Chapter 7: Summertime Blues

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAACK!

I can't believe school is starting so soon! gahhhhhh! so not ready for high school! oh well! here's the new chapter. Oh! and thanks for being so patient while I was in New York! It was an awesome trip! NOW here it is.

Max's POV

So my dad got home today. He's on his third round of chemotherapy, and although his hair has already fallen out, he hasn't really gotten sick from the drugs. If anything, I'm just really glad he's home.

Unfortunately, today is the only day that I get to see him this week. Ella and I pick out one week in the summer when one of us will stay at the other's house. It started in first grade, when Ella and I wanted to pretend like we were sisters. I asked my mom if she could spend the week at our house to see what it would be like to have a sister (actually, Ella already knew; she has twin little sisters Quinn and Kayla, so really I just wanted to know) We started to alternate houses and do it every year, and now it's a tradition between us.

This year is my turn to go to Ella's house. Even though I always look forward to the week we spend together, I am a little, okay a lot, bummed that I won't see my dad this week. I offered to stay home about ten times, but he knows that this is the last full week Ella will be in town. He said it would make him feel better if knows that I'm having a good time with Ella and her family. So now, I wait at the door all packed and ready to be picked up.

5 hours and 32 minutes later. . . . . . . . .

My arms and legs are being pinned to the floor while Ella is forcing a pound of makeup onto my face.

I love Ella to death, but she and her sisters are three of the most girly people I know. I am not girly. I hardly ever wear makeup, except for a little mascara every now and then. My nails are usually bitten, not painted. On a scale of one to ten on my knowledge of "accessories" is negative four, and to me, dressing up is wearing a fitted t-shirt with a pair of clean jeans without holes in them. My shorts never go above my knees, bikinis are out of the question, and if you ever see me wearing a dress, it's probably because I was forced into it as some sort of punishment.

Ella knows all this, and she is DYING to see me wear a "reasonable" amount of makeup. Her definition of reasonable is all the normal stuff people wear, plus like, twenty things I've never even heard of. Holy crap.

So every time we have this sleepover, I'm either at her house or she brings her car-sized makeup kit to mine, and she tries to force a gallon of powders and creams onto my face. Usually it doesn't work, because I am stronger than she is. When it's one on one, anyway.

This time, though, she recruited her little sisters to pin down my arms. So unfair right?

So all day I had seen her giant makeup carrier in the corner of her room, and warning lights went off in my head. She always keeps it in the bathroom. I was eying it the whole time. Later, she invited her sisters to hang out with us, while she usually tells them to "get lost we are talking about important stuff!" (at which point she launches into a story about her latest boyfriend and all of his pros and cons)

So when I asked her what was up, she just said, (with an evil look in her eye, I might add) "nothing! don't worry about it, everything will be fun!" which of course, made me worry about it even more.

I really should have seen it coming when Quinn and Kayla moved so they were standing behind me. Because as soon as Ella screamed, "Now!" they were on top of me and she was already pulling out three different shades of eye shadow.

As soon as they finally finish and let me go, I rush to the bathroom before they decide to put curlers in my hair or something like that.

I risk a glance at the mirror . I gasp, stare at myself for about thirty seconds straight, then burst out laughing. Seriously, I'm sinking to the floor because I can't even hold myself up; I'm breathing so hard I'm starting to have a coughing fit. Ella comes rushing into the bathroom and sees tears streaming down my face. "OMG are you okay?" I nod, but I still can't stop giggling. After about two more minutes of that, with Ella's horrified expression staring me in the face. I finally calm down. I wipe water away from my eyes and start to breathe normally again. Once Ella sees that I'm okay, her face lights up.

"Do you love it?", she squeals.

"Ha! As if! I look like a freaking Barbie doll! How do I get this stuff OFF of me?"

She hands me makeup removal wipes, but ONLY after she took a picture on her new Kodak camera.

"If that shows up on facebook, when you go to sleep I will be under your bed."

Ha, that wiped the evil grin off her face.

So concludes my first night of tortureImeanfun at Ella's house.

Fang's POV

I checked my watch. 9:22. It had only been 52 minutes, but it felt like hours where I was lying.

I had found this place four years ago. I was walking in Sand Dollar Park, (dumbest name ever, since the only sand in the place is in the puny sand box for five year olds) There were these woods on the edge of the park where I always like to walk. In the woods there is a huge ditch along with fences guarding the edges. I'd always wanted to go across and see what was there. That day, I noticed that the branches of two of the trees (one on each side) overlapped. I was circling this massive tree (kinda difficult with the fence in the way) and then I found these wooden boards nailed to a tree.

I climbed up into this tree house that someone had built, and there were some planks nailed across the branches that I had noticed earlier. So I went across (thank God I'm not afraid of heights) and climbed down another ladder on the opposite tree, and kept walking further into the woods.

I was walking for about three minutes, when suddenly the trees just ended. There was a single tree on a hill some yards ahead of me, with really low and really thick branches that multiple people could sit on. When I got to the tree there was a note stuck in a knothole from some guy named Jeremy, telling me I'd made it to "Star Lake Valley" It said to come at night to see where it got the name from.

The tree on the hill was overlooking a valley with a lake in the middle. At night when I came back, I saw the stars perfectly reflected on the surface of the lake. That's where I am now, with a flashlight, staring at Max's notebook.

A/N: tada! the end! please review!