Defying Gravity

Chapter Three: Making Friends Is Easy As Pie

Sunni giggled, as a paper ball hit her in the head. She turned around, stuck her tongue out, and threw another paper ball in the direction that the original ball had come from. The resulting giggles that followed this caused the elderly teacher at the front of the classroom to stop in her reading of the textbook and look up to see what the commotion was about. She noted the two giggling girls, and the rolled eyes of some of the rest of their classmates, with a sigh.

"Are you having a problem with the textbook reading, Miss Sunni?"

"No Professor Brim," Sunni singsonged, putting her hands up on her desk.

"And you Miss, Nessa, is there a problem with the book I was not aware?"

"No Ma'am," said the pretty dark haired girl in the desk next to Sunni, also with hands on desk. "I'm finished my reading now. Is class going to be over soon? We'll be wanted in the kitchen any minute now!"

All the teen girl bears in the class looked up hopefully to their teacher, hands clasped together. The teacher looked up to the ceiling, as if asking her ancestors for guidance, then sighed.

"As soon as you are finished reading to the end of the chapter, then you may leave."

Sunni gave a whoop, followed by half the class, who stood to leave, with the teacher giving very alarmed frantic instructions for their homework before resigning herself to the loss of half of her students.

"Gee Nessa, its weird doing book reading with only girls," said Sunni, once the two girls were in the hallway and on their way down to the residences. "I've always had to do reading with Cubbi, and it was never ever like this."

"Too right," Nessa said, throwing her dark hair over her shoulder. "Boys can be so immature sometimes, its easier for us to learn with other girls. Paper balls are fun and easy, but they can play dirty. Shooting spitballs and putting insects in your books."

"Ewwww!"

Sunni was very happy to have made a friend her age already. It had happened by accident really. Due to the sheer number of bears in the city, housing was now an issue, and some people would have to bunk up until the new residence buildings were built. Sunni had been given Nessa as a roommate.

"Now I want you two to get along nicely!" Nessa's mother, Tarra had said.

"Its only for a little while," Grammi had agreed. "So no nonsense!"

Nessa and Sunni had taken one look at each other, then had laughed the moment their parents were out of ear shot.

"Tarra wouldn't let me have my own room," Nessa had said pouting. "As if I'm not mature enough to handle living on my own!"

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Sometimes they treat me like such a kid!"

From there they had gotten along swimmingly. Beautiful, elegant Nessa, with her pale flawless fur and long dark hair, was a contrast to Sunni, the rough and tumble short haired tomboy, who was very excited to have someone to trade clothes and gossip with.

"We simply must get you to a seamstress and convince them to make you some new clothes!" Nessa was saying brightly as they walked towards their room. "I don't care if cotton is in short demand! You have the most hand me downs I've ever seen in a closet, and some of your clothes look so very human!"

"Well, my friend Princess Cala gives me her old clothes and Grammi makes them small enough to fit me...Which usually consists of them being cut to pieces."

"You're friends with a human? What is she like? What colour is her hair?"

"We're both blondes," Sunni giggled.

"Well you know what they say, blondes have more fun!"

As soon as they arrived at Sunni's room, both girls flopped onto their beds and threw their books on the floor.

"Do you want to do our homework now or later?"

"Later!" Nessa replied with a laugh. "Oh, free me from the boredom of books! If we can get our way out of kitchen duty we can sneak off and watch the boys have try outs for the fly ball teams. The boys are probably already playing while we've been busy studying our tails off!"

"What's fly ball?" Sunni asked in interest, grabbing one of her heart shaped pillows to hug.

"Its a sport. You throw the ball and try to make it fly into a basket. Fly ball. But there are lots of rules for it. I bet you'd be good at it. The girls have teams too, but our try outs aren't for a few days yet."

"If its half as much fun as dodge ball I'll love it!"

"Dodgeball?"

What followed was a long explanation of different sports, followed by talk about games, hobbies, dancing, and ultimately, the clothes they would wear to these all important welcoming events planned for the next two weeks.

"Now for sports teams, we wear these," said Nessa, pulling out her training clothes, a jumper with snort pant legs and a number and her name inked onto the back. "A tunic could fly up during the game, and that would be very embarrassing wouldn't it?"

"And how," Sunni said, blushing. "Wow that's a very neat outfit. I always just wear the same old things. What's the number for?"

"The number tells you what spot you play on your team. We have lots of clothes made for lots of different things. Uniforms with numbers for sports, aprons for cooking in and work clothes, and I have lots of dresses for balls."

"Oh I so want to go to a ball!" Sunni said with fluttery joy. "I only have a couple of dresses though, and I've worn them all at least twice."

"Lets see them then!" said Nessa promptly. "I may have some older stuff that would fit you that is more in the New Gumbrean style."

What followed was a 'de-closeting' of clothes, whereupon everything both girls owned ended up on the beds, on the floors and on every dresser. Neither of the girls were very tidy.

"Now this one, I wore that on my birthday in April...The seamstresses made it for me special."

"I wish I could get clothes specially made," Sunni said with a pout. "You have all the nicest clothes!"

"You usually only get a new party dress if you have a special event coming, like a birthday," Nessa said with a sigh. "I hate all these dumb rules sometimes! I really do! I wonder if we could make up an event for you to convince the seamstresses to make you a dress?"

"Well I don't have any birthday coming...I turned sixteen two months ago."

"Sixteen...That's it!" Nessa jumped to her feet excitedly. "Have you had your Coming Out yet?"

"My...what? Is that like a party?"

"Coming Out," Nessa said grandly. "Sixteen is the age when you can start dating boys and looking for a husband. You can throw a ball to let the boys all know you're available. Its very simple, and the girl always gets a new dress."

"Well I'm more than ready to have a party! But I don't know about boys," Sunni said, blushing. "I don't know anybody yet."

"Exactly; you get the chance to meet them, and they get the chance to know you. You had no idea what it even was, so you mustn't have ever had one! Its not a law, but its an important part of our culture! At least, to me it is."

Sunni giggled with excitement. A pillow fight ensued between them before Grammi had to come remind them of their kitchen duties.

"But we have soooo much homework," Nessa said to Grammi mournfully. "Couldn't we maybe defer our kitchen duties to another day of the week?"

"Pleeeease Grammi?" Sunni chimed in, hopefully, in the same pleading tone that they had both used on their teacher.

"Well," Grammi had sighed. "I suppose it couldn't hurt. We have more than enough helpers in the kitchen."

Sunni glowed. She had the distinct feeling that she was really going to like being friends with Nessa. This was going to be a piece of cake. Or a slice of pie, as Grammi offered to bring them some slices of blackberry pie and tea to snack on while they studied.

"It'll all go to my hips," said Nessa with a frown. "Oh, but maybe a small piece. I've never had...blackberry?...pie before."

As soon as Grammi was gone, the girls both looked at their books on the floor, nearly hidden by the massive amount of clothes.

"Well, since we told Grammi we were going to study, I guess we'd better," Sunni said with a frown. "But its boring!"

"No worries, we can still go outside and watch the boys try out for the teams," Nessa said with a wink. "Leave it to me."

They both had their books open dutifully by the time Grammi returned, and Nessa sat up, closing her book.

"Its rather dark in here Grammi," said said sweetly. "Is it all right if we took our books outside for awhile and studied somewhere in the sunshine? This candlelight is hard on my eyes."

"All right dears, you go right ahead," said Grammi blushing. "My, I remember when I was your age, all I wanted to do was go outside and play...Those were the good old days..."

Sunni practically beamed. They threw on some outdoor clothes and sped out of their rooms, nearly forgetting to bring their books with them.

After all, it had to appear as if they had really gone out to study, instead of playing truant and going off to watch boys.

Could life be any easier?

-seperator-

Sometimes, life was complicated. This was one of those times.

Buddi Barbic stood in a circle of eight teenage boys, all of them laughing, rough housing and generally making a nuisance of themselves to their fly ball coach, the burly Armsmaster Vigo. He had the ball in his hands, and was staring at the group in dismay.

"We can only have five boys on this team, plus spares, so three of you may end up as side players."

Buddi felt almost as if he would end up as a side player. But he had been told the rules of this sport by his new friend Jaci, and it seemed entirely too easy to him. Bounce the ball on the ground, pass it to your team mates, and throw it in the basket. It seemed to simple?

"It's really hard," Jaci said. "The basket is high up there, and you have to dodge around everyone all while bouncing the ball; you're not allowed to carry it. There are so many little rules you have to know."

Buddi had never played a sport with so many rules. But then, his clan had many sports and rituals of their own, most of them designed around the concept of following rules to get to a certain destination; races and obstacle courses. Like the Barbic Test of Bearhood.

Fly ball seemed to be designed purely for the purposes of fun, skill, and competition. The rules were strict so that everything was fare. It wasn't just the toughest person that could win, but also the fastest, the highest jumpers or the best catchers. It was a team sport.

"Now then, I'll break you off into two pairs of fours, and you can all go ahead and take positions. We'll leave out the basket guards for now, then change up positions."

"Oh coach," said the sweet sound of a girl's voice. "Maybe we could take over the basket guard spots for you? I've told Sunni all the rules already, and she's just itching to try her hand at it."

Buddi turned his head at the same time Vigo did, and stared. He had never seen Sunni this way before. Both girls were wearing short legged jumpers with no sleeves. But Buddi couldn't help himself; he blushed. Sunni's shoulders were bare and the neckline of her outfit swooped down drastically, showing off just the fact that this girl was actually, in fact, a young woman.

"Ah, Nessa, I thought you'd be hanging around here," Vigo said, strutting over to her. "Well then, Miss Sunni, think you can handle guarding a basket?"

"Piece of pie," said Sunni brightly. "Buddi's a pushover!"

"I am not!" Buddi said hotly.

"Well, I'll put you on his team, actually," Vigo said, heading off any potential arguments between them. "All right, take up your positions!"

All and all, Buddi loved fly ball. It was controlled chaos, is what it was, and it got his blood pumping. Or was that Sunni? He couldn't tell; both girls, playing at their respective baskets, were jumping around and being quite a distraction to the boys on both teams.

Vigo must have planned it this way. For some boys even literally smacked together when they got too close to one of the nets.

But Buddi wasn't going to let himself get bowled over by any girl. When it was his turn with the ball he moved quickly, remembering to bounce the ball on the ground as he dodged the opposition and approached the goal.

The shot line was near...inches...his foot hit the line and he tossed the ball at once .It sailed over the heads of the other players, passed Nessa's outstretched hands, and into the basket.

"All right!" Buddi cheered, and jumped up, kicking his heels. "I did it!"

"Point one for Buddi!" said Vigo, jumping to his feet. "Well done! All right, lets change up the teams and put you in perspective. Mack, Buddi, you two can act as the basket guards now. Girls, you can switch teams this time, both to point."

Buddi was passed by Sunni, who winked at him with a giggle.

"This is fun," she said smiling. "I think you're doing great."

Buddi felt all of his blood rush from his brain down to his feet at once, and he stammered.

"You did good too," he said.

"Hey Buddi!" said Jaci loudly. "No fraternising with the enemy!"

Both teams laughed, Sunni blushed and fled towards her position and soon they were playing fly ball again. And this time there was nothing to distract him. It was all about the net. Sunni had morphed from friend to rival the moment the coach trilled his whistle.

Until, of course, she jumped up to try and make a basket throw close to the net, and Buddi jumped up and their bodies collided in the air. Both their eyes met for a mid fraction of a second, Sunni's eyes were large and alarmed, and they both fell to the ground in an untidy pile of limbs and fur.

"Oh, I'm sorry Sunni!" Buddi stammered. "Are you hurt?"

"No don't be sorry!" Jaci said. "That's exactly what you want to do! Man its a good thing the girls teams don't play against the boys, or we'd never win a game with you!"

Sunni giggled, and Buddi blushed fully. They de-tangled themselves from one another, and Sunni strutted off to the shot line with the ball. Apparently there was a foul involved here somewhere. Buddi wasn't sure. But he was sure of one thing.

Life was really really complicated. Nothing would ever be the same.

-Okay, the last two chapters were too entirely easy for me to write. Now I'll have to start working on the nitty gritty. Sorry, not going to go too much into detail with all the characters and how they adjust. Its just too many characters to handle, really. This fic was supposed to be Gusto-centric, but there are just too many fun plots to play with that I've come up with that fit into this arc. So you may get a few character views here, though not all the Glen Gummis will be talked about. If Zummi, Grammi, Cubbi, Tummi, Thornberry, Gritty and Grubbi tend to fall by the wayside a bit, you'll understand why. Hopefully that won't happen too much.