard you talking," she whispered to herself.
"He did," said the dog. "Don't scream, please."
She did. As an obvious reaction.
She flung herself to the floor. The dog approached to hush her.
"Quit the scandal. You'll be heard."
---
Sat on the living room couch, Gina and her dad followed disturbed—he more than she—the dog's pace through the table while it spoke bragging.
"Well, I'll start saying my name is Hunter and I'm not a dog. I'm a Teddysprout."
"That sounds familiar," murmured the girl a bit less alarmed and keen on listening.
"Don't interrupt me," the dog cut. "I was asleep for a long time but I could wake up to accomplish a mission. I need you to hear me, child. This suits you big."
"Child? Ha! Don't talk to me with that self-sufficient tone. First, you must learn who the human is here."
The dog squinted as a sign of intolerance and poohed.
"Listen to me! Now that you've found me, you have a mission to accomplish too."
"A mission?" Said the two Belts at the same time.
"I woke up to protect the meteor Nettai. It's got an extraordinary power and it can be used as a weapon. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it. It exploded inexplicably. Now, the pieces of rubins are spread and you will help me find them. So, you're a changer now."
"Changer? Nettai? I don't get you. You're confusing me, dog."
"I'm not a dog! For your record, I was once a human."
Gina was mixed up. Her head was a cobweb of misunderstanding. The talking dog came included with gibberish. But true indeed, the puppy said incomprehensible features for the Belts.
"What's a changer? What's up with the meteor? You should ... get off, dog. You're odd! I can't do this now." Gina wanted for a second to forget what the evening brought.
"A changer is the one who finds out a Teddysprout. A Teddysprout is the protector of a rubin. A rubin is a mighty jewel inside the meteor Nettai. I'm a Teddysprout and you're my changer. You found me and now on we must find the rubins before he..."
"Who?" Gina let escape.
"Before ... scoundrels do it."
Mr Mitchell only tried to digest everything from his side of the couch.
"I won't believe a thing! This must be a sorta joke!" Gina said nervously.
"Pay attention, child!" The dog opened wide its shiny blue eyes and approached her. It was like some kind of magical air controlled her. She was appeased.
"Bu–"
"Shh..."
"It's just that–"
"Shh..."
"I don't–"
"Shh..." The dog concluded. "The rubins are a source of unimaginable power. By bad luck, Nettai spread itself and now several pieces are thrown all over New Heart Hill. We have to move now."
"This is bananas!" Gina got up, closed fists, let go of these commands.
"It's your responsibility!" The dog riposted.
"Screw it!" And she disappeared with velocity up the stairs. Gina thought firmly the dog was a kind of android, no, an animatronic doll. Does magic exist? Silly! It was a devilish dog!
The dog remained seared and comfortless. "Go make coffee!" It yelled at Mitchell, who flinched like about to faint.
The night was fresh. Gina stayed in her room. She was trying to lighten the so many questions that mustered up in her head and place everything that happened into edges of logic. There was no use. She'd actually picked up a talking dog that additionally had a 'mission' and she would go with it.
A mild creaking from the door. It was the dog somehow.
"More eased?" It says once Gina takes a glimpse at it.
"Get away. You're strange," she kicked the dog strongly against the wall. Then she returns to bed.
The dog recovers. It seemed the kick had void effect on it. It was a plush dog, anyway.
"We'll start tomorrow. To look for rubins." It says, dusting off.
Gina tucked herself in. Pretending not to hear it. It spoke afresh. She tucked in more. That, until the dog got angry and expelled a blue light ball against the sheets and these began to shrink until they disappeared.
Gina screamed, more irate than disturbed.
"You have powers! If you ... If you have them, why're you still here? Go look for your rubins on your own. Why did you choose me?" She tried to conceal her amusement for what she witnessed.
"Dumbheaded! I didn't choose you. Anyone who runs into a Teddysprout first becomes a changer automatically. If you don't collaborate, you will no longer have a world to shelter." The dog sounded quite serious. It was not that blatant tone than before.
"Well, if you want me to join, you'll have to give me some powers, like yours." Gina smiled ambitiously. "I want some of those powers."
"Stupid child, I'm not a genie, I'm a Teddysprout."
"Then what's the difference?"
Both of them were arguing like they had years of discussions and unreleased comebacks. So natural as a pair of old cantankerous friends.
"Us Teddysprouts are guardians," stated the dog, fondling the little blue gem that hanged down from its necklace. "There are others as me but I'm ... supreme. I have more than one ability, but I need a changer. I can't do all of this on my own."
Everything leveled down. Mr Mitchell uncurled his amazement while he made the coffee Hunter asked. Gina accepted to help the spotted puppy. Not because she feared of the world disappearing but she was tempted by peril. She did because she was a fearless girl and she loved risk. It was a pity the dog wasn't a genie to grant her powers. Tomorrow, the journey she had no clues about would crank up.
"Take," the dog attempted to split forcedly the gem in two. But its feet were too soft. The rain water that mustered there had been dried.
Gina grabbed it and helped it detach it from the necklace.
"Careful! You'll kill me. That's my heart!" The girl let go quickly.
The rubin that hanged down the dog's necklace was split in two halves. The lid was for Gina and the bottom remained in Hunter's necklace. It said that'd help her protect her.
"Night, child," said the Teddy.
"Night, ... dog," answered the girl while the Dalmatian was going to the light of the open door.