Daughter of a pterodactyl

Chapter 18

Then Brent had something to say. "I have an announcement. Ariel, you are by far the finest athlete I have ever coached. It is my sincerest wish that you would consider moving to my facility in Florida to begin training full time to compete in the Olympics. Together Ariel, we can bring a gold medal home to the United States of America." Brent said. "Let me think about it first." I said. "Okay." Brent said. The next morning I called Brent. "Hey Ariel, have you thought about what I said?" Brent asked. "Yeah, I given it a lot of thought and, I decided that I am not going to go to Florida." I said. "That's okay. I understand." Brent said. Then we said goodbye to each other and I hung up. Later that day we met with Tommy. "Guys, my thoughts and feelings are divided. Ariel, you have been a proud warrior and have defended our planet valiantly yet the opportunity that lies before you is much too difficult for you to ignore." Tommy said. "Tommy, you don't have to worry. I already told Brent that I thought about it. I told him that I'm not gonna go to Florida." I said. "Ariel, are you sure?" Joe asked. "Do you realize what you're giving up?" Virginia asked. "I do. This has been a dream my whole entire life. But I made a promise to my mom and dad. It was that when the time was right I would be a power ranger. When that happened I made a promise to myself that I would stand by you guys, no matter what happens." I said. "Let me guess. It's because you didn't want to lose me, right?" John asked. I turned to face him. "Actually, I'm scared of losing my happy ending." I said. "Wait, if you're afraid of losing your happy ending that means you found it. What is it?" John asked. "Don't you know John, it's you." I said. John looked into my eyes for a minute before kissing me. The next day John and I were hanging out in the living room at his house. "I have a question to ask you." I said. "What is it?" John asked. "Why is it that I sometimes live with you and your family and other times I live with my foster family?" I asked. "It's kinda complicated to explain. The thing is that when you were getting moved to a foster family my family was the social worker's first choice but my parents didn't want you to be my foster sister. Casey and Lily were their second choice, in case it didn't work out." John said. "What do you mean by in case it didn't work out?" I asked. "What I mean by that is that if stuff was going kinda bad they would have moved you there anyway." John said. "Oh, okay." I said. The next day I was hanging out at the park with a few of my friends from school. We were playing when I noticed that it was getting a little late so I said goodbye to my friends and left. I know that I stayed at the park too long and I don't want to get in trouble so I decided to take a shortcut. I walked down an alleyway near my house when a stranger showed up which made me stop in my tracks. There were no other people around. "Hey kid, come here." The stranger said. "No!" I shouted as I ran away. When I got home I told my foster dad what happened. He's happy that I got away and told him what happened. The next day at school I walked up to John while he was at his locker. "Hey." I said. "Hey, what's up?" John asked. "Not much. I have something to tell you." I said. "What is it?" John asked. "Yesterday, I was at the park with a few friends. When I noticed that it was getting kinda late I decided to go home. I stayed later than I should have and I didn't want to get in trouble for coming home late so I decided to take a shortcut. I started to walk down this alleyway near my house when a stanger showed up." I said. "What did you do?" John asked. "The stranger told me to come to him and I yelled no and ran away. When I got home I told my foster dad what happened." I said. "I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad that you got away and told someone you trust." John said. "Well, that's what you should do. The three things that you have to do when you meet a stranger is say no to strangers, run away, and tell your parents or a grown up you trust. Strangers might even try to get you to go with them by using a trick. You shouldn't fall for the tricks either." I said.

"There's definitely a difference between good tricks and bad tricks." Virginia said as she walked up to us. "Yeah, good tricks are just for fun, bad tricks on the other hand are tricks that strangers sometimes use." I said. "Yeah, someone could come up to you and tell you that they lost their dog or something." Virginia said. "That reminds me, when my sister and I were little girls we used to watch this one show over and over again. It was a show that was on the television series welcome to pooh corner. It was called too smart for strangers with winnie the pooh." I said.

In the show they discussed stuff like how to be too smart for strangers when you are out of the house, how to be too smart for strangers when you're home alone, and even the difference between okay touching and not okay touching. There's even a song about that in the show.

I thought that it was kinda weird that they would talk about that. Most of the show was about how to be too smart for strangers. A few weeks go by and the election for student body president is coming up. "Hey guys, check it out. School elections are coming up." I said as John, George, Virginia, and I saw a flyer in the hallway for it. "Hey John have you ever thought about being school president?" George said. "I don't know it's kind of a big responsibility." John said. "Yeah, it certainly is. But think about the thrill of the political process. It'll be a real chance to make a difference." George said. "Yeah, that's true." John said. "And if you run, I could be your campaign manager." George said. "Well, what do you think Ariel?" John asked. "I think you would make a great president." I said. "Alright, I'll do it." John said. "Okay, bye." I said as Virginia and I walked to my locker. "How's this for a campaign slogan, John Mitton, the best man for the job." George said. "I like that." John said. At my locker Virginia was talking to me about it. "You know, sometimes the best man for the job is a woman. Maybe you should run for president." Virginia said. "What? No, I can't run against John." I said. "Why not? You're good friends, that means it would be a good clean race." Virginia said. Then we walked up to John and George. "Hey John. Anything you can do I can do better." I said.

The next day Cassandra noticed that I was a little nervous. "Hey, nervous about the student election?" Cassandra said. "Yeah, I'm actually running this year." I said. "Wow, you're first year running? That's got to be exciting. I just heard that Alyssa is running too. This is her second year running. She ran last year but didn't win." Cassandra said. "She's not going to win this year either. Do you know why? Because I'm going to get more than her." I said.