"I don't know how to do the rest!" Elizabeth yelled from the kitchen. It was the following day, mid-afternoon. Chris thanked Leah for letting him in, and then went in to the brightly-lit kitchen to talk to Elizabeth and Gordie. He stood unnoticed for a moment while they argued.

"You'll never know how to do the rest if you keep skipping all the questions that require marginal thinking," Gordie scolded.

Chris smiled. Gordie used to tutor him all the time, and while he was a patient teacher, he got tight assed from time to time. And Chris didn't have half the temper or whining capability that Elizabeth had, so he could hardly imagine how annoyed Gordie would be getting with her. But of course he loved her even when she was pissing the hell out of him.

"Did you ever notice how the number 8 looks like a headless snowman?" she giggled. "AUGGHH his head is on a rampage! Nooooooooo--" She shut up when Gordie threw an eraser at her and hit her in the eye. "ARGLEBLEURG…whimper…"

"Looks like I'm not interrupting too much," Chris said.

"Chris!" Elizabeth cried, clutching her face. "Did you see what he just did?"

"No. Sorry." He grinned. "Umm, is your brother home?"

Ren was inspecting eggplants. She hated grocery shopping, but her mom was passed out on the sofa and their cupboards could use some restocking.

"Ren!" Caroline said from behind her, poisonously delighted to see her. She was picking up potatoes for her mother.

Ren looked up, saw Caroline, and looked back down at the eggplants. "Hi."

"How's life?"

She shrugged. "Good, thanks."

"I haven't talked to you in forever, what's new and exciting?"

Ren asked impatiently, "What is this? Why are you making small talk with me like this?"

Pretending to look hurt, Caroline said, "Well…I thought it was normal to talk to my friend."

"You still consider yourself my friend?" she demanded.

"Listen, Ren," Caroline said. "You're my best friend. Whatever I did to piss you off, I'm sorry. Just be my friend again.

"Do I look stupid or something?"

"No, you look lonely and confused, and if you just stop being so--stuck up and come back to where you belong--"

"Forget it. I didn't belong in your group to begin with. Now that I don't have to worry about being good enough for you, I can actually be myself."

"You can't be yourself! You've never been anyone!" she shrilled. "Are you trying to get back at me for going out with Michael Perkins? You can have him back. He's an idiot and he's lousy in the sack. He knows like one move and repetitive motions make me queasy."

"Well, as tempting as that sounds, no thank you. I'm seeing someone."

Caroline's carefully painted lips twisted into a cruel smile. "You really are doing Chambers!"

"You are such a bitch," Ren snapped.

"Yeah, because I'm right," she said back pleasantly. "Please excuse me and my potatoes now."

Chris knocked on Zeke's bedroom door lightly. He didn't want to start anything, he just wanted to set things right.

Zeke pulled open his door. "Hey, Chris. What are you doing here? You can come in, but beware of falling objects."

He wasn't exaggerating; the room was a pigsty.

"What can I do for you?" Zeke asked. "Ahahaha so that's what I did with the hammer."

"If you ever lay a finger on Ren again, it will be your ass, do you understand me, Zeke?"

Zeke's eyes grew in size, but he nodded solemnly. "I swear to God, Chris, last night was a complete misunderstanding. I wouldn't hurt a girl like that."

"I believe you," Chris said. "But just so you know, my opinion of you is pretty low right now. I never thought you would take out a girl for an easy lay."

"I know, it was stupid," he said. "I'm just kind of embarrassed about being a--I mean, I'm almost twenty and I've never, um…yes."

"News flash, nobody cares."

"Is Ren okay?" Zeke asked. "She really was pretty okay to talk to."

"She's alright, yeah," he replied.

"Would she go out with me again maybe?"

"No," Chris told him. "She's with me."

Zeke grinned. "Ooh, Chambers steps up to the plate," he laughed.

Elizabeth called Ren to come over when Gordie was in the bathroom. When he came back, he asked, "So did you figure out how fast you'd have to be going if you want to get to Destination X in the allotted amount of time?"

She giggled and thought about how cute he was when he was being smart. Then she said, "According to my calculations, you'd have to travel at a rate of negative forty-eight miles per hour. What the hell? LIES!" She flung her notebook to the floor. Loose papers fluttered across the kitchen.

Gordie picked up her book and inspected it. "Why did you convert everything into decimals? How did you convert everything into decimals? You can't just make up numbers because you feel like it."

Elizabeth's body slumped forward onto the table and she began to whimper and grumble. He couldn't make out any of the words she was saying. All he heard was, "…fruggen grr…Stupid."

"You're not stupid," he told her, massaging her shoulder. "School work just doesn't agree with some people. At least you can always fall back on your cuteness."

"Cute is for baby ducks and kittens playing with yarn," she muttered.

"Hmm. You don't like being called cute, hey? How about sexilicious?"

He heard a muffled snicker. "Okay."

Later on, the doorbell rang. Gordie went to answer it so Elizabeth could do her work. He was rather surprised to see Ren; he hadn't known she was coming over. "Hey Ren."

"Gordie. Imagine meeting you here at Elizabeth's place of inhabitance." She grinned.

"Yes. Imagine that." He also smiled. "Now tell me what it is that you want before I get out my shotgun and chase you off of the Jacobs' property."

"I just thought I'd drop by to tell you about the Rasmussen Two-For-One deal. Money's tight, so our mom's putting her children's bodies up for sale."

Gordie laughed. "Well you might as well come in then."

"It depends how much you're paying."

"Wait, you said something about a Two-For-One deal? Where's Rasmussen number two?"

"I have a brother. He's a tramp."

"Oh. I don't want him. You can come in though."

Elizabeth ran to the front entrance. Ren, thank God you're here! My brain is just about to explode! It should be pretty amazing!"

"That's nice." She laughed. "Do you want some help with your homework?"

"That's what I've been trying to do," Gordie sighed.

"I'm taking a fucking break, alright? Come on in, you can help me find something to eat."

"You like to eat, don't you?" Ren giggled, following her. "I bought an eggplant today."

"That's gross. Don't talk about vegetables around me. They make me want to yak."

"Are pickles vegetables?"

"I don't really know, but you can talk about them if you like." She bent down and looked through a corner cupboard. "Oh my God. Who the hell ate the cereal?"

Chris and Zeke walked down the stairs, laughing about something.

"Zeke, did you eat my Wheaties?" Elizabeth demanded. "If you did, I'm afraid I'll have to destroy you."

Zeke, with a witty comeback to give his sister, saw Ren. She was looking amazingly poised and almost regal that day, and he was so embarrassed all of a sudden that he blushed furiously. He said, "No, I didn't eat your Wheaties, but I'll go get some more. I'll be back." He smiled minutely and left.

"Hey, Ren," Chris said, smiling. "I thought I heard you."

"What were you and Zeke talking about?" she asked even though she already knew.

"Uhh, politics."

She laughed, but she was feeling pretty loved. She'd never had someone to stick up for her like that before.

"Ooh, I think I see some wafer cookies," Elizabeth said excitedly. After she'd retrieved her cookies, she stood up and saw Chris and Ren giggling together. She exchanged looks with a completely weirded-out Gordie. "Holy crap!'

"What?" Gordie, Chris and Ren all said in unison.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I am smart, you are stupid, I win, you suck, bahahahahaha!"

"What are you babbling about, you psychotic fruit loop?" Gordie demanded. "You're getting cookies crumbs everywhere by bouncing around like that."

She pointed at Chris and Ren. "Gordie, are you blind and uneducated? Can you not see the 'I'm in love' glances they're giving each other? And the sickening giggles? And then blushing? And the stupid smiles?"

A slow smile spread across Gordie's face. "Ohhh! Right."

"You don't get it, do you?" she asked.

"Sure I do. Just tell me so that I know you get it."

"Idiot," she giggled. "They like each other. And they acted upon the likingness of each other."

"Ohh! Way to go, Chris!" he said. "And yay to you too, Ren."

Elizabeth waggled her entire body in some kind of dance. "I told you so!"

"You told nothing," Chris said.

"I did so! I was like 'little do they know but they will fall madly in love with each despite all odds.'"

"You didn't say anything like that," he laughed.

"Oh," she giggled. "I must have said that in my head and only imagined that I said it out loud. Anyway, I was right. I told you so!"

Ren grinned. "Elizabeth, don't be smug."

"Fine," she sighed. She beamed and poked Ren in the nose. "I told you he liked you." She looked at Chris. "And what the hell is wrong with you and your stupid unhappy ending to Romeo and Juliet analogies? You liked her and you were just being silly!"

"Lizzy, it all worked out well. Let's leave it at that," Chris said.

"I told you so!" She nodded proudly. "I bet you're all thinking that I'm really smart, aren't you?"

"No, not really," the others replied.