Things They Carried.
She pulled out a worn green hoodie, a handful of napkins, shoelaces, gum wrappers, two lollipops, a bag of Skittles…
"Dude, toss that."
…some rubberbands. (She paused and used one to tie up her hair.) Then, she pulled out some crumpled pieces of paper, random coins, a paper clip, a handball, a beat up folder…
"Fuck, these are Blossom's Chem notes. She's gonna flip."
Butch shoved a handful of Skittles in his mouth. "Thetestwastwoweeksago."
"Yeah, well. Now you know why I failed." Buttercup muttered. Reaching her hand back into her bookbag, she finally pulled out what she was looking for.
"It's about fucking time!"
"Bite me," Buttercup said as she tossed everything back into her bag. She tossed the Zippo lighter to him. "Ready?"
The bathroom was jammed packed but she desperately needed a touchup. Bubbles tossed her oversized navy Kate Spade hobo purse onto the bathroom sink and plunged her mitts inside. She pulled out her cellphone, her Vanilla Coconut Body Mist, her sketchbook, pencils, her blue feather pen…
"Hey Bubbles, please tell me you have some lotion in your bag."
…Bubbles tossed Amy Sayers her small travel sized bottle of lotion she completely forgot she had in her bag. She sighed. "I really have to clean this out one day." She pulled out her brush, pushed aside the cheers she wrote the night before which were on top of Blossom's History notes. "I totally have to cram for the History test tomorrow."
Amy groaned. "My house after practice?"
Bubbles didn't look up from her bag. She had a date tonight but the Professor only allowed her to join the cheer squad if she kept her grades up. "Sure. I borrowed Blossom's notes from last year."
"Thank God," Amy said tossing the lotion into Bubbles' purse. "I barely understand my notes."
Bubbles giggled. She put everything back into her bag and reached into her skirt pocket. There it was. She showed her find to Amy and they both burst into laughter. Bubbles carefully reapplied her Berry Berry flavored lipgloss and tossed it into her tote. "Come on, I have to find Boomer and tell him I can't make it tonight."
"Uh, no. I'll meet you at practice. I can't handle PDA right now."
Her grey Kenneth Cole messenger bag was impossibly heavy. Not that Blossom couldn't handle the weight but with each step the heftiness reminded her of her lengthy to-do list. She stopped at her locker to make sure she had everything. Blossom dropped the bag on the floor and reached for her planner in the bag: speech for assembly tomorrow in the red folder, blue notebook and her dog-eared copy of To Kill A Mockingbird for the AP English exam tomorrow, Calculus homework in the pink folder, AP Bio textbook, leotards, bobby pins, chapstick, a brush and assortment of pens, pencils and highlighters and finally her copy of A Room of One's Own.
"Ready to go?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you too."
"Where's Buttercup?"
"In trouble."
"What…?"
"Something about a fire. Don't worry your dad is taking care of it."
"And you are…?"
"Getting paid to take you to dance class." Brick frowned. "You know, you can fly."
"It's the only time I get to read." Blossom found herself saying. "You don't have to take me. I can catch the bus."
"Suit yourself. I get paid anyway."
Blossom was ready for a verbal spar but Brick's already gone. And when she opened her bag at the bus stop for her fare, she found a copy of Camus' The Fall in her bag. The Stranger is overrated. She recognized the handwriting immediately and wondered how he knew that she'd read that book. She thought of him reading Camus and wondered why he thought it was overrated and all of a sudden, she wished he'd given her the ride after all.
AN: That's it. Unedited. Hope you liked.