Chapter 3

Aelita awoke the next day at the crack of dawn. She stretched, put on her slippers, and got dressed. She had a few plans on how to get Yumi to go to the factory. Aelita realized how tough this would be, since Yumi missed Ulrich so much she wouldn’t so much as leave her room, especially to go into a place where he spent a lot of time.

First, she would help Jeremie and Odd throw a surprise party, celebrating Ulrich’s return. So that was where she was headed. Aelita ran to her room quickly to get the picture that she Odd had sketched for her a while back of the whole gang. Odd left Ulrich in the middle of the night to go to the Super Computer room so he could sketch different pictures of Ulrich. Jeremie went to his dormitory to photocopy and enlarge various pictures out of the old yearbook of Ulrich. The plan was to have the whole Super Computer room decorated with his pictures, a few soccer trophies of his that he left behind when he left along with medals, and possibly a soccer ball or two. The party would be perfect.

Yumi would be speechless, and at the same time, in tears when she saw Ulrich again. But for Aelita, figuring out exactly how she was going to get her to come would be the big problem.

An hour later, Jeremie returned to the factory and took the ladder up to the Super Computer room, in fear that the elevator would wake Ulrich. The surprise needed to stay secret to him too, until they sprang the plan on him. In his hands, he had full color pictures of Ulrich, school photos of him and Odd, him alone, and some of him during his soccer games. Odd came back to the factory about an hour after Jeremie came with the pictures, his arms filled with trophies and medals swinging around his neck.

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The group worked hard for the next three hours setting up the Super Computer room just how they think Ulrich and Yumi would like it.

Later, at about 9:00 in the morning, Odd went down to the room below to wake Ulrich and prepare him for the big reunion. When Odd shook Ulrich to wake him up, he jumped into a sitting position on the couch. Memories started flooding into his brain, as he rubbed his eyes, slightly confused. When he remembered entirely where he was and why he was there, his face wore a bright smile. He said hello to Odd, and Odd went back upstairs to go over the last few details while Ulrich was getting dressed in the clothes he disappeared in. He couldn’t believe it. It was almost unreal. He was going to get to see Yumi again, and on top of that, hold her in his arms again. All he had to do was wait for the rest of the group to tell him what was going on. He still had no idea what the group had planned. All he thought it would be was a simple ‘I’m back, for good,’ type gathering, whereas it was now planned to be quite elaborate.

Odd came down the ladder again, and told Ulrich to be up in the Super Computer room in a few minutes. Ulrich opened up his backpack, took out his old, slightly aged and wrinkled picture of Yumi. It was her last photo before he disappeared. He smiled, and placed her photo back in his backpack.

As he climbed the rungs of the ladder, thoughts ran through his head about what he would say to Yumi. As he emerged from the bottom floor, the rest of the group greeted him. He said ‘hello’ back, and took a deep breath. It didn’t strike him at first about all his old things being in the room right now. When he finally started to look around, he saw many of these possessions. It made him feel more at home than ever.

Jeremie took the job of filling Ulrich in on the plan. Aelita was to go and try to encourage her to come to the factory. How, none of them was entirely sure, even though Aelita had a few ideas. When the moment would come, she thought, she would decide what to say to get Yumi to go.  Despite that, they knew that Yumi could trust Aelita with anything, which meant Aelita would definitely be able to persuade her to come.

Aelita would call Jeremie saying that they were heading over when Yumi was getting dressed. Then, the duo would head over to the factory, and would then use the elevator to go up to the Super Computer room. It would be perfect, if everything went according to schedule.

It was time to start the plan. Ulrich, Jeremie, and Odd all went around the Super Computer room checking to make sure that everything and anything was in its place.