Chapter 10 already? Wow guys! Already at double digits! Thanks so much for your support, and please review! Sending virtual hugs and brownies! ~Jackie

Chapter 10

Again? Really?

I walked into the front doors of Lacy's school. I remember when I went to this school. Maple Park Elementary School. I used to be dropped off here all the time by mom, but when I reached fifth grade, she made me ride my bike.

I inhaled the smell of fresh new paint. When I went here, the walls were just plain white. Now, it was painted the colors of the school. The walls were white, and some were green. All of the columns were green, too.

"Is that you, Piper?" A young women who looked about thirty-two years old took a look at me. She was my third grade teacher.

"Ms. Lee!" I said. "Wow, it's nice seeing you!"

"Oh, Piper!" Ms. Lee exclaimed. "You've grown so much! I remember when you were eight! You were so small. What are you now- in ninth, tenth grade?"

"I'm in tenth," I told her.

"Time flies," Ms. Lee whistled.

"Yes," I agreed. "So how have you been?"

"Oh." Ms. Lee showed me her left hand. A diamond ring sparkled. "I got married when twenty nine. Now I have two kids!"

"Oh," I said. "So you're not Ms. Lee, anymore?"

"No," Ms. Lee said. "I'm Mrs. Lee. I decided to keep my last name."

I nodded.

"So," said Mrs. Lee. "What's brought you here?"

"Oh," I said. "Just picking up my little sister."

"Ah," Mrs. Lee said. "Lacy McLean. She's in the other third grade classroom with Ms. Mickelsen. Brilliant girl."

I nodded. I've heard about Lacy being a brilliant girl ever since she was born. Sometimes I got sick of people always comparing her to me, about how she could be even smarter than me, but I got used to it.

When she was first born, I was super jealous of her because she always got the attention. I eventually got used to that too, and I started to love her a lot. I know it sounds weird, but it's true.

Everyone knew Lacy was smart when she was a few months old. She said hew first word at only four months (besides "mama" and "dada"), and that word was the word curious. Mom and Dad even got it on recording. She started to take a few steps at six months and could run the following month.

She's in the Gifted and Talented program right now and Mom and Dad are even thinking of making her skip to sixth grade next year. Lacy protested because she wouldn't be with her friends. I guess that's kind of a stupid idea to wait until Lacy got close friends, and then make her skip. Yep. Real brilliant, guys.

"Piper!" Lacy ran up to me and gave me a big hug. All of her little friends gasped.

"It's Lacy's sister!" one squealed.

"She's a giant," a boy commented.

"I love your hair!" a little girl gushed.

Wow, I never thought I'd be fifteen years old being a nothing in high school and super popular among little elementary school kids.

"Hi, guys," I said. I held out my hand for Lacy to grab. "Well, we gotta get going."

"Bye!" a chorus of kids shouted.

I led Lacy to the car and we both got in. I checked the time. 3:36 Annabeth and Jason should be out of detention in four minutes. I glanced at Lacy's outfit to see if it was okay to wear at a fun place. She was wearing leggings and an oversized short sleeve T-shirt. I decided that since dad was going to be at an interview and mom was at a friend's house, that me, Lacy, Jason, and Annabeth could probably go out and do something together.

"How was school?" I asked Lacy.

"It was fine," Lacy said with a yawn. "Multiplication, adding, subtracting. Mrs. Mickelson said they'll teach us division in fourth grade, but I already know this boring stuff. She said starting tomorrow, she's gonna send me to the sixth grade classroom to learn sixth grade math. I already know that stuff too, but at least it'll be less boring. We also did animal research and we're starting a project on it. All of the girls were doing theirs on bunnies, kitties, and puppies. All the guys doing sharks. They wanted to do dinosaurs, but Mrs. Mickelson told them that they're extinct. I can't believe they actually didn't know that."

"What animal did you do?" I asked, looking at the time. 3:38.

"I did shrimp," Lacy said.

"Shrimp?" I repeated. "Wow. Pretty creative. When I did that project, I did starfish. Every other girl did bunnies and stuff too. They also wanted to do unicorns."

Lacy giggled. "I bet unicorns are real."

"Yeah?" I said. "Why?"

"Because it's scientifically possible," Lacy said. "I mean, horses are real. Then maybe horses were living somewhere cool and they adapted to their environment. You know, evolution. They grew horns and wings and they got lighter, despite their size. I also believe in mermaids, although that's not scientifically possible. But not everything has to do with science."

"That's right," I agreed. Yes! 3:40. "Plug your ears, Lacy."

Without a question, Lacy plugged her ears and started to hum. Since my cell phone was connected to the car (Bluetooth), I tapped the button that read Annabeth and after three rings, Annabeth's voice blasted through the speakers.

"Hello?" Annabeth said.

"Detention over?" I asked.

"Yes," Annabeth replied.

"How was it?" I wondered.

I heard a shuffle. "It was horrible. They took away my phone, sat me next to Jason, and wouldn't even let me do my homework. They said I had to 'think about what I had done.'" I heard a pause as she turned to someone else and said, "Yeah, sure, thanks."

"Who were you talking to?" I questioned.

"Jason's sister," Annabeth said.

"Why?" I asked.

"She's driving me and Jason home," Annabeth told me.

"Tell her not to," I said.

There was a moment of silence. "Uh, why?"

"Did you do all your homework yet?" I asked.

"Yes?" she said, in a questioning tone. "I did everything in last period."

"Of course," I said. "Well, tell Thalia to drop you and Jason off at Zero Gravity. Lacy and I are gonna be there. My treat." Zero Gravity was pretty expensive, so I felt that I should be the one to pay. Since I'm apparently filthy rich.

"Hey, Thalia," I heard Annabeth say. "Piper wants me and Jason to go to Zero Gravity with her and Lacy. Can you drop us off there? She's paying."

I heard muffled talking. Annabeth brought the phone back up to her ear. "Thalia says yes, but only if she can come with."

I laughed. "Wow. Okay. See you there." I hung up and signaled Lacy to unplug her ears.

"I saw your mouth moving," Lacy noted. "And you dialed someone. Who were you talking to that I can't know about?"

"You'll find out," I said, taking an exit off the freeway.

"You took the wrong exit," Lacy informed me.

"Trust me," I told her. "I know what I'm doing." I thought for a bit. "Maybe you should close your eyes for the rest of the drive."

Lacy closed her eyes. "So what about you day?"

"What about it?" I asked.

"How was it?" Lacy asked.

The red light turned on, so I stopped. "I learned a brain trick."

"What was it?" Lacy asked.

"It probably won't work on you," I inferred.

"Tell me," Lacy demanded.

"Here goes nothing," I said. "What word does this spell? S-H-O-P."

"Shop," Lacy said slowly.

"And what do you do at a green light?" I asked.

Lacy opened her mouth, then stopped herself. "Go."

I snapped. "I knew it wouldn't work on you."

"What?" Lacy said.

"You were supposed to say 'stop,'" I informed her. "It's how the brain trick works. Because you were thinking about the word shop, so you would automatically think stop."

Lacy nodded, her eyes still closed. "Clever. Not clever enough to trick me, but still clever."

I rolled my eyes and turned into the parking lot of Zero Gravity. It was pretty full today, but that's what made it fun. I mean, wouldn't it be just awkward and creepy if you and a couple friends were there alone?

I turned off the engine and told Lacy to keep her eyes closed. I opened the door and helped her get out of the car. To keep her from bumping into something, I picked her up and brought her into the building.

We were greeted by the smell of nachos and hotdogs. The sound of laughter and squeals filled the place up to the roof. Many people were talking and going over to laser tag.

Lacy sniffed the air. "Where are we?"

"I'm not telling you until the others get here," I insisted. "Keep your eyes closed."

"The others?" Lacy said it like it was a new word to her. "Who are the others?"

"Oh you know." I sighed. "Just a few unicorns and mermaids."

Lacy giggled. "Stop being so funny."

Still holding Lacy, I stood sat on a waiting bench to get tickets and craned my neck to look for Annabeth, Jason, and Thalia. After four minutes, they finally showed up at the door.

"Hey guys." I smiled. "I'm gonna get tickets." I put Lacy down on the floor. "You can open your eyes now, Lace."

Lacy's eyes flew wide open and she let out an eardrum shattering squeal. "Zero gravity!" She jumped up and down. "Zero gravity. ZERO GRAVITY!"

I laughed and payed for the tickets.

"So what's up, Jason?" I said as we walked towards the climbing wall. I attached the strap to me and adjusted it so it would fit me. Jason did the same.

"Drew broke up with me," Jason said, casually. This wasn't surprising at all.

"Again?" I put on my helmet. Drew and Jason were an on and off couple. During these past two years, they've broken up, like, six times. It was all because Drew was always making a big deal of stupid things. She would always get upset, going on and on about something that he said. She never gets his humor like I do.

"Yep," he said as he put his hands and feet on the first few rocks.

I searched around for a rock beneath my foot to boost me up even higher than I already was. I slipped, and Jason reached over and pulled me up by my waist. My heart raced and my stomach sprouted out butterflies.

"What was the reason this time?" I asked, keeping myself in control. Lacy was rock climbing next to me, Annabeth helping her.

"It was because I got detention for protecting you," he said, sighing.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked.

"Well, tomorrow's the first free day she has," Jason explained. "And apparently, I'm wasting that day by being in detention."

I snorted. "Sad."

"Yeah." Jason gave me a winning smile. "Race you to the top."

...

October 15

Wow, there was a lot of drama in the time I haven't written in you.

So first, our spy mission. It was actually pretty successful. We went to the mall, then we found out that Drew was hanging out with another guy, Dylan. We got it on recording, but we don't know for sure if she's dating him or not.

Then, after Mission Find OUt What Drew is Up To, we went to the mall and ran into Percy, Leo, and Frank. Percy asked Annabeth out on a date, and they're going somewhere on Thursday after Percy's swim team thing.

Today, Annabeth and I saw Dylan bullying a poor little freshie. Annabeth was all, "Leave her alone, now get out of my face." And she slapped him, Dylan was all, bang, pow. In other words, he knocked her to the ground.

I got really pissed and said stuff about how he shouldn't hurt my best friend, because that would make him get on the bad side of me. He got really angry and tried to shove me to the ground. I dodged, and he wounded up on the floor.

He got so ticked off and tried to punch me. Jason got in the way to protect me. It was pretty cute that he wanted to protect me, but also pretty stupid because he knew he was going to get into trouble.

Anyway, Annabeth now has detention after school until 2:40 on Wednesday. Jason has it for the whole week.

Drew got mad at him for getting detention and not being able to hang out with her. She's such a hypocrite since she's been the one blowing him off. So they broke up. That's not surprising because this is like the seventh time they've broken up.

The first time they broke up, Annabeth wanted to get me to ask him out. So about four days after they broke up, I walked up to him in the hall to talk to him. But then Drew came up out of nowhere and blabbered on about how she and Jason had just gotten back together.

The second time they broke up, I was about to tell him that I liked him, but then he broke the news to me that he and Drew got back together a few hours ago over text or something.

I lost hope, because every time those two broke up, they always got back together. It's like I would never win.

And speaking of the devil, she printed out this whole newspaper flyer thing about how I lost to a fight or something. The flyer was full of fake information. I didn't even fight though, so how could I lose?

Life is so complicated sometimes.

-Piper McLean