Sneaking Out: Roxy Attn: Any Cotton

[Roxy Rivera]

Roxy patted down the pillows that she'd placed under her covers just in case. The door to her room was locked but she wanted to take secondary measures. Music was playing...her playlist could probably go for days before looping and starting over again so she was covered there too. Now it was time to sneak out.

Roxy had been grounded for skipping her audition last week and then refusing to answer her cell phone. She was grounded until Monday. But Roxy didn't let that stop her. She'd been grounded before and it wasn't the first time she was sneaking out. Roxy would do absolutely anything that she thought might piss off her parents even a little. They didn't always find out but just doing something they didn't like was sometimes enough. Like sneaking out or when she'd had sex. She'd only done it once and she hadn't told anyone she'd done it...not even her good friends...mostly because truth be told she'd been too young and she sort of regretted it...but still knowing she'd done something her parents would be furious about...kind of made it okay, if nothing else did.

The pillows were in place and Roxy walked to her window. She stuck her head outside...the coast was clear. Now it was time to move. Roxy lived on the second floor so sneaking out was a little tricky...but she could manage. She climbed up into her window...squatting there she thought that perhaps she should have worn pants today instead of her denim miniskirt but she didn't feel like going back and changing now. The coast was clear now and she was going to go...

She reached out and grabbed onto a tree branch. Thankfully the branches were thick enough to hold her weight. She moved slowly but she crawled out onto the branch. She made her was so she was next to the thick tree trunk, grabbing hold of it and standing up as she slowly made her way to another branch. The branch led straight to the Cotton's house. How perfect...

She crouched down again and crawled along the branch until she reached their window. She pushed at it but it was locked. Shoot. She hadn't planned for this... She knocked on the window hoping that one of the kids came by first....

[Thad Cotton]

Sandra and Deborah Cotton had both been greatly displeased when Thad had finally arrived home Friday night, covered in sand and seaweed and the sticky remnants of cotton candy. This combined with his Valentine's day rebellion had led to grounding, and to his dismay he was forbidden from setting foot outside his bedroom all weekend. He had so far acquiesced, largely because Sandra kept coming by to check he was really there. It was annoying, that's what it was, he was old enough to decide for himself how to spend his time! And if he really wanted to, he could have supported himself on his own. At least, that's what he told himself.

However, he had not been forbidden from the internet, so he was glued to the screen of his laptop, tapping away the inane, poorly spelled, emoticon littered chatter that typified MSN messenger conversations by the young and bored. The Explorer's Club were singing out their delightful brand of sunshine infused, Beach Boys inspired surf pop, to which Thad was happily singing along. Though the music was not aggressive it was loud, and he probably wouldn't have noticed Roxy's knocking if he had not for one moment glanced out the window, filled with longing for the cloudy day. He had expected the tree, and the clouds, but he had not expected the dark-haired young girl rapping insistently on his bedroom window.

He nearly leaped off his bed, snapping his laptop closed, shutting off the music mid-song. "Rocks!" He mouthed, unlocking the window and pushing it up, "Be real quiet, I'm grounded." He informed her in a whisper, though he imagined she was probably under similar punishment, or else she would be knocking on the front door instead of his window.

He stepped aside, offering her his hand so as to assist her entry into his bedroom, an act that would have horrified his mothers, who insisted that all his female friends stay downstairs where they could make sure no mischief was got up to. His room was not the brightly colored fairy tale world of Fallon's room, nor yet the rather morbid ode to the dead that Si haunted, but rather something in between. The walls were quite predictably covered with posters of varying musical acts, or the plays the school had put on. Clothes were strewn carelessly about, the bed he had just been occupying was unmade, and the balloons Takumi had bought him yesterday were hovering in one corner, already wilting.

"You couldn't'a come up with a better place ta hide than here?"

[Roxy Rivera]

"You're grounded?" Roxy blurted out, immediately slapping her hand over her mouth. "Sorry," she whispered, "I'll be quiet." Once inside, she looked around Thad's room. Although she'd been over at the Cotton's household before she'd never been up in Thad's room before. "How did you get grounded?" she asked, making sure to keep her voice down.

Roxy was of course grounded as well thanks to the fact she'd skipped her audition, left the house, and refused to answer her mother's calls to her cell phone for hours. Roxy thought the punishment was well worth for the little bit of freedom she'd had that day. "Here is the perfect place to hide out," Roxy said, "because my parent's hate it when I come over here."

Roxy's parents, especially her mother, were very traditional...something the Cotton family was not. And although Roxy's mother pretended to have other reasons to dislike the Cotton's, Roxy knew what it really was. The fact that their were two mother's...if you could even call Sandra a mother, was something Roxy's mother did not approve of. She also didn't approve of the way Thad wore makeup, or the way Sidra looked, or the way Fallon acted out. Roxy really did like the family, she enjoyed their quirkiness, but the fact that her mother disapproved so much did draw her over there even more, she had to admit.

"What have you been up to then?" she asked. "I guess I could have snuck out, out and gone to like the mall or something but I figured it might be more fun to see what's going on over here," she shrugged. Truth be told she had no idea she'd end up in Thad's room. She hadn't been sure of which room the window led to until she'd knocked on it and looked it. It seemed to work out though. Who knew that Thad's room was right across the way from her. This would certainly be useful for future groundings.

[Thad Cotton]

"'s not that excitin' a story," Thad laughed, "Jus' was out all Friday nigh', muckin' around in the ocean, kinda got real muddy 'cause some'un left their board in my way, met some Japanese dude and hung out eatin' cotton candy instead of comin' home fer dinner." He explained. It had been a very lovely Friday, as far as he was concerned, so much better than staying home, where he was already in trouble. "An' then the step-witch was kinda pissy that Ezzy made me up, didn' tell 'er who did it, though, she thinks I got a secret stash somewhere, she practically tore my room apart lookin' for it."

He gazed around said room, which had been messy pre-adult interference, and which he had been told to clean. "Hungry?" He asked, pushing his mattress up and pulling out an emergency supply of mostly melted candies and chocolates. "So glad she missed these, didn' think to look under the mattress at all, gon' have to hide all future mascara there." He decided, grinning happily.

"Yeah, we're way more fun than the mall," The boy agreed, "Whatcha over here, for, anyway, skippin' out on another audition?" He couldn't understand why her mother still scheduled those things, Roxy hardly ever actually went, it was rather absurdly thick on her mother's part. But then he remembered how adamant his mother was about behaviours that he and his sisters were not likely to change anytime soon. Apparently foolishly stubborn was a required trait for mothers.

He unwrapped a candycane that had been hiding under his bed since Christmas, fighting to get the plastic unstuck, "You got any ideas for summin' fun to do, then? Or do I gotta entertain you?"

He supposed he could come up with something, but he had to hide Roxy from his mothers, or else they would be sure to send his friend right back home. They really ought to have gotten on famously with Roxy's mother, the way they were on about responsibility and respect for parental authority, but the Rivera's seemed to greatly dislike all the Cottons. Thad wanted to like them, because they hated Sandra, but as he could sense the hostility when he went over to their place, he had a difficult time really liking them, either. He just wondered how they had managed to produce someone as fantastic as Roxy.

[Roxy Rivera]

"Well, I have makeup I can give you if you ever need it," Roxy said, rolling her eyes at the story he told. "It's so lame she won't let you wear it." Roxy didn't exactly get why Thad liked wearing makeup so much but she didn't really care either. If he liked wearing it, let him wear it. Her own mother had questioned this fact too. She assumed that Thad must be gay because of the makeup. Roxy just let her believe it, mostly because she thought it was funny to see what she could convince her mom to believe.

"Great," Roxy said, grabbing a piece of melted chocolate. Not the best thing in the world but it was better than nothing. She hadn't counted on Thad being grounded and unable to leave his room or she would have eaten something before sneaking over. She was allowed to go about the house but had mostly stayed in her room all morning under the guise of being too angry to come out. It made it easier to sneak out that way.

"No, no auditions this weekend. I skipped one last week and then wouldn't answer my phone for a few hours. I'm grounded too. It sucks that I can't really leave the house unless I sneak out but its kind of good in a way too. No auditions scheduled...my mom actually thinks that's like a punishment or something," Roxy rolled her eyes, "she still hasn't figured out that I hate them and avoid them like the plague." Roxy shook her head. That was part of the problem...neither of her parents ever listened to anything she had to say.

"I'm not sure what we should do...didn't know we'd be confined to your room," she admitted. "What were you doing before I came over? I spent most of the morning planning my escape," she said. She could probably figure out away to sneak out of here too. Being the house right next to her's, it was pretty similar in architecture. She was sure some of the same tricks she used to get out of her own house would apply. "You wanna stay here or bust out?" she asked. Roxy personally didn't care if she got into more trouble or ended up grounded again but she wasn't sure if Thad would want to risk it. She didn't mind being here but she'd never been up to his room before so she wasn't sure what there was to do there.

[Thad Cotton]

"Great! We kin be grounded together!" Thad grinned, pleased to have another rebel to share his misery with. Although since she was there, his punishment was much less miserable. Not that playing on the computer and eating melted candy was the most miserable way to spend a saturday, but he still would have preferred frolicking outside. If he could find a way to do so and annoy his mothers at the same time, so much the better, although it wouldn't be too difficult to annoy them this time around as he wasn't supposed to be outside his room at all.

"No auditions?!" The boy sighed in pretend disappointment, "Too bad, I know you gotta be real broken up 'bout that. Yer momma knows yer fibbin' when you say otherwise." He admonished, waving a chocolate covered finger at his friend. His own parents listened far more than he realized, but because they were stubbornly insistent that he change, he thought they didn't. He certainly would have agreed that Roxy's parents were more clueless than his, however; his were more annoying than anything else.

"Eh, well, it happens," He shrugged, flopping onto the bed. "Was messagin', but I only got one computer, it'd be hard to do us both at the same time. And singin', too, but some'un might notice if you joined in, I dunno." He replied. In his opinion, his room was not an exciting place to spend his day. Granted, it was his space, and as such he was quite fond of it, but he couldn't think of anything to do in it that he could involve Roxy in, unless he roped her into cleaning it with him. That would have made the authority figures happy, however, and anyway, he doubted Roxy really wanted to help him discover the secret hiding places of all his missing socks.

"Le's break out," He decided at last, "Go somewhere fun, arcade or beach..." He stared out at the cloudy sky, "Or summin. Should choreograph a dance and perform it on the boardwalk," He mused, "The girls'll be all over us, girls like dancin', right?" It would be fun, anyway, aside from impressing girls, which he actually wasn't so sure he was capable of doing and didn't spend all that effort on. If a girl was cool, like Roxy or Ezzie, then that was great, but the actual game of courtship appeared to require far more compromises than he was currently willing to make. "We'll figger out summin' to do once we get out."

[Roxy Rivera]

"Indeed!" Roxy said with enthusiasm, although Thad being grounded was a bit of a set back. It would have been easier if he wasn't. Now she was stuck in his room. His room wasn't bad--messy yes, but so was her's. She just wasn't sure what she was going to do locked up in there--especially if she had to hide if anyone else came in. Although she doubted Fallon or Sidra would care if they saw her in there. So perhaps she'd just have to hide if it was his mom or Sandra at the door.

"Yeah I know--I was pretty happy, but I'm sure they'll start up again with the school week," she said. "But still--gives me time to work on my audition for the play, since I actually want to do that," Roxy said. "You gonna audition?" she asked. Roxy wasn't even planning on trying out for one of the leads. She just wanted one of the smaller parts. She thought it would be more fun that way. Roxy did enjoy preforming but what her parents didn't get is that she had no desire to be famous. She liked being normal. And she botched her auditions because she didn't want fame to ever happen. Roxy liked being the center of attention sometimes but she didn't want it all the time. She liked being able to slip by unnoticed sometimes.

Roxy nodded when he mentioned he'd been on his computer. "Anyone interesting to talk to?" she asked. She usually didn't talk to people online except for her friends and occasionally her cousins or something. Roxy wasn't too addicted to the internet. Aside from some online shopping that she liked to do from time to time...she didn't do much else.

"Okay," Roxy said when he suggested breaking out. Now this she could do. She'd broken out of her house...certainly she could break out of this one. "First turn your music back on...you want it to be loud enough that your parents will just blame the loud music if you don't answer them." It worked for Roxy's parents at least. "Then..as for getting out of here...I suggest we start with the tree. Not sure if there is anything on your house we can use to climb down but if there is we'll be able to see it from there...if not...I know how to get down from my house..." she said trailing off.

She gave him a look when he started making suggestions of what to do once they had their freedom. "Yes, lets go try and attract girls," she said with sarcasm. "Because I've been looking for a girlfriend and all," she laughed. Roxy was still young of course but she was pretty sure she just liked boys. Although if she ever did like girls she could only imagine the look on her mother's face if she ever brought one home as her girlfriend. The experimentation could perhaps be worth it to piss off her parents. Of course Roxy didn't know the anything about what girls looked for in girls but she supposed it wouldn't be too hard to figure it out if she ever did decide to go through with it. For now however, she was just going to concentrate on sneaking out and then what they did after that...well, they'd figure it out when they got there.