The social was at 4:00. Alison was putting on her earrings. She was looking absolutely flawless now, except for the stupid moles on her cheeks, but she planned to hide those with quality best-selling face-cream. No one knew this about Alison, but she actually had an extensive collection of makeup. She didn't use it, much, though. It was because she believed 'simplicity was the key.' She only used during parties, graduations, birthdays, and Halloween.

And dances with Vincy, she thought. She had begun to use his nickname just as he had began to use hers occasionally, Ari. Or Ari-poo, she thought, smiling and thinking of her friends. She frowned at herself. It was getting increasingly harder to avoid them and to not think about the wonderful memories of them.

You can do it, though, Alison thought.

T H E M!

She frowned even harder, then thought of Vincy and smiled. She hoped he would actually dress up well today, instead of having hobo clothes and crazy hair.

Alison got in the car with a bagful of candy. She wouldn't have to worry about carrying the bag at the social, though, because she would probably eat all the candy by the time she arrived. After the car had stopped, Alison straightened her dress and got out of the car, heading towards the Gym. Or as Vincent said it, the 'Dance Room'.

The gym was packed with people, some costumed, some not.

Just then, Alison saw Vincent. She actually blinked. Was that really Vincent? For once, he didn't look like he just popped out of bed. Vincent was dressed in a rather dashing black suit, accented with a tie patterned with hundred-dollar bills. A perfect mix of elegant and casual, and he was all hers for the evening. He was wearing a pirate hat on his neatly combed hair, probably to pass his suit off as a costume. Vincent spotted Alison, and tipped his hat to her.

"Hello, Milady," he said jokingly.

"Hey," Alison greeted with a nod of the head.

Vincent's cool facade vanished as he looked over his shoulder.

"I'm being stalked," he whispered to Alison urgently. "I can't tell who it is because of the costume."

Alison leaned in conspiratorially. "Where's the stalker right now?"

"I don't know. I think I lost them, whoever they , want to dance?"

Alison's heart almost leapt out of her rib cage. Nope. He had to work for it. Also, she wasn't sure about letting other people see her with Vincent.

"Maybe later," Alison smiled apologetically. "I'm dying of hunger."

Vincent, ever the perfect gentleman, went over to the refreshments with her, and began to hoard cups of soda. He turned to Alison to offer her one. She accepted, and waited for him to release the cup. Vincent froze, both his and Alison's hand on the cup, touching. Alison's face turned pale pink at the contact. Vincent was staring at a point somewhere over her left shoulder.

"The stalker," he muttered to her. "Don't turn around."

Alison yanked the cup from his hand and daintily took a sip. She casually twirled, showing off the skirt of her modest but form-fitting dress. Her back to Vincent, she could now see his 'stalker'.

Alison nearly collapsed in very unladylike laughter right there. The 'stalker' was the one and only Chengqi Li, dressed as a … dumpling. The boy was in a what looked like a rotund pillowcase, stuffed with fluff. At the top of the pillowcase, where the skin of the dumpling would be pinched together, was his head, poking out atop all his saggy glory.

Alison had to turn around to make sure he didn't see her laughing fit. Vincent watched, bemused, still clueless about the identity of the stalker dumpling.

Meanwhile, the dumpling was trying to reach for a cookie on the end of the snack table, but was prevented from reaching it by the considerable amount of wiggliness that was his dumpling-y stomach.

"You idiot, it's Chengqi!" Alison exclaimed with a lot of frantic hand-waving.

"Who?"

"Chengqi! Chengqi Li?"

"Ohh!"

Finally, a brain wave. Alison rolled her eyes. Vincent was so cute but could be so dense. Still, he was quite good-lookin' in his black suit.

He hurriedly led Alison away, not wanting their evening to be ruined by egginess. Well, he wasn't that dense.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Vincent tried to eat the donuts off of the string, and insisted that Alison try too. Alison managed to pull her donut off of the string with her mouth, but was unable to catch it with her mouth. The donut ended up falling, and Alison tried to catch it. This resulted in the donut being knocked in Vincent's direction. He promptly ate it. Alison laughed at the surprised expression on Vincent's face as he chewed on the donut that had just whizzed into his mouth.

After they had submitted their guesses at the candy corn jar (the leadership people said the winners would be announced at the end of the social), Alison and Vincent went to watch the horror movie. It would have been a nice experience if not for the obnoxious people sitting behind them that kept giggling. Soon, Alison had had enough, and turned around to tell them so.

"Can you please-" Alison stopped abruptly as she saw who she was talking to.

Eunice, a witch, Anya, an angry bird, and Shelly, a vampire, were staring back at her and Vincent, wide-eyed.

Oh shoot. It just had to be them. No wonder the giggling was so loud and unbearable.

"Sorry!" Eunice said quickly, nudging Anya, who nudged Shelly. The three looked up at her with their most innocent expressions.

Alison stiffly turned back to the movie. The three began to whisper behind her back. In response, Alison began to whisper to Vincent. Since she had nothing to whisper about, she started to tell him about the mysterious similarities between the main villain in the movie and Mr. Conbae. Vincent began to whisper back to her that she was overly paranoid about everything from fruits to band teachers. Lol. She's too paranoid. It's funny. Vincent thought. Rather adorable, too.

"Let's leave," Anya whispered. "Clearly she's having too much fun with her Vincy-poo."

"Yea," Eunice agreed, and they quietly skulked away. They later hid in Room 20, Mrs. Alexander's room, where Eunice and Anya joyfully binged on the free candy she was giving out.

Shelly snatched the candy from their hands.

"YOU POO!" They yelled.

"Forget the candy," Shelly said, emptying a few boxes of Nerds into her mouth, ignoring their scandalized stares. "How can we ruin Alison's date?"