Dang! I was feeling pretty bad about leaving you guys hanging for so long that I whipped this chapter up real quick! It introduces the main problem for coming chapters and I got to tell you... this is when a lot of the drama and humor starts.
This is shorter than the last chapter, but I gonna keep writing until my fingers fall off! So enjoy what I have so far.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon or any of its characters. I only own my OC's.
EXTRA NOTE: I am going on vacation for over a week and the laptop I have to write on is really, really bad. So don't expect any updates next week, but I will try my best to update the week after. I love all you guys who have been reviewing! :) I am so grateful for you taking your time to message me about your feelings on my story, so I will get out the next chapter as soon as I can! Until then, enjoy your summer.
"So we all agree then?"
Mayor Hamilton sat at the round table in the meeting hall with all the teachers of Harmonica High, his fingers knitted together in eager anticipation. This scheme he had cooked up to unite the students of the school was foolproof!
At his question, the teachers nodded, most feeling pretty excited at the idea. A wide grin formed on the mayor's lips.
"Well then, meeting adjourned."
As the hand full of adults began to walk to the door, finally returning to their regular jobs, one depressed-looking man stuck out to Hamilton.
"Hold on Craig," Hamilton called.
The pessimistic farmer moaned and, with bored brown eyes, turned around back to the mayor. "Yes Mayor Hamilton?"
"I need you to take these note cards to lunch room while I make the announcement to the students," he explained, pointing towards a stack of small papers on the desk. "We need to pretend that we just drew them randomly from a hat or something, so that none of the students think we're pushing them to be with someone."
Craig raised an eyebrow. "But isn't that the exact reason you came up with this plan?"
"Yes, yes, but if they know that then no one will actually try to be friendly. Teenagers are a testy bunch."
The farmer snorted. "Tell me about."
With the stack of cards in hand, Hamilton carefully passed them to Craig. "Just don't mix them up! I already paired them how they need to be. When I ask for the note cards, simply give them back to me and act like the teachers just drew them. Got it?"
Still rather bored, Craig nodded, his mind somewhere else.
The mayor beamed with delight. "Good! I'll go set the plan in motion!"
With that, he raced out of the door, giddily laughing the whole. Once the mayor's plump body was out of sight, the Marimba farmer sighed. He would rather not have such a pointless job to do, but it was Hamilton's orders.
Unfortunately, as soon as he took the first step towards the doorway, Craig tripped over a chair and the note cards went flying all over the place. Pretty soon, they were strewn all across the room, covering the desk, chairs, and floor, like newly fallen snow.
"Oops."
Without much thought, Craig snatched every card up, pairing them together like they were before, except that he had no idea what the pairs were! So instead of taking the time to remember what couples they agreed on, Craig simply clumped them all collectively, praying to the goddess that it was close enough.
"I hope these didn't need to be in some special order," Craig nervously muttered, completely disregarding his and Hamilton's discussion.
"Wow," Tyler breathed, "I had no idea that the Flower Festival was such a disaster!"
The four friends were all slumped over in the cafeteria, Hazel, Kathrine, and Brooke each recalling what a mess the festival had been. Seeing as Tyler never attended, he merely assumed that everything went as usual for the island. Sadly, he was dead wrong.
"So, everyone started fighting near the end?"
Hazel pounded her fist on the table, her untouched egg salad that Brooke made jumping in the air. "Yeah, Kathy decided that it would be a good idea to insult my hair style, saying it looked like a dead pig did it," she growled. "I wasn't about to let that kind of rudeness stand… so I called her a slut."
Tyler smacked his forehead. Hazel never did know how to just ignore people and her methods to dealing with bullies usually ended with someone getting a black eye.
Kathrine was clasping her book so hard out of fury that the spine was bent. "I can't believe Gill! I finally thought I found a friend in him and he yells at me for talking to another boy!"
"Doesn't surprise me," Hazel said with a smirk, "He always struck me as the jealous type."
Unamused, Kat glared at her. "It's not funny. Unlike you three, I have a hard time finding common ground with Luke and Bo and everyone else. Gill was the first person I actually had fun being around," she seethed, not meeting anyone's eyes. "But then he goes and calls me disrespectful for talking to another guy when he was the one who left me alone!"
Wordlessly, as Kathrine attempted to cool her temper, Brooke patted her best friend on the shoulder, her green eyes locked on Luke. The carpenter had been in such a bad mood the past few days- most of his anger directed at Brooke- that he insisted on sitting with only Bo and Owen, leaving Hazel, Tyler, Brooke, and Kathrine's table pretty vacant.
"I wonder what I did wrong when I was with Luke," Brooke mumbled, "He got so mad at me that he wouldn't even speak to me for the rest of the festival and he stumped off without walking me home like he usually does."
As Brooke sniffled, Tyler remained silent. He felt that this would not be the best time to brag about how his relationship with Candace was looking up, while everyone else's was looking down into the dirt.
Suddenly, there was a loud boom of a microphone. An incessant ringing that pierced the teens' eardrums erupted from the source. Everyone clamped their hands on their ears, some cursing as they did so. Eventually, the ringing ceased and the room was met with silence.
The jolly voice of the mayor cut through the stillness. "Good afternoon, students! Sorry about the technical difficulties. I'm not used to using these things."
A hundred irritated eyes fixed themselves on Mayor Hamilton who smiled sheepishly under all the reluctant attention. Before he could speak once again, though, a cold voice with a bored tone sounded from within the crowd.
"What is the meaning of this, father?" Gill complained.
Immediately filled with rage at the sound of his voice, Kathrine shot daggers and swords and other kinds of sharp objects at Gill with her eyes, to which he returned by shoot lightning bolts with his electric irises. Everyone around them scooted away a few steps, but neither of the two noticed. Feeling like this was a good time to interrupt, Mayor Hamilton cleared his throat. Both Gill and Kat ended their glare-off and blushed when they realized the attention they were receiving.
The mayor continued. "To answer your question, son, I have called all of your attention up here to announce a school-wide project!"
Several hums and grumbles were heard echoing through the group of students, but no one spoke up or argued. However, many appeared disgruntled at the idea of more homework.
"Here is the project, which will start immediately," Mayor Hamilton explained, "Each of you twenty students have been paired randomly with someone of the opposite gender. You will be required to get to know them better for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, the two of you will present a project of some kind to show how you have related."
There was a short pause as everyone tried to take in what the mayor was saying. Many turned to their friends, mumbling inaudible doubts or interests.
"Oh and one more thing," All heads switched back to the mayor, "From eight in the morning to eight at night, the pair of you will be obligated to stay together. If any adult catches a student away from their partner at any time between those hours, twenty points will be taken off your final grade for each time it happens. So if it happens twice, you fail the project."
Suddenly, an uproar of gripes and curses erupted from the teenagers. They were required to constantly be beside the same person for twelve hours everyday?! And they didn't get to choose who?! Obviously, no one was happy with the plan.
But, Hamilton had made his decision final. This would be the last major grade before Summer and many people needed this grade to pass. It would also hopefully make the students pair up into couples or at least get along.
"Quiet," Hamilton ordered, "I have already had the pairings made. Your teachers drew each of you names randomly and coupled them up." He gazed down at the man across the room whose eyes were wandering, cards in hand. "Craig has now brought the cards and I will call out who is paired with whom. Oh and I should mention that one duo is two girls seeing as we have more girls than guys."
"Ha! They'd never guess that I had talked with their teachers about who would best work together and paired them up as I saw fit. If I simply coupled them up at random, then I couldn't be sure that they would get along. But this way, the students are clueless and the matches are set," the mayor triumphantly thought to himself.
Nervously, Craig brought the cards to Mayor Hamilton. Once they were out of his hands, he darted off towards the corner, desperate to avoid any… complaints the mayor might have about the order.
Blissfully unaware of this, Mayor Hamilton grinned with glee and picked up the first two note cards. "The first pair will be… will be…" his eyebrows knitted together in confusion, "Hazel and Gill?"
"WHAT?!"
Two distinct voices screeched at the top of their lungs at the same time. Fits of fury bubbling inside her, Hazel yanked her burning eyes over towards the boy with the blond curl. Gill gave her a look with the same intensity, if not more, of the one he gave Kathrine. Neither of the two could stand the other for very long and now they had to be together for two weeks!
Hamilton was completely stumped. "I thought Hazel was grouped with Anissa since Anissa likes Jin who doesn't go to school anymore. And Gill was supposed to be with Kathrine. What?"
"Um, continuing on I guess," the mayor decided, "Next is Luke and Maya."
The blue-haired boy's jaw dropped, but a sigh of relief was heard from Chase. Maya, on the other hand, seemed very disappointed.
"Then, Owen and Candace."
Tyler looked ready to murder Owen. Candace looked ready to die.
"Brooke and Chase."
Chase seemed fairly happy with this pairing.
"Kathrine and Julius."
All the color drained from Kat's face as she caught a glimpse of the flamboyant jewelry maker waving at her. Hazel leaned over towards Brooke and whispered, "He's a boy?"
"Anissa and Calvin."
Both teenagers shrugged.
"Luna and Bo."
Luna burst out into a tantrum. Suddenly, everyone felt sorry for Bo. Luke even gave his cousin a comforting hand on the shoulder.
"Toby and Selena."
Selena appeared unamused as she kicked her sleeping partner.
"Tyler and Phoebe."
As Hazel's brother scrutinized the green-haired girl who seemed to be wearing clothes that she had not washed for days, he groaned. Such a fashion disaster of a person was his partner? Not good.
"And finally, Kathy and Renee as our girl group."
Renee attempted to smile sweetly at her partner, but Kathy only gave her a sinister glare and stamped her cowgirl boots.
The mayor sweat dropped as he noticed the tension in the air. "Well, those are the pairings, so I guess finish your lunch and return to class. Your schedules will be changed to suit who you're paired with tomorrow, so until then go to your normal classroom. Once school is over today, then you need to be with your buddy until eight tonight. Uh… good luck on the project!"
With that, Mayor Hamilton dashed out of the cafeteria. Something just went horribly wrong and he was going to get to the bottom of it.
As for the teenagers, most glanced at their teammate and groaned, dreading the coming days.
Uh oh, Craig messed up and now the pairs are mixed up. How will these unlikely pairings come together to work for their grade? Will Luke ever forgive Brooke? And does Kathrine have enough compassion and strength to swallow her pride and apologize to Gill a second time? Find out in the coming chapters of "Oops Wrong High School"!