Ephram looked around the lunchroom for the crazy girl that bombarded him this morning. He never really realized how many people they stuffed in there at once, and it still seemed 'roomy'. He looked towards the corner of the room and saw Tara standing up, waving at him.  He just shook his head, hoping that this wouldn't be a disaster.

"Hi Ephram." Ephram pulled a chair out and looked at the others sitting at the table. There were three others besides Tara, two girls and one boy. Both girls were reading worn copies of books. The blonde was reading a Tolkien book while the brunette was absorbed in Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare. The only male was fiddling with a Rubix cube while listening to his headphones.

"Guys, this is Ephram." Tara announced, taking her seat and pushing aside her textbooks. The two girls looked up and smiled, while the boy just nodded, still playing with the cube. "Ephram, this is the guys. That's Tri with Shakespeare," the brunette nodded and went back to reading her book, "Trekki is the one reading Tolkien," she smiled again and put her book down, "and Brent who isn't paying attention." Tara said, raising her voice at the end of the sentence. Tri nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. He pulled the headphones off and looked at his friend.

            "What was that for?" He asked. Tri just shook her head, and stuck her hand out to Ephram. "It's nice meeting you, Ephram." He shook her hand, before turning to Tara. 

            "So, you said you needed to give me something for Gigi?"

            "Yeah, here." She pulled the empty chair out next to her and pointed to a stack of magazines up.

            "Here's all 30 of them." The group just smirked as Ephram looked at them with a confused expression.

            "Those are the sales catalogs for Love Monkey." Tri informed him, as she closed her book. "It's a joke among us with who has to carry them. She usually sticks me with them, but it changes to whoever is on her bad side at the time."

            "And Tri is usually always on her bad side." Trekki mocked, as Tri stuck her tongue out at her.

            "Are you entirely confused?" Brent asked Ephram, twisting the Rubix cube again.

            "Yes I am."

            "Don't worry. It will become a common feeling after a while with these 3, four when Gigi is back on her feet." With one final twist, Brent gave a shout of joy.

            "I finally beat this thing." He threw the cube in the air then shoved it under the girls' noses. "And you said it was impossible." Tri grabbed the cube and inspected it.

            "You switched two of these stickers." She threw the cube at Brent and smacked him in the shoulder. Ephram just smirked watching the childish antics of the upperclassmen, as they pushed each other repeatedly.

            "Ephram, I'll help you out with those magazines if you want. I don't have anything going on tonight, so I can drive you home. I have to give something to Gigi anyway." Tri then turned to the others at the table. "Can you believe she called me at 5:30 this morning?"

            "Another thing you'll notice is that the girls change the subject faster than the redlight on Main Street." Brent whispered under Tri's complaining. Ephram smirked and tried to follow the girls conversation, which was jumping drastically from early mornings, to homework, to something gooey found in Gigi's locker. Ephram looked back at Brent, who was changing CD's in his Walkman.

            "So what are you listening to?" He asked.

            "Oh, a mixture of stuff. Beatles, Badlees, Dashboard Confessional, Aerosmith. I like different kinds of music." Brent answered, pulling his headphones down off his ears. "Do you burn your own CDs?"

            "Yeah, basically my entire collection is from downloading."

            "Best way to go. Do you listen to punk?"

            "Yeah." He answered, poking at the neglected food on his plate.

Trekki pushed a box of Nilla wafers across the table at him. "Don't trust the cafeteria food. Last year there was an outbreak of food poisoning." Ephram looked down at the tray in front of him and his stomach churned.

"We haven't eaten school food since." Brent said, taking an apple out of his lunch bag. He handed it to Ephram, who just pushed his plate away from him.

"Mainly because we were the kids that got it." Tara said, laughing.

"I haven't made that many sacrifices to the porcelain god in one day my entire life." Trekki commented. Tri choked on the lemonade she was drinking, and covered her nose and mouth with her hands, so she wouldn't spit, or snort it across the table.

"I bet that stings." Ephram commented, holding back a smile with all the effort he could muster. Tri just nodded, with her eyes brimming with tears. Once she calmed down long enough to swallow, she spoke up, with a strangled voice. "Welcome to the gang, Ephram."

 The period bell rang loudly, dampening the joys and laughter of most of the students. As the five of them started cleaning up their table, Tri gave Ephram directions on where to meet her.

"My car is the only yellow Grand Am in the parking lot. I don't know if your bike will fit in the trunk though."

"I can take it with me." Brent offered. "The back seat in my car can be laid down, so it should fit."

"Thanks." Ephram said, shifting his bag on his shoulder. "I'll just get it from you tomorrow then."

At two-thirty, Ephram and Tri left the school parking lot.

"So are you liking Everwood so far?" Tri asked.

"Not really. New York was much better."
"I can imagine. So many lights, millions of people. It's my dream place."
"I think it's everyone's dream place." Ephram said, looking out the car window.
"Except of course the people that choose to live in Hicksville USA."

Tri stopped at the intersection. "I'm not saying this is Hicksville, I just don't like small towns." She turned left onto another road. "I want to live on Broadway, or in Hollywood. Whatever will get my acting career the jump it needs. I've even seriously thought about moving to Britain to get a role in the Harry Potter movies, and to mingle with the hot Scottish guys." Tri grinned goofily at Ephram. "Nothing better than a fine man in a kilt."

Ephram looked at her puzzled. "Why would you want to see a guy in a skirt?"
"Don't say that to the others, they may just put one on you themselves. You would look pretty hot in one." Shaking his head, Ephram diverted his glance away from Tri, who was still grinning.
"Is this your street or the next?"
"The next."
"Okay." Tri kept driving. "Have you ever been to a Renaissance Faire?"
"A what?" She looked at him shocked, as he was clueless about her question.

"The Renaissance Faire, a place to celebrate and experience the Shakespearean and Elizabethan era. You've never heard of them?" Tri turned onto the next street.

"No, I'm not into that kind of stuff."

"Just you wait, there's one in Larkspur. Hang out with us long enough and you'll be reciting Shakespeare, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings where ever you go. Which house is yours?"

"That one." She pulled up in front of the house he pointed to and whistled through her teeth. "No wonder your dad works for free." After pulling the key out of the ignition, she opened the car door and walked to the back of the car. "Here, take fifteen of them." Ephram grabbed half of the sales catalogs and started towards the house.

"GAH!!!!!  HUMAN BEING!"  Gigi screamed when Ephram walked into the house.  He jumped and almost ran back outside.

"You're still here?" He asked, setting the magazines down onto a chair.

"Yes, I'm still here.  I can't really move much.  I've been having to hold my bladder all day, hand me the crutches over there."  Gigi pointed across the room.

"Why are they over there?" Ephram asked when he went to fetch them.

"Your father caught me trying to steal candy from your pantry.  So he turned me back over to the couch and handed me a bag of M&M's.  He said I couldn't move.  He left before I could ask what I was supposed to do when I needed to pee."  Ephram snorted and handed the crutches to the older girl.  She pushed herself off the couch and clumsily made her way to the bathroom.  Ephram just shook his head in disbelief.

Tri stepped into after Gigi had already left the room.

"Where's Franky?"

"Bathroom."

"Oh…" She put the magazines on top of the others and looked around the room. Her eyes landed on the near empty bag of candy next to the couch. "Oh no, you gave her M&M's?"

"My dad did, why?"

"Oh nothing. She just recites about every commercial known to man after eating them. She watches too much television." Tri stuffed her hands into her pockets and looked around the other rooms on the first floor.

"What are you doing here?" Gigi came hobbling back into the room.

"I brought the things you requested this morning. You know, the things you couldn't wait until 6:30 for?" Tri opened up her backpack and pulled a DVD player out, and five DVD's. Gigi rubbed her hands together, gleefully.

"If you hook that up for me Ephram, I'll show you some real anime."

~*~*~*~

AN:// YAY! I finally got around to typing this up. You don't know how hard that was, because half of this was missing, and the other half was in 5 different notebooks. I'm getting back into the mood of writing. So hopefully, I'll get the next chapter out faster than this one took. Please review, they are greatly appreciated.