Once Upon a Bad Idea

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a/n: welcome, welcome, welcome. i seem to have lost my character sketches, but i'll find those soon, then i can start writing some more of this. every single character is going to be a stereotypical high school character. we've got the jock, the cheerleader, the queen bee, the indie girl, the emo boy, the foreigner, the nerd, and so much more :) thought this up a while back, thinking it would be interesting to start off a gang of stereotypical students and then place them in a situation where they have to go against their stereotypes. it may come off as cliche in some chapters, but we'll see. enjoy!

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in a small town, everyone's an enemy

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He arrived by bus to Winchester with a pocket-sized Spanish English dictionary, two suitcases filled with shorts and other summer-attire, and a vocabulary of two words; hello and goodbye. His hotel was easy enough to find, though, and his room looked just like it had in the picture on the hotel's website, clean and spacious with a window overlooking the main street downtown. His plane had been on time and there had been no sudden gusts of wind to provoke his fear of flying. The following day he would meet with his house family and everything would go perfectly. Everything was already going perfectly. He repeated the names of his favourite cars to try and calm himself, but he ended up crying anyways. His first night in Canada, Ebony Cairos cried himself to sleep.

-

Her name was Dina Richards and she was currently smoking marijuana on her friend's boyfriend's deck. It was a long way down, as far as she could tell, and the stars were twinkling pleasantly in the night sky. She felt warm and floaty as she inhaled and exhaled and inhaled again.

Back inside the apartment, her friends were playing Guitar Hero II and drinking everything in sight, and she just didn't want to go back in just yet. It might have been because her girlfriend, Lauren Coach, was inside. Or it might have been because Dina liked being alone when she was high. It gave her time to think.

Dina knew she had to break up with Lauren. More than that, Dina knew she should do it right then, rather than the next day or the day after or a week from then. But, Dina also knew that she wouldn't break up with Lauren quite yet for reasons unknown even to her. Maybe she was cruel for dating a girl she didn't really want to date, but it kept things interesting. And, hell, she was getting free marijuana every time she partied with Lauren and her annoying friends.

She hadn't always been that way. Dina Richards used to be a top student, bilingual, and dating the sweetest boy around. And then.. then something happened. Suddenly Dina was depressed, dropping out of school, working at McDonald's, quitting her job, studying at home, and then, finally, going back to school. It was February 13th, the day before Valentine's Day, and she was another hopeless teenager smoking marijuana on somebody else's deck. She was feeling a little weak, a little depressed, and a lot hungry, but what else was new?

She wasn't originally from Winchester, a cruddy little city near the Ontario and Quebec border; she was from Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa and every other big city in the area. Then she got stuck living with her aunt and uncle and her cousins when her mother and father died in some freak car accident. The depression came years after that. And the partying came a few months after that. And suddenly Dina Richards was another rich Catholic school girl taken in by somebody else's parents because she had a dark past.

She was intelligent, frighteningly so. She could sit still for hours analysing things or thinking about things until she came to completely accurate conclusions. Dina was strange and beautiful in an awkward way, and living in Winchester was hard. It was a small town, where everybody knew everybody else. And, at first, that was okay.

A few more hits and Dina was sitting cross-legged on the deck, looking out over the chilly landscape and wondering all of her favourite kind of wonderings; the how the fuck did I get here kind of wonderings. She started with her favourite, 'how did an atheist end up at a Catholic school?' and her second favourite 'how did a straight girl end up dating a bisexual?'.

She really needed to stop smoking marijuana.

-

It was Valentine's Day when she awoke. Smoke permeated the air and possibly the smell of throw up coming from the bathroom. Oh yes, that must've been it, because now she could hear the retching sounds. Groaning, Dina laid her head back down on.. on what? On a broken plastic guitar, that's what. Somebody threw a water bottle at her head and she screamed slightly, her eyes opening wide to see Troy looking down at her.

"Your cell phone's been ringing up a storm," he said before turning and heading back to his bedroom, the only room in his small apartment. Alex, his girlfriend, must have been the one retching in the bathroom. The rest of the people, though, seemed to have left.

Dina cradled her cell phone and then slowly sat upright, yawning and stretching and feeling a slight hangover. It seemed the sun had already made it's way into the highest area of the sky and the stars had all disappeared. It was silent and snow was falling a bit, but it looked like a beautiful day.

Her cell phone started singing Music is My Hot Sex as loud as it could (perhaps volume 7 or 8?) and she threw it at the wall and covered her ears. When that didn't stop it, she gingerly picked it up and pressed talk. It was her aunt, Vicky.

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Chloe Richards did not want to meet her new house brother. First of all, who invented this house brother nonsense? And what did it mean? Chloe was having inner turmoil as she trotted down the stairs and into the living room. Her new house brother (what was his name again? E-something? And where was he from? Argentina? Brazil? Who cares.) had taken a taxi over to their two-storey luxury-something-or-other. On the outside, the house was gorgeous, but on the inside, it was going through as much turmoil as Chloe's mind. In both cases, it seemed brain cells were very few.

Chloe knew her mother and father had needed the money, badly. They had finally decided to rent out the spare bedroom to some foreign child when they saw an ad in the Winchester Gazette talking about taking in a kid from another country while he or she studied English. Chloe didn't understand any of it, but that was a regular occurrence. Instead of moping about her lack of intelligence, she took it in stride; Chloe Richards was a great cheerleader, dating the notorious Roark Trist (her brother's best friend), and only in grade eleven, what more could a girl want?

When she reached the living room, she saw that her brother, Brendan, was already seated on one of the couches, feet perched lazily on the coffee table. Her mother was swatting at his feet and her father was pretending none of it was happening. And her dear cousin, Dina? The ungrateful brat had stayed at that reckless Troy Briar's house, getting high and drinking until the sun came back up, again. Chloe sniffled, hoping somebody would notice her.

Her new house brother was sitting on a chair looking either creeped out or bored or something, all of his bags positioned around him like some kind of barrier. He looked around meekly until he caught her eye, Chloe looked away and huffed heavily. What was up with foreigners anyways? Had they never seen a boob job before?

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"I'm not going to ask you again, Dina, I need you to be here immediately. The poor boy's already here, waiting to meet you, and you're at God know's who's house doing God knows what," Aunt Vicky explained. Her voice was coming in crystal clear on Dina's Blackberry, but she didn't really want to walk back to the prison cell in which she lived. She knew she looked like shit and she knew she felt like shit and she also knew she didn't want to be with the rest of her so-called family at that moment. "Just get over here as fast as you can, I'll try and postpone the introductions until then."

Dina pressed the end button on her Blackberry, wondering how the hell Aunt Vicky was going to postpone the introductions. Was she just going to have everybody sit there and wait? And why was she always bringing God into everything? Dina sighed and pushed herself up from the ground. The broken plastic guitar she had used as a pillow looked even more distasteful from a standing position.

After collecting her Hello Kitty backpack and putting on her beat-up Nike Dunks, she left Troy's apartment and began the half an hour walk back to her aunt and uncle's house in Prim Point Estates.

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Ebony Cairos was a nervous wreck. The taxi had been on time and he had successfully left the hotel without accidentally destroying something or other, but he couldn't help shifting his eyes from side to side and just looking.. nervous. He clutched at his Spanish English dictionary as if it might save him from the people in the living room with him. He glanced at his suitcases and his bags; two suitcases, two backpacks. He looked around at his new house family. A high school guy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with his feet propped on a table, messy hair and bright eyes. An older man pacing about just outside the entrance to the living room, white hair and a beard. An older woman constantly touching at her platinum blond hair or fixing her pink peach lipstick. And, finally, a blond girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen, arms folded across her abnormally large chest, nose wrinkled in disgust, stick thin arms and legs, and shorts that were, in Ebony's opinion, much too short.

And then, when he thought he couldn't take the awkward silence any longer, the door opened and everybody in the living room turned to see who had decided to enter the house. The door slammed and the older woman stood and walked to the hall, heels clicking on expensive wood floors, short hair bobbing as she strutted to the intruder.

"That's the last time you do this to us, Dina! You're always ruining everything for us, why can't you just fit in?Dropping out of high school, not even being able to hold a full-time job, and now wasting your time with low-life teenagers?"

"Blah, blah, blah," replied the intruder. She poked her head into the living room. Ebony turned to face her and suddenly felt a million times more nervous. His best friend, Jasper, from Venezuela had told him all about beautiful blond Canadians with blue eyes and pretty faces, but he had never told him about the girls with brown hair and green eyes that matched Ebony's own. Maybe his mouth fell open a little and he stared for too long, because the girl smiled and by God, he thought he might explode with nervousness. He wanted to talk to her, right then, but as he clutched at his Spanish English dictionary, he remembered sadly that his vocabulary only consisted of two words; hello and goodbye.

-

Alex Vonne was having a fight with her boyfriend of two years, Troy Briar. He was high and she, well, wasn't. That's how the fights usually started. Why do you have to be high all the time? she would ask him. Why do you have to be not high all the time? he would ask her. That was actually how one of his precious guitar controllers for Guitar Hero II had been broken; she had smashed it over his head. And then she had slept with him, of course. But that was beside the point.

After about a year of dating Troy on and off, she began a drunken hook-up relationship with, well, one of Troy's best friends. As an afterthought, she had decided that was probably a bad call on her part. But what the hell, right?

Deryk Langly was your typical emo kid. Long black hair with blond streaks, multiple facial piercings, the ability to write really sad poetry, and a kick-ass mental illness to boot. He had clinical depression, he was on medication for it, and Alex loved it.

Of course, she was still dating Troy. Either because he was good in bed, he always scored her free booze, or because he had already graduated and was living on his own, Alex didn't know or care. She had two men. One who was continuously high and one who was continuously depressed; life was good.

Troy flopped onto the one remaining couch in his small apartment living room and looked up at Alex. She was pretending to study her nails, but she faced him and delivered her best death glare. Troy shrugged and lit a joint. Alex threw her hands in the air and gave up for a while. Besides, Deryk was probably awake by then. Maybe she could sneak over for some quality time.

-

Troy was throwing out his ruined plastic guitar when he saw Lauren Coach (practically) running towards him. He shut the lid to the garbage can outside his apartment and ran a hand through his in-need-of-a-shower hair. Alex had left, so maybe he should take a shower. Well, he had been really considering it. The shower in his apartment only gave ten minutes of hot water, but he had become a pro at military showers. In and out in less than two minutes, and smelling fresh and happy. So he would have had a shower. But there was Lauren, mascara tracks running down her face and the reddest nose he'd ever seen.

"Is Dina still here?" she asked him, her whole body being wrecked by sobs. He thought for a moment, pushing through a drug-induced haze. Was Dina still there? Well.. no. She left two hours ago.

"No."

Lauren began crying even harder, her little winter jacket unzipped and flapping around her. Her hair was up in what Dina would refer to as a slutty cheerleader ponytail, but that was Dina for you; living with Mr. and Mrs. Perfect High school Stereotype had turned her a bit sour, a bit sarcastic, and a lot hateful.

Troy looked around and saw that Lauren had decided to chip at some of the ice on the sidewalk with a fur-lined boot. She was still sniffling and crying, and Troy was getting a bit bored.

"I'm gonna go now.." he said, relatively quietly, before turning and walking back to his apartment. Once inside, he made a run for his door and then his bathroom. Maybe Alex would like him more if he smelled like sunshine.

-

Dina was relaxing on one of the couches in her aunt and uncle's living room. After living with them for the past two years, she still couldn't call the house her own, it was just a little too weird for her. Her aunt was seething on the couch opposite her and her darling cousins were both spacing on the third couch. Her uncle had introduced himself quickly and then disappeared into his office. And Ebony, her new house brother, was still seated on a chair, his suitcases surrounding him, his eyes looking a bit less feverish.

"Can we hurry this up, please? I have to get to cheer practice. You know I'm never late," Chloe whined. Aunt Vicky sighed and excused her, quickly turning to Ebony and explaining that her name was Chloe, C-H-L-O-E, and she was her daughter, D-A-U-G-H-T-E-R. Ebony seemed to relax second by second as he realized how idiotic his new house mother was. Or at least that's what Dina imagined. If she were in his position, that would be the case.

"I have.. basketball," Brendan stated. Aunt Vicky sighed and excused him as well. That's my son, S-O-N, and his name is Brendan, B-R-E-N-D-A-N.

Dina looked to her aunt, wondering when her introduction would take place. Most of the last half an hour in the living room was spent sitting awkwardly in a semi-circle, all of them glancing around, and Aunt Vicky snatching the Spanish English dictionary so that she could translate some of her vocabulary. Her Spanish, Dina could tell, was failing.

Aunt Vicky gave up and trotted into the kitchen, heels clicking. She started slamming cupboards and preparing to cook supper. Dina looked to Ebony, Ebony looked to Dina.

"I'm making dinner, D-I-N-N-E-R. Show him his room, Deens."

-

Ebony followed behind Dina as she marched upstairs and turned corners and finally arrived at a simple room with a bed and a dresser and a window seat. She had helped him carry up his suitcases and his backpacks and now she set them on the floor and turned to him, smiling.

"My name's Dina," she explained. And.. Ebony didn't know what he was supposed to say after she had said that. Hello? Or goodbye? Or Ebony? But didn't she already know his name?

"Ebony," he said, and stuck out his hand. It wasn't proper Spanish tradition to shake hands - he was used to hugging and kissing the cheek of a friend or sister or cousin - but there he was, shaking Dina's hand.

Dina smiled mysteriously, said some more English and disappeared towards her room, which she had shown Ebony on his way to his own room.

He sat down on his bed and decided it was about time to call his mother.

-

Lauren Coach was in a state of trauma - kind of. It wasn't really that much of a traumatic event, but she had a way of dramatizing everything. Dina was always picking on her about that. Why can't you just stick to the truth? she would ask. Because that's no fun, Lauren would always reply. Lauren was a year younger than her overly-sarcastic girlfriend, and it showed. Of course, Lauren would never admit to this. She liked to pretend she was on somewhat of the same level as Dina.

Lauren was standing on the corner of Hagarth and Rome, having just left Troy's house after an unsuccessful recovering of her girlfriend. Usually Dina stayed at Troy's for at least another three hours after a party of such multitude. But apparently not that day. And of all days to disappear, it was Valentine's Day, for Pete's sake! Did Dina forget about their special plans for the day? Hot chocolate downtown, a movie at the local cinema, dessert at La Fille, and then star gazing from Lauren's deck. They had been planning this for weeks.

And then the traumatic event took place. It wasn't really Lauren's fault, or at least she didn't think it was. Mallory Danes, one of Lauren's best friends, had just sort of.. attacked her with her lips the previous night. Lauren was cool with it, of course. She was bisexual, and she was used to having her friends test their sexuality on her. But Mallory.. she had been doing more than testing the waters of her sexuality.. she had been momentarily making-out with Lauren.. with Dina not more than five feet away and oblivious.

Normally this would have been okay. Mallory was the same age as Lauren and a giant flirt, so she didn't think much of it at the beginning, but then she started to.. like it. She felt so betraying for thinking it, but as soon as she had, she knew it was true. She liked kissing Mallory, and she wanted to do it again and again and again.

Actually, Mallory had cancelled plans with her off again, on again punk boyfriend, Andrew Wordsmith. She had cancelled Valentine's Day plans with him. On Valentine's Day. And for what? To drink hot chocolate with Lauren, that's what, and maybe get a few more kisses in.

So now it was Lauren's turn. Break up with her straight, sometimes bisexual, girlfriend (who would rather play Xbox 360 than hangout with her one and only) or stay with Dina and always wonder what she was missing out on with Mallory, her flirtatious and bubbly best friend. The answer was really simple. If only Dina would answer her cell phone.

-

Dina was resisting the urge to spy on her new house brother. She suspected he was on the phone, anyways, because she could hear him chatting softly in Spanish down the hallway. It was comforting to just listen to him speaking a language she didn't quite understand. She caught pieces here and there, using her French to generally figure out what he was saying, but other than that she didn't have a clue. His accent was magnificent, though, and she liked the way the whole house was silent except for him.

Aunt Vicky was in the kitchen, cooking up a Canadian storm, it seemed, and Uncle Ray was doing God know's what in his office. Her dear cousins were doing what they did best - playing the pathetic roles of Cheerleader and Jock - and Dina, herself? She was talking to her best friend from Montreal on MSN. Apparently Emilie was participating in the school play and having an art show for her newest works. Dina was maybe a bit jealous.

Dina had started charging her Blackberry when she returned home since it had miraculously decided to die on her as she reached the front steps of her aunt and uncle's house. Right then, as Dina talked to Emilie and Ebony talked in Spanish to some mysterious someone on his cell phone, Dina's phone finished recharging and she saw that she had twenty-two missed calls and fourteen text messages. She sighed in annoyance.

It made things easier that they were all from the same number, though; Lauren Coach, her girlfriend.

The last text message explained that she couldn't participate in their Valentine's Day plans. Apparently she was hanging out with Mallory Danes. And, oh, and what was this? Lauren Coach was breaking up with Dina Richards. Because.. she was in love with her best friend?

Dina laughed.

-

Chloe Richards was seated beside her older brother, Brendan Richards, as he drove towards their prestigious Catholic school. Her cheer leading uniform (something a little less revealing than a regular public school uniform) was tucked into her backpack and she was reapplying her lip gloss as her brother complained about this or that. Chloe wasn't really listening.

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, something that was rare for Chloe. Usually she was partying with her friends (something her parents didn't really know about) or hanging out with her boyfriend, Roark Trist. Sometimes she would even do double dates; Chloe and Roark (Brendan's best friend), Brendan and Ana Montes (Chloe's best friend). It was probably a little weird, but nobody really cared.

Cheer practice was usually an hour or two long, then the ten girls on the squad would gossip in the change rooms until their boyfriends finished whatever sport they were practising. There would be some hooking up in classrooms and some partying later on, usually. But not that night. It was Valentine's Day and it was just going to be Chloe and Roark, enjoying a romantic night out.

Of course, Chloe knew that cheer practice would be mostly dedicated to helping the other girls plan their date outfits and then talk about how far the hook ups should go and what they should order for dinner and whatnot. The ten girls on the squad were very close, very popular, and very.. unoriginal. If one girl who was higher up on the social pyramid decided that purple was the new Valentine's Day date colour, they would all be wearing purple. And, of course, Chloe was not one to stray from the social pyramid. If the colour was neon green and the food was sashimi, then neon green and sashimi it was.

Chloe wasn't really concerned about her date that night, though. Roark was a goofy grade twelve with nice blonde hair and a charming smile. All the other girls were slightly jealous that she had scored somebody higher up than herself, but that was that. Besides, Chloe didn't really have the energy or the mind to figure out any of that stuff. That was just how it was.

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Marc Simms was a math geek. He complained often to his parents about the unfairness of high school atmosphere that turned his classmates into wild beasts who preyed upon their smarter counterparts. His parents were uninterested, as most upper class parents would be. He was going to school, that's all they cared about. Oh, and he was getting top grades. That was always a plus.

So why was a certain Marc Simms, alleged math geek, creeping around on school property on a Saturday afternoon (Valentine's Day, no less)? Because it was a dare. And it was a dare laid upon him by Brendan Richards, infamous sports star and brainless doofus. But that didn't alter the fact that it was a dare, and if Marc didn't act out the dare, he would be eating snow for the next two weeks (or longer). That was why he was creeping around on school property. And that was why he was eventually sneaking into the girls' change room. He was supposed to spy on the cheerleaders and.. and this was the worst part.. he had to steal a pair of underwear. He was feeling a bit perverted.

But it's not like it was his idea. Brendan had caught up to him, wanting some math answers for the test, and Marc just didn't know the answers. Did Brendan think he was psychic or something? So he had been given a dare. A really badly thought out dare. Because, just as Marc entered the change room, he realized there was nowhere to hide. And, cue giggling girls approaching from the parking lot.

Marc panicked.

But then he calmed down and shoved himself into a locker.

-

Ana Montes was not in a good mood. It may have been the fact that Brendan had not returned her text messages for the past two days, or it may have been because her mother refused to buy her a new outfit for her date that night (if she was still going with dear Bren), either way she was pissed off. And when Ana Montes was pissed off, people tended to.. get out of her way.

Except there was her best friend, miss Chloe Richards, continuously chatting and not even caring. Ana just wanted everybody to pay attention to her. What was so interesting about Chloe anyways? She had fake boobs - so what. That girl probably had a fake brain too, judging from how little she understood of the world around her. She still watched teletubbies for Pete's sake.

Ana strode over to her locker and opened it up. There was never any need for locks, besides, the girls were so trusting of each other. Ana turned off her iPod and began stripping out of her street clothes and then dressing into her cheerleading uniform.

Chloe finally shut up when she reached her locker. Ana and Chloe's lockers were a few feet from each other, and the only ones in that small section of lockers; the other girls were on the other side. Ana peered over her shoulder to see Chloe standing stock still and staring into her locker.

"Forget what to do after you open it?" Ana mocked. "First you get undressed, then you change into your uniform."

-

Chloe Richards had never changed in front of a boy before, but it seemed that was what she was about to do. Actually, contrary to popular opinion, the girl was still a virgin (and that was probably why her perfect boyfriend, Roark, was banging her best friend behind her back). And, yet, Chloe didn't have the heart (or the brain) to announce that there was a boy stealthily hidden away in her locker.

It might have been the way Marc silently pleaded with her to not tell. Or maybe it was the soft look of his hair, the dimple that wasn't currently in use, his chocolate brown eyes, or the fact that for a math geek, he only had a few blemishes. Chloe wondered why she hadn't seen him before. Oh, right, because she hated math and everything and everyone that had anything to do with it. But there he was. Young, afraid, and in need of a beautiful cheerleader to save him.

So when Ana explained how to get dressed, Chloe complied, marvelling in the way Marc's eyes widened and nearly popped as he watched her undress and then change into her uniform.

And when all of the other girls left for the gymnasium, Chloe Richards stayed behind to help Marc Simms steal a pair of Ana Montes' underwear.

-

Brendan Richards didn't like being made a fool of. He was known for having a few more brain cells than his younger sister, and he put them to good use intimidating the other students of Winchester Catholic Reprise. Since Brendan was so intimidating, he was rarely made a fool of. But that changed at 5:34pm on Valentine's Day.

Ana Montes, his girlfriend, was supposed to be at his house at six o'clock. They would get into his Porsche and then drive over to an expensive restaurant, hold hands downtown, and then sneak back to his house for some late night sex. But when Brendan and Chloe returned from their respective stereotypical practises of cheer leading and basketball, they were both made fools of.

There is only one thing Brendan disliked more than being made a fool of, and that was his sister crying.

When they had returned home they had both gone to their rooms to prepare for their own big nights, only then Chloe had rushed into his room, mascara smudged all over her face and tears leaking from her big, blue eyes. Brendan hated it when his sister cried. She whined a lot, but that he could deal with. When she cried, though, she made it seem like the whole world was crumbling beneath her, and the sky was opening up to Hell.

Normally he would have shut his door and told her to go away. Ana was supposed to be coming over in half an hour, so he needed all the time he could get his hands on to shower and douse himself in cologne and some form of style. But there was Chloe, frantically dragging him to her room where she then pointed to Ana Montes' Facebook status.

-

Dina Richards was in a good mood. Not only did she not have to worry about breaking up with her girlfriend anymore, but she also didn't have to worry about her cousins annoying counterparts roaming around the prison cell anymore. They had both been harshly crushed when they found out their lovers were actually lovers with each other, and over Facebook no less. It was all crazy high school nonsense, but good fun nonetheless. Dina had a shower and then sent a message to Emilie, knowing she would enjoy the hilarity of it all.

Dina was actually just finishing getting dressed when Aunt Vicky yelled that supper was ready. A Canadian supper, no less. Which made Dina raise an eyebrow. Didn't they always eat Canadian food for supper?

Anyways, she was cool with that. Eating in meant not dating Lauren Coach anymore and that meant not hanging out with annoying wannabe's anymore and that was the best thing to happen all week, maybe all month. Of course Dina was going to miss out on all the exclusive Troy Briar apartment parties, but who cared? Dina certainly did not.

-

Ebony Cairos did not like vegetables. More precisely, he did not like any sort of vegetables. He did not like carrots, cucumbers, onions, lettuce, beans, peas, pickles, or peppers. Those were the ones he could think of at the moment, but he was sure there were more out there that he disliked. When he sat down at the table placed just out of reach of the kitchen tiles, he realized with terror that there were vegetables everywhere.

The young blond one, Chloe, had looked rather grumpy until she sat down and viewed the table and it's many vegetable prizes. The muscular one, Brendan, sighed and slumped into his seat. The man, Ray, was seated and waiting for his wife, but she was busy flitting around the kitchen, finishing the preparations of giant slabs of meat. Finally, Ebony's eyes settled on Dina. She was sitting across from him at the rectangular table, picking at her nails and looking at the rest of her family through her eyelashes. Then, she noticed Ebony was blatantly staring at her, so she turned to look at him, large, olive eyes no longer hidden under thick, black eyelashes.

Ebony looked away.

The woman, Vicky, finally sat down and before Ebony could protest (in Spanish, maybe? How else did he expect to explain his strong dislike for vegetables?) she bent her head down. Ebony watched with wonder as Chloe, Brendan, and Ray also bent their heads as Vicky mumbled a prayer. However, he noticed how Dina was instead watching him. He quickly closed his eyes for the rest of the blessing.