1A/N: Well hello again…I was about to go to sleep last night and I got this idea. I know, I'm supposed to be rewriting my other story, whatever it was called I don't even remember, and writing my Fruits Basket fanfiction, but I can multitask. I think. Well anyway. My new story. This chapter is over 3,000 words long not counting the author notes. Hope you like. Please review.
Disclaimer: I don't own Holes. I don't own any songs that may or may not be played in this chapter. I do not own any stores in this chapter, any brands, any streets or schools or anything else that I cannot possibly own. If anything's familiar to you, outside of this fanfic, then I don't own it, and just because I write about it, please do not assume I do. Thank you.
The Dawning of the Rest of Our Lives
By Alianniae
Chapter One--Summer: Water-fight
The girl sighed, looking out her bedroom window. She was beautiful, surely, but in a natural way, as she was wearing sweat pants and an oversized tee shirt with no makeup, and yet she still would have surely caught the eye of many. She had blonde hair that was slowly turning brown, with natural red highlights throughout her hair. It was long, leading to about the middle of her back. Her eyes were big and blue, with dark brown eyebrows and eyelashes. Her skin was pale with a flushed look that always seemed to be there, with normal sized lips, the bottom slightly fuller than the top.
She was sitting on the window seat in her upstairs bedroom, looking down at her yard and the street in front of it. And then her eyes slowly drifted to the house across the street. She could see a pool from her view, and a large house with a fountain out front. The house made the people inside look rich, though anybody that lived in these houses had to have a fortune.
"Aimee! Can you get downstairs, please?" A male voice rose from the staircases and into her bedroom through the open door: her father.
The girl, Aimee, sighed once again and dropped the pillow she had been clutching to and walked out her door. She walked down the steps slowly, her feet digging deep into the carpet. When she got downstairs and walked into the kitchen, she was suddenly standing on hardwood flooring. Sitting in her kitchen was her father and his family, with her stepmother Mary and stepsister Ashlie.
It was always like this: Aimee was the outcast; the one who just didn't fit in with the family. She was quiet and lazy, liked to eat and didn't like sports, other than tennis and playing baseball every once in a while. She didn't do good in school, and she went to a public school, unlike her eleven-year-old sister who went to the best school in Texas and got straight A+'s. Fourteen-year-old Aimee was sporting, at the moment, an A in PE, an A+ in History, an F in GATE Algebra, an A+ in Band, where she played first flute and piccolo, a C in Advanced Physical Science, and a C- in GATE Language Arts. She had just graduated eighth grade, and was going to be entering High School in September.
"Yes?" She asked. The thing about Aimee was that she was nearly always polite, though she did have an attitude every once in a while and had a very short temper at such times.
"We're going to be having dinner with the family across the street tonight, and they have a boy that's about your age. He's bringing a few of his friends along too, why don't you call and ask if Ashley, Elisa, Kemella, Thuy, Lemo, Jennifer, and Krystle can come for dinner too?" Mary asked, smiling at her stepdaughter.
Though they had just moved in to their new house, they had actually moved closer to Aimee's best friends, Ashley, Elisa, Thuy, Jennifer, Kemella, Lemo, and Krystle. Though she did also have two other best friends, but they were guys and lived on the other side of town. Her other friends, however, lived quite close to her.
"Uhm...okay. What about Ash?" Aimee asked in response, nodding to her little sister.
"She's going home to her dad's in about…oh, we have to go. Dinner is at six tonight, wear something decent." Mary said as her and Ashlie rose and left the house. Ashlie's dad lived about three hours away, so Mary and Mark, her dad, met in the middle.
Aimee glanced at the clock, seeing that it was one-thirty. "Dad, can I ask if they can come over early?" She asked her father, knowing that he would say yes. He was more likely to say yes to her when his new family wasn't around, as Ashlie always thought that she got the short end of the stick on everything, though it was always Aimee who was stuck in the shadows.
"Yeah, that's fine. I'm going over to your uncle Jason's. I'll be back at four." Her dad said, grabbing his keys off the counter and heading out to the garage. She could hear him opening up the refrigerator and getting out something, most likely a Dr. Pepper, before leaving, closing the door behind him. The sound of the garage sent both their dogs off, barking like crazy until the next-door neighbor yelled at them to shut up.
Aimee sighed and grabbed the cordless phone, then headed back upstairs to her room. She continued to unpack, lugging the last of her heavy furniture up the stairs and into her bedroom, pushing everything around until she had things like she liked them. She set up her big desktop computer on her big desk, making sure everything was plugged in before turning it on, making sure the modem was working. They had called ahead of time to make sure Internet connection was hooked up in their new house, knowing that Aimee would probably die if she had no Internet connection for over a day.
As the big computer was loading up, she unpacked her laptop, putting it on her bed and plugging it in to charge. She turned that one on too, making sure the wireless Internet inside of it was working as well. After those were both set up and working, she unpacked her clothes and put them where they were supposed to be: some inside the walk-in closet, some in the drawers of her dresser. She hooked up lamps and her stereo system, putting the wireless surround sound speakers throughout the room. Then she opened up one of the last boxes and started to make her bed, putting the quilts her Nana had made her on with fleece sheets and a silk comforter. She dressed her pillows and set everything up on her bed, then emptied all but one box of stuffed animals and knick-knacks.
At last, she opened the last box of hers, and pulled out posters and pictures, along with about a million tacks. All around her entire room she set up her posters and pictures of movie stars, except for the wall over her bed. There, she put a pink mirror in the shape of a heart and all over that wall went actual pictures of her and her friends.
When she was done setting up her room, she glanced at the clock on her computer: three forty-five already! It had taken more than two hours to do her room, though that was really nothing, as it should have taken days! Aimee got onto her desktop computer, logging in to AOL Instant Messenger. Her buddy list popped up, showing her that eighty-three out of one hundred twelve people were online. She quickly searched the buddy list to find her friends and instant messaged them.
It had taken less than ten minutes for her closest friends to log off and get their way over to her house, and just before her dad got home, Aimee let her friends inside.
"Damn this house is huge!" Krystle said as she explored the new house, this being the first time any of them had been inside of it.
"Yeah! Damn girl I wanna see your room!" Lemo said, starting to follow Aimee up the stairs, the others slowly following her lead.
"Here it is…" Aimee said, reaching her room. Her friends all screamed and scattered, some jumping on the bed, but first making sure the laptop was safely on a shelf, the others running to look out the window.
"Hey! Four Amigas! Look, here we are!" Kemella said, pointing to one of the pictures over Aimee's bed. The Four Amigas, as she put it, were their group: Aimee, Kemella, Krystle, and Lemo, though Aimee had been the only eighth grader: the other three had been seventh graders. There were a few pictures with just the Four Amigas, but post held the entire group, or bits and pieces of it throughout the wall.
"Aww…look! A picture of Josh!" Ashley said, laughing and pointing to a picture of Aimee's ex-boyfriend, Josh, who they all took the time to make fun of.
"His name is not Josh! It's Thing! It's not a person!" Elisa complained as she went over to look at the picture.
"You guys are so mean to him." Aimee said, shaking her head. She seemed to drop her quietness around her friends, and it wasn't long before the entire group was laughing and screaming.
At five o'clock, Aimee looked at the clock and shrieked. "Oh my god! We have to get ready! Where's your clothes!" She said, and all the girls scattered. All of them ran downstairs, some into the dining room, where they said hello to Aimee's father, some into the garage, some into the living room, and some into random rooms throughout the house.
A few seconds later they all ran back upstairs again, each with a different colored backpack. They dumped all their clothes on Aimee's bed as she went through her closet, trying to find something to wear.
"Why did we agree to go to this thing?" Ashley asked, looking through her clothes and shaking her head at her later decisions.
"Because there's going to be boys there, Ash!" Aimee yelled from inside her closet, looking for clothes still.
"Ooooh...boys…we like boys!" Lemo said, and her and Krystle erupted in laughter.
Thuy rolled her eyes at Elisa and they both started to giggle. Within the group, each person had a best friend, though they were all best friends with each other: Ashley and Aimee, Elisa and Thuy, Lemo and Krystle, and Kemella and Jennifer. Though Lemo was Aimee's true best friend, Ashley and Aimee had been best friends for so long they couldn't break apart. They all hung out together though, and overall were best friends with everybody. Except the new eighth graders, who were a year younger and attended a different school than the new freshmen.
Finally, after several people borrowed each others' clothes, everybody was happy with what they were wearing. As all of them were true California girls, all were wearing blue jeans that were tight to the skin, but not too tight, and was paired with a tee shirt. They all did their makeup, though all needed very little, and put on their tennis shoes. By then it was five fifty, and the family was meeting in the living room.
"Okay, ready?" Mary asked, looking at the girls with obvious approval and jealousy. Mary thought she was fat, but in truth she was really skinny, she just had a horrible fashion taste and bought clothes that made her look fatter.
"Yep!" The girls all said, and they all headed out the door across the street.
"Welcome!" A lady with brown hair, brown eyes, and a big smile said, ushering the girls and Aimee's dad and step-mom inside. She chatted with Aimee's father and stepmother as they made their way through the huge house, until they ended up in the dining room, where the lady, Mrs. Yelnats, showed all the girls where to sit.
The table was long, and was able to sit at least fifteen. The head of the table was left empty, as was the end, and Mrs. Yelnats sat the girls in this order: Kemella, Thuy, Aimee, Lemo, Krystle, Ashley, Elisa, and Jennifer was at the end.
Just as Mrs. Yelnats was counting the girls, Jennifer's cell phone went off. She sighed and looked at the number, then excused herself and went outside in the front yard.
"Yes, mother?" She asked into the phone.
"We need you home right now." Came the answer.
"But you said I could go with Aimee to dinner!" Jennifer protested. Her mother did this to her all the time, the one quality Jennifer hated of her mother's.
"Well something came up. Get home. Now." And Jennifer's mother hung up on her.
Jennifer angrily went back inside to find everybody still in the dining room. "I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Yelnats, Mr. Rumsfield, Mrs. Rumsfield, and everyone…my mother says that something came up and I have to go home."
"No!" The girls all said loudly, for they had already been yelled at by Aimee's father not to yell. They all got up out of their seats to hug Jenn good-bye and led her out the door, not really noticing how rude they were being to the hostess.
The rest of the girls made their way back to the dining room and took their seats once more, leaving Elisa at the end this time.
A few minutes later, they were introduced to Mr. Yelnats, a man who looked older than his years, with graying brown hair and lively brown eyes. He smiled at the girls, and then called out, "Boys! Dinner!"
After that, it sounded like a whole herd of cattle was making it's way down the stairs and into the dining room. There were seven boys, all looked around fourteen or fifteen, and almost all looked to be taller than Aimee, though a couple were questionable.
"Boys! Why don't you sit in order as usual…starting here, not there, Rex!" Mrs. Yelnats said, putting the boys in their once Water Truck Line Order: X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, Caveman, and then Zero. But they weren't introduced in those names.
"Okay, girls! This is Rex, Theodore, Alan, Ricky, Jose, my son, Stanley, and Hector at the end. Boys, these are the girls: Kemella, Thuy, Aimee is the girl that lives across the street, Lemo, Krystle, Ashley, and Elisa." Mrs. Yelnats said happily, seemingly convinced that they were going to break off in to couples and get married and have many, many children. But she was thinking too far ahead, obviously, as most of the girls were glaring at the guys, as most of the girls had boyfriends already.
"Thank you, Mrs. Yelnats. I'm sure we'll all get along fine." Aimee said plainly, staring at the boy who was sitting across from her. He was cute, with brown hair and brown eyes: rather plain looking, but something was drawing him to her, it seemed.
Eventually, all of them started to talk at some point throughout dinner and dessert, and all the adults got along fine. After dinner, the boys led the girls up to Stanley's room, which was huge and filled with some baseball player's things: signed baseballs, signed posters, pictures, baseball mitts and bats, everything imaginable. The girls sat down against a wall while the boys sat on the bed and floor.
"Now before we do anything, girls, you have to know us by our real names. Rex and Theodore and Alan just will not do. My name is X-Ray, that's Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet, Caveman, and Zero. Okay?" X-Ray said, pointing to the boys as he went along.
The girls looked confused but nodded anyway. Whatever the boys said.
"Good. Now lets play this game, I forgot what it's called, where someone asks a question with a yes or no answer, and everyone that says yes has to raise their hand, and then the person that asked has to pass the turn to someone else in the circle!" X-Ray said, smiling as everybody nodded at his suggestion. "Good. I'll start. Who here has a boyfriend or girlfriend?"
Ashley, Kemella, Lemo, and Thuy raised their hands. Aimee, Krystle, and Elisa, out of the girls, kept their hands down, staring at the boys across the floor. None of their hands were raised.
"Okay, I pass to…Aimee."
This went on for about an hour, before it was passed to Aimee once more.
She grinned before asking, "Who here wants to have a water fight right now?"
Everyone raised their hands, and she shouted "Then let's go!" before they all got up and ran out of the room, Caveman in the lead. They all ran down the stairs, the girls giggling and the boys eager to splash the girls with water. They all went out to the back yard, the parents cautiously following behind them, but staying inside.
"Wait wait wait wait wait!" Aimee said, just as the boys grabbed a hose and were about to turn it on. "It's not fair if it's all boys against all girls! I say we elect leaders who get to pick who's on their team, and I'm on of them!"
"Then I'm the other! Go ahead, Aimee, you can pick first." X-Ray said with a smirk, going up next to her.
"Yay! Uhm…okay…I pick…Squid." He looked to be one of the strongest there, and he went behind Aimee with a smirk on his face.
"I pick Armpit."
"Ashley."
"Kemella."
"Lemo."
"Thuy."
"Caveman."
"Magnet."
"Ziggy!"
"Damn you, Aimee! I pick Zero, then."
"Krystle."
"And I get Elisa."
The teams were picked in a matter of minutes, and ended up being: Aimee, Squid, Ashley, Lemo, Caveman, Zigzag, and Krystle. The other was X-Ray, Armpit, Kemella, Thuy, Magnet, Zero, and Elisa. Each team got a hose, and it started: water was everywhere and everyone was soaked. Aimee's team won though, as most of X-Ray's teammates ended up jumping in the pool to avoid getting hit by the steady stream of water from the other side, the others getting pushed in by the other team. Eventually, Aimee, Squid, Ashley, Lemo, Caveman, Zigzag, and Krystle stood on the edge of the pool, looking very happy that they'd won. But someone from the other team sneaked behind them and pushed them into the pool and then jumped in himself, causing the girls on Aimee's team to scream.
None of the girls were wearing white, luckily, so their shirts didn't turn see-through. But they were angry all the same, as jeans tended to become uncomfortable when they were wet and stuck to their skin.
It was midnight when the parents pulled the kids out of the pool, and the parents were still laughing at them. But unfortunately, the girls had to leave, so they bid their new friends goodbye, and Aimee gave all of them her AIM screen name and email address.
When the girls got back to Aimee's house, they all called their parents, who were furious, but they still agreed to let the girls stay the night. They all borrowed pajamas from Aimee and went to bed after taking showers, giggling late into the night.
At about five in the morning, Aimee was still awake, but the rest of her friends were asleep either on her bed or on the floor. She carefully got around her friends without waking them and grabbed her laptop, unplugging it. She crept out into the hallway and sat down on the stairs, leaning against the wall. She turned the computer on, and loaded AIM.
She hadn't first logged on before someone Instant Messaged her, someone not on her buddy list.
Them: Aimee?
Aimee: Who is this?
Them: This is the guys across the street..
Them: X-Ray, Squid, Armpit, Zigzag, Caveman, and Zero.
Aimee: Oh hey boys.
Boys: hey
Aimee: how are you?
Boys: good, how are you?
Aimee: good…I'm the only one awake though.
Boys: all of us are still awake.
Aimee: oh.
Boys: well, what are you guys doin tomorrow?
Aimee: idk..hanging out..maybe goin shopping or something
Boys: oh us too…you guys wanna come to the mall with us?
Aimee: sounds good to me…when everyone else wakes up I'll ask.
Boys: okay.
Aimee: well I g2g…stuff to do, you know.
Boys: oh ok.
Aimee: ttyl
Boys: ttyl
Aimee signed off, sighing slightly. She went back in to her room and put away her computer before slipping back into her bed beside Lemo and Ashley and falling asleep.
A/N: Hope you like. Please Review. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at Alianniae (at) gmail (dot) com. Or AIM me, Alianniae. Same S/N for YIM. Or just leave it in the review. Whatever. Next chapter will be out soon.