VDAY TOTALS

FRIDAY, 12 FEBRUARY, AFTER SCHOOL

The school bell rang to signal that the day was done.

Of course, I did miss the first half of it. The school day felt too short, but I only showed up at lunchtime so I guess that should have been expected.

I think that would just be the right number of hours I would like to attend school every day.

Across the day, I got more Vday gifts.

Liam had come up to me at the end of lunch to give the roses to me on behalf of Henry, Marcus, and himself, "I saved you a good one."

I'm not sure what a "good one" was, and I worried about the biased distribution, but I smiled and said, "Thanks."

The bouquet had 6 red roses and some smaller purple flowers around it. I noticed all the girls got roses too, but in different colours, like pink, white, yellows, and even a lavender purple. Only Jasmine and I got red roses. Maybe Liam felt the red ones were the good ones.

If he noticed Jasmine casting envious glances at the purple roses he gave to one of the other girls, he didn't show it.

Among the guys, Ivan's gift stood out the most after Henry, Marcus, and Liam's bouquet. It was a small cactus with the words "Free hugs" scribbled in black marker on its plastic pot. He admitted his mum made them. He also gave Zara a pink hamster wheel. It made Zara really happy. Zara was the only one who got a special gift from him. We all think he likes her, but he had denied it vehemently.

My cactus was a small round ball with large white spikes. I had no idea how to bring it home though. I put it on the window stile next to Maria's cactus, which was a brighter green oval one with tiny red needles.

They can be friends. Like us.

BUT if anyone asked if we were friends, I would probably deny it vehemently too. We were a vampire and a werewolf, not two cacti.

All the other guys gave small chocolate bars or candies packets. They didn't have their mum's help so that seemed like the best they could do.

I had to say Terrence surprised us because he stuck red heart stickers on the chocolate bars from him, and he came up with the idea all by himself. This earned him third place after the Henry-Marcus-Liam collaboration, and Ivan-Ivan's Mum one.

Yes, Abigail made us vote for the top three guys gifts.

Everyone took a little longer to get ready to leave today. After the last bell rang, some of us rushed to give a few more gifts, while some of us scratched our heads about fitting all of it into out bags. There was also a bit of checking out what your friends got.

Abigail made a big fuss about only having one paper bag after school, "I only brought one bag! I totally wasn't expecting so many gifts!"

Her paper bag was huge! Like double the size of mine, so it's not that she was expecting nothing.

How would she bring everything home? In the end, she got an extra bag from Janice who could fit all her gifts in her school bag if she carried her bouquet and balloon in her hand.

The cool girls too... They weren't about to lose to Abigail. To make sure they would come out with a decently larger amount of loot than anyone else, they had made special gifts for each other.

Zara gave the whole class V-DAY skittles, but she made all the cool girls friendship bands (which I was made to wear immediately.)

Jasmine made everyone brownies in cute little paperbags, but for her special friends which included the cool girls and me, the brownies were a double portion in a cake box with a large purple ribbon.

Krystal and Leia had combined to buy all the cool girls (including themselves) these identical pink teddy bears about the size of a large grocery bag. At least I think they were bears. Their faces were round and flat, they eyes were googgly. Maybe they were pugs... Or aliens.

They got it for a steal because Leia worked at a gift shop part time, so she had asked her boss to let her buy 6 bears/pugs/aliens on wholesale prices since last month. They had kept it a secret from us all this while.

"Awww... It's so cute, like a big hamster." Zara said, "I'm going to call her Pinky."

I suppose it could loosely resemble a big hamster too.

"It's so fluffy!" Jasmine hugged it like a lost child returned home.

"Ah, thanks." I said. I sniffed it a bit. It smelled like my friends had all handled my unknown creature at some point. Hahaha. I quietly cuddled it. It was the cutest and fluffiest unknown creature I had ever had. It's muzzle was white, but the rest of it was pink...and in the pink feathery fur, there were these strands of rainbow fur mixed in.

I had given them balloons, plus the 8 free ones which they had commandeered from me = 3 balloons each. "Good job, Zammi." Krystal approved the showy gift. Uh yeah, thanks, I think.

All these combined with the bouquet from Henry, Marcus, and Liam and the heap of stuff from the rest of the class, and then the extras from other people.

I had to repack everything before leaving the class. I stuffed my school bag with all the smaller candy, cards and uncrushable looking stuff. Then I used the paperbag I brought the cookies in to hold the boxes and more fragile stuff with the single bouquet of flowers on top.

The cool girls came over once Maria left the classroom. They said they just wanted to hang out a bit but most of the hanging out was spent checking out what Jasmine and I got.

Krystal observed that Jasmine got a lot of gifts from other girls. Some girls from the next class even got her a single sunflower bouquet, others came over to exchange handmade gifts and cute candy.

The cheerleaders also had a mandatory gifting program. It was more complicated than ours. They had drawn lots for 4 names each. And each gift had to be at least $5 and you weren't even allowed to buy food. So Jasmine had 4 extra gifts from the cheerleaders which included another smaller pink rose bouquet, and some small packages.

"But Sam is the popular one with guys." Krystal concluded out of the blue.

"Yeah, even The Terrence gave you an extra chocolate bar." Zara pointed out a second chocolate bar with a heart sticker on it. Seriously? Maybe he dropped it by accident.

"Whenever someone from another class came in to put something on your table, it would be a guy." Leia said in mock anger, "I can't stand it!"

At least I think it was mock anger.

"Even the student president came to your desk." Zara said.

"But he already has a girlfriend, and they're all small gifts though." Krystal warned, "So don't get your hopes up."

I just laughed it off and finished packing my stuff.

"Why are you still using that backpack?" Krystal asked.

Eh?

"You wore your uniform properly today, but you're still wearing that bag!" Krystal pointed out.

By properly, she meant I wore my uniform coolly today, the way she and Jasmine taught me.

"And don't get me started on your shoes!" Krystal went on, "Do you want to be friend-zoned by hot guys all your life?"

She said it like it was a bad thing.

"You're never going to get more than a Hershley Kiss from a guy if you dress like a kid." Leia told me.

"Marcus, quick! Text Ki or someone and say Zammi needs to change her school bag next week!" Krystal ordered.

"What?" Marcus looked up from his phone. Henry and him had just been sitting there - probably waiting for their ride to reach school.

"And do something about her shoes too." Leia added, "She's not in middle school anymore."

Marcus laughed, "Yeah, okay..."

"No!" I flared, "I like my stuff the way they are!"

My backpack was the blue one with triangle shape prints that matchy with Savy and Sabre... Not that I've seen Savy use hers. But it had a matchy water bottle! And my white indoor shoes were comfortable...

Marcus typed aloud, "Hi Ki. Sam's friends request she changes her bag and shoes."

The cool girls were making too much of a deal over this.

Okay, so I was one of the few remaining girls still wearing the indoor white shoes. From the first week, when we realised that none of the seniors wore them, most of the kids had switched their indoor shoes for trendier options. It was explained that "white indoor shoes" had meant anything that was at least 80% white and wasn't Snow Boots, Wellingtons, or football boots.

But bag wise, I was among the majority. Most of the kids in school carried backpacks. Only the cool girls and Maria carried side bags that couldn't possibly hold everything.

I shook my head, "No, Marcus. Delete! I like my school bag."

"Send it!" Krystal ordered.

Marcus looked from the ever bossy Krystal to the flaring me, he quickly picked a side, "Opps. I accidentally deleted it. Our car is nearly here Hen, let's go."

And thus Marcus made his escape.

I was victorious. Apparently, I was scarier than Kyrstal. Yes! Okay, fine. Krystal was just a human teenage girl, but I had to celebrate the small victories. My scare factor hadn't been all that lately.

Oh, but now Krystal was glaring at me. I decided to make my escape too.

"Don't run Zammi! We're doing this for your own good!" Zara called.

"Thanks! Bye! I'll think about it!" I ran anyway, and ended up running into Henry and Marcus in the hallway.

"Watch where you're bulldozing, Sam." Henry turned when I bumped into his back, "I supposed you ran into those three vamps the same way."

Oh boy, yeah, it was going to come around and bite me sooner or later.

"Not exactly." I muttered. I jumped on them, not ran into them. But I didn't think clarifying this particular fact would help.

Marcus just laughed, "I'm just glad I'm not your Beta, Sam. I can't imagine how your betas run with you - crashing into vampires and all."

"What, your alpha never fought a vamp before?" I challenged.

"No, my alpha is the sensible sort." Marcus said.

I laughed. Yeah right. And then I realised he was serious. So there were sensible sort of Alphas who wouldn't run head first into danger? Amazing...

So I ended up going to the student foyer with Henry and Marcus. I hadn't meant to walk with them, it's just that we were going the same way.

Walking to the foyer, I did notice how the other girls would check out everyone else's loot bag, because a number of them would double take at the flowers and pink fluffy thing and paperbag. After that, I started doing a random sample survey of the students who passed me too. I did see one or two girls hurrying off with a single rose, or nothing at all, but maybe all their loot was in their school bags.

At the foyer, the cheerleaders table was in high spirits (Yes, the cheerleaders table was a real thing at Winderhill.) Their table was covered with flowers and stuffed toys and chocolates. Abigail was beaming as some of the seniors came to check out her loot.

Yeah, the cool girls and cheerleaders had set themselves up there in terms of popularity, if popularity was counted by what you got.

I was seriously begining to wonder if Maria was right about the popularity thing. I was so naive.

And now that I've seen it. I couldn't unsee it.

I was a little embaressed about my own loot though, because I kinda knew it wasn't because I was actually popular or anything.

I had a bulging paperbag with roses sticking out on top and a fluffy pink unidentified animal under my arm. Whatever in my school bag wasn't counted, cos it wasn't seen. At least that's how I think it works. This translation of Vday gifts to popularity points was a very confusing (and rather erroneous) thing to me.

I mean, look at Janice. Her loot was hidden in her bag. She only had a single balloon and bouquet of roses. Okay, the bouquet alone made up for everything. I had to hand it to Henry for that one. I mean how often did a girl go home from school with a bouquet of roses?

But all her other stuff was in her school bag unseen, and she didn't have a consortium of Vday gift mongers as friends, so what she got was really just sincere stuff.

Wasn't that better?

I definitely liked Janice more than Abigail. If I knew this was allocating popularity points (and not simply showing friends appreciation and making them feel loved), I'd have given Janice more balloons. One for every cookie she ever gave me, because yes, popularity could be bought with cookies (at least from me).

So I really hoped Janice didn't take the Vday gift count to measure her likeability.

But at least ALL the girls in our class went home with loot, flowers, AND a heart shaped balloon (thanks to me). I gave myself a mental pack on the back. Yup. I made sure everyone could see our class girls were loved. Or at least popular. I'm actually not sure what these gifts meant anymore.

I started off assuming that it was a way to appreciate your friends, but the cool girls showed me how it was also calculated to make sure your friends could show off how appreciated they were.

I sat with Henry and Marcus at their usual bench where we could see the cars stop to pick up their passengers.

Both Henry and Marcus had paperbags of gifts too. Mostly food and cards and crafts. I think some girl knitted Henry a scarf. Omo. I couldn't wrap my head around why any girl would.

But it was Liam who had to go down to the cafeteria for a cardboard box to bring all his loot home. Most of his gifts were homemade treats. He even got flowers.

In contrast, most of the other guys went home with everything in their backpacks or stomachs, not that they looked like they cared.

Valentine's Day was such a strange celebration.

But I was happy. I had my first Vday in highschool. I guess it was a new experience, and I was lucky cos I managed to give out all my cookies and balloons, and if anyone was counting, I did get a lot of stuff, thanks to my friends.

And my favourite thing? It had to be the unidentifiable pink fluffy thing. I've decided it was a monster, like me. It was cute too. Hahaha.