The day before tomorrow

It was late afternoon in the midwest, as each week continued to pass by the autumn days seemed to continue to get shorter and the temperature colder. The coming sunset started to paint out a nice image of the town. The downtown area, a few blocks away from the school, right across from the library was the area where the river that cut through the town really shined.

The river flowed what looked to be, endlessly across the place in a narrow scenic route that followed railroad tracks, mapletrees, downtown stores and restaruants all until it passed the library where it opened up and the controlled flow became an overwhelming force. The area where the river flowed nice and controlled before exiting the small dam and becoming a force was where Isabel stood.

Isabel leaning against the metallic railings that were setup around the river, looked down a path that lead closer to the river and watched Anthony and Trey with a smirk on her face as they fumbled around with a small amount of store bought fireworks.

“Don’t put them there!” Trey exclaimed

“Huh?” Anthony looked back at him with a confused expression.

“If you put them too close they’ll all just explode into each other.”

Anthony stands up and extends his arm holding one of the fireworks to Trey, “I’ve never done this before, can you set this one up.”

Trey jerks back right away, “Don’t get close to me with that!”

Anthony looks at him confused and then turns to look firework in his hand, “Wait are you scared of these?”

“S…stay away from me!”

“Don’t worry, nothing will happen. Not until the gunpowder goes of at least.”

“Gunpowder?! Get away from me you fool, you’ll kill us all.”

Trey dashes away from Anthony and Anthony keeps trying to close the distance while trying to explain why the explosion won’t explode them. From a distance their interactions have devolved into them chasing each other around in a circle.

Erin, who was sitting on the park bench behind Isabel gets up and walks toward her, “So is this supposed to be your hanabi festival celebration.”

Isabel turns towards, “We worked a lot and accomplished many things.” She pauses and then with a big smile continues, “We even have four members now, it’s like a complete club. Tomorrow is the day we get to do our presentation for the school and no matter what happens, I want to celebrate everything we did, set out to do and will do.”

“Oh.” Erin responds while maintaining an expressionless face.

Isabel watches her and for a few seconds no words are exchanged between them until Isabel decides to break the silence with a question that has been on her mind a while now.

“Erin, could I ask you something?”

“Hm. What about?”

“I’m just curious. You say you’re not that into anime or manga but you are without a doubt very knowldgeable. To tell you the truth, you know a lot more than me and perhaps…all three of us combined, why is that?”

Erin lets out a great big sigh, closes her eyes and places her hand on her forehead, “I guess, I can give you my tragic origin story.”

Isabel tilts her head with a small smile on her face in response to Erin’s exasperated response.

“The honest truth is that my father is one of you, except he started in the 80s watch stuff about thieves, trains, giant robots and who knows what else.” Erin starts to slowly walk back to the bench and sitdown as Isabel follows and sits alongside her.

“He really romanticized Japan and their animation in his mind,” Erin continued, “He wanted nothing more to be apart of this idealized anime culture in his mind. When he finally got married and god knows how he pulled that one off, he unfortunately passed it all on to me, knowledge, my name, what I knew. The big doofus even took pride in the fact that my first word was “baka”...

Isabel cuts in with a huge smile on her face, “YOUR FIRST WORD WAS “BAKA”!?! HA HA HA!”

Erin jumps up and stomps on the ground with her right foot, “Do you mind!”

Isabel puts her hand over her mouth and tries her best to hold in her laughter while attempting to apologize, “hehe..uh..Sorry…”

Erin sits back down. “Anyway, yes, I do know a lot about anime, manga, Japanese culture and more. Growing up that type of stuff was normal to me. It wasn’t until I was older and met a lot of different people did I realize that it was strange. Pretending to be something you’re not…if he had his way, I’d be prancing around under fireworks with him in a…”

At that moment Erin hit with a type of emotion she didn’t want to feel and in response turns away from Isabel so that she couldn’t see her expression.

Isabel looks at her with a concerned look, “Erin?”

“Hey!!!” Trey calls up to Isabel and Erin. “We’re ready, come check it out!”

Erin stands up and begins to hurry down, “You heard him lets go.”

As Erin left, Isabel remained seated and watched her. Isabel could see what looked like her wiping tears from underneath her eyes as well as what was once a small smile, slowly faded away. Then Isabel gets up and proceeds to follow her down the path to where the boys were.

“Hey, what took you so long?” Trey says as soon as Isabel comes in his sight.

“Yeah! Hurry up! Let's go!” says Anthony.

As they shout to Isabel Erin slightly looks over her shoulder and watches her out the corner of her eyes before turning back to the fireworks.

“So what do we…have…here…”Isabel hesitates and trails off as she sees the firework setup they have done.

In the center sat a huge multicolored box, surrounded by a bunch of ominously dynamite looking sticks along with other thinner looking sticks sitting on tripods.

“What…what exactly is this?” Isabel says with fear in her voice.

Before she could continue questioning this setup, Trey takes off distancing himself from the display as Anthony lights things up and then begins to run as well.

“Hey!” Isabel calls out to them nervously.

Erin watches silently with her arms folded and a stubborn expression before all their actions come to a halt and attention turns to the display when several loud explosions go off.

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

Series of large explosions consecutively goes off.

Erin puts her hands over her hand to stop any dirt or other debris from hitting her, “You idiots!!! Fireworks are supposed to be colorful and beautiful, not terrifying!”

As Erin's sentence ends the explosion comes to a stop and the second set of fireworks sitting on the tripods begin to spew white sparks that dance on the floor as they shoot off and come down.

As the explosions quiet down they all start to move and stand together next to Isabel.

“Not bad against the sunset.” Isabel says with a smile.

“It’s not over yet!” Anthony exclaims

As if timed to go off the exact moment Anthony said that, the big box that went by the name, The Great Rainbow Crate, started to shoot off colorful explosions into the sky.

Erin couldn’t help but to let slip, “Wow!”

“A much smaller scale but this is just like a big display in the city!” Isabel shouts out, trying to talk over the sound and being carried away with emotion.

Anthony jumps up and down, “YYYEAAAAHHHH!!!”

Trey starts to think to himself, “Maybe we should all take a photo.” Then turns and looks at them, trying to call to them over the sound of the fireworks.

“Hey guys.” Trey calls out. “Hey guys!” he tries again, “Hey guys…” Trey stops and looks over his shoulder seeing a different type of flashing lights and then turns back and looks at them.

“HEY GUYS!!!” He yells causing them to finally notice him. “It’s the cops! Let's go!” and he starts to run down the trail.

“Ack!” Erin runs behind Trey

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Anthony scrambles and tosses a bucket of water on the remaining fireworks as Isabel tosses them into a bag and then they take off after them.

All four running down the path alongside the river start laughing and then stop by some trees to rest.

Trey, “That was hilarious, I told you all to watch out for the police.”

Anthony, “It wasn’t even illegal, we were just hanging out.”

Isabel, “You know, I hate running right?”

Erin, “You know, I’m pretty sure my parents would tell me not to hang out with people like you, you know.”

Isabel, “Hey Erin? You’re joining us right? During our presentation at school, right? I’m sure they’ll be okay with you coming on stage with us. The event was a collaboration between multiple schools.”

Anthony, “It’s after school too. I guess it’s a part of our spirit week. Pep rally, assemblies, presentations…”

“And other things I usually try to skip out on.” Trey cuts in, “But yeah, you have to join. You’re a part of the anime club too, you know.”

Isabel walks over to her, “I know it’s late and if you don’t have anything, you can just be there with us, you don’t have to say anything.”

Erin stands up straight after leaning against a tree and starts to dust off her clothes, “I’ll join.” She says in a soft voice, “Don’t worry, I already know what I want to say too.”

Despite just cleaning off her clothes, Erin decides to sit down on the grass and look into the now, night sky. She ponders until Anthony hands her something. “Oh a sparkler?”

“Yup!” Anthony says as he hands one out to all of them. Then he takes out a lighter, sticks it out in front of as he creates a flame and almost instinctively they all gather and light their sparklers.

With their sparklers glowing brightly in the night they all smile and wave them around to cut through the darkness and leave trails of light to show where they once were.

Anthony holds his sparkler up and shouts, “To being able to make friends and enjoy things you like together!”

Trey follows suit by doing the same but he shouts “To being able to be who you are!”

Erin pulls her sparkler close to her and thinks before saying anything but then holds her up and says, “To understanding a bunch of weird otaku.”

Isabel laughs in response to Erin’s statement and then raises her sparkler, “To being an agent of change instead of a victim of it!”

After stating that, Isabel puts out her sparkler, “Well it is getting late and tomorrow is the day we get to speak in the auditorium.”

Trey puts his out as well, “Yeah, lets head back.”

With that said, they walk up the steps, cross the street and pass the public library, making a quick stop at a local convenience store to pick up snacks and fountain drinks. As they sip through their straws walking through the town and balancing on the edge of the sidewalk, the street lights start to turn on, lighting their way home.

“Well later guys!” Anthony says, “I’m going to wait here for the next bus in 10 minutes, that’ll drop me off right next to my place. Anthony looks at Erin, “You hopping on the bus too? Don’t you live farther away?”

Erin shakes her head, “It’s ok, I have a ride picking me up. I told them to meet me on the street up ahead.” With that said, as the three walk down the block a large, silver, five door truck can be seen parked up ahead. Erin raises her head in a motion to signify a goodbye and hops into the truck.

Isabel and Trey watch it depart and then continue walking now saying anything just enjoying the weather. As they get closer to the block in which they both reside, Trey stops.

“Well…” He looks across the street to the place where his place is, “Later I guess.”

Isabel watches as he crosses the street and can be seen entering into a house not that far off. She looks at her house and her room, one of the few rooms that currently does not have the light on. She thinks of entering but decides to take a seat on the porch and stargaze.

“I guess tomorrow is the day.”