Chapter 8

A/N:

I feel like I need to apologize to all of you. It's been… What, 5 months since I actually wrote something for this fanfiction? Fear not, dearest people. I AM NOT DEAD AND NEITHER IS MY STORY! I just need to remember whatever the heck I was doing with my story…

Eponine woke up Saturday morning and quickly got dressed. She had been looking forward to the fall festival ever since Grantaire had mentioned it. She hadn't thought that she would have the chance to go to one of these things this year being that her sister and brother were quite a distance away. There was no way that she was going to be late for this day. She was just about to head out when she opened the door and none other than Meg Giry came running into the room.

"Cosette, Hey; Get up!" She yelled as she pounced on the motionless lump that was Cosette.

"What?" groaned the less-than-pleased girl.

"I heard from Janet that she heard from Bethany that she heard from Kendra that Monty has been planning a way to get back at you since yesterday!" Meg shrieked.

Before waiting to hear any more of the conversation, Eponine high tailed it out of the room. She was not planning on getting involved in this madness. She had made that mistake far too many times in the past. She jumped down the steps of the dorm and headed over to the late -night bench where she sat down to wait for the guys to arrive. Before too long, she saw Grantaire and Jehan racing toward the bench at top speed. As they neared, she stood and was about to ask what the hurry was, but before she could say anything, Grantaire had a hold of her hand and was towing her behind him.

"What's going on? Why are we running? What the-." She questioned, trying to keep up as they raced toward the parking lot.

"No time." Jehan panted. "Run faster."

When they made it to the parking lot, Jehan ran around to the other side of the car, jumped in the driver seat and put the keys in the ignition while Grantaire slid into the back of the car, pulling Eponine in behind him. As Jehan pulled out of the spot and pulled toward the exit of the lot, Eponine looked out the window to see a very angry looking Enjolras yelling at the car as they pulled away. There was something about him that seemed off but she could put her finger on it until Grantaire and Jehan burst into relieved laughter.

His hair was a gingery orange color.

"Oh my, you guys! What did you do to Enjolras?" She said before bursting into laughter along with them.

"We?" Jehan wheezed. "That was all R's doing."

"I dyed his hair orange while he was sleeping." Grantaire said before losing it again. "I thought that he could do to be a little bit more festive."

At this, they all lost it again.

"Please tell me that it's at least washable dye." She said after a few moments as she started to gain a little bit of her control back.

"Hey." Grantaire said, holding up his hands. "I'm mean. Not cruel. It's just Kool-Aid. It'll come out after he washes it a couple of times."

"Good thing too," Jehan added, "or it wouldn't be safe for Grant to go back to campus with us later."

The car trip after this was pretty uneventful, except for when "Get down tonight" by Earth, Wind and Fire came on to the radio.

Soon they were pulling into the parking lot of the community park. Eponine felt that familiar childish joy bubble up inside her as she saw a few of the rides being set up. They all got out of the car and started to move toward the opening gate where a line was starting to form before the festival opened.

"I haven't been to one of these things since I was around 10 years old." Jehan said, watching as some of the men setting up the rides did a test run.

"I love these festivals." Eponine said, grinning. "I used to take my siblings every time that they had one back home."

"Ok, I feel kind of like I haven't lived now." Grantaire said sheepishly. "I've never actually been to one of these before."

Jehan and Eponine gaped.

"Are you serious, R?" Jehan gasped. "You had no childhood!"

"We have to make sure that you have had the whole community festival experience now." Eponine added, nodding gravely.


Back on Campus, Cosette was slowly getting ready while Meg waited impatiently in the hall. She had had another sleepless night and was barley even functioning when Meg had jumped on her this morning. She was less than pleased to have to worry about Montparnasse after a night like she had had.

She was pulling on her socks and shoes when an impatient knock came from the door.

"Come on, Cosette!" Meg called. "We have to move fast before Monty can pull together the things he needs."

"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying." Cosette groaned as she stood off, rubbing the sleep from her eyes before opening the door again. Meg stood outside, looking like she had waited for an hour instead of for five minutes.

"Thank God." Meg cried, pulling Cosette through the door and toward the front of the building. "I thought that you would never come out of there. Come on, we have to hurry."

"Where are we going?" Cosette asked as she stumbled behind the other girl. Meg was stronger than she seemed."

"We're going to the cafeteria for breakfast of course, silly." Meg said, pulling them down the steps of the dorm. "The muffins might all be gone now because you took so long."

"Muffins?"

"We're going to need some brain food if we're going to think of a way to keep you out of harm's way." Meg explained.

Cosette decided not to argue and followed Meg quietly as the other girl babbled about something that Martha had said to Rose so that she could tell Donna about what Christine said to Erik. This went on until they were both sitting at a table in the ABC Hall, both with a bowl of cinnamon oatmeal and a muffin.

"So," Cosette started, pealing the wrapper off of the base of her muffin. "Let's start from the beginning. Why did you drag me out of bed so early on a weekend."

"Because I heard from Janet that Kendra said to Bethany that—" Meg started.

"Stop." Cosette interrupted holding up a hand. "Please, take a deep breath, then start again and try to put it into a way that I'll understand."

Meg took an exaggerated breath, then started again more slowly.

"Some people told me that Monty has it out for you. They said that he's getting together some guys to play a big prank or something along those lines."

"Really? Why?"

"Because of how you saved me yesterday, of course!"

"Because of that? That wasn't even that big of a deal."

"It was to him! You made a fool of him in front of a girl, me, and a teacher, Mr. Richard."

Cosette sighed. She had been hoping that all of this was going to just be forgotten so that they could all go on with their lives. It seemed like that wasn't going to happen though.

"Meg," She started, taking a bite of her muffin. "Are you sure that we need to get so worked up about this?"

"Oh, yes!" Meg cried, as if she were shocked that Cosette had even asked. "The last person who ended up in his was ended up with a month's worth of tuna surprise poured all over them."

Cosette made a face. Tuna surprise was bad enough when you had to eat it. She wasn't exactly looking forward to wearing it too.

"What would you suggest that we do then?" She asked

"That's why I wanted to talk to you." Meg said, finishing the last of her muffin. "None of my plans have ever worked before and I wanted to see if you had any extra additions to add to my newest one."

"That's encouraging." Cosette said dryly, pushing away her breakfast, appetite lost.

"I'm glad you think so!" Meg said, not noticing the sarcasm. "No one else has been all that grateful for my help."

Cosette ate in silence for a while, listening to Meg go on and on about some other topic that made absolutely no sense in context to the original conversation. She hadn't really wanted to start her time in college trying to avoid a boy who had it out for her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just let him get her back. It certainly seemed better than having to be careful about where she set foot next. Finally, she spoke up.

"You know what?" She said, placing her muffin wrapper in her empty bowl.

"What? Did you figure out a plan?" Meg said, jumping up to follow Cosette as she placed her tray on the conveyer belt that took it back to the kitchen for dish washing.

"Yes. I think I did."

"What? Tell me! Do you have a way to figure out what his prank is?" Meg asked excitedly.

"Nope, I'm just going to go on with life the way I did before." Cosette said, pulling on her jacket to head back toward the dorm rooms.

"What?!" Meg shrieked. "Are you crazy? He'll pull an even wilder prank on you if you pretend not to be interested in avoiding it."

"Don't worry!" Cosette laughed. "If he's just a bully, someone ignoring the way that he asks will just bore him. He'll just go to look for someone who reacts in a funny way when he picks on them."

"You really think that it'll work?" Meg said, as if the idea were starting to make sense to her.

"Of course it will." Cosette said, feeling surer of it as she took another step toward the door.

She pushed open the door and added "And even if he does end up playing a prank on me, how bad can it be?"

Just as if it had been the signal, Meg and Cosette were suddenly drenched in red paint. Buckets and buckets of the stuff came raining down on them as they tried to cover their faces. When the torrential downpour finally ended, both girls looked as if they had just tried to go swimming in the stuff.

The only sounds were the gasps of the crowd that had come to watch, the laughs of the culprits, who Cosette could guess the identity of very quickly, and the sound of Meg moaning at the loss of her favorite pair of jeans.


Eponine bit into the caramel apple. The sweet sticky candy mixed with the sour of the crisp apple as she sat under the tree. She had been enjoying the day at the festival and was now taking a quick snack break to rest before they continued their walk. She, Grantaire and Jehan had been through almost half of the festival by now and it was around 2 o' clock in the afternoon. They had had samples of just about every pie that you could imagine, bought some hot apple cider, gone apple bobbing, made those little hand turkeys that you can't make any better than when you were three, and had ridden just about every spinning ride that they could find before Jehan had said he was going to be sick. Now they were all sitting under a tree and enjoying a few extra treats they had found on the way.

"I can't believe that I've been missing out on this for my whole life!" Grantaire said, trying to open a bag of candy corn that he had won in one of those games where you throw a baseball at some milk bottles.

"I told you that these were a great time." Jehan said, his face not as green as it had been a few minutes before.

"Can we decide right now that this is going to become a tradition?" Eponine said, finishing off what was left of her apple.

"I can't afford to miss another one of these." Grantaire laughed. "If I miss another one, I don't think that I'll be able to say that I truly lived."

"You haven't even experienced everything yet!" a voice said from behind them.

They all jumped and turned to find Musichette and Joly behind them.

"Hey guys!" Jehan said, standing up and brushing the grass off of his cargo pants. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Yeah," Grantaire added grinning. "This doesn't really seem like Joly's idea of fun. Too many people touch this stuff."

Musichette laughed as she put her hand around Joly's arm and pulled herself closer. "This is a kind of therapy that I'm helping him with; learning to deal with germs by going to one of the best things ever invented."

"It's working okay." Joly said, his face turning red as Musichette help on to his arm. "It's definitely better than when we went to the movies."

They chatted for a while until Jehan decided that he wanted to go check out some of the art shows that Musichette and Joly were headed towards. Eponine and Grantaire decided that they wanted to try to catch a ride on the hay ride and then maybe try a few more of the rides out. They waved as Jehan, Joly and Musichette headed the opposite direction.

"I guess it's just me and you now, darlin'" Grantaire said impishly.

"I guess so." Eponine said, grinning back. "Race you to the Hay ride. Loser buys hot chocolate."

She took off before he could agree.

"Cheater!" He yelled, running off after her.

A/N:

Sorry again for taking so long to get back to writing. I'm hoping to get my butt into gear before to much longer and start writing more regularly again. Thanks to those of you that are sticking with me even though I'm super bad at keeping up with this.

Please don't forget to Rate and Review! J