Chapter One

After a basketball game, Shay and her friends celebrate Halloween by going trick or treating and ends up in a sticky situation by the end of the night.

Chapter 1

 

 

“Shay, are you willing to take one for the team and make a complete fool out of yourself?” Coach Briggs asked, turning her body so she was facing me.

            “Okay!” I replied immediately. Embarrassing situations, awkward situations, and just plain weird situations were my forte. If you spent so much as a few minutes with me, you would understand why. I wasn’t exactly the most “normal” person, if you catch my drift. But I didn’t think I would want to be. “Normal” people were extremely boring, in my opinion. All you had to do to realize that was just take a look at my friend, Jasmine. I never said this out loud, however, or she would have my head on a stake.

             My eyes widened as Coach Briggs told me the plan, and a wide grin spread across my face. This was going to be great!

            I probably should have been a little nervous, because the plan she was explaining to me would most likely mean that I would never live this down. Again, the “normal” concept came up. If I were a “normal person”, I would have been worried about what people might think. But since I wasn’t even remotely close to “normal”, the idea of this was absolutely fascinating and thrilling to me. I couldn’t wait to try it out.

            I had no reason to care about what people said or thought about me, anyway. Who were they to criticize me? I would never change myself or my ways just to please a person, no matter who that person was. No one was worth that. No one.

             I skipped�"quite literally�"out onto the familiar, gold and blue basketball court, and stared at the scoreboard. It was the fourth quarter, and the score was:

            Home: 45   

            Guest: 47

            Then I looked at the time left.

            0:10

            Crap.

            If we were going to win this, my distraction had to be perfect. It had to be absolutely perfect.

            No pressure, huh?

            “Okay, are you ready?” asked Amanda, a friend of mine who played the center on the basketball team.

            I jumped in surprise and put a hand to my heart. I hadn’t even noticed her and she was standing right there.

            “Holy crap, you scared me,” I exclaimed.

            “Sorry.” Amanda grinned apologetically. “Good luck! You’ll need it.”

            “Psh,” I said, waving my hand dismissively, “this’ll be a piece of cake.”

            The referee blew his whistle and the five of us ran to our positions.

            We were playing our enemies, the Ridgeway Falcons. Ridgeway was the rival of East Ridge, my school. It had been ingrained into my brain since I was little that everyone from Ridgeway was evil. I assumed the same about us had been ingrained into the Ridgeway kids’ brains when they were little, as well. It would explain why they seemed to hate us. Maybe, however, it was the fact that we were so carefree about showing our hatred of them. I probably wouldn’t like a person if they openly hated me the way we did with them. It actually made sense, in a way.

            The Falcons were pressing us and I smirked to myself. This was just perfect for my distraction; they wouldn’t see it coming.

            I stationed myself on the enemies’ side of the court, where the Falcon’s were shooting and where the ball was being thrown in. Coach gave me the You-Better-Not-Mess-This-Up look that I knew so well, and as a response I nodded, signaling I was ready. It was our ball, and I barely got the chance to process that into my brain because the ref was an impatient guy. He blew his whistle again and the game continued.

            That was my cue.

            I got on all fours and started barking as loud as my lungs would allow me to. And let me just tell you, I was a very loud person. The barking was extremely loud because of this.

            “Arf, arf! Arf, arf, arf! Woof, woof, woof! Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf! Woof, woof! Arf, arf! Woof! Arf, arf! Woof!”

            By then, everyone in the gym was at the very least staring at me, if not laughing, as well. But could you blame them? This wasn’t an everyday sight, and had I not been the one doing it, I would have laughed, too. But it wasn’t because I was embarrassed that I wouldn’t have laughed. I couldn’t laugh. I was too busy barking, and I was pretty sure that if I had tried to multitask it would have ended in disaster. Laughing and barking at the same time? Now there would be a scary sight.

            “Arf, arf! Woof, woof! Arf, arf, arf! Woof, woof! Arf, arf, arf! Woof!”

            The distraction worked perfectly. Our star shooter and point guard, Emily Cranes, dribbled up the court swiftly and shot a three-pointer. She was given a couple seconds to relax, ensuring the shot.

            The buzzer sounded loudly, shaking the gym for a moment, just as the ball went swoosh.

            We won! Wahoo!

            I got up, dusted off my knees with one hand and ran on the other foot I wasn’t wiping. This didn’t quite work out. I ended up tripping and falling, skinning my left knee. “Mother�"” But I quickly stopped myself when I got a disapproving glare from one of the grouchy, good-for-nothing moms that were there to cheer us on. Alright, so maybe they were good for one thing, and that, in this case, was cheering for us, but that was totally beside the point.

            I quickly looked down, very tempted to give her the finger, but I resolved against it. Instead I walked over to the huddle and grinned as Coach exclaimed, “Shay that was perfect! I knew I could count on you for that.”

            And it was true. I was probably the only person on the team that would have dared to do that without so much as a bit of persuasion.

            We stood there talking and laughing for a minute before an exasperated referee blew his whistle angrily and shouted, “Come on, the game is over! You have to shake hands with the other team.”

            Whoops. We had completely forgotten about the poor losers!

            Hey, these people were our rivals, okay? I would think I was allowed to call them losers, number one, because they just lost, and number two, because I hated them. How many more reasons could you want?

            Nevertheless, with only a small frown on my face, I went along with the rest of my teammates to shake hands with the Falcons. As soon as I shook hands with the coach, who trailed behind the players, I ran off.

            I was eager to run off so I could change and show off my amazing Halloween costume. I still didn’t consider myself too old to trick or treat; I didn’t think I ever would, actually. This holiday included two of my favorite things: dressing weirdly and getting free candy. How could I pass up the opportunity?

            And that was exactly what I did. I dressed in the most amazing costume I could find in the tiny town of Brookville: Bacon.

            Yep, that’s right. Bacon!

            Although it was no easy feat wiggling on that darned costume. I was glad no one decided they needed to go to the bathroom while I was changing. They would have walked in on me lying on the floor, having a spaz attack and twitching all over the place as I tried to get the costume over my big butt. (Big butts run in my family, alright?)

            Luckily, I managed to get it on without breaking any bones, and that, my friends, was a major accomplishment for me.

            After making sure I looked absolutely delectable (hello? I was dressed as a food), I strutted out of the bathroom confidently and walked back to the gym to show off my costume. As soon as my teammates saw me, they burst out laughing. Some even fell to the floor, rolling around and laughing. I couldn’t really blame them, though. I laughed at myself when I looked in the mirror. 

            “You… really weren’t… kidding!” Emily exclaimed between her laughter.

            “Nope,” I said, heading out the door with a grin. “See you later, guys!”

            Choruses of farewells were heard behind me and some sounds of laughter remained along with the farewells. I flashed a peace sign at them before turning back around. I had considered actually mooned them or something, but considering how much trouble I had putting the costume on, I didn’t think it would be the best idea to do so.

            The second I walked outside, I was attacked by my friends.

            “Hah!” Maddie laughed. “That was so funny! That distraction was awesome! I got it all on tape! You’ve gotta see it. I’ll show it to you when we get home.”

            Maddie was dressed as a pig for Halloween. It went perfectly with my costume, huh?

            “Yes!” I cheered happily. “I was hoping someone would tape it!

            “Shay, that was awesome!” Jasmine giggled as she skipped towards Maddie and me. “I couldn’t believe it. When you went out there, I was, like, holy cow! It was hilarious!”

            Jasmine was dressed as spider woman. Maddie and I tried to convince her to be spider pig, but she wasn’t all too thrilled with the idea. It was expected, though, so we didn’t think much of it. Jasmine was a girly-girl to the extreme. She wanted to look sexy on Halloween, not funny.

            Cecilia, my younger sister by two years, was close on Jasmine’s tail, grumbling to herself. I figured I must have embarrassed her. The egg costume I convinced her to wear probably wasn’t helping.

            “You are unbelievable,” she groaned when she reached us. “You started barking? Seriously?”

            I just grinned and nodded my head. She said it like it was a bad thing.

            She shook her head at me. “And here I was, thinking maybe playing basketball would help you be normal.”

            I just shrugged my shoulders dismissively. That was probably what everyone who knew me wished�"such as my mother�" but the ones who really knew me�"such as my dad, Maddie and Jasmine�"knew that wishing for that was a total waste of time. After all, it would most likely never, ever happen.

            “That was just wishful thinking, I guess. I knew there was no way even a normal sport like basketball would help you.”

            “Hey!” I was offended. She made me sound like some maniac, which I was not, by the way. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “It means that it’s time to go get some candy!” Maddie interjected before I became too tempted to grab Ceci by the arm and bite her. Sometimes I lacked self-control. I knew that biting people was wrong, but in moments like these that just wasn’t enough to stop me. Candy was the only thing that would have distracted me from my vicious rampage, and luckily�"for Ceci�"it worked.

            “Okay!” I agreed with a happy smile on my face. I really loved candy, if that wasn’t more than obvious by then.

            Maddie and Jasmine sighed in relief and shared a look. Soon after, we were on our way. We decided to stop by at Jasmine’s neighborhood first, and we got a boatload of candy. All of us lived in the nice neighborhoods where the people sometimes gave you entire candy bars; I even got a king-sized Snickers bar once. King-sized!

            Sure enough, we received a few normal-sized candy bars along with many smaller Halloween-sized candy bars and some assorted candy that I was too lazy to check the names of.

            We also received many compliments on our costumes. They said that Jasmine “looked beautiful”, that Ceci “looked delectable”, that Maddie “looked adorable,” and that I “looked… oh, my… you look funny”. I decided to take these as compliments.

            We stopped at the last house available in Jasmine’s neighborhood. It was a very nice Victorian style house. It looked like it had come straight out of “Pride and Prejudice”, one of my favorite movies.

            “Ooh, I love this house!” Jasmine said in a giddy voice, clapping her hands together with delight.

            “Why?” Ceci asked, surveying the house for anything that might make it superior to the rest of the houses. “It’s pretty, I guess.”

            “Not because of that, dummy!” Jasmine rolled her eyes. “These totally hot guys live here! I’m talking man-candy!”

            “And how is that a good thing?” Ceci inquired incredulously, throwing Jasmine a look.

            “How is it not?” I interrupted before Jasmine could speak. “I’ve got two words for you: hot; guys!”

            “Yeah,” Ceci agreed sarcastically, “and here we are, dressed as food and animals.”

            “I’m not!” Jasmine sang happily. “I look sexy!”

            “You wanna eat your words?” Maddie threatened, glaring intently at Jasmine.

            Jasmine, knowing very well how vicious Maddie could be, backed off immediately. “I mean, oh, no!” she exclaimed nervously. “This is awful!”

            I rolled my eyes at her pathetic performance and rang the doorbell anyway.

            “Shay!” Maddie screeched, her eyes widening. “What are you doing?”

            “Ringing the doorbell,” I replied calmly.

            “Why would you do that?” she continued frenetically, looking from me to the front door repeatedly.

            “Because we want candy?” It was supposed to be a statement but it came out sounding more like a question. I was confused. Why shouldn’t I have done it? I thought the point of trick or treating was getting treats and to do that, you had to alert the people of your presence. It was simple, really.

            Maddie was about to shout something at me�"a profanity, I was sure�"when the door abruptly swung open. I realized the second that door opened that Jasmine was right; a hot guy did live there. I peeked inside, and to my surprise, I saw that there were more hot guys sprawled on the couch playing video games. I probably should have been nervous, or even embarrassed. I mean, there I was, standing in front of about four hot guys wearing a bacon suit as I trick or treated on Halloween at the age of fifteen. They were all also staring expectantly at me, specifically, since I was in the front.

            Instead of mumbling trick or treat sheepishly, I grinned and said, “Whassup, yo?”

            The guy who opened the door gave me a weird look; when he looked into my eyes and tried to check me out (I say ‘tried’ because the bacon costume wasn’t exactly form-fitting or sexy. It left everything but my head to the imagination), he smirked. I considered myself pretty, mostly because I had always had my fair share of self-confidence, which in turn leads to a bit of vanity. But this guy had my bullshit-detector shrieking wildly. That wasn’t a good thing.

            “What on earth are you supposed to be?” He chuckled as he continued to look me over.

            I gave him a duh look. “I’m dressed as bacon, Einstein. What else could I be?”

            “I have no idea,” he said, shaking his head. 

            “If I knew, would I be asking you?” I retorted, rolling my eyes. “No, I wouldn’t, dip-s**t.”

            I didn’t know what made me act so rude to the guy, having just met him, but the fact that my bullshit-detector was still beeping gave me a pretty good clue.

            The guy had short and choppy chocolate brown hair. The hairstyle suited him pretty well, I had to admit. His eyes were a dark, waterfall blue, and I kind of wanted to poke one of them, just to make sure they were real, not contacts. Luckily, I managed to contain myself.

            He laughed softly and said, “Wow.”

            “Hi,” Jasmine blurted out suddenly.

            I just couldn’t help it. I, for some reason, found this hilarious. I didn’t know if it was Jasmine’s sudden outburst, the flirty smiles she was giving him, or the redness of her face, but I just started cracking up, loudly and uncontrollably.

            “Ohmygod,” I managed to choke out between laughs. “That�"” Guffaw, “Was�"” Guffaw, “Hah!” Guffaw.

            He gave me a questioning look and soon, all of the guys that were sprawled on the couch inside of the house started laughing as well.

            I needed a drink of water or something, anything, badly and there was nothing in my bag but candy, so I did what any other person in my situation would have done: I shoved past the guy in a hurry, still laughing hysterically, and looked for the kitchen in his house. Kitchens always had something to drink.

            “Where�"” Guffaw, “Is�"” Guffaw, “The�"” Guffaw, “Kitchen?”

            A good looking guy with short brown hair styled in small spikes pointed to my right, and I tripped my way into the kitchen. I glanced around and saw that it was a nice kitchen. Dark, wooden cabinets above my head, a marble countertop with stools on the sides, white, shiny floorboards, and a vanilla aroma filled my senses.

            I dashed to the fridge and saw an unopened carton of milk. Without thinking about it even once, I grabbed it, opened it, and chugged half the carton.

            “Ah…” I sighed in content, steadying my breathing.

            The guy looked at me with an amused yet bewildered expression on his face.

            “I guess since I just drank half your milk, you don’t have to give me candy. I’ll just take the rest of the milk. Do you have any Nesquik?”

            He shook his head slowly, looking like he was torn between amusement, surprise and fear.

            “No? Alrighty then. Well, this has been nice, but I gotta go now. Bye!”

            And with that, I scurried out of his kitchen, out of his house, and I hoped out of his life.

 

 

***

 

 

“Hey!” I screamed, knocking furiously at Maddie’s rude neighbor’s door. We were just finishing up in Maddie’s neighborhood�"which was right by my neighborhood�"but we were having a bit of an issue with the person that lived in the last house. We saw the man peek out of his window so we knew that he had seen us, but he refused to open the door.             How rude was that?

            “Open this door!” Maddie joined in, screaming even louder than I had.

            “You two are psychotic.” Jasmine shook her head, most likely wishing she didn’t know us at that moment. Lights were beginning to turn on around us as the man’s neighbors came outside briefly to see what was happening. They were all staring, but Maddie and I didn’t care, unlike Jasmine and Ceci. We just wanted the guy to be fair and give us what we came for: candy.

            “We want candy!” Maddie and I shrieked simultaneously. I was knocking furiously at his door while Maddie was ringing his doorbell like a madwoman. I had figured out long ago that teamwork was the best method.

            The door suddenly swung open, startling the both of us.

            “Here!” the man yelled, shoving two entire bags of those itty-bitty chocolates into our bags.

            “Thank you!” we chorused sweetly.

            He muttered something incoherently that I didn’t follow. From the expression he wore, I didn’t think he was saying, “What nice kids! I should have given them some more candy.” I was sure it was something a little darker than that.

            I looked down at my bag as we were walking away from the house and realized that if I put more candy in it, it was going to burst. Though that would be cool, I didn’t want nasty little buggers stealing all my hard earned candy. We had probably walked about a mile that night, and it was right after a basketball game for me, too. No wonder I felt so tired.

            “I’m dead,” Maddie groaned. “We’ve probably been out here for five hours now. I don’t think anyone else is gonna open up anymore. Apparently, it’s too late or something.”

            “I know!” I agreed. “Stupid old people. Can’t they stay up a little later? Don’t they care about us and our need for candy?”

            “Let’s just go home,” Ceci suggested. “I’m pooped.”

            “Okay.” Jasmine nodded her head in concurrence. “We’re heading to your house, Shay, right?”

            “Yep. Sleepover time!”

            “Good,” Jasmine said as we walked to my house. It wasn’t very far away since Maddie and I lived so close by. “You’re gonna have a lot of explaining to do, missy.”

            “About what?”

            “Oh, you know what!” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

            Did she mean the thing with the hot guy, the laughing, the milk and the Nesquik?

            “Oh…”

            “Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, giving me the evil eye.

            I gave her a small smile. “Sorry?”

            “Oh, we haven’t even started yet. Now walk!”

            I frowned, but walked on nevertheless. I didn’t think this was the best time to patronize her. I still didn’t see the badness in what I did, though. Then again, I wouldn’t, now would I? Because apparently, I saw things differently. And now I knew that according to others, it wasn’t necessarily good most of the time.

            I guess barging into a cute guy’s house and stealing his milk wasn’t classified as “casual” or “ordinary” these days.

            Who knew?

Reviews

[Short.Nerd]

Oh my gosh! I love this... Shay is amazingly hilarious and i love how bold she is. in a way she reminds me of myself but not even I'm that crazy. Her halloween costume is epic! I love it. I hope you add more! :D Like soon(: