Aria snuggled underneath her favorite blanket with a huge bowl of popcorn just as Spencer set two steaming mugs of hot chocolate onto the coffee table and plopped down onto the couch beside her. The shorter brunette crammed popcorn into her mouth and watched as the girl beside her leaned forward to drop no less than ten cubes of sugar into her drink.

"Spence, we're just watching a movie, not taking a math test."

Spencer blew on her cocoa and raised an eyebrow at Aria. "I know that. It's just, you guys don't have coffee, so I had to substitute."

Aria pulled a face. "Coffee is gross and for old people. I don't know why you drink it."

"It's amazing," said Spencer emphatically. "I don't know why you don't drink it."

"Just start the movie, Spence."

Spencer pursed her lips and pressed a button on the remote, and National Treasure started to play.

"This movie looks boring, are we really starting off the summer with it?"

The taller girl sipped at her cocoa and tugged at Aria's blanket, complaining—Give me some blanket, I'm cold. Jeez, Ar, do your parents have to blast the AC?—Once they were both settled again, Spencer looked down her nose at Aria. "And, yes. It was a late birthday present. I had to wait months for it. It is such a good movie."

"Okay, if you say so," Aria sighed. "But when A Cinderella Story comes out, we're going to see it."

"Deal. Now hush."

"Aria. Hey, sleepy head, wake up!"

Aria jerked awake at a poke on her nose and looked around in bewilderment before she saw Spencer standing above her, hands on her hips. "Hi, Spence," she muttered sleepily. "What did I miss? Are they still looking for that thingy?"

"The movie's over, Ar," Spencer said, smiling and going to take the disc out of the DVD player. "You slept through half of it."

Aria sat up and stretched, kicking the blanket off her legs. "Sorry."

"S'no problem." Spencer picked up the nearly-empty popcorn bowl and looked into it, a corner of her mouth quirking in disatisfaction. "This could use some Milk Duds."

The tiny brunette perked up as an idea hit her. "Let's go get some."

"But, it's almost midnight," Spencer retorted. "We can't go out this late or we'll get in trouble."

"My parents won't know. They're probably already asleep, anyway."

Aria bounced up from the couch and slipped on her sneakers, then tossed Spencer her shoes. Spencer caught them, and, quite reluctantly, put them on. "This is a bad idea."

"It'll be fine," Aria reassured. "Go unlock our bikes while I get my allowance money."

Spencer threw her hands up and shrugged. "Fine."

Aria tiptoed up the stairs and listened intently to her parent's bedroom door. Two pairs of soft snoring came from inside. She grinned. Perfect. And Mike was sleeping over at his friend's house, so he couldn't rat them out.

Internally celebrating, she headed toward her room. She grabbed the thirty dollars she'd saved up out of her desk drawer and stuffed it into her jeans pocket, and then she rummaged through her closet for an empty backpack. Back downstairs, she opened the refrigerator and got two bottles of water out, just in case. As she was shoving them into the side pockets of the backpack, she saw Spencer had written a note to her parents and left it on the counter:

Dear Aria's parents,

We'll be back, don't worry. We went for milk duds. Sorry to cause trouble.

From: Spencer.

Aria rolled her eyes at the scrawl at the bottom of the paper: P.S. This was Aria's idea, not

mine. But I am an enabler, so you should probably call my parents, too. Again, sorry.

After slinging the backpack onto her back, Aria slid through the front door and closed it as quietly as she could. She then bounded down the porch steps to where Spencer was sitting on her pretty blue ten-speed, holding Aria's pink one at the ready. Spencer shot her a reluctant look as Aria hopped on her bike, but didn't say anything except, "ready?"

Aria nodded and they started down the Montgomery's driveway. The cool night air was relaxing and the full moon cast enough light to see perfectly as they turned onto the road, and Aria soon forgot any worries she had.

"Did you know werewolves come out on full moons?" she said after a while of silent riding.

Spencer whipped her head around so fast she almost careened into a trashcan on the side of the road. "Werewolves don't exist, Aria!" She let out a nervous chuckle. "I'm already freaked out enough as it is, I don't want to think about werewolves. Anyway, I was already thinking about how my parents say the crazies come out on full moons. We could get murdered, Aria!"

"Relax, Spence." Aria waved a dismissive hand as they turned onto the shortcut that led through the woods to town.

"And now we're going through the woods," said Spencer cynically. "We really are going to go missing."

"Mike loves werewolves," Aria continued, fervently ignoring Spencer's comment. "He wants to be one."

Spencer scoffed. "You're really still talking about werewolves when we could actually die."

Aria scoffed back. "You're really still worried? It'll be fi—"

"Wait. Be quiet." Spencer held up a hand and brought her bike to a silent stop. "I heard something," she whispered.

"We're near the campground, Spence." She grimaced. "Ew, and the kissing rock. It's probably just some teenagers. Let's go before they catch us and we get beaten up."

"SHHH!" Spencer was getting off her bike and dropping it among the leaves on the ground. Then, before Aria could say anything in protest, the curious brunette was running into the thicket of trees and disappearing.

"Oh, god," blurted Aria as she scrambled off her bike and ran into the woods after her friend. She paused as she came to the clearing around Wright's playground, then whisper-yelled as she spotted the lanky figure darting between the swings. "Spencer! What are you doing? I really thought you were going to prevent us from getting murdered, not be the cause of it!"

Aria quickly became winded as she followed the girl through the forest. It was like chasing a bloodhound that had caught a scent. Finally, finally, she saw Spencer crouching in the bushes on the edge of a clearing and dropped down beside her, wanting nothing more than to lie down in the dirt. Absently, she noticed some music was trickling from the clearing.

"What is wrong with you, Spencer?" Aria blurted. "What could possibly be so import—"

A hand covered her mouth and cut her off, and she started before realizing it was only Spencer, the girl's brown eyes wide.

"Did you hear that?" came a distant voice. Aria froze as she immediately recognized it. Alison.

They waited a beat in absolute silence, until another familiar voice responded.

"Probably a squirrel, Ali." Noel Kahn.

"Yeah, probably," another voice confirmed.

Aria peaked through the twigs and leaves to see Alison, Noel, and about four other kids sitting around the kissing rock. One was passing around a lit cigarette as Alison changed the song on her iPod.

Spencer wrinkled her nose at Aria as they watched Noel cough out a puff of smoke

"Have any of you ever actually smoked?" Ali asked as she took the cigarette from Noel and placed it between her lips. Almost instantly, she tossed it onto the ground and smothered it with her shoe. She shook her head and gave a laugh, shoving Noel's shoulder. "That's freaking awful! You guys are idiots."

Aria leaned close to Spencer so she could whisper directly into her ear. "Spence, I think we should go. I feel like a creeper."

But Spencer was shaking her head, so Aria turned back to the group.

"So how are we going to get back at those two twerps?" Ali was saying as she lowered a Gatorade bottle away from her mouth. "I can't believe you let Little Miss Freak get away. She's like two feet tall."

Even in the dark, Aria could see Spencer's face go as red as Alison's sports drink. "I'm going to kill her," Spencer hissed. "No one except me gets to poke fun at your height."

"We could always try the dumpster thing again," supplied the same scowling girl that had been in that alley.

"No, no, no," Noel said, shaking his head as he swiped the Gatorade from Ali. "They may be nerds, but I don't think they're going to fall for that again."

Ali smirked. "I think being nerds would make them more likely to catch on, Noel. Do you even know what you're talking about?"

"Of course I do," he told her.

"Anyway, I say we come up with an epic plan, right now," said Alison, her smirk turning into a full-blown evil grin.

"Spencer, wait up!" Aria ran to pick up her bike just as Spencer was swinging her leg onto hers.

The taller girl paused. "I have an idea," she said. "We need to prank them before they can get to us."

"What about your Milk Duds, Spencer? And I thought you were scared of getting in trouble."

Spencer's eyes glinted in the moon's light. "This is the perfect opportunity, Ar. They'll never see it coming. How good are you at climbing?"

"Pretty good," responded Aria, worried. What on earth was Spencer planning? "Why?"

"Because we're still getting my Milk Duds."

The extremely bored-looking lady at the supermarket checkout gave Spencer and Aria a funny look as she scanned their purchases, but she didn't say anything. They grabbed their bags and went back outside to their bikes, and Aria watched as Spencer began stuffing things into the backpack, listing them as she went.

"A black blanket. Two black hoodies and two black scarves. Rubber snake. Shaving cream. A stuffed squirrel. A megaphone—which was quite cheap, if I do say so. Paper cups. Several packs of Milk Duds." She paused to take a sip from the energy drink in her hand. "Caffeine—"

"Yeah, that's enough of that." Aria took the can away, because Spencer was starting to look a little too jittery.

"And we're all set!" Spencer zipped the bag up and off they went.

Back in the woods, they left their bikes at Wright's Playground, leaning them against the swingset and facing towards the trail for a quick escape. Then they unpacked and Aria was put on rabies duty.

She sprayed the cute little fake squirrel's mouth with the shaving cream as Spencer poured Milk Duds into a cup. The taller brunette then passed the cup to Aria and turned on the megaphone to make sure it was working.

"Suit up," said Spencer, a mischievous smile on her lips as she tossed Aria a hoodie and scarf.

"You really didn't have to say 'Suit up', Spence," Aria said as she slid the hoodie over her head, then wrapped the scarf around her mouth. "It was kind of lame."

Spencer ignored her and held out her arms, which were draped with the blanket so she looked eerily like the grim reaper. Her face was covered with her own scarf. "How do I look?"

"Dead creepy," said Aria. "No pun intended."

"You remember the plan?"

Aria nodded. "Yeah."

Spencer clapped her hands. "Let's move out, then."

"You're such a dork."

Aria shimmied along the tree branch as quietly as she could, her palms sweaty as she tried to keep hold of the cup of Milk Duds and squirrel. None of the kids beneath her were listening, instead they were dancing around to an Avril Lavigne song. Aria squinted. Alison likes Avril, too?

No matter.

She waited until they were all kind of clustered together, but before she could dump the Milk Duds, Noel leaned forward and clumsily kissed Ali, much to Aria's surprise—and mild disgust.

Well, as good a time as any, I guess.

The Milk Duds spilled from the cup and sprinkled directly onto Ali and Noel. Aria smirked as Alison shoved Noel away and wiped a stray piece of chocolate from her hair.

"Gross! What the hell is this?"

Just as she was looking up toward Aria's tree, the tiny brunette chuckled the squirrel down.

It landed on Noel's head and everyone screamed as they saw it. Shouts of, "It's rabid! Run, run!" cut through the night air. They took off into the woods, toward the playground, and Aria had just enough time to scramble down the tree before she heard Spencer's part of the plan begin.

The voice boomed loudly and Aria heard tiny animals scurry away from the noise. "WHAT ARE YOU MORTALS DOING ON MY LAND?"

Aria rolled her eyes, but she had to admit Spencer sounded terrifying. She followed the path of trampled foliage until she could see the group huddled together, then she ducked behind a tree and watched.

"I, THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST, DEMAND YOU LEAVE HERE OR I SHALL SEND MY ARMY OF WOODLAND CREATURES TO MAUL YOU!"

Then she saw Spencer's cloaked form run at them from out of nowhere, and the group sprinted away, shrieking in terror.

Plan successful.

Only…

"Wait a second," Alison pulled up short and tried to call after her friends, but they were long gone. She whipped around to glare at the hooded figure, who had paused in shock behind her. "Is this a prank?"

"Uh…" Aria watched as Spencer struggled. "No. Yeah, NO. I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST."

Aria slapped a hand against her forehead.

"More like the Weirdo of the Forest," Alison put her hands on her hips. "Who are you really?" She reached out and yanked the scarf from Spencer's face, and Aria could see her friend's face go pale. "Oh my god, Spencer Hastings? Oh, priceless. Wait until everyone at school hears about this. Where's your little partner, is she here too?"

"Aria's not here, it was all me," Spencer said quietly, and Aria felt a surge of gratefulness. "And th-they won't hear about."

"And why is that?"

"Er…" Spencer looked panicked…

...and she threw the rubber snake from her pocket at Ali, turning to run for her life.

Aria slapped her forehead again.

Alison laughed loudly, pulling her camera phone from her pocket and snapping a picture of Spencer's retreating form.

Spencer was doomed.

When Alison had gotten bored and walked back to the kissing rock to presumably retrieve her stuff, Aria took the chance to sprint back to the playground. Spencer was sitting on her bike, staring into the middle distance with a look of sheer terror on her face.

"I'm done for," she said quietly as Aria hopped on her bike.

"Yeah," she replied. "You really are, Spence."

A/N: This chapter was so random but so fun. Looking up stuff from 2004 was awesome. The first thing I thought of when thinking of that time period was National Treasure, so naturally it made an appearance. My love of it was projected onto Spencer.

Also, I'd like to say, don't smoke, kids. Even Alison doesn't approve. And don't sneak out at midnight. The werewolves'll get ya. ;)

I'm starting to come up with a cohesive plot for this story, so definitely expect more next week!

Please leave a review!