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Kel woke up, half because of the light streaming in from the nearby window and half because of the music blaring from down the hall. Groaning, she got up and changed into one of her numerous white turtlenecks and jeans, and pulled her pink sweater over it. She went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and went through her morning routine. As she finished, the same music was blaring down the hallway. She stomped down the hall over to the boys' and looked at the door.
Leonard Thomasson & Dylan Hackett
Sighing, she banged on the door. "Whoever it is, turn down the music!"
The music died down a bit, and the door opened, with Dylan's head protruding. "Waddaya want?" Dylan asked, yawning.
"Can you please turn down the music?" Kel begged, leaning against the door frame.
"Don't ask me, Leo's been playing that music since 5 A.M. I haven't gotten any sleep."
"Let me talk to him," Kel said.
Dylan's head left the little crack in the door, and soon Leo's head appeared. "Did you want to talk to me?"
"Please, none of us can get any sleep. If you must play your nonsense, at least do it lat-"
"What are you calling nonesense?!" Leo exploded. "This is Pink Floyd! They are the best band ever with the best songs!"
"Whatever," Kel sighed, "my point is that if you want to win this thing, then you shouldn't be playing this music so early. We'll never get any sleep at this rate."
Leo shrugged, "I still think you're crazy to think Pink Floyd is nonsense." He closed the door on her, and soon, there was silence. Sighing in relief, she walked downstairs to eat breakfast.
"What happened?" Kel asked, yawning. "Too early to be yelling....."
"Jenny and Parker somehow managed to burn all the eggs and toast that was supposed to be our breakfast," Yuri grumbled.
"How about you two order something while Yue and I go buy some food?" Kel suggested.
"There's a reason everyone calls you a genius," Yuri said, hugging her.
"Or there's the fact that you can't think straight," Parker muttered.
"Well, Mr. Short-asian-guy-who-looks-like-a-girl," Yuri said, "it's not my fault I'm always so hyper."
Kel dragged Yuri away from the fight, as to create little conflict as possible. "Just get changed and we'll take the bus," Kel sighed.
"Huh?" Yuri looked at herself, seeing she was still dressed in her yellow duckie jammies. Yuri blushed and quickly ran into her room to change. In a couple minutes, Yuri came out of her room, wearing a red T-shirt and khakis.
She ran over to Leo's room, which was still silent. She knocked on the door, and Leo, who was wearing headphones, came out. "Hey Yuri. Do you need anything?"
"Some of the money so we can buy some groceries. Jenny and Parker already burnt what they gave us."
Sighing, Leo disappeared back into his room, and came out with a credit card. "They gave us a credit card with all $5,000 in it. Please don't spend it all."
"Gotcha," Yuri said, taking the credit card from him, "I won't go on a crazy shopping spree like I'm a crazy prep!" Kel watched as Yuri skipped back over to her. "Well, let's go!"
"Hey Kel!" Yuri called from across the store. "Look at what I found!"
Sighing, Kel walked over to where Yuri was, to find her holding up a pink sweater. But not just any pink sweater...
"Oh my god!" Kel squealed. "It's the same one that I have! How did you find it?!"
"I don't know! I just saw it, and I had to show it to you!"
"How much does it cost?" Kel asked. "If it's cheap enough, I'll get a new one!"
Yuri handed the sweater to Kel, letting her see for herself. "Wow.... that's....."
"Cheap! I know!" Yuri said. "There a reason why that sweater is on the discount table." Yuri pretended to gag. Looking around, she went over to one rack and took a sweater out. "Here's a much better sweater."
She had chosen a pink knit with little flower embroidery. "Are you sure that we should buy clothes?"
"Don't worry. My mom says one person eats about $200 a month. That means with 16 people, we only need about...." Yuri paused, trying to do the math in her head.
"Three thousand, two hundred dollars?" Kel guessed.
"Yeah, only $3,200. We have at least $1,800 to spend. How about we only use some money to buy you a new shirt and a new sweater? It's boring watching you wear the same thing to school everyday."
Kel sighed, giving in. "Fine, but we'll buy the clothes after we buy the food."
"Any cheese curls?" Zach called out from the den.
"Yeah, but it's gonna be for the lunches!" Kel said. "So, no snacking on it. We only got enough for at least one week."
"Why didn't you bring more?" Alex yelled over the cheering from the den.
"Because," Kel groaned, "if we did, then we wouldn't be able to carry it home!"
"It's not like we can carry it now either," Yuri said, motioning to the bag slipping in front of her.
"Do you guys need help?" Aiden asked, peeking out into the hall.
"YES," the two girls yelled.
"Okay, okay, jeez," Aiden said, "No need to get into a fit about it."
"You girls need to chill," Parker said, grabbing a bag from Kel.
The four walked into the kitchen, each carrying an overloaded bag. "Let's see..... we have.... eggs, rice, spaghetti, noodles, chicken broth, bread, salad, ham, cheese, bacon, apples, bananas, oranges, cheese curls, chips, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, burger patties, buns, and....." Aiden pulled out a green T-shirt and a pink sweater, "what the heck did you do?"
"Well, I noticed that Kel wears the same stuff everyday, so we just bought a cheap shirt and sweater for her!" Yuri said, all giddy and smiling.
"And how much did you spend on all this?" Parker asked suspiciously.
"Twenty dollars, I'm not like those stupid preps that spend all their money on clothes," Kel said.
"Who you callin' preps stupid?" Dylan and Ken called from the den.
"Whatever, dorks," Kel said, "all I'm saying is that we got the food, and spent a bit on clothes. We just bought a ton of food for us. We even thought of Misty, who's a vegetarian!"
"You guys thought of me?" Misty said, peeking into the kitchen from the den.
"Yeah," Kel said, proudly, "You like fried rice or noodles?"
"Yay! You did remember!" Misty said, hugging the girls. "I think them remembering I'm a vegetarian makes up for the clothes!"
"You see? It all works out," Yuri said, smirking.
Kel sighed, and help put away the food. Truthfully, she would have bought more clothes if Yuri had kept in mind that they were on a slim budget. She hated the way she had to wear the same white shirt, jeans, and shrunken pink sweater everyday to school.
By the fifth time the girls had burst into giggles, Ken exploded. "What is so friggin funny?!"
"Oh nothing," Tanya said, "It's just someone here can't help but stare at Ken all day." She giggled, elbowing Hailey, who was blushing furiously.
"Shut up!" Hailey said, gritting her teeth, "I don't like him or anything!"
"Um, Hailey, you're not very good at lying," Zach pointed out.
"Shut up!" Hailey said. "At least I can keep quiet about it, unlike someone who never shuts up about Aiden," Hailey said, looking at Tanya.
"What?!" Tanya said, "I don't talk about Aiden!"
Hailey hopped up from her seat, grabbing a pillow. "Ooh! I talked to Aiden today! Aiden this, Aiden that, I love Aiden!" Hailey pretended to kiss the pillow all over, making everyone in the room laugh.
"Oh! A cat fight! This is gonna be good," Ken said.
"Oh god," Kel said, hitting Ken on the head with a nearby pillow. "You really are a perverted idiot." Kel got in between the two feuding girls. "Okay, break it up before anything bad happens."
The two girls glared at each other, and went over on opposite sides of the room to sit down. Kel sighed. Hailey and Tanya were usually best of friends, always helping each other to "get revenge" on Yuri, but when it came to boys, they were practically enemies. Every chance they had, they would taunt each other about the boy they liked. Meanwhile, Misty was more shy, but outspoken about her feelings. Madison, however, was different. She was the most sought out girl in the school, and apparently, it was the same here. Like how half the girls had drooled over Leo, all the guys wanted a piece of Madison.
Soon, the game ended, with Alex beaming after winning a bet. "Um, Hailey? Ken? Weren't you two going to cook dinner?"
"Oh shit! Dinner!" Hailey grabbed Ken by the wrist, yanking him into the kitchen.
"Don't forget to make vegetarian food!" Kel called out after them. She looked up at the clock. "Well, it's 6 P.M. now... I'm guessing since Hailey can cook and Ken took Home Ec last semster.... It'll be done in at least an hour." Kel went to her room, where Jenny was sleeping, picked up a book, and started reading.
"Is it burned?" Zachary called from down the hall.
"No!" Ken yelled back. "I'm not that horrible at cooking!"
"We're not so sure since I made the whole thing!" Hailey said.
Kel sighed as the two continued to yell back and forth. She walked downstairs, dodging the crazy maniacs running for food. She went into the dining room, where there were paper plates and plastic forks and napkins at every seat. "Don't tell me we gotta buy plates and silverware too...." Kel moaned.
"Nope!" Hailey said, poking out from the kitchen. "It'll be easier since we're having burgers."
"Burgers!" Alex yelled, "Finally, good food!"
"Shut up, Alex," Hailey said, whacking him on the head. "No one cares about your glorious food."
"Aw, is Alex hurt?" Madison said in a babyish voice, "Do you want me to kiss your boo-boo?"
"Yes please!" Alex said, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
"I wouldn't touch him if I were you, Madison," Kel said. "His stupidity might be contagious."
"Are you calling me stupid?!" Alex said, getting up.
"Well, if you need to ask someone to figure it out," Kel explained, "then yeah, I'd say that's pretty stupid."
"Why you little nerdling....."
"You two, break it up before there's a food fight," Misty said, carrying her bowl of pho onto the table. "Alex, you are and idiot. Kel, there's no need for you to point that out. Now let's just eat."
"Hey, you guys made pho?!" Yuri said, jumping from the table. "Screw this food, pho is the best!" She ran into the kitchen, and came back out with a giant bowl to the brim with broth and noodles, along with herbs and sauces.
"You make sure you don't explode, okay?" Aiden joked.
The room filled with laughter, from the conversations at the table. The conversation heated up when Dylan made fun of Misty being a vegetarian.
"How can you survive, on just veggies?" Dylan laughed.
"Well, I also eat other things. Besides, how can you stand the thought that an innocent cow died for your burger," she muttered.
Soon enough, the whole table was consumed in arguments. The tension that had built up during the day was being let out. Kel, the only one not involved, quickly comprehended the situation and came to the stark realization that there were at least five simultaneous arguments and no way to calm everyone. She hated arguing and soon bored of eavesdropping. Kel hurriedly finished her dinner, slammed her silverware down, and loudly got out of her seat. By that time, everyone was staring at her.
Kel looked around and checked to make sure she had everyone’s attention. Then she shouted, “I’ve had enough of arguments for a day! There’ve already been quite a few of them, and now there are at least five more! At this rate, we won’t even last ‘til the end of the week! Don’t even try talking about the $50,000! Can’t any of you just live and let live?”
“Who made you chief peacemaker?” taunted Dylan.
Kel glared at Dylan. She calmly and maliciously replied, “And who made you chief troublemaker? Who forced you to start as many arguments as possible?”
By now, everyone was completely silent. They had never seen Kel get this mad before. Kel knew that she was about to lose her temper, but she couldn’t let that happen. She quickly stomped out of the room and up the stairs to her room. As she was leaving she heard Yuri quietly mutter, “Ummm…Kel…”
Kel entered her room. She leaned against the door, closed her eyes, and calmed herself. As she rummaged through her stuff for no reason at all, she reviewed what had happened. She decided that she hadn’t done so well; after all, she had nearly lost her temper. Kel looked down and saw the corner of a yellow folder sticking out from her stuff. Then she remembered: since her mom had let her participate for the “college experience,” she had to complete a bunch of math problems for practice during the two months. Remembering the more than one hundred problems the folder contained made Kel groan. But at least the math problems would get Kel’s mind off those stupid arguments…
