Chapter 2

Wednesday Morning

The bodies of school pupils filed lazily out of the buses outside the school. Three of them were Juliana, Danny and Jennifer. They were discussing using the lalrge room under the balcony at the summer house for the main room for the party.

Then Juliana's phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and read that it was Kelly Philips. She answered it.

"Hey." Juliana said. "Where are you?"

"I missed the bus. I'm walking. I'm about ten or fifteen minutes out."

"Well you'd better hurry or you'll be late for reg. Were you sick on Monday and Tuesday?"

"Yeah. I had a bug. Everything I ate tasted like crap and I threw it up afterwords."

"Nice. Well I'll see you at school."

"Bye."

"Oh wait!" said Juliana.

Kelly put the phone back to her ear.

"Yeah?" She said.

"I'm holding a Halloween party at my uncle's summer house this friday. Wan't to come?"

"Sure." Kelly replied.

"Okay. I'll tell you more when you get to school, bye."

"Bye."

Kelly hung up. She turned off the pavement along the main road and walked down a path between buildings shrouded in trees. She walked fast to save time. She slept in and barely had time to do anything let alone brush her auburn hair.

She stumbled on something and almost fell over. Her phone flew out her hand and landed in the grass. She bent down to pick it up. When she stood up she was staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Trick or treat." A creepy voice whispered then pulled the trigger.

The bell rang for break. Juliana put her books in her bag and left class. She was walking to the benches. While she was rooting around in her bag she bumped shoulders with Alaina.

"Watch it!" Alaina barked.

"You watch it you dozy cow!" Juliana barked back.

"Excuse me?!"

"Oh shut up! You heard. Why can't you just stop constantly driving other people insane and get on with your pathetic life!"

Alaina stood there with her mouth hanging open while Juliana walked away. She was trembling with rage. She was waiting to do something like that for a long time.

Jennifer was already at the benches. She was starting to read a book as Juliana came and sat next to her.

"Hello." said Juliana. "Still reading that?"

"Yeah." Jennifer smiled. "Oh do you want the money now?"

"Nah, just wait until everyone else comes."

Slowly but surely everyone came along in drips like they did the day before as if they were encouraging the thick douvet of clouds above to let loose and chuck it down in buckets.

Juliana had written a list of names of the people who were there the day before. There were more than there was on Tuesday. About ten more. She couldn't see Kelly though.

"Hello." Juliana said awkwardly to get everyones attention.

All eyes were on her now.

"Can I get the money?"

Everyone crowded around Juliana handing her fivers, tenners, even one twenty, pounds and loose change. The total came to £124.78. Plenty.

"Okay, thanks." Juliana said to the group. "The party starts at seven on Friday. Don't be late because I hate it when people turn up half an hour or an hour late with silly excuses so don't or I won't let you in."

She smiled while saying it so she didn't look too serious.

Wednesday Afternoon

The bell rang for lunch time. Juliana, Danny and Jennifer met up for lunch and were heading across the school grounds towards the canteen. Then Alaina and her plastic barbie dolls came out of nowhere and stopped them.

"Hey guys!" Alaina said eccentrically. "I heard you guys are having a Halloween party. That's so cute."

The other girls started to laugh. Juliana was trying to control the urge to slap her.

"Oh my god." Jennifer muttered.

"What did you say?" sneered one of the bots behind Alaina.

Sophie came out of one the buildings closest to them.

"Whats going on?" she said to her friends while walking over.

"Nothing that's any of your business." snapped Alaina.

Sophie laughed, "Oh I think it is."

Juliana took a step forward, "Is that all you came over to say?" she barked.

Alaina opened her mouth to say something but Juliana got there fist.

"I thought not. Now get out of our way. I've had enough of this crap."

Juliana pushed past Alaina and through the group of clones. Sophie followed too.

"Oh Alaina?" she said, "your make up's smudged."

Sophie carried on walking while Alaina flew into an angry panic and searched for a mirror in her bag.

Sophie caught up to the rest. They began to laugh.

"That felt so good." said Juliana.

"I know." said Sophie laughing.

"At least not everyone's not scared to say something back to her."

"I hate the way she and her plastic clones swan about the place like nobody's business making everyone who they think are 'less popular' than them feel insecure." said Jennifer.

On the way to the canteen they met Adam and Jake and outside the canteen they met up with Sophie's boyfriend Blake Turner. Blake was one of the rich kids and was part of Sophie's old crowd. When Sophie decided to leave Alaina and the others Blake was all for it. He didn't really like the other girls but Sophie was different. The guys in that group were okay but weren't the best on conversation. He mostly spends his time with Sophie's group because there's more of a variety of conversation.

They sat at one of the larger tables in the canteen. The group broke up into several conversations.

"So," said Juliana to Danny while sipping her juice, "should we have games or something? Or just have a party with music blazing?"

"Hmm," replied Danny, "I think... you should have a DVD playing for those people who are more laid back and chilled."

"Sounds good." agreed Juliana. "I think the music and the dancing can be in the hall."

"So what about food?" Danny asked, "and decorations?"

"I'm gonna go shopping tomorrow after school and get that stuff. Food wise I'll get pizza's, those mini sausage rolls, stuff like that and lots of sweets and chocolate. And decorations, I'll get orange and black tinsel and hang giant spiders from the ceilings and hang fake cobwebs everywhere, give the house a eerie and scary feel to it. And I'll have stereos placed here and there playing creepy music and stuff..."

Juliana went on and on. Danny barely got a word in. She just about talked the whole lunch hour away about her plans for the party.

Wednesday Evening

Danny and Jennifer stayed on the school bus with Juliana until they got to her house. They were going to give the house a clean and move things around for the party. First though they had a bite to eat and Juliana dug out a stereo from her room and some CDs so they could clean to music.

"Just be careful not to break anything." Juliana's mum, Kate said to her.

"yes, I know." replied Juliana.

"And there better not be alcohol or anything that-"

"Okay mum I get the point." Juliana smiled and gave her mum a hug. "I'll make double sure that there'll be no alcohol or anything else that's inappropiate."

Kate smiled back, "Good. Now get going before it gets dark."

"Bye mum."

"See you later."

Juliana went into her living room to get Danny and Jennifer. They left the comfortable warmth of the house and went out onto the bitter cold streets and made their second trip up to the summer house.

The weather was pretty much the same as the day before which was good.

Juliana started with putting everything valuable or breakable into the garage which extended out of the house from under the bedrooms bit. Danny and Jennifer hoovered and polished the living and dining rooms and lined the furniture along the walls. The couch was left in front of the TV for anyone who wanted to watch a DVD.

Then they all moved onto the hall. Juliana's unlce had brighter lights installed to brighten the place up. Juliana and Jennifer cleaned the windows while Danny hoovered and mopped the floor. In the store Juliana found a floor waxer so they did that too. The hall looked much better now.

They all lined the chairs around the edge of the room and put tables in each corner for putting food on.

"This is looking good." Jennifer sighed with delight.

"I know, I can't wait for this party." replied Juliana.

"I second that." Said Danny.

Out of no where came a loud smash from up stairs. The three looked at eachother in fright. Juliana was first out the door and she shot up the stairs to the location of the sound. Jennifer and Danny trailed behind. She went into the master bedroom. The big ceramic ,vacant of flowers, blue vase was smashed into thousands of pieces all over the floor.

"Oh no," Juliana gasped. "You know, I'm sure I put that in the garage. Oh well," she sighed, "Danny can you get the dust pan and brush.

While Danny did that, Juliana and Jennifer gathered up the larger pieces and put them into a pile.

"Maybe you thought you did and just forgot about it." Jennifer said.

"Yeah, probably."

Danny came back and they cleared up the remainder of the mess.

"Okay," said Jennifer, "let's go home."

They filed out of the bedroom with Jennifer last. She closed the door and followed behind the others. When she got to the landing she could have sworn she heard hushed laughter. She stopped to listen more.

"What's wrong?" asked Juliana.

"Nothing." Answered Jennifer. "I just thought I heard... something." She smiled. "I'm just tired out of my brains. I need some sleep."

Juliana and Danny laughed and agreed to that but Jennifer wasn't so sure. She just wanted to get out of the big and eerie house as fast as she could.