Sugar Rush (open)

[Caitlin Alderman]

Caitlin bounced toward the cafeteria, Hello Kitty lunch box swinging carelessly. She'd been thrilled at the announcement that Gould and Silver would be finishing out the year together, because that meant she'd be able to spend the rest of the semester in the same school as Dena. She'd loved watching Dena's show, and the first time she'd noticed the other girl in the same school with her she'd squealed loudly and immediately bombarded the other girl with a stream of nearly unintelligible fangirlishness. Of course, it was an open question whether Caitlin had agreed to date the other girl out of sincere affection or because Dena was even more famous than herself -- Caitlin believed her youtube antics raised her to celebrity status -- but she'd accepted and they did get along. Mostly.

"You're one big sugar rush, suck me in suck me in!" She sang, flopping herself down into the first seat available and opening her lunch box. " What'd mom pack today? Oooh, cookies! Hooray!" She crammed one cookie into her mouth before offering the other to the person beside her. "Want one?" Or at least, that was what she tried to say; it was difficult to enunciate with a mouth full of cookie.

[Will Owens]

The sudden appearance of a body in the seat next to him made Will nearly jump out of his skin, and the two french fries he had been wearing as fangs plopped back down onto his lunch tray. Crimson appeared on his cheeks as he felt stupid for being caught off guard. However, the offer of a cookie more than made up for the momentary discomfort. Will enjoyed goofing around and making himself look silly, but when other people were the cause he was significantly more shy. Luckily, he recognized the face and felt more comfortable.

“Oh, hey Caitlin!” He smiled at the girl, glad he was able to remember her name. High school had been so crazy at first, meeting all the new people, but he was starting to finally settle in. “Thanks for the cookie,” he said, turning it over in his hands as he inspected the sugary treat. “What kind is it?” Not that it mattered, all cookies were good. Even oatmeal raisin, though no other cookie could compare to the classic chocolate chip.

His own tray was a pile of sadness, a flavorless hamburger drenched in ketchup surrounded by a pile of cold, limp fries. The only consolation was the chocolate milk that Will so enjoyed, but he felt bad he didn't have a suitable offer to Caitlin in exchange for the cookie. “I guess you can have some of my fries, if you want. They're not great, though. And I wouldn't take those two,” he pointed at the pair of fries that had moments before doubled as incisors. “They've been in my mouth.”

[Caitlin Alderman]

Caitlin hastily swallowed the remainder of her cookie before answering Will. "Chocolate mint!" She informed him, digging in her lunch box for a napkin, but she came up short and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand instead.

She scrutinized the fries on offer, then shook her head. "Thanks, but if you dislike them enough to spit them out again I don't think I wanna try them." She began pulling out her own lunch, glad that her mother so kindly packed one for her instead of making her eat cafeteria food. The very idea of forcing down anything prepared by the lunch ladies was enough to make her shudder.

"Hey, so, I hear some of the upperclassmen are doing bowling this weekend, wanna crash?" She asked. She knew that the upperclassmen very rarely appreciated Freshmen at their functions, and while her presence was frequently tolerated simply because she was related to one of the Seniors that didn't mean her presence was actually appreciated. Anyway, this time at least Graham wasn't planning on attending (as far as she knew) so it really would be like crashing instead of tagging along, and crashing was always more fun!

"I'll bet the Zouvelekis'll come!" She added, although she hadn't asked any of them. She was confident they would agree, though; after all, mischief and chaos were always in attendance wherever the Zouvelekis' quintuplets went, so it shouldn't be difficult to convince them to crash with her.

[Will Owens]

The words “Chocolate mint” had barely left the girl's mouth before Will downed the entire cookie. He casually wiped the crumbs from his mouth, and then his lap. He smiled with his lips shut, his cheeks puffed with cookie goodness, before swallowing most of the treat. “Oh,” he started, parts of cookie still in his mouth. “I didn't spit them out, I was just using them as...” He paused momentarily, realizing she might not get the joke. Will knew she wasn't one of those uppity kids that tried to be too cool, but she was a pretty girl and you shouldn't be too goofy in front of a pretty girl. “Yeah. They were gross.” He poked a finger at the burger, cracking through the stale top bun. He was not excited about his meal.

The idea to crash the party did excite him, however. “Sure!” On one hand, if it were a bunch of the cool kids, they might not appreciate it. Still, they'd have to respect the fact that he had the guts to crash, and Caitlin was a good time. He didn't really know the Z family well, but no matter what it would probably be fun. At the very least, it was bowling. “Can we make a big giant spectacle? Like, I dunno, all wear costumes or something?” Okay, maybe costumes wasn't a good idea, but Will could feel the excitement pulling at his dorkier side. He was so excited that he absent-mindedly picked up his burger and took a bite, though he immediately regretted doing so. He frowned as he chewed, and decided he need a lot more ketchup. “Who else do you think would want to come?”

[Caitlin Alderman]

"Costumes! That's a great idea!" Caitlin agreed, not bothering to think that not everyone had closets full of costume pieces to pull from at the last minute. As far as she was concerned everyone could pull together a costume on short notice.

She tried to devour her tuna sandwich as quickly as possible; if she and Will were going to plot she needed to be able to spend more time talking than eating. "I'll make Palmer film it!" She decided, licking tuna off her fingers. He was handy with a camera, and was easily bullied into whatever ideas she had. Which usually meant self-centered videos of herself, but she figured it wouldn't be too difficult to convince him to film other people, too.

"Umm, I'll bet Zooey will come!" She listed, "And Lia, she's cool, she'll be down for it, and maybe she can get her brothers to come, although Saint is blind now! So maybe he won't go. And I think Emily'll come, too, and if she comes I'll bet her brother will, too. You think Liz will come? Probably not, she's too cool for bowling. And I guess some of the Zouvelekis' Gould friends, too." She ended brightly.

"So we gotta think, are we just gonna show up there at whenever it begins? I think like, eleven? Does that sound right? Or should we meet up early and all go together? I think that sounds better, it'd be more hilarious that way."

[Will Owens]

Will ran through the cast of this endeavor in his head, and he worried that it might start becoming a little too much of a dork-fest for his desires. He didn't really know the Z family well. Lia was nice, but Jandro and Saint had kinda creeped Will out ever since the shooting. Palmer was fun enough, though, and Russell Cloy was a nice guy, though Will was supposed to dislike him if he were to be cool. Being cool could be so darned difficult! Zooey was also an uber-dork, always tailing Caitlyn's brother and his girlfriend, and never shutting up. And Liz Davies? What was Caitlyn thinking, wanting to invite that psycho along? Still, it all sounded like so much fun...

And the more Caitlyn talked about it, the more Will decided he liked the idea, no matter who was involved. It helped that Caitlyn was super cute, especially the more excited she got. Will even got slightly distracted for a moment when the girl started licking tuna off her fingers. Trust a freshman's libido to constantly distract him from the conversation at hand.

“Yeah, I think we should all meet before hand. There's a pretty awesome arcade kinda place near there we could all meet up first. Cause then we could just walk after everyone gets dropped off!” Will was started to leech some of the excitement from Caitlyn, getting into the idea of the party. “I mean, if we all appear at once and crash, that would be huge! And...” An idea appeared in Will's head, one he thought he might as well try. “If you wanted to meet there early to go over, like, plans, and uh, stuff, we could meet there and get like food or something. Just a thought. If you wanted.” He shut his mouth, half hoping and half dreading the girl would realize he was hinting at a date beforehand.

[Caitlin Alderman]

"Great! We totally should!!" Caitlin enthused, poking around in her lunch-box to see if perhaps there was any more lunch hidden. There of course wasn't, so she snapped her lunch-box closed and turned her chair about so she could face Will properly. "Costumes in an arcade would be brill! We could dress up like arcade characters and be all like, the arcade invades bowling or something! Unless we all get distracted playing arcade games, that would mess up our plans." She laughed, not particularly bothered by the idea of ending up playing games instead of crashing the bowling event; either activity would be fun, and fun was the point of life!

She was quite oblivious to Will's intentions, otherwise she would never have accepted his offer of food before hand. (Un?)fortunately she eagerly agreed, "That would be great! Party crashing takes lots of energy, so we'll need to stock up, right?" She was already running over her plans in her head, mentally writing invitations to all her friends and relatively cool acquaintances. She would drag Dena over to her house to play dress up before hand, of course, which meant she would probably end up asking Graham to drive the two of them to meet with Will. It didn't even occur to her to ask the boy if he minded her (sort of kind of) girlfriend coming along with them. "Then we'll have to all go get food after, like, pizza or something. Unless we go to someone's house, maybe I should ask my parents if they mind if we use our place for an after-party crashing party base."

[Will Owens]

“I would be totally okay getting stuck in the arcade! Just have to make sure to bring enough quarters, though.” Arcades were great fun, and Will was sure that with a girl like Caitlin the arcade would be a blast! He grinned, the girl's laughter helping to elevate his mood. Sometimes it was fun being around people who liked to have fun, and not worry so much about whether they were cool or not.

Will nodded in response to the vibrant girl beside him. “Yes, stock up. And pizza is great for that! Though if we wanna get pizza after, maybe we should get something different before. I dunno, I'll figure out the before, you figure out the after, how's that sound. Cause I'd love to party after!” He could see it in his head, all the freshman impressing the upperclassmen so much that they wanted to come back to Caitlin's an party with them! How cool would that be? Will was getting incredibly excited, laughing and grinning with the girl beside him.

It was at that moment that Will noticed Harris Washington giving him a funny look from across the cafeteria. The senior swimmer was one of the guys Will looked up to most. The guy had a great breaststroke, and Will had heard the skill translated out of the pool as well. He also seemed less than impressed by the company Will was keeping at the moment, and the way he was acting. Will immediately dropped the grin, trying to look as serious and cool as possible. He gave a head nod to Harris, then tried to give the subtle indication he was “hitting that,” with “that” being Caitlin. He really hoped the girl didn't notice, and quickly turned his attention back to her.