HIGHER LEVEL SECONDARY EXAMS (HLSE)
WRITING PORTION (4 HOURS)
STUDENT: MASSIE BLOCK
ID: 4562485

Friday evening. Alicia's house. Twenty minutes before the dreaded party.

There were many things wrong with the dress I had on. First of all, it was a hideous shade of fuchsia and made from a too-shiny fabric that could undoubtedly be seen from space. It had puffy short sleeves, stupid looking flower details around the neckline, and had a tutu-skirt that hit my ankles. To put it short, it was an '80s prom nightmare.

It was perfect.

Confused? Let me set it out for you: Alicia, Dylan, and I had spent all Thursday afternoon (and half of Thursday morning) scouring various stores for the perfect outfits for Olivia's party. We wanted to look nice, but not nice enough that it looked like we spent too much time on our appearances. That was my thought, at least.

And then we stopped by Sal's Thrift Store on the way home so Dylan could buy a Ramones t-shirt she's been eyeing, and we saw the fuchsia monstrosity in all it's glory.

I had to have it.

"Man," Dylan whistled as she saw me model my unstylish outfit with pride. I had teased my hair into a beehive and only did makeup on one side of my face, and even then I looked like a Rocky Horror Picture Show cast member. "Olivia's going to have an aneurysm when she sees you show up in that."

"Yeah, and she'll have a hernia when she sees you," I countered. After I bought my dress, Alicia and Dylan decided, on principle, that they couldn't let their beloved friend leave the house looking like that. Instead of convincing me to put the dress back and go to H&M to find something more suitable, they one-upped me.

Dylan had on a navy sequined flapper dress that would've actually been chic, she chose to style her red curls in a crazy fauxhawk and accessorize the outfit with yellow cowboy boots. But, Leesh beat us all in the tackiness competition. She wore a Victorian style wedding dress— high collar and lace and all— that she cut to her calves and dyed a neon green. What set it over the top is that she took the time to give her hair a Victorian era makeover as well.

I love my friends.

"She's gonna die of jealousy," Alicia deadpanned, pinning a rose in her towering 'do, "I can feel it."

"Let's be honest," I said as I added more mascara to my right eye," who wouldn't? I actually surprised that we haven't been snatched up by a modeling agency yet." If it wasn't for the dress and seeing the collective "WTF?" face of my peers, I would've been hardcore campaigning for us to stay home and watch a good movie. The ugly gown was my saving grace.

"Alright, ladies," Dylan pulled out a clipboard from her purse. She is truly the only person who a clipboard would be an appropriate gift. Scary organized, that girl. "Here's the game plan. Dress up in the best-worst outfits we can finally find?"

"Check!" Alicia yelled out.

"Perfect. We need to leave in about ten minutes in Leesh's car. And then we'll hit Dairy Queen so Mass can get that damn Oreo Blizzard she's been whining about all day at approximately 8:04. By 8:07 well be on our way to the Ryan estate. If all goes to plan, we'll get to the party be 8:30."

I snorted. "But can we really say we're fashionably late?" Leesh and Dyl both groaned at my lame joke and threw pillows at me. The jerks.

Leesh jangled her keys impatiently. "Let's go! My neck's about to snap from the weight of my hair."

"Wait!" I cried out as my two best friends strutted outside of Alicia's room.

"What now?" Dylan asked in anguish. She really wanted to go to this party, didn't she?

I bit my half-red lip. "What's the chances of me convincing us to go to the movies instead of the party?"

They exchanged a glare before turning on their heels back to me. In one fluid motion, Leesh grabbed my legs as Dyl lifted up my arms, making me into a human bridge. No matter how hard I fought, it was two against one. Two very party anxious girls with little patience for their friend.

"Just remember," Dylan grunted as she and Alicia lifted me down the stairs and out of the house, "we're doing this for you."

An hour and half and one Oreo Blizzard later, Alicia's beat up Camry finally pulled up to the Ryan estate. Now, Leesh's dad is a big shot lawyer and could probably afford to buy her a car that didn't break down on the side of the road once every few days. But Leesh bought the Crapmobile with her own money and was too proud to accept a Mercedes. Dylan's too much of a wimp to get her license, and I got my permit revoked after an unfortunate incident involving a flock of pigeons and the Slice of Heaven wall.

So, the Crapmobile it was.

"This is all your fault, Mass," Alicia huffed as she struggled to parallel park her car between two Range Rovers, "you told us to take the long way."

"That's because you didn't want to go on the highway!" I yelled back in exasperation. "And you know the car would've broke down and we would've looked homeless waiting on the side of the street."

"That was one time!"

"Yeah, one time this week," Dylan snorted. "Chill, guys. We're here. Not on time. But we're here."

And she was right, we had most definitely arrived. The Ryan estate was a mansion perched on a hill facing a creek. The ivy-covered Tudor home would've been charming, but the music and screaming from inside could be heard from outer space and sort of killed the mood.

The three of us ran up the lengthy driveway to mansion, where we walked in without knocking. Big mistake. After the Ryan's butler (they have a butler! why am I surprised?), Henry, chastised us for our "poor manners", we handed him our coats and giggled our way into the main foyer.

You know in movies, where the nerdy girl shows up to the raging house party after a magical makeover? And it's like the music stops and everyone has to stare, open mouthed, and eyes bugged out because they have never seen anything like that? And suddenly, Nerdy Girl is the belle of the ball?

Yeah. Our entrance's reaction was something like that, minus the magical part and the whole becoming-the-belle-of-the-ball bit.

When we stepped into the party and the crowds got a look at our outfits, you could definitely feel a sort of electricity in the air. A few kids gasped and several started laughing. But everyone noticed, and nearly everyone had a look of disapproval Any other day, this would have enraged me: typical Briarwood brats who think it's strange for anyone to have a semblance of a sense of humor.

But not tonight. Because Leesh and Dyl were cackling madly by my side, and I couldn't help but think, "Screw it," and laugh a little myself. Here's a life lesson for you, Exam Grader Person: laugh at yourself once in a while and embrace the preposterous. It's worth it.

Clearly, Claire and Kristen didn't find our outfits amusing. The two marched up to us with furious looks on their impeccably made up visages. Well, mainly Claire. Kristen looked like she wanted to smile, but that's Kristen for you. Something about Olivia and Claire just suck the fun out of the poor girl.

"What," Claire growled at us, "are you wearing?"

I tried exceptionally hard to keep a straight face. "Clothes?"

"That is not party casual! And this is a student council run event," she argued, "so you have to follow the dress code." In case you're wondering, Claire really does sound like a perpetually bitter toddler all the time.

Dylan scoffed. "If this was a student council run event, there wouldn't be a bar with a make you're own martini station set up in the back."

"And you would've have had to invite the whole school," Leesh added indignantly, with the air of a lawyer, "which you didn't."

I didn't have much to add to the colossal "oh snap!" moment my friends unleashed on Claire. So I shrugged and said, "Suck it."

Claire exhaled sharply before crossing her arms and strutting away angrily in the other direction. For a split second, I saw a trace of a smile from Kristen before her face soured once more and she followed her friend.

From there, we all sort of branched out from one another. Dyl went to go show off her fly duds to some of her friends from the soccer team, while Leesh trotted off to go talk with some of the theater kids. Unlike them, I didn't really have another group to mingle with. Sure, I was friendly with Layne Abeley and her gang of protesters, but not to the point where I could comfortably stroll up to them and start talking.

Man, these were the times where I would curse myself for not being more involved in school, save for newspaper which doesn't really count as my articles never get published because of "unsavory language". But could you blame me? Dyl and Leesh were all the good friends I needed in the world, and they've had my back for nine years. I don't think I could handle talking to some of these people for nine minutes. But that's Briarwood for you. The antics of the over-privileged get very old very fast.

Luckily for me, I saw Carrie Randolph, a girl I chatted with frequently in newspaper, standing around awkwardly in the corner. On the way there, a group of overdressed sophomores nearly had a heart attack once they saw my get up. Oh, I aim to please.

"Hey," I greeted with a small smile. Carrie was a nice girl. The kind of girl who wouldn't be caught dead at these shindigs. I imagine her Friday nights are usually filled with books and not highly expensive booze.

"Hey, Massie," she said quietly in that hushed voice of hers. "I like your dress." No, she didn't really. Her nose scrunched when she said it. She was just being polite.

"Oh, this old thing?" I replied coolly, fluffing my beehive. Carrie didn't respond, but she nodded and continued people watching, and then I did the same.

After a few amusing minutes of watching Kemp Hurley, Chris Plovert, and a few of the soccer guys try to build a human bicycle, Carrie broke the silence with an unexpected observation.

"So, Dylan and Derrick?" she asked, gesturing to the pair in the corner of the room. Derrick was playing with Dyl's fauxhawk and she was most likely laughing at one of this lame jokes. This wasn't a big surprise, those two have been in flirtation since the beginning of time. "And Alicia and Chris Abeley?" she finished.

"What?" That's where I nearly lost it. Out of shock, not anger. But lo and behold, Leesh and college freshman Chris Abeley were in the middle of the theater kid circle, with him playing guitar and she was singing along. Whatever it was, the crowd around them was into it. I didn't blame Leesh. Chris Abeley was cute in the clean-cut musician sort of way, and he was a genuinely nice guy from what I've heard. And he went to NYU, which was her (our) dream school.

But then I had a horrible thought. A horrible, selfish thought to be more specific, one that made my stomach lurch and my throat swell up. What if Dylan and Alicia suddenly paired up with Derrick and Chris, sending them all on a first class ticket to Coupledom? And suddenly, they don't care about cutting history to go to the movies or adventures in the Crapmobile? Or all their time is taken up by the boyfriends and soon, we don't even have the Friday night sleepovers that we've had since we were ten?

Sure, we've had boyfriends. Hell, I was involved with Landon Crane last year. But whenever we had boyfriends, it was always made very clear that the three of us and out friendship comes first. Dates? Not on Friday nights. Movies? Only the ones that we don't want to see together.

I looked at Dylan, who was smiling so hard her cheeks would hurt the next morning. Then to Alicia, who was staring at Chris Abeley as he strummed the car with the admiration she saved for old Hollywood movie stars. Change was coming, I could feel it.

I needed some air.

After mumbling a quick "excuse me" to Carrie, I made my way outside to the Ryan's garden. The second I stepped out, the cool night air hit me harder than I expected, goosebumps appearing on places I didn't think they could. It was a foggy night, with the moon barely being able to shine through the collection of clouds in the sky. The creek, however, was abnormally glittering—a dark pool of shine in places it shouldn't be. I let myself inhale the fall air to clear my mind and relax for a moment.

"Nice dress." There went the relaxation. Now, I'm not proud of what happened next. I let out a shriek that probably could've been heard in China, jumped about five feet in the air from the surprise, and finally collapsed at the feet of none other than Cam Fisher.

Shit.

Well, the ground was pretty comfortable. Save for the fact that a pebble probably went up my nose.

Cam hovered over me, looking far too amused for someone who may have just taken a few years off my life. "Need some help there?" He extended his hand to me and I took it, hoisting myself back up.

I smoothed out the tulle of my dress and plucked a twig out of my hair. "Thanks," I mumbled, turning pink from the embarrassment.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Cam said, somewhat apologetically, "well, I kinda did. I just didn't think you'd react like that."

I choked back a snort. "Good to know." For someone who was attending his own party (granted, this was probably an excuse for Olivia and her crew to get wild), Cam was under dressed compared to the other guys. He wore the same pair of old-looking brown pants he wore that first day of school, a gray button down shirt, and a haphazardly put together black tie. And the tie and shirt looked like an afterthought.

"So," I began, "some guest of honor you are." I took a seat on the balcony, letting my feet dangle below me into the air. Cam did the same.

He shrugged amiably. "Parties just aren't my thing, you know?"

"Even when they're in honor of you? "

"Especially when they're in honor of me." We both laughed for a moment, before he closed his eyes and rested his back on a wall. "Is Briarwood always so..." he paused for a moment, trying to find the right words, "welcoming?"

I frowned, mulling over his question in my head. "Truthfully, I doubt they would even both if you weren't so..." Damn. I was going to say "tall, dark, and handsome with mismatched eyes and sort of an enigma." But come on. I barely knew the guy, I don't know how he would react to such a description.

He grinned mischievously. "If I wasn't so what?" He knew what I was going to say, you could see it in the knowing glint in his eyes.

"If you weren't so welcomable," I finished with a smirk. "You just reek of welcoming."

He nodded seriously. "It's true. But between you and me," he said as he leaned in a bit closer to me, "being this welcomable isn't all it's cracked up to be."

I forced myself to stay cool, even if the large gap between us was considerably smaller. "How so?"

"Well, for starters, I have to dress up and attend parties thrown for me," he joked lightly, "and this party doesn't even have those little finger sandwiches."

I gasped dramatically. "The horror! How do you go on?" I guess all the time I spend with Leesh and her theatrics paid off.

"In all seriousness though," his tone dropped slightly and I could tell he was being honest at this point, which hit me for six, "it's kind of hard to get to know people when everyone's trying to get to know you."

I raised an eyebrow in doubt. "Sounds mighty difficult," I snorted. I may have sounded sarcastically, but something about those words hit me deeply, like it clicked with something in my brain. Maybe he was onto something.

"Actually," he began, sitting up a little bit straighter, "this might be the first one-on-one conversation I've had with someone at Briarwood."

"We usually travel in packs," I responded dryly. But I held up my nearly empty Oreo Blizzard cup as if it was a flute of champagne and said, "To not traveling in packs."

He lifted up his bottle of water and clinked it to my cup. "Cheers," he laughed. "At least I made one friend out of this."

"Friend?" I nearly choked on a bit of Oreo. Cam effing Fisher wanted to be my friend? Of all the people he had access to at Briarwood, he picked me? Let's be honest, I'm not that cool: my dream guy is Sirius Black from Harry Potter, pre-Azkaban stint. You get the point.

"We kind of have to be, don't we?" he responded with a wicked spark in his eye, "we toasted and had a conversation and everything. It was inevitable. And maybe if we're friends," he dropped his voice to a whisper, "you can bring me along on your bank robberies, drug deals, and jaywalking escapes." A tiny part of my soul was warmed at the fact he remembered that bit of sass I gave to Mrs. P. I can't help it, people remembering little details about me always takes me off guard, like other people besides me have access to a good memory,

I nodded my head in agreement. "Of course, it's the usual—"

"Cam!" I was interrupted by an airy female voice, one belonging to Olivia. Once she spotted Cam and I on the balcony near the wall, she nearly sprinted over to us. Or rather, him. Cam's eyes widened when he caught a glimpse of her, and I didn't blame him.

She was stunning. Of course she was, I should've seen it coming. Wearing a tight silvery dress, light blond princess hair curled to perfection, and the brightest smile I had ever seen—she was like the human form of the moon.

"Cam," she tittered as she beamed at him, "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

He cocked an eyebrow. "Here I am," he stated simply, with an expression that I couldn't decipher. Neither could Olivia, obviously, because she turned her gaze toward me. As Dylan predicted, she did in fact almost have an aneurysm.

"Massie," she struggled to keep her act as the charming hostess, "you look..." Clearly she couldn't find the right word to finish that sentence, as she pursed her lips in disapproval. Looks like this would be the last time she invited me anywhere.

"We're about to cut the cake, and make your own martini bar is looking pretty good, if you know what I mean," she purred, batting her eyelashes at the same time. It should've looked bad, but on her, it was just scarily alluring. Damn her.

"No, I don't," Cam said as he hopped off the balcony to face her, "but I'm willing to find out." Immediately, Olivia grabbed his forearm protectively. As if I was going to grab it, please.

Before the two left, Cam turned back to me and said, "You coming?" His voice was pretty nonchalant, even if I was hoping for something else.

I shook my head. "Nah, I'm good. Eat a finger sandwich for me, Fisher," I replied quickly, the edges of my lips curling up. Cam smiled, and Olivia didn't seemed pleased at all.

"Will do, Block," he said back, as the radiant Olivia escorted him back to the house, leaving me alone outside with nothing but the moon and the clouds.

author's note: Another long chapter! I just can't help myself, can I? :)

Thanks so much for the lovely reviews! Especially with the comments about the girls' friendships, I worked really hard on that part, so I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.

Just some clarification: the whole story will probably be 6-7 chapters max (like 'It Takes a Thief') and will most definitely be a Cassie. And, I deleted "Stark Raving Red" because it's getting a little similar to this story, and I want to do a tie-in piece from Dylan's POV.

Hope you guys liked this chapter! Reviews are always appreciated :)

xo, Ren