Disclaimer: see the previous chapters. BTW, I don't own Coca-Cola.

Note: Hey! Sorry for the long wait for this chappie. This one is going to be Aurora's birthday party, including some chars of my own creation, a visit from our favorite chalk family, and a game of "Spin the Bottle"! Hope you like!

Chapter 5: Aurora's Birthday Bash

"So, Mom, what kind of cake did you get for me?" Aurora asked Penny eagerly. It was the day of her party, and the guests were slated to arrive in about half an hour.

"Chocolate cake with Rocky Road ice cream. That way, everyone will have plenty of sugar, though I'm not sure if that is a good thing."

"Thanks, Mom!" Aurora gave her mother a quick hug before going into the dining room and checking to make sure that the snacks and sodas were all ready for the guests. As she made a few adjustments to the arrangement of the bowls, Rudy and Penny walked in.

"Hey Mom, hey Dad," Aurora said. "Thanks again for letting me have a co-ed party."

"How's the setup coming?" Rudy asked.

"Just fine. Now, you two are going to stay out of the living room, right?"

"Yes," Penny answered. "But only until eleven. Then we get custody of the room again. You and the girls can all go upstairs, but the guys have to leave."

"Are you saying that you're gonna let the girls sleep over?"

"Yep. We've already talked to their parents, and they've all agreed," Rudy said.

"Great! Thank you so much!"

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be?" Penny asked in a knowing tone.

"I don't know," Aurora answered, clueless. "I'll answer the door."

Aurora walked to the front door, opening it to reveal a teenage boy with dark hair and light brown eyes.

"Dylan? What are you doing here so early?"

"Well, your dad called my dad, and he said that I could come over early so that I could have a look at his new art; you know, before the party started."

"Oh, okay. Well, come on in!"

Dylan walked through the door, brushing against Aurora as he passed. She felt a sudden warmth where Dylan's arm had grazed hers, and she couldn't explain why she had enjoyed the abrupt floating feeling in her stomach that had accompanied it. She'd had crushes before, she knew; this feeling wasn't unfamiliar, but she'd never encountered it when Dylan was concerned. Aurora ignored it and continued setting up for the party.

"Dylan, it's so good to see you again!" Penny said happily as the teenage boy walked into Rudy's office/art studio.

"Thanks, Mrs. Tabootie. When Mr. Tabootie invited me to check out his work, I came right over."

"Dylan, you're here! Perfect timing. I just put the finishing touches on my latest painting." Rudy led Dylan over to an easel, where a painting of two couples was sitting. Dylan didn't notice Penny walk out of the room, so absorbed in the painting was he.

In the first couple, the girl had dark brown hair and brown eyes with glasses. The boy had lighter brown hair and green eyes. The two were locked in a loving embrace, staring into each other's eyes. They stood under an oak tree near a brook, and on the tree you could see the letters RTPS surrounded by a heart.

(AN: hint, hint! If you don't get it, you're denser than I thought!)

The other couple was walking down a nearby country road, hand in hand. The girl looked like a mix of the first two people, almost as if she was related to them. The boy seemed very familiar to Dylan; however, he couldn't quite figure out why.

"What's it called?" Dylan asked.

"Lover's Lane," Rudy said.

"I really like it. The people seem really familiar to me. Are they based on people you know?"

"I suppose you could say that." Rudy smiled broadly.

Dylan studied the painting for a moment more before shrugging his shoulders. "So, what else have you been working on?"

"Aurora!" Penny called down the stairway. "Come on! We've got to go pick up Lilly!"

"Coming, Mom!" Aurora called back. Aurora walked upstairs to her parent's room.

"You have to draw the portal," Penny said. "You're the artist, after all."

"All right." Aurora grasped the magic chalk firmly in her hand and drew a large hole on the chalkboard next to her parents' bed. Snap's head popped through the hole, startling Aurora and causing her to jump backwards.

"Hey, Penny, Aurora. Lilly's right here." He stepped aside to reveal the blonde teenager. "Come on in!"

Aurora and Penny clambered through the hole and into Chalk Zone. Aurora immediately approached Lilly and the two began to talk. Meanwhile, Penny was discussing some things with Snap and Dusty.

"We'll have her back at eleven o'clock, real world time. Is that okay with you?"

"That's fine," Dusty said. "We put plenty of food in her knapsack, so she should be all set for the evening."

"Great!" Penny said. She got the attention of the two teenagers and herded them through the portal into the real world. Aurora noticed that, unlike she had originally thought, Lilly was completely three-dimensional. Nobody would be able to tell that she came from a two-dimensional world made from chalk.

"Well, it's five minutes before six," Penny announced. "Aurora, why don't you go downstairs and wait for your guests while I give Lilly the 'grand tour'?"

"Sounds good!" Aurora walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs while Penny showed Lilly around the second floor.

"Hey, 'Rora!" Jaclyn Roberts said as she walked through the front door, sleeping bag and overnight bag in tow. "Happy Birthday!"

"Thanks, Jackie!" Aurora replied. She held the door open for Harold Sawyer, Jaclyn's boyfriend, who was carrying two rather large gifts. Once he was inside, he placed them on the floor in the pile of gifts that already stood as tall as Aurora's knees.

"Well, I think that's everyone!" Aurora announced, looking at the assorted faces around her.

"Wait, where's Dylan?" Susan Gilbert asked. "He should have been here by now."

"He's here. He's upstairs, looking at some of my dad's artwork."

"Oh, okay."

Suddenly, Rudy, Penny, Dylan and Lilly all walked downstairs. Aurora grabbed Lilly's hand and dragged her over to the group of teens.

"Everyone, this is Lilly. She's the daughter of one of my father's friends. I invited her today so that she could get to know the people here better, since she's living nearby." Everyone expressed a different version of "Hi, welcome to the neighborhood" toward Lilly.

Lilly simply smiled and said, "Thank you so much. Ever since I met Aurora a few days ago, I feel like we've become pretty good friends. I hope that you will give me the same opportunity."

"Well, as soon as the pizza gets here, we can get this party started!" Aurora said happily. As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Everyone got quiet for a moment, then yelled, "PIZZA!!!" Rudy left the room to go retrieve the pizzas, while Penny handed out plates and napkins.

"Remember," Penny said, "No pizza or dark soda in the living room. You make the mess, you clean it up."

"Yes, ma'am," everyone said in unison. All of the teens lined up as Rudy re-entered the living room/dining room, making sure that Aurora was in the front.

When everyone had eaten their fill of pizza and, later, cake and ice cream (Lilly had eaten one of her chalk sandwiches from her bag), they sat down and tried to decide what to do next.

"We could watch a movie," Kim Lawson, a stocky African-American with dyed blonde hair, suggested. She said this as she snuggled on the loveseat with her boyfriend, a tall, athletic African-American baseball player named Shane Miller.

"Nah," Susan replied.

"I've got an idea," Anna Crawford said suddenly. She finished her bottle of cola and walked into the kitchen. The sound of running water could be heard as she rinsed out the glass bottle. When she returned, everyone's interest was peaked. "Why don't we play Spin-the-Bottle Truth or Dare?"

Everyone voiced their agreement; everyone, that is, except for Aurora.

"No, there's an uneven number. We're supposed to sit boy-girl-boy-girl, right?"

"It's okay, Aurora," Lilly said. "I'll sit out. I've never played this before, so I think I'd rather watch before jumping right in." At one point during the afternoon, Anna had told Lilly that the guests were trying to get Aurora and Dylan together, so she was doing everything in her power to get them as close as possible.

"Are you sure, Lilly?"

"Positive."

"Well...okay."

They sat in a circle on the hardwood floor of the kitchen, making sure that they were alternating genders. They arrange themselves so that every girl who had a boyfriend was sitting across from him, which left Aurora sitting across from Dylan.

"Well," Will Dalton, Anna's boyfriend, began. "Aurora, you spin first, since you're the birthday girl."

"Okay." Aurora grasped the glass bottle and gave it a hard spin with a flick of her wrist. It spun around on the floor, eventually stopping with its neck pointing toward John Hamilton, editor of the school paper and Susan's boyfriend.

"Okay John, truth or dare?" Aurora asked.

"I pick 'truth'," John answered confidently.

"Okay, now before any secrets are disclosed, let's agree that nothing leaves this room on pain of having your eyebrows plucked out hair by hair, agreed?"

"Agreed," everyone else said in unison.

"Okay. Now, John...how far have you gone with Susan?"

"Well...the farthest we've gone is...first base."

Everyone said, "Aww, man!", feeling cheated after being strung along like that.

John reached for the bottle and spun it. It landed on Anna, who chose "dare."

"Anna," John said, "You must...peel an orange and eat it...without using your hands." John stood and walked over to a basket of fruit on the table. He pulled out a rather large orange and handed it to her. "You can hold it with your hands, but that's it. Everything else has to be done with some other part of your body."

"No problem," Anna replied. She promptly bit into the orange peel with her teeth, grimacing at the bitter taste. Quickly, she ripped a chunk of the peel off and spat it onto a plate that Will had gotten for her.

Three minutes later, Anna had finished peeling the orange and was about halfway done eating it. When she was finished eating it, Will gave her a long, deep kiss.

"I've always wondered if someone tasted like oranges after eating one," he explained.

Anna spun the bottle, which landed on Dylan.

"Dylan, you know the drill."

"Dare," the Southerner said quickly.

"I dare you to kiss any one girl in this room, on the lips, for at least five seconds."

"All right, I choose--"

"Hey, I wasn't finished! What I was going to say was that I get to choose who you kiss, and I choose...Aurora!"

"Well, I was going to choose Aurora anyway," Dylan said with a wink as he stood. "I don't want any of these guys to beat me up for making a move on their girls, and I don't know Lilly well enough to consider her. No offense," he added, looking at Lilly.

"None taken," she assured him.

"Well?" Anna prodded. "Do it already!"

"Hey, now, don't I get a say in all this?" Aurora interrupted, standing herself. "Can't we, I don't know, go into the closet or something?"

"Well, I suppose, if you're chicken." Aurora stepped forward and closer to Dylan, who also took a step forward.

"I'm not chicken, I just think that there should be a little privacy," Aurora said.

"Aurora," Dylan said softly.

"Yes?" she answered, turning to him. Suddenly, he placed his lips on hers, keeping them there for the dared five seconds. When he pulled away, they were both bright red.

"There. Happy?"

"Very," Anna replied.

Dylan spun the bottle, which landed on Aurora.

"Well, I think I'll pick...truth."

"Okay," Dylan said. After a moment of thought, he asked, "How would you rate the kiss?"

"What's the scale?"

"1 to 10, with 5 as average, 7 as great, and 10 as exceptional."

"Umm...2. No, I'm just kidding. Well...let me think...I'd have to say...8 and a half."

The guests all said collectively, "Oooooo."

"Really?" Dylan asked.

"Yeah. Although, there wasn't that much to work with. In order to give an accurate rating, I would have to kiss Dylan several times with varying lengths of time and a different amount of passion each time, then average them to give a mean rating."

Everyone but Lilly and Dylan groaned.

"Aurora," Jaclyn said, "We don't want to hear you go into scientific detail about how much you want to make out with Dylan. We want to play the game."

Aurora turned red again. "I don't want to make out with Dylan," she mumbled as she spun the bottle. It landed on Susan.

"Truth or Dare?" Aurora asked.

"Dare."

"Umm...well...oh, great. That last dare has me so flustered I can't even think of a good one."

"Hey! How about this?" Dylan stood and walked over to Aurora. He got down on his knees and whispered something into her ear.

"Okay," she whispered back. Dylan returned to his seat. "Susan, I dare you to drink a junk food smoothie."

"A what?"

Come into the kitchen with Dylan and me."

The group ventured into the kitchen and over to the table where all of the snacks had been placed. Aurora retrieved a bowl from one of the cupboards, and she and Dylan proceeded to fill it with such items as potato chips, pretzels, popcorn, cake, and even a portion of a leftover slice of pizza. They placed these items into a blender, along with some Coke and a large scoop of ice cream. When everything was in the blender, Dylan capped it and Aurora turned it on. A few minutes later, Susan was sitting at the table with a large glass of the concoction in front of her.

"Umm, do you mind if I drink this in the bathroom? I want to be near the toilet in case I throw up," Susan explained.

"Only if either Dylan or myself can be in there with you to make sure that you drink it," Aurora answered.

"Why is Dylan involved with this so much?"

"Because it was his idea. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. I was just wondering."

Susan picked up the glass and motioned to Aurora to accompany her into the bathroom. When they emerged a few minutes later, Aurora was beaming, while Susan had a look of utter revulsion on her face.

"So how was it?" John asked, rubbing Susan's back.

Susan replied heavily, "Raunchy. Not as bad as it looked at first, but still raunchy. I'm surprised that I didn't throw up."

Dylan and Aurora high-fived each other in glee.

"Susie, you up to continue the game?" Anna asked.

"Yeah, just give me a sec."

When Susan and John sat back down in their places, Susan spun the bottle and it stopped on Shane. He chose dare, and was dared to chug three glasses of Coca-Cola. He did so admirably, only letting loose one enormous burp after finishing his third glass.

"Nice one!" John, Will and Harold said in unison.

"Thanks!" Shane replied.

At about 8:30, the teenagers all settled down to watch a movie. After much debate, they decided on watching Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which Kim had brought with her. Aurora and Lilly hadn't seen it, so they were quite excited. Kim, Shane, Anna and Will were all sitting on the couch; Susan and John had claimed the large recliner; and Lilly, Jaclyn and Harold were laying on the floor, which left Dylan and Aurora the loveseat. At the beginning of the movie, they were sitting on opposite ends of the short sofa, but by the time Elizabeth had been found by the pirates searching for the gold piece, Aurora was sitting quite close to him.

At the point where the true forms of the pirates aboard the Black Pearl were revealed for the first time, Aurora quickly turned her head and buried it into Dylan's shoulder. She felt better when a comforting arm snaked about her shoulders; she didn't realize that it was Dylan's arm until she looked up and found that her face was mere inches from his. She blushed and, deciding to be bold, rested her head on his shoulder as she returned to watching the movie. He won't mind, she thought. After all, we're best friends. A few moments later, she continued, But is that all I want us to be?

Well, I hope you liked it!!!

Next chappie: The girls have their slumber party! And more of Aurora's thoughts on Dylan!

WARNING: Major fluff ahead!!!