Chapter 3: The First Bizarre Act

Almost a month passed by, and already Cassandra had become a part of Hector’s group. The others didn’t mind; they actually accepted her with open arms, something Cassandra still thought to be peculiar. Even so, she was still a part of their group now, and it was the best time of her life in being so. They were an overall happy group of people, and not only that, but were very entertaining. Out of all of them though, Cassandra was the closest to Hector, and after him was Ardelle and Alice.

She was close to all of them in a way, but she talked the least to Hernando, Adrian, and Erin. It wasn’t that Cassandra didn’t like talking to those three; it’s just that she never really got the chance to converse with them. They always seemed to be busy, that, or they were at the center of all the school fights, which oddly enough were becoming regular occurrences at McFerran High. Fights taking place almost every day were not the only weird events that were beginning to transpire. Every day more and more people were coupling up, romance filling the atmosphere of the school; music could be heard everywhere she went nowadays, and more pranksters than usual were getting away with their crimes.

Sure, the new changes were making the school days more bearable, but Cassandra wished things would get back to normal for once. There was only so much fun a person could take before it got to them. Despite that though, life was pretty peaceful. Cassandra was doing well in school, and she could now say she actually had a social life. If only it hadn’t taken her meeting new students for any of these changes to occur; life would have been more favorable to her a long time ago.

The last class of the day ended, and Cassandra rushed out of the school happily. It was a Friday, and the group was going to the park for a picnic to celebrate the weekend. They were meeting at four, so it gave Cassandra enough time to go home and prepare for the outing. She arrived home in ten minutes time, and when she did her mom was already home. Helen Roda worked at a Magic Shop, one of the oddest jobs a person could have.

Her mom owned the shop, and for some reason it got more business than Cassandra ever thought it would. Because her mom owned it though, she was usually there until seven when it closed, so it was a surprise to see her home already.

“Hey mom! What are you doing home so early?” Cassandra asked, putting her backpack on top of the kitchen table.

“I’m here on my lunch break,” said her mom, her mystic green eyes staring up at her through long lashes. She had a smirk on her face, and her dark curly hair was actually down instead of being in its usual bun.

“Lunch break? Isn’t it kind of late for a lunch break?” asked Cassandra amused.

“Well I got a little busy around my usual lunch break, so I’m having it now.”

“I see,” said Cassandra, pulling out a handful of plastic forks from one of the upper cabinets. Helen raised an eyebrow as she watched Cassandra put the forks into a plastic bag, and then into her backpack.

“Where are you going with those forks?”

“The park remember? The group is having a picnic,” said Cassandra, as she pulled her backpack back on.

“Oh yes. One of these days I’m going to have to meet them.”

“I know, I’ll make sure to introduce you to them. I got to go mom, see you later,” said Cassandra, as she gave her mom a kiss on the cheek.

“Bye honey,” said Helen as she watched Cassandra leave the house. Hopping onto her skateboard, Cassandra decided to ride a little slower than usual, enjoying the scenery around her. She reached the park fifteen minutes later to see the others already there, with a picnic table reserved for the occasion, and covered with food. There was a macaroni salad, lamb kabobs, a Greek salad, tea sandwiches, a container filled with Jell-O, and a pitcher of lemonade. When seeing the display of food, Cassandra couldn’t help but drool.

“Hey!” yelled Alice cheerfully when she saw Cassandra enter the vicinity.

“Hi,” said Cassandra with a smile as Alice got up from the table to give her a hug.

“You brought the forks right?”

“Yeah they’re right here,” said Cassandra unzipping her backpack and pulling them out.

“Yay! Let’s eat then!” said Alice, running back to the table with the forks. Cassandra laughed, and as she approached the table the others also greeted her.

“Sit next to me Cassie and dig in! We brought a lot of food,” said Ardelle.

“Ok then,” said Cassandra, taking a seat in between Ardelle and Adam, and accepting a plate that Amanda handed to her. Cassandra ended up sitting right across from Hector, so she said a silent hello to him as she sat down. He smiled, and for the next minute or two people were scrambling to get food onto their plate. When everyone gathered as much food as they needed, they dug into it with glee. After almost five minutes of silence and eating, Ethan spoke.

“So how is everyone?”

“Good,” most of the people at the table said.

“Bored! Can we do something?” asked Adam.

“You want to do something now? We’re eating you impatient boy!” cried Alice.

“I’m bored though,” whined Adam. Cassandra giggled.

“Too bad, we are in fact eating. Wait until we’re done,” said Hector amused.

“Ugh fine,” was all Adam grumbled, resuming his meal. Penelope rolled her eyes, and turning to Cassandra asked “so anyways, how’s school been for you?”

“School? It’s been okay, just I’ve been stuck doing a lot of work,” said Cassandra, taking a sip out of her lemonade.

“Oh I know what you mean. All we seem to get is homework, it’s so annoying!” exclaimed Amanda.

“Hahaha! You find anything that isn’t either fashion or girl related annoying,” cackled Erin. Amanda frowned.

“No I don’t!”

“Yes you do! You are quite annoying yourself when I have to hear you say ‘oh that dress is so cute’ or ‘oh her shoes are adorable!’ it’s sickening to listen to.” Adrian snickered from where he sat next to Erin. Amanda pouted, deciding to stare a hole into her plate instead of replying. Hernando, who had been sitting next to Amanda, glared at Erin.

“Great, now she’s going to be in a foul mood all day. Why did you have to say that?”

“Because I’m tired of hearing her disgusting voice or even having to deal with her! At least back home I was able to avoid her, now I’m stuck seeing her all the time!” Cassandra found that bit of information interesting, but didn’t say anything.

“That still doesn’t give you an excuse to be stingy to my…girlfriend,” said Hernando after a pause.

“Wait a second, you and Amanda are together?” said Cassandra, startled. Amanda blushed.

“Yup, those two have been together for a long time,” said Dennis, speaking for the first time that afternoon. Cassandra furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

“How have I not noticed before?” The others just laughed, which Cassandra didn’t understand at all, but decided to drop it. Everyone was finishing up their food when Adam said “can we do something now?”

“Fine, what do you suggest we do?” Ardelle snapped.

“Let’s play hide and seek.”

“Hide and seek?!” the others said alarmed.

“Why do you want to play hide and seek? That’s a little kid game,” said Penelope with a frown.

“Because I just do.”

“Wow that’s a stupid answer,” Erin said bluntly. Adam glowered at her. Cassandra could see another fight impending, so she intervened by saying “playing hide and seek isn’t that bad. If you guys don’t like that game then we can just play one round, and after we can do whatever we feel like.” The others liked that idea, so after Adam declared he would be the person searching for everyone else, they discussed the rules of the game. When everyone was aware of what they could and couldn’t do, Adam covered his eyes and began to count to twenty. At that moment, everyone ran in different directions, scanning the park for a place to hide.

Spying a bush, Cassandra crouched as low as she could next to it, hoping none of the others would see her. Through the shrubbery, she could see where everyone else was trying to hide, and chuckled to herself. Alice was not far from where Cassandra was, sitting as shrunken up as she could behind a tree. She was staring off into the distance, a smile on her face. Cassandra raised an eyebrow at that, but when she saw what Alice was smiling at, she gasped.

It was a young deer, tan in color, just standing in the clearing, staring at Alice. Usually deer didn’t venture into the park, so it surprised Cassandra to see it there, and in broad daylight too. Alice made a faint whistling noise, and held out one of her hands. At first, Cassandra was flummoxed as to how that was going to lure a deer, but what she saw next made her jaw drop. Slowly but surely the deer was walking towards her, which made Alice’s smile widen.

When it reached her, it rubbed its head on her hand, just like a dog or cat would do. In response, Alice stroked it, a glazed over look on her face. This was one of the most bizarre things Cassandra had ever seen. How often did something like that occur? Reviewing all the things she knew about deer in her mind, Cassandra knew they didn’t approach people at random.

Before she could even question the matter further, Adam appeared in front of Cassandra. He towered over her, a grin on his face.

“Found you!” he said happily. “At first I wasn’t sure if it was you, because it looked like nothing was there.”

“Huh? I’m wearing an orange shirt next to a green bush, how did you not see me earlier?” said Cassandra in surprise. Adam shrugged.

“Ok then...” Adam scanned the park carefully.

“Where are the others? I only found Amanda, Hernando, Penelope, and Ardelle.”

“I don’t know. I only know that Alice is behind that tree,” snickered Cassandra. Adam had an evil grin on his face when she said that, walking away from Cassandra to sneak up on Alice. Pulling herself up from the ground and dusting herself off, Cassandra heard Alice shriek, and saw the deer amble away.

“ADAM YOU IDIOT YOU SCARED AWAY THE DEER!” yelled Alice in rage. In hearing that anger, Cassandra decided to run for it, and when she was a good distance away, she started to look for the others. In addition to the others Adam found, Ethan, Adrian, and Dennis were out of hiding. That left Erin and Hector still to be found.

“Anyone seen Erin or Hector?” Amanda asked the others already out of hiding.

“Found Erin!” called Adrian, pulling her out by the foot from under the slide.

“Hey let go of me you baboon!” growled Erin, trying to kick Adrian with her other leg. Adrian snickered at her attempts to free herself. While he taunted Erin, the others continued to search for Hector. No one bothered to check the tops of the trees, so after glancing up several of them, Cassandra found him.

“Found you,” she said with a smile. Hector laughed.

“Finally somebody did,” he said, climbing down the tree. “How did you know I would be up there?”

“It seemed obvious since you weren’t anywhere else.” Hector just nodded. The others assembled together again, and after yelling at Adam for a minute straight about how stupid hide and seek was, and how they never wanted to play it again, they all decided to retire to hanging out around the park. Hernando and Amanda went off together, Ethan and Penelope started making out on a picnic bench, Erin and Adrian were terrorizing squirrels, Ardelle, Alice, Adam, and Dennis were talking on another picnic bench, and Hector and Cassandra decided to lay in the grass and look up at the sky. By then, the sun had already been starting to set, so everything around them was a golden yellow. Warm weather and a comfortable silence also contributed to the relaxing atmosphere.

“What’s your favorite time of day Cassie?” Hector asked her suddenly.

“My favorite time of day? About now, dusk, why do you ask?”

“Oh no reason, just felt like being random.”

“Oh? Want to play 20 questions?” Cassandra asked with a grin.

“Of course,” he said, grinning back at her.

“Okay then, what is your favorite color?”

“Light blue. Favorite sport?”

“Hmm….I don’t really have one, but I guess swimming. Is Alice an animal charmer or something?”

“Haha! Why do you ask?” said Hector, rolling over to face her.

“Because, earlier I saw her charm a deer into coming up to her. That doesn’t normally happen you know,” said Cassandra, also turning to face him. Hector just raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe the deer just found her interesting, and approached her, Alice isn’t a animal charmer.” The way he said that made Cassandra believe he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“Are you sure? Because that was really abnormal,” said Cassandra.

“Oh you haven’t seen anything yet…” muttered Hector to himself.

“Huh?”

“Nothing, just don’t think too much about it,” said Hector with a sigh.

“Whatever then,” said Cassandra, turning away from him.

“Look, I’m sorry if you’re displeased by my answer, but that’s the truth, it really is nothing, please don’t be mad at me for something as little as this,” said Hector, taking one of Cassandra’s hands and turning her around to face him. The smallest shock went up her arm when he touched her, making her light headed.

“I’m not mad at you Hector, I never can be.” Hector smiled at that, and the two stayed in that position on the grass until all twelve of them decided to depart from the park and go to their respectable homes. Collecting the forks they didn’t use, Cassandra stuffed them back into her backpack, and picked up her skateboard from the ground. She waved farewell to them, and mounted her skateboard once again to ride home. During the ride home, Cassandra thought a lot about what had happened that afternoon, and about what Hector said. Despite what he told her, something didn’t seem right about the whole situation.

What Cassandra found strange was how Alice was even able to get the deer to come up to her. Something was definitely special about her, but then again, there was something peculiar about everyone in the group. Cassandra knew she tended to over analyze everything, but there were so many things about how her day went that she questioned. All of this she pondered to herself, and in no time at all she was in front of her house. Dismounting from her skateboard, she quietly opened the door to her house to see her mother still wasn’t back from work yet.

Sighing to herself, Cassandra put her skateboard away in her room along with her backpack, and picked through her refrigerator for something to eat. Munching on what she found, Cassandra sat and watched television for a couple of hours, but her mother still didn’t return home. She wasn’t worried though; there were plenty of times when Helen Roda would come home late. Bored out of her mind, and tired after the long day, she decided to go to bed early. After changing into her pajamas, she snuggled into her bed, and slowly drifted off to sleep. That night she dreamed about a land far from home, where everything was covered in ice, and a frightened Cassandra watched the ground open up in front of her, and swallow her whole.

Finally I was able to update! Yay! Geez ever since this school year I've been swamped with school work, that, or every weekend I would be swept away somewhere far from home...anywho, I would now like to thank KellaBelle, HeavenHellButterfly, Gilly-ARose-WithA-Broken-Heart, ADSpencer, and Sakina the Fallen Angel for reviewing! Hope to have another chapter out soon!