Caffeine, Mania, and Insomnia
Summary: In other words, I feel really sorry for Dr. O right about now! Conner, Ethan, Trent, and Kira pull an all-nighter at Hayley's Cyberspace for their mid-terms, which last a week, on second thought, I feel really sorry Hayley too!
Authoress Note: Inspired by PinkRangerV's Trent and the Quest for Coffee
Day One: Friday October 8th 2004 5:30 PM;
62 Hours and Fifty Minutes Until First Midterm
Two Days and 14 and ½ Hours Until First Midterm
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Friday October 8th 2004 5:30 PM
Watching her teens enter the Cyber Café broke Hayley's heart. They were exhausted, they were in pain, and where on their last leg of energy and they had to start studying for their midterms tonight or they could kiss what decent grade point averages they had managed so far since becoming power rangers goodbye.
What sparked Hayley's interest was the rather large bag that Conner, Kira, and Ethan where carrying as well as the twelve pack of soda they were each carrying as they claimed their usual spot on the couch in the Cyber Café. Going into automatic pilot, Hayley made Kira a banana strawberry smoothie, Conner a blueberry, Ethan was straight banana while Trent's smoothie of choice was an acai berry smoothie which made Hayley wonder how he could stomach it, it smelled nasty to her, she couldn't even begin to imagine how it tasted.
Once the supplies they had carried in where set down by the couch, they made their way over to the bar that Hayley was behind, accepting their smoothies as Hayley handed each of them their book bags which had been left at the café from earlier in the afternoon when Zeltrax had decided to attack.
"You guys have mid-terms this coming week right?" She asked, although she already knew that thanks to Tommy, who kept her informed of what all grades were doing at Reefside High School, Hayley wasn't called the Goddess of Information for no reason.
"Yep. They start eight am Monday. Two a day, thankfully we can leave after we take our test however." Kira said, taking a sip of her smoothie as she began trying to process how on Earth they were going to study for a test with how often Mesagog kept attacking.
"Kira you're in paleontology, AP English Composition I & Literature I, Creative Writing, AP US History to 1877, AP Music Appreciation, AP Philosophy and College Algebra right?" Hayley asked, rattling off the girl's schedule off the top of her head, knowing that she had gotten the junior's schedule correct.
"Yes and I've missed so many freaking lectures thanks to Mesagog or Elsa attacking the school that it's not even funny." She said, sinking down into her seat before Hayley turned her attention to Ethan.
"Ethan, you're in the same expect for where Kira's in Music Appreciation you're in AP Computer Concepts?" Hayley asked, receiving a nod in return before Hayley eyed Conner speculatively.
"Paleontology, AP Comp & Lit I, AP US History, AP Philosophy, College Algebra, and Creative Writing?" she asked, receiving a rather dull nod in return from Conner before she grinned at Trent.
"Same as Conner's right?" She asked, not bothering to wait for his answer as she dove behind the counter and set a box in front of each of them.
"What's this?" Kira asked, attempting to peak into her box, receiving a swat on the hand from Hayley for trying.
"All the lecture notes from the courses you are taking. There are also condensed notes that I took from the highest scoring student in each class as well as the Hayley Ziktor Cliff Notes for everything you have covered in Literature and Composition as well as five different ways to take each paper so none of your written papers are to similar. In the Chemistry notebook there are sample problems for the problems you'll have to plow through MyChemistryLab as well as the same for MyMathLab . Beyond that I broke it down step by step on the problems I've noticed you struggling with. For Paleontology you'll have to ask Dr. O what you missed however, he's a much better source than I am. There are also source formatting books in here as well as The Scarlett Letter and Kate Chopin's The Awakening both of which you have to write papers on but in all fairness that was only assigned yesterday and due next Friday which is a little crazy if you ask me." Hayley said, shaking her head at the stupidity of their Comp I & American Literature teacher, two book reports in one week was beyond overkill.
"You've got ten short stories to write, one play, and thirteen poems for creative writing but you have your prompts so you should be able to get those done in a few hours. At least everything except the play." Hayley said, finally handing them the box before shooing them over to their spot. "I'll keep the coffee coming, I'm closing down at eight tonight but once I do I'll be here until nine or nine thirty to help you guys out." She said off-handedly as they made their way over to what was considered their area before they fell onto either the couches or surrounding chairs.
As Kira started digging through the boxes she rasied her eyebrows at the IPod that was currently sitting in the box as she showed it to the boys who shouted their thanks to Hayley across the room, as Hayley only grinned at them in response.
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Friday October 8th 2004 8:30 PM
They had been studying for three hours solid and still had another four or five hours to go that evening if they wanted to get even a passing grade on their mid-terms. Kira had given up on actually studying and had started in on her Creative Writing course work which would seem like it was going to take forever to complete.
She was only on her second short story with eight more to go, each having to be under 10,000 words but over 2,000 as per her teacher Miss Geode's request. She was currently cheating as she was on the Internet, looking for a short story prompt for all nine of her short stories she had left to write. Finding a generator she liked Kira entered the information she desired :
The story is about a brave princess who must return home, escape an abusive parent, and break a curse to outwit a faerie. Things are complicated by the villain kidnapping the main character's sister.
Reading over the prompt Kira snorted, she could spin that so easily into when she was kidnapped by Mesagog and escaping on her own, all she had to do was add in a little sister. Kira wrote for the next hour finally coming up with a short story she liked before she saved it on her laptop, not wanting to risk it getting deleted by some chance of the imagination.
Kira turned her head to say something to Conner…except there was no Conner sitting next to her.
"Where's Conner?" she asked, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer, he seemed to get into antics that where beyond her level of control, or patience, at times.
"He said something about wanting to write his entire short story collection on Post-It Notes so he went to Wal-Mart." Ethan said, turning his attention back to his computer screen where he was working on one of his own short stories.
"Okay so he should…" Kira paused as what Ethan had just said kicked in. "He's writing his entire short story collection on Post-It Notes?" she asked, it was rather a weak question, but it sounded obscure to even her ears, even if Conner of all people were involved.
"That's what he said, tried to talk him out of it but he said something about how he had to write it down now on Post-It Notes or the entire short story collection would be gone." This came from Trent who just gave Kira one of those 'It's Conner, who ever really knows' looks before shaking his head as he stood and stretched his arms above his head as he back popped before he made his way behind the counter and started messing with the latte machine, which perked Kira up, coffee was good, coffee would enable her to finish her short stories tonight so she could move onto something else tomorrow morning.
When Trent came back with a tray carrying four lattes and four sandwiches that looked absolutely delicious Kira decided it was time for a break as Trent handed her a sandwich and drink before handing one to Ethan, setting the spare down in Conner's seat, and then taking the final one for himself as he immediately sat down and began inhaling the extremely hot latte, wincing as it hit his tongue.
When Conner had not made it back yet by the time they had finished their break, they shook it off as Conner being Conner before they returned their attention to the short stories they wanted to finish that evening, they could work on the rest of their Creative Writing work the next day after a decent night's sleep.
Friday October 8th 2004 10:30 PM
Conner came bouncing, no skipping, into Hayley's Cyberspace at ten forty five with a giant grin on his face and his arms full of bags of….well something, but Kira couldn't make out what they were from where she was sitting.
"Did you find your Post-It Notes?" Trent asked, not bothering to look up from his Creative Writing work until a squeal echoed throughout the café, which caught everyone's attention, and probably all of those that weren't within the realm of the living either.
"I found different colored Post-It Notes, a twenty pack colored high lighter set, colored gel pens, colored ink pens, colored pencils, nine different colored folders, notebooks and binders." He said rapidly, pulling everything from the bags as he started ripping through the packages, handing Kira everything that was yellow, which was..well a lot. Ethan received everything that was blue as it was practically thrown at him while Trent received everything that was white, including a bottle of white out which made Kira wonder just what Conner had been up to as Trent gave her a 'what-the-fuck' look as it was somewhat obvious the bottle of white out had been opened before.
"Did you know that there's even a study of colors!?" he asked, pulling a book from nowhere before shoving it in Kira's face, "It's called color magic. They've got color magic, candle magic which is based off colors and even ASTROLOGY based off colors."
His words where getting closer together and harder to understand as all three of his friends looked at him before Kira leaned closer to Trent.
"Maybe we should call Dr. O?" she said barely above a whisper as Trent gave a slight jerk of his head, telling her he agreed with her statement before he excused himself to the back room, coming back five minutes later and giving her a nod of the head in the positive.
"DID YOU KNOW THAT PLATO WAS…OH HEY DR. O" Conner said, finally noticing that their science teacher, mentor and fellow ranger was standing inside the doorway, with Hayley right behind him as Kira, Trent, and Ethan sent Dr. O a very, very thankful look as he made his way over to them.
"He disappeared for two and a half hours, and came back like this." Trent said, motioning to Conner who was nowhere in their line of vision.
"CONNER MCKNIGHT IF YOU DON'T GET OFF THAT BAR…."
The open ended threat was enough to make everyone but Conner wince, Hayley was a very powerful woman with a computer, she could make your entire existence disappear if she wanted to; it was best not to cross her.
"Any idea how much caffeine Conner has ingested?" Dr. O asked, wincing as Hayley once again yelled at Conner who had finally come off the bar.
"One coke before he left and a sandwich, there had to have been more in the two and a half hours he was gone though…" Kira said, knowing she didn't have to say anymore, just motioned to Conner who was now trying to dance with Kira's microphone which made her wince and make a mental note to wipe it down before she performed with it again, that was disgusting.
"I would say it's best to assume, too much?" Ethan said, shaking his head in the direction that Conner had wandered off to, Hayley hot on his heels, he wasn't to be trusted that close to such an expensive coffee maker high off his ass on too much caffeine.
"That much is obvious. If we send him home like this his father is going to assume he's high off of something much worse than caffeine. True a drug test would come up positive but it's better to not bring suspicions on him when really all he did was ingest an abnormal amount of….
"DR. O CAN WE STUDY WHAT A PALENTOLOGIST DOES IN OUR NEXT CLASS?!" Conner asked, shouted halfway across the café at a volume that should have been illegal in so many ways.
"I'll consider it Conner. Right now you need to calm down, speak softer, and come sit down." Dr. O said, trying to put on his best veteran ranger and teacher face, but he could tell he wasn't going to get anywhere already.
"BUT I HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY. I CAN FINISH ALL THE PAPERS FOR OUR CREATIVE WRITING CLASS AND ONE OF MY PAPERS FOR OUR AP ENGLISH COURSE TONIGHT! YOU WAIT AND SEE." Conner replied, although yelled would have been a better choice of words as Conner's volume had only increased the longer Dr. O or Hayley tried to talk him down and attempt to get him to sit.
"Hey Conner, I bet I can finish all my Creative Writing work and both of my English papers before you…" Kira said in a taunting voice, hoping that his competiveness would come through while he was this high on sugar, and whatever lose marbles had be moved in their last fight against Mesagog.
"NO WAY!" Conner practically screamed before he raced to his seat next to Kira and threw himself into his Creative Writing coursework with a frenzy, as the once abnormally loud café quieted to just the sounds of fingers against keys.
Friday October 8th 2004 11:59 PM
At exactly eleven fifty nine both Conner and Kira printed their short stories, and a rough draft of their English paper as Conner loudly proclaimed himself the winner of their competition as Kira just shook her head and looked at Dr. O with a 'What can I say?' expression before she returned to working on her poems for her Creative Writing course.