THE PARTY'S STARTING, YO!

4 MARCH, FRIDAY, BEFORE HOMEROOM

Mrs Henderson came into class early to help us set up for the class party. She made the boys stack all the desks against the walls except for the front row desks which were joined together to form a table in front of the class. Mrs Henderson even bought some disposable tablecloths from the dollar store to make the buffet table look nice. We were all supposed to leave our food contribution on the table.

The rest of the classroom was for the chairs to be lined in one large circle... Which was now officially the social seating arrangement I disliked the most, but Mrs Henderson felt an open space for honest sharing would be required for this party.

As the class streamed in, they would look dismayed at the change in classroom layout, and then confused as they looked for a place to put down their bags. They would find a random corner or wall, and were then told to put their stuff with the stacked desks at the back of the classroom. After they moved all their things there, someone would inform them that Mrs Henderson wanted all the food on the table so they would have to go back to their bags, take their party food, and bring it to the front of the classroom. But as more and more food got displayed and bags got stowed on and under the stacked desks, the kids who came in later could figure out where everything was supposed to go.

We ended up seated in that awkward large circle waiting for kids to come in. I felt quite grateful for Fluffy and EJ's company. Three was a crowd - and in such social situations, a crowd was good. Looks like there would be no nap before homeroom.

"Ah, there goes our last chance to catch forty winks." Fluffy smiled lightly.

"Eh? But there's still first period..." EJ said.

"Did you forget?" Fluffy smiled, "Scary Alpha wants us to rehearse for Talent Time."

"MOU!!! Why didn't you tell me earlier?" EJ jumped out of his seat.

"I didn't want to crush your hopes immediately." Fluffy smiled.

"Do you always mess with EJ like this?" I asked.

Fluffy smiled, "He's so cute, I can't resist."

EJ bounced to my side, "Mou! Pretty Alpha. Fluffy's always playing with my heart!"

I thought you were heartless?

Some of the random girls near us tittered in our direction.

The main horror of the large circle was exactly this - you're totally exposed for everyone else to see you. There was no desk in front of you, if you sat badly with a short skirt, everyone across from you would see the color of your panties.

I double-checked my own skirt.

Oh, and you couldn't mess around behind the safety of the backs of other students. And let me not get started about how I never knew what to do with my hands. For now, I had my surface pro to hold and stare at.

The other students had the same idea, and most of them busied themselves on their phones. Most of them didn't even sit down, preferring to loiter around the fringes of the classroom. EJ took a selfie with Fluffy, "Girls always like it when Fluffy appears on my feed. They say he's eye candy."

Fluffy posed for the photo by sitting next to me... But instead of facing the camera and smiling like an idiot (the way a normal person, aka, me) would have done, he angled his body and looked away, only wearing a hint of a smile.

The resultant photo looked very natural - EJ was grinning and making a peace sign in the foreground, but Fluffy's profile in the background looked like he was caught on camera together with EJ completely unaware, but beautiful and poised. I was in the photo too but blurred out in the background and half blocked by Fluffy. It could have been any girl who happened to be sitting there... well, except for all that blue hair.

EJ captioned the picture, "Why are we waiting? #partytime #readytoparty #party #winderhillhigh"

The cool girls came into class a little later than usual today. It turned out that Krystal and Leia had gone to Zara's apartment to prepare their party food. They proudly placed a platter of cocktail sausages, each one skewered against a piece of canned pineapple.

It hadn't been easy to make. They had to summon Jasmine with an SOS for help.

I looked at the dish and nodded, but at the same time, I couldn't quite place why it could've been hard to do.

Anyway, the cool girls came and Fluffy and EJ were quickly displaced from my side because they had to discuss important things with me - like what each girl was planning to wear to Abigail's party.

"What are you wearing Zammi?" Kyrstal demanded.

I had no idea.

"My mum said the club is the kind for rich people so it's going to be posh." Jasmine worried, "I don't know if my dress is okay."

She showed us a picture on her phone. It was like a selfie taken in a mirror. A dark purple long shift-dress that bared her arms, "Do you think it'll be cold? The pool's outdoors right?"

"Oh." Zara seemed to only just realized this now, "Then I guess my dress would be too sexy."

Krystal clicked her tongue, "You better not be wearing the pink one."

"Why? But that's my fanciest one!" Zara argued, "I got a lot of compliments when I wore it to my school prom."

"Your MIDDLE SCHOOL prom." Krystal said like that made all the difference.

"It doesn't really matter." I suddenly remembered freezing at the dance party yesterday, "If it's outdoors, even if it's by the pool, you'd still need a jacket. So as long as you've got a nice jacket and the bottom of your skirt and shoes look nice, it should be fine."

"Oooohhhh..." Zara's eyes brightened, "That makes sense! How'd you know this kind of stuff?"

"Of course, Zammi would know." Krystal said, "She has to go to high-class parties all the time."

"Not really." I honestly didn't think our dance party on the packhouse training field would be considered high class.

My friends conveniently ignored me. My friends had a bad habit of ignoring me whenever what I said didn't agree with them.

So anyway, the cool girls decided on little black dresses (aka LBDs). Mostly Krystal decided that she was going to wear her sexy LBD under her jacket.

"Even if no one sees, knowing that you have something sexy inside would make you feel instantly sexy." She explained.

And then she ordered the rest of us to wear LBDs too. All the cool girls would go in LBDs and heels. (And no, they couldn't say "little black dress" because they were the cool girls. I guess it's the same way they couldn't just call me Sam.

Also, even though it wasn't as cold in the Gold Packlands as back home, cool girls weren't bothered by the cold. No one was going to wear tights, leggings, stockings, or anything sensible against the outdoor Spring night weather because it was a POOL PARTY.

"Just dance more if you're cold." Krystal instructed.

I was quite sure that minimally, my knees were going to freeze.

Oh yes, and all our accessories had to be in silver too. (I'm assuming they meant the color, not the material that would kill me here, but I took note to be careful about accidentally brushing past anyone at the party.)

"After all, it's all in the details." Krystal advised.

Should I warn their dates? Heh heh. No way. Muahahaha (evil laughter).

The guys came in later. Henry had two red ants proffering large trays of fruit tarts and sandwiches - the kind with their crust cut off and arranged in neat rows of triangles.

"Which one's yours?" Henry asked.

Was this a competition?

"The mini eclairs." I pointed it out.

Henry raised his brows at the mini cooler on the table, "That's it?"

But I had confidence in Ki, "You have to eat it to believe it."

"Noted." Marcus chuffed happily.

"What about you two?" Henry asked my guards.

"Tada!" EJ proudly opened up a large cake box to show us, "We brought Night Leaf's famous muffins!"

Which was the standard vanilla, chocolate chip, or double chocolate muffins made at our packhouse kitchen.

"Did you guys steal them?" I narrowed my eyes at the box. There had to be at least 20 muffins in that box!

"No, we just asked the nice ladies at the packhouse kitchen, pretty alpha." EJ informed me.

"We can be very charming when we need to." Fluffy smiled.

So they didn't steal the muffins. They stole some poor ladies' hearts.

"Alright! Is everyone here?" Mrs Henderson saw the two red ants out after they helped her set up the large trays on our buffet table. She even thanked them, as if it were their idea to donate food to our party. Now that the buffet table was settled nicely, she decided to sort out her disorganized students.

My friends and I were in the circle where I had been sitting, but we were just standing in a smaller circle next to my chair now. The other students were in their own circles too. Some of them sitting on the desks by the wall, others hanging in odd corners, or in little clusters outside the circle chairs.

"Why are all of you just standing around?" Mrs Henderson asked, "Sit down, sit down. Everyone find a chair and sit."

So we all looked around at the circle of empty chairs as if trying to find the right one... like it would determine their soul mate or something.

I was the first who dropped back in the chair I was seated at. My friends seemed to have some discussion before sitting around me, the girls in a row to my right, while Henry and the guys sat on my left. EJ had left his chair facing the wrong way next to me, so Henry sat on the next chair.

I waited for the other kids to pick their seats. EJ flipped his chair back around, but before he could sit, there was a commotion among the girls to their left - they were the random girls with a few of the nice girls. Let's just for the sake of clarity call them the tittering girls, because their commotion was a flurry of movement, sitting down and standing up again, and a lot of tittering hand waving among themselves.

It seemed that Liam, who was seated at the end of my guy friends didn't have seat. The first tittering girl stood up to give Liam her seat.

Liam smiled his lopsided smile and winked, "Thanks."

The girls tittered some more, and then the girl who was now seated right next to Liam felt she had to stand up. This was when the real commotion began with the sitting and standing and shifting among the tittering girls. I'm not sure why, but there was something wrong with the chair next to Liam's and none of them could sit there for more than a few seconds before jumping up and squeaking, squealing, or tittering for another girl to sit there instead.

"What... what's wrong girls? Why aren't you sitting down?" Mrs Henderson was just as bewildered as I was.

"They're so pathetic." Krystal commented on the sidelines. She was almost directly opposite them and had a good view.

Zara who was seated next to Krystal called across the circle, "If you want to sit, just sit already."

"We need to find our seat first." One of the tittering girls stopped tittering to explain to the rest of the now-seated class.

So we watched them for a while.

It was a very complicated process. The girls spent a long time trying to arrange themselves on the chairs. It looked like all of them were taking great pains to NOT be allocated the chair directly next to Liam's. Either the chair was broken, or Liam had cooties.

"Girls!" Ivan rolled his eyes, "Just sit down already. The chairs are all the same."

"It's because they secretly want to sit next to Liam." Troy explained too loudly.

I knew it was the cooties. Lol.

Luckily, I also knew how to keep my thoughts to myself, unlike Troy, "You girls are so stupid."

"SHUT UP TROY!" a couple of the tittering girls turned to yell at him.

"Are pretty classmates shy?" EJ asked, "Come, don't be shy, I'll sit with you."

And then the redhead sat in the empty seat between Liam and the girls.

Now the girls tittered even more and somehow the commotion had displaced even more girls from their seats than before.

EJ grinned at the renewed commotion. He patted the new hot seat next to him, "Come sit with me."

"There's such a thing as being too flirtatious." Henry remarked.

Marcus coughed, "You'd know."

This earned him a hard smack on his back.

"Alright, that's enough, class!" Mrs Henderson felt it had gone for long enough. She stood up from her seat so that the girls could ALL shift down the row by one seat.

When all of us were finally seated, Mrs Henderson looked around the circle. There were two gaps now. One between EJ and the tittering girls, and one between Henry and myself. Mrs Henderson looked undecided for a whole second before she decided to sit next to EJ.

"There!" She sounded quite pleased with herself, "See, it's perfectly safe. Wolves and humans, we can all be friends."

No, Mrs Hen. Even I knew the girls weren't worried about their physical safety when it came to the guy wolves in this class! But nobody corrected her.

And then Fluffy had to exchange seats with Liam. They were just next to each other, but Fluffy wanted to sit next to EJ.

And then some of the tittering girls had to swap seats too, just among themselves though.

"Does anyone else need to change seats?" Mrs Henderson asked. I think she was showing a rare moment of sarcasm, but actually, yes. Some of the boys swapped seats too. Mostly because they didn't want to sit next to Troy or Terrence or worse, a girl. Mrs Henderson's mouth pressed downwards. I think we were stretching her patience a little too thin for her liking.

No one tried to sit on the single empty chair between the cool girls and the hot guys. I didn't blame them. I wouldn't have chosen the seat next to Henry either. So now there was an empty seat between Henry and me. Maria hadn't come again, so I guess the extra chair was hers.

I looked over at Henry who raised a brow back at me, "What?"

So I gestured at the chair between us, "Henry, meet Tom."

"Who?" Henry actually looked at the empty chair.

I laughed, "My imaginary friend."

Henry groaned, "Very funny."

"I see Tom, and I see Henry." Fluffy smiled from his seat, "But where's Dick?"

"Yeah, who's the dick?" EJ called over from right next to Mrs Hen.

Henry rose up and in one smooth motion, reached over Marcus and Liam, grabbed Fluffy between his open legs by the front of his chair seat, and tipped the chair backward, "It's Tom, Dick, and HARRY."

Fluffy tumbled backward and spilled out onto the floor next to his upturned chair. EJ yelled and jumped up, his chair fell back too. Mrs Henderson screamed. A number of other kids were immediately up on their feet. The tittering girls scrambled back squealing.

"Oh, so you've met?" I laughed from my seat. I think Fluffy and EJ were a bad influence on me.