Author's Note: Thank you sooo much for your continued kind reviews! I'm doing the best I can to crank out more chapters for you. I just hope they're still good as I go on… This chapter and the next features more character development, partly with the kids interacting with their "parents." Please keep reading and reviewing. As always, I like praise, constructive criticism is good but please, NO FLAMES!!!! Flames are mean and mean people still suck… hehe…

Disclaimer: I'm broke, don't sue.

Actual disclaimer: Hasbro, Sunbow, Marvel and everyone else owns G.I. Joe. I own nothing except the children I created.

June 21, 1986

9:00PM

The kids didn't seem to be in much present danger, as they were all packed inside the large rec room. Chris, Alayna, Cole, Shannon, Dave, Abby, Beth, and Matt had started a pool tournament at the pool table in the room. Emily, Hallie, Danny, Carla, Alicia, and A.J. were playing poker at a corner card table, where Hallie was currently cleaning them all out (they were using Hershey Kisses and miniature candy bars that Scarlet and Ace had brought them as "money"), Cassandra was sitting in a reclining chair reading Wuthering Heights, which she had found on her mother's bookshelf, and Kaelin and Annie were currently going through the video collection to see if there was a decent movie to watch.

"I'll see your two Hershey Kisses and I'll raise you a Milky Way," Danny said. He was the only person at the poker table to have beaten Hallie that night, but that had been 5 hands ago. He had to hand it to her, she was good.

"Getting pretty confident over there," Carla said. She looked at her own hand and saw the pair of Ace's and pair of 10's. Not a great hand, but certainly not too shabby either.

"Not at all," Danny said, trying to keep up his best poker face. He was holding a full house- two queens and three jacks. He knew he was in a good position to take this hand. Hallie wasn't going to make it easy on him, though.

"Danny, I see your Milky Way and raise you a Milky Way, a Butterfinger, two Snicker bars, and three Hershey Kisses," Hallie said, her face completely serious. She shoved her candy towards the middle of the table.

"I fold," Emily, Alicia, Carla, and A.J. said in unison, throwing their hands face down on the table.

"This game is just a little too rich for me," Carla said.

"I can't afford those stakes," Emily said.

Danny shoved his candy in front of him. "Whatcha have?"

Hallie grinned as she laid her hand in front of him. "Read 'em and weep," she said. "Two queens and three nine's." She reached for the pile of candy in the center of the table, but was stopped by Danny who laid his free hand on top of Hallie's at the center of the pile.

"Not so fast," he said slyly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Carla, Emily, A.J. and Alicia look at him curiously. He laid his cards out on the table, so Hallie and the rest of his friends could see them. "I also have two queen's but I believe my three jack's beat your three nine's," Danny told Hallie.

Hallie could feel her jaw hit the table. "You beat me!" she said incredulously.

Danny nodded. "Um… yes," he said with a slight smile tugging at his lips.

"I want a rematch!" Hallie cried.

"Could you keep it down a little bit? I'm trying to read over here," Cassandra said, turning away from her book to shoot Hallie and the others at the poker table a dirty look.

"Then ignore me," Hallie said, knowing full well that she was being rude but she didn't care.

"It's rather hard to ignore you when you are screeching like a banshee," Cassandra shot back.

"Why you-" Hallie said. She could practically feel the smoke coming out of her ears. Carla grabbed her arms before Hallie could grab Cassandra by the throat and strangle her.

"Hal, it's not worth it," Carla told her. "She's looking for a fight. Don't give her the satisfaction of getting worked up. Otherwise, she wins."

Hallie looked at her best friend and knew she was right. She relaxed slightly, but continued to glare at Cassandra, who was looking rather smug as she returned to reading her book. Carla led her over to the pool table on the other side of the room, where Dave and Abby were playing one another.

"Who's winning?" Carla asked Chris, who was standing with his sister by the table.

"Abby, but only by one ball. Dave's keeping it pretty close," he said.

"It's no surprise," Beth said. "Abby has a pool table in her house and it gets used all the time between her and her dad playing or when it gets used for parties and stuff. And since Dave and I practically live at her house, we're always playing too."

"Yeah, but Abby beat you in the first round," Alayna teased.

"Not by much. At least I didn't get blown away," Beth shot back. Alayna had been beaten fairly badly by Shannon and knocked out of the tournament very quickly. Shannon had knocked the eight ball in before Alayna could even get one of her striped balls into the hole. Carla and Hallie snickered as Beth told the story of Alayna's embarrassing defeat.

"If it's any consolation, I lost pretty badly myself," Chris added, trying to make his sister feel better.

"No kidding. Had either of you ever played before today?" Beth asked.

"Once," Chris admitted. "I was pretty bad then too. And today, Cole whooped me good."

"And Dave whooped him," Beth said.

"How was the poker game?" Shannon asked while trying to keep an eye on the pool game. Dave had just tied the game, by hitting one of his solid balls into a corner pocket.

"Danny won," Hallie said grudgingly. "There will be a rematch. As a matter of fact, there would have been a rematch right then but Cassandra decided to run her mouth so I'm over here to cool off."

"Ignore her," Matt said, rolling his eyes. "She needs to get a life."

"No kidding," Shannon said. "Does anyone know why she's just sitting there reading a book instead of trying to have some fun?"

"Because she's an overachieving egomaniac trying to make us look like we're inferior to her," Carla said. All the kids around her dropped their jaws at Carla. They knew Carla was normally the last person to say anything bad about someone, so when nasty comments did come out her mouth, it shocked people around her.

"Shh!" Alayna said with a grin and a glance in Cassandra's direction. "She might hear you!"

"So what?" Carla asked. "It's not like she's never heard me say that about her before. You forget that we go to school together."

"Aha!" Abby said triumphantly. She had just been able to sink two of her balls into the side pocket, setting herself up for a shot at the eight ball.

"Damn!" Dave said in frustration. "Lucky shot."

"Don't need luck," Abby said with a grin. "I got skills." She moved herself into position to take a shot on the eight ball. "Eight ball, corner pocket," she said, using her pool cue to point to a corner diagonal from her. Dave's eyes followed.

Abby's forehead crinkled as she concentrated on lining up her shot. It actually wouldn't be too difficult. The way the eight ball was set up, she had a clear line to the hole.

Almost everyone in the room was now gathered around the pool table, watching Abby take her shot. Only Cassandra remained indifferent to the situation, as she stayed in her chair and continued reading. Within a few short seconds it was over. Just as Abby had noticed, it was an easy shot that she easily sunk in the desired pocket. Beth ran over and gave her a big hug as both girls started jumping up and down in excitement. Everyone began to congratulate Abby, even Dave, who gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek, causing both of them to blush a deep red.

Cassandra looked up from her book then, utterly disgusted that she couldn't have any peace and quiet because of the shrill screaming coming from the other kids in the room. Sometimes she wondered if they were all truly the same age, and was even more shocked that some of them were older than her and still acted like they were five. "Excuse me," she said loudly, so she could be heard over the noise. The other kids stopped celebrating and shot dirty looks in her direction, which she subsequently ignored. "I'm trying to read here and would really appreciate if you would all shut up and give me some peace and quiet."

"Hello?" Beth said rudely. "First off, you are not the only person here. Second, if I want to make noise in the REC ROOM then I'm going to. And three, if you don't like our noise, then find somewhere else to read because there are sixteen of us and one of you, and the sixteen of us are going to continue to make noise."

"And speaking of noise, Annie and I found a few movies that we think might be winners," Kaelin added.

"Ooh! What did you find?" Shannon asked.

"A lot of movies I had never heard of," Annie said. "But we did find Grease-"

"Hell, no," Matt said quickly.

"And Rocky Horror Picture Show-"

"Hehe. Yeah!" A.J. said with a mischievous grin on his face.

"And Clue," Annie finished.

"Oh, Tim Curry is in that! He is so great in that movie!" Shannon said excitedly.

"I'm with A.J. on this one," Hallie said. "Rocky Horror!"

"No way," Abby said. "Clue."

Kaelin decided to handle this in a more organized way, and took her Palm Pilot out of her pocket so she could keep a running tally. "Okay, lemme just set this up… got it! Alright, whoever wants to see Grease, raise your hand." Nobody raised their hand. "Well, that was easy," she said with a grin. "Okay, whoever wants to see Rocky Horror, raise your hands." A.J., Hallie, Beth, Emily, and Annie raised their hands. "Five for Rocky Horror," Kaelin said. "I hate to break it to you guys, but I have a strange feeling that Clue won."

"Aw, man!" A.J. said. "Hey, maybe we could watch it after Clue," he said hopefully.

"I hope you kids aren't planning on staying up too late," said a voice from the doorway to the room. The group looked up and saw Scarlet and Ace standing in the doorway.

"Nah, just gonna chill and watch a couple movies," Shannon told them.

"Mind if we join you?"

"Not at all," Hallie said. "Just pull up a chair."

"I'm going to go to bed," Cassandra told them. "I'll see you all in the morning. Ta."

"Good night, Cassandra," Scarlet said with a polite smile.

"Night," the rest of the kids mumbled after her.

"Finally, she's gone!" Hallie exclaimed once she was certain that Cassandra was out of earshot.

"Hallie!" Ace scolded. "That wasn't a nice thing to say." He paused to think about what he just said. "Okay, that was weird. For a second I sounded just like my father."

"Hallie and Cassandra hate each other. As far as they're concerned, there is nothing nice to say," Carla explained to him.

"Come to think of it, none of us like her too much," Hallie said.

"Yeah, the word 'fun' isn't in her vocabulary," Shannon said.

"Cut her a little slack," Scarlet said. "You're all stuck here together, you may as well learn how to get along."

"You don't understand," Annie said. "We've spent half our lives hearing how we have to learn how to get along with her. And what do we get in return?"

"A bossy attitude, an ego trip, and a superiority complex, coupled with her treating us as hired help and then telling us that our brand of fun is childish and that we should try to be as 'mature' as her," Abby added. "Last month, she came over my house and I was nice enough to bring her some pizza and a soda from our dinner and instead of saying thank you, she just goes, 'what, you don't have any bottled water?'"

"I wanted to slap her for that," Beth said. "I mean, it was Abby's house, and Cassandra was talking to her like she was some sort of servant or something."

"Points well made," Scarlet said. "I barely know that kid, so I can't say anything bad about her, but she is my best friend's daughter and I just can't imagine her daughter being that nasty when her mother is the nicest person imaginable."

"Oh, we love her mom," Shannon said sincerely. "Her mom's great. But Cassandra spends more of her time with her grandmother who's kinda one of those high society types who love their money and kissing up to other rich people. Cassandra takes after her more than anyone."

"Oh, lord, her mother is still around?" Scarlet asked. "I don't know the woman but I've heard enough to know that her and Lady Jaye are like night and day. I guess the attitude skipped her and went straight to her daughter."

"Can we not talk about Cassandra?" Hallie asked disgustedly. "We're supposed to be having fun and talking about her is only gonna piss me off."

"Let's just start the movie," Kaelin said impatiently.

"What movie?" The kids turned around upon hearing another voice coming from the doorway. Mainframe, Cover Girl, Shipwreck, Wild Bill, Roadblock, Duke, and Alpine were standing in the doorway, looking curiously at Kaelin, expecting to hear about the movie.

"Clue," Kaelin told them simply. She picked up the movie from where it was sitting on the coffee table and held it up for them to see. "We found it in the movie collection."

Mainframe went over and took the tape from her hands, reading the back of the box the tape was inside. "I haven't seen this yet," he said.

"Are you kidding me?" Abby asked incredulously. "It's like, the best movie. Well, one of the best movies. Tim Curry is hysterical in this movie."

"Yeah, he gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'the butler did it,'" Shannon said with a giggle.

"Does anyone realize that he's also in Rocky Horror?" A.J. asked randomly.

"Who?" Beth asked.

"Tim Curry. He's in both movies we picked out."

"He is? Wow, that's pretty weird," Beth said.

"Where's Cassandra?" Lady Jaye asked as she popped her head inside the doorway.

"She said she was going to bed," Emily said before Hallie could respond.

"Thanks." She walked off down the hallway, curious as to why Cassandra would be going to bed so early.

Kaelin jumped in before anyone else could detain them from starting the movie and took the box from Mainframe's hands. "Before it gets any later, I'm putting this movie in," she announced to everyone in the room. "So take a seat, sit back, and enjoy the show!"

To be continued…

Author's Note: What's Cassandra's problem? Is she going to change her attitude or is she doomed to be the thorn in the children's side for the rest of her life? I'll tackle that in the next chapter… so please keep reading and reviewing!

Thank you again for your positive comments! It's what is keeping me going!