Brave New World: Stargirl

Chapter 2

Blue Valley Nebraska, 2012

Courtney Whitmore was not happy. She hadn't been ever since her mom had married Pat Dugan. Okay, that wasn't entirely true. At first, she'd been happy because her mom had been happier with Pat than she'd ever seen her and honestly, she didn't mind Pat or his son Mike. Then Pat and her mom had announced that out of nowhere, they were uprooting their new family from their life in Northern California and making them move to the backwater town of Blue Valley, a choice that Courtney was sure was Pat's idea, since her mother would never make a decision like this without at least asking her how she felt about it first, though her mother had said that getting out of California was the best thing for them, since she wanted to get them away from all the villain activity in California. But that did not make Courtney anymore thrilled about the prospect about leaving all her friends behind, along with the whole life she'd had.

Anyways, she was driven from her thoughts when the car finally stopped in front of their new house.

"So, what do you guys think?" Pat Dugan asked his son and step daughter as they all got out of the car to take a look at their new home.

"I think that you had to have robbed a bank in order to be able to afford this place." Mike said, since that house was way bigger than the apartment he and his dad had lived in before Barbara and Courtney entered their lives.

"Yeah not quite." Pat said with a chuckle, glad to see that at least Mike was starting to come around to the idea of moving here.

"What do you think Courtney?" Barbara asked her, only for Courtney to move to start unloading the car trunk without a word.

"Court." Barbara said, wishing that her daughter would come around to this, but at the same time, she also knew that it would likely be awhile before Courtney was willing to give Blue Valley a real chance, since she knew that they hadn't exactly gone about announcing the move the right way, since they'd just sort of sprung it on her and expected Courtney to be okay with it.

"Hey, she'll come around." Pat said.

"I can't help but think that it's my fault she's acting like this." Barb said.

"What do you mean?" Pat asked.

"If I had actually talked to her about the move before actually doing it, maybe she wouldn't be so upset and she wouldn't be taking it all out on you." Barb said.

"Hey, I'd rather her be angry at me than you, but I'm glad that Mike is coming around to this, though I did expect that, since he is more used to moving around." Pat said.

"Well Pat, promise me that this will be the last time. I feel bad enough I uprooted Courtney from her life once already, I'm not doing it again." Barbara said and Pat nodded.

"I promise." Pat said as the movers began moving crates out of the truck, but he quickly grabbed one from them.

"Whoa, easy guys, easy. I'll take that." Pat said and the movers nodded as they gently placed the crate on the ground as he walked past Courtney to pick the crate up, though he did not notice that as he passed Courtney with it in his arms, the contents of the crate began to glow.

"Hey, what's that thing?" Courtney asked, since she could've sworn she saw it glowing.

"It's just an old keepsake from my life before Mike was born. Why?" Pat asked.

"Well, it looks like whatever is inside that crate is glowing." Courtney said as she watched glow dim as Pat looked down, but to his relief, he found it was nothing.

"What are you talking about?" Pat asked, since to his relief, there was no glow going on.

"Nothing I guess. Must've been a trick of the light." Courtney said, though she didn't think so.

"I guess so." Pat said, hoping that she bought it and that it was true, because if Courtney was telling the truth, then he did not want to think about the possible implications about what would happen if it turns out that she was right.

"Why don't we finish getting unpacked and then we'll go out for a nice dinner." Barbara said and they all nodded, though Courtney could not stop thinking about what she had seen, since she was almost positive that it hadn't been a trick of the light, she'd really seen whatever it was that was inside that crate glow. She just didn't know why or what it was. However, her attention was temporarily moved to the large crates that were being unloaded from the truck, all of them marked auto parts, making Courtney curious about what was in them too.

That night, the four of them went out to dinner at a cute diner in town.

"Why is everyone talking to us?" Mike asked after the third person greeted them.

"It's called being friendly Mike. It's a part of living in a small town." Pat explained.

"Okay, I guess it's just going to take some getting used to, since right now, it seems kind of weird." Mike said.

"And is that a bad thing?" Pat asked his son.

"No Pat, you just gotta take the good with the weird." Mike said.

"Yeah okay, loving the enthusiasm Mike, but it's dad, not Pat." Pat said.

"Courtney calls you Pat." Mike pointed.

"Hey, don't drag me into this." Courtney said.

"Okay, enough. This is supposed to be a celebration of our new life here in Blue Valley. New beginnings. You two at your new schools, Pat at his new garage and me at my new job at the American Dream." Barb said.

"Yeah, it's gonna be a blast." Courtney said as she continued eating without another word.