Balloons in a Basket
Chapter One: Meet the Girls
Rank 96

"Oh I'm just so excited! Three new students! I hope they're nice," Tohru Honda pondered out loud to the two boys on either side of her.

"They'll probably be a bunch of air heads anyways," Kyou Sohma, the boy with orange hair on the right, muttered darkly.

The other boy ignored this. "I'm sure they'll be kind, Miss Honda," he said, smiling slightly towards the shorter girl. Tohru returned the smile, while Kyou just scoffed.

"C'mon Yuki, Kyou. We should be to class early so we get a chance to talk to them before the bell!" Tohru said optimistically, innocently grabbing both boys' hands and dragging them into the class room. Kyou and Yuki were blushing at this, but they acted as normal as ever when Tohru let go of them.

"See? There not even in here! We didn't have to come in so early!" Kyou said angrily, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Tohru looked hurt by his comment. "Oh... I'm sorry Kyou. I shouldn't have dragged you in here like that..."

Kyou looked put off by this, and scratched his head. "Don't be, okay? Its fine," he grunted, and took his spot.

Soon enough, the bell had rung. Everyone was in their newly assigned seats for the quarter. Well, everyone that is, except for the new students. Everyone was getting a bit impatient, even the teacher. They wanted to know who the transfers were.

At twenty minutes past the bell, the door to the classroom burst open and three girls holding hands burst into the room. One fell to the floor, while the other two walked over her and towards the teacher, panicked looks on their faces.

"We're sorry we're late, Sensei!" a tall girl with extremely long hair and glasses apologized. There was something odd about her bag. It looked as though she had a thin square box in her bag as well as her school stuff.

"Yeah! We got lost on the way here! My dad forgot the way and everything, seeing as we just moved here and all," another girl with blonde hair explained, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

The other girl, who was still on the floor, was laughing nervously to herself, a bit afraid to get off the ground.

"C'mon! Get up!" the blonde said, prodding her friend with her foot.

"S-sorry," she said, laughing nervously before standing up and dusting off her uniform. She took a few steps towards the teacher and gave an apologetic smile, not saying anything.

"It's quite alright. We were getting a bit worried about you three, but you're alright, so all is well and forgiven. I am Mr. Okazaki. Please, introduce yourselves to the class, and then we'll play a little name game," Mr. Okazaki said with a smile, getting a collection of groans from the students. "Oh hush," he said exasperatedly to his pupils. Then he turned and waited for them to introduce themselves.

The girl who had fell spoke first. "Hello. I'm Luci Ariwa," she said with a smile, pushing her bangs of brownish-red to the side of her face. Luci then poked the taller of her two friends.

"I'm Trina Maehata," she said, cradling her bag to her stomach, as if protecting it, or rather, protecting something inside of it. Both girls then turned to look darkly at the third.

"Ugh, fine," she muttered. "I'm Jamie Nagano," she said unenthusiastically to the class.

"Thank you, Miss Nagano. Now, as I point at you, tell your name and something about yourself," Mr. Okazaki suggested. Didn't he know that those games never really worked? They were just a way to make fun of yourself in front of others. Halfway around the room, he got to the Sohma's, Tohru, and her friends. Tohru was first.

"Hi! I'm Tohru Honda. My favorite game to play is Rich Man, Poor Man!" she exclaimed happily, standing up briefly before sitting back down. Yuki was next.

"I'm Yuki Sohma, and I am on the student council." Trina noticed a bunch of girls sitting near him that were ogling at him. She looked at them with a glare. Yuki sat back down, the girls did not stop staring, but Trina moved her gaze to the next person, a girl with black hair that looked rather gothic.

"I am Saki Hanajima, and your waves tell me that you could become a problem," she said monotonously, looking at the three darkly. She didn't stand up either, but no one objected. The three transfers all shivered when she spoke, already creeped out by her.

The next to go was a tough looking blonde. She stood up and gave them a forced smile. "I'm Arisa Uotani, and if you called me Arisa, I'll punch you. It's Uo," she said, before sitting down. No one objected to what she said either. It seemed that most of the class, besides Tohru, Hana, and Yuki, were afraid of her too.

The last to go was a boy with orange hair and an annoyed look on his face. "I'm Kyou Sohma, and I hate leeks," he said shortly before sitting down.

Mr. Okazaki gave a small chuckle and turned to the three new students. "I'll give you your seats now, alright? Trina, you will be seated to the left of Yuki." Trina, still hugging her bag, walked over to her seat and sat down. She gave Yuki a quick glance before setting her bag on her desk. "Luci, you will be seated next to Ms. Uotani." Luci nodded and sat down, giving Uo a smile before taking a pencil and a notebook from her bag. "Ms. Nagano, you will be sitting a seat behind Ms. Ariwa, next to Kyou." Jamie scowled and walked back to her seat in the last row of seat next to Kyou. She growled (yes, she growled) at him before laying her head down on her desk. She already didn't like the orange haired boy.

The rest of class progressed steadily. Every now and then, Mr. Okazaki would ask one of the three girls a question on whether they had learned the material, and they would nod or shake their heads in answer, and he would either explain it to them, or continue teaching.

Finally, at 12:15, the lunch bell rang. Mostly everyone shot out of the classroom, but a few were lagging behind. Tohru Honda, who was eager to talk to the three new students, had stayed behind. Thus, her friends and the two Sohma boys stayed with her. So Tohru's group and the three new students were the only ones left in the classroom at the second bell.

Tohru put on a smile and walked up to them. "Hi! If you remember, my name is Tohru Honda!" she said brightly giving them all a small wave. Uo and Hana were standing on either side of her, and Kyou and Yuki were standing back a bit, bickering over something. The words 'damn rat' and 'stupid cat' were used many times.

"Mmmhmm! I remember. And... You're Uo," Luci said, pointing to Hana. Then she pointed to Uo and said, "And you're Saki, right?"

"No. You got us mixed up. I'm Uo, and that's Saki," Uo corrected.

Luci blushed. "Oh, I'm sorry."

Jamie slapped her friend on the shoulder. "Hey! There's nothing to be sorry about! We're new. NEW! We're aloud to get names wrong, Luc. Okay?"

Luci grinned. "Okay. I know. Hmmm... I'm forgetting something, aren't I?" she pondered, shuffling her feet around. "Oh damn it! That's right! I forgot my camera! Crap!"

Trina and Jamie gave each other significant looks, horrified. "Y-you don't need it now, okay, Luc?" Trina stuttered. She still had her bag protected in her arms.

"I know I don't NEED it, but still! Wouldn't it be nice to have a tape of our first day?" Luci stated, hands on hips, towards her friends.

"NO!" they both shouted together. Luci continued to complain about needing her video camera, when Yuki and a flustered Kyou walked up.

"We should get to lunch," Yuki suggested to them all.

"Oh yes! I almost forgot!" Tohru said, turning towards the three girls. "Would you like to eat with us?"

The other two stopped yelling at Luci long enough to nod cheerfully.

"C'mon! Let's go then. I'm starved," Kyou said, walking towards the door.

"Yes. We wouldn't want any hungry tummies now, would we?" Hana offered in her own creepy way, making Jamie and her friends shiver again.

"Uh... Okay... Well, let's get to lunch then," Trina said, backing slowly away from Hana. She led the way to their lockers as they grabbed their bag lunches.

The large group finally made their way outside to an empty table under a tree. It was Tohru's favorite spot to sit, and she thought it would be kind of her to share it with her three new friends.

"Let's sit here!" Tohru said, pointing towards the table. She ran over to it and sat down, unpacking her lunch.

"We always sit here," Kyou muttered under his breath. None-the-less, he still sat down on the opposite side of the circular table as Tohru, like he normally did. To his dismay, he ended up between two of the new girls- Luci and Jamie.

About halfway through lunch time, Luci and Jamie both looked up from their lunches.

"Does anyone know what time it is?" Jamie asked, her eyes glistening with mischief. Trina immediately looked worried, hoping that no one would tell either of her friends the time for a very good reason.

"It's 12:15, Miss Nagano," Yuki answered solemnly. Trina slapped her forehead as he said this, but she didn't blame him, for how could he know about her friends' ritual?

After exchanging an evil look with each other, Luci and Jamie immediately took out lighters from their pockets. Luci's was orange while Jamie's was red.

"Excuse me Trina, but what exactly are they planning to do with those lighters? I'm not exactly sure that they're allowed," Tohru piped in, looking nervously at the gas-filled objects that the two were wielding. As if on cue, Jamie and Luci flicked on their lighters and started to fight with them.

"I'm afraid it's been like this since we were in tenth grade. Every Monday, halfway through lunch time, they have a lighter fight. Don't ask me why they started it, because it's for a reason that they don't even know." The two were really going at it now. There were sparks flying and a weak sound of metal clashing.

"What's the point?" shouted a nervous Kyou, who was trying to watch them over his shoulder.

"The object NYAA! Is not to HAH! Let your lighter's WOAH! Flame die," explained Jamie through battle cries.

"Yeah HEY! But you have to WATCH IT! Still fight GAH!" Luci added. So far, she had gotten licked by the flame 6 times. It was easy to tell she was loosing.

"HEY! Would you cut it out! You're gonna set me of fire!" Kyou yelled. Just as he said this, Jamie knocked Luci's hand (which had the lit lighter in it) into Kyou's back. Thus, the flame caught on to his shirt. Yes, Kyou was on fire (If you can call having a small segment of your shirt aflame that).

"SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE!" Kyou screeched, jumping up and down.

"STOP, DROP, AND ROLL! STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!" Trina had taken the liberty of shouting this in his ear over and over.

While everyone was spazzing, Yuki remained as calm as ever. He walked over to Kyou, who was rolling over and over again on the ground. With an exasperated sigh, he grabbed Kyou's glass of water and poured it on the small flame that was on the tail of his uniform shirt. Two words were spoken to the orange-top:

"Stupid cat."

"Cat?" Trina pondered, calmly walking back to her seat. She sat back down as if nothing had ever happened.

"OH MY GOD! I knew I should have brought my camera today!" Luci interrupted, glaring at Jamie and Trina.

"I would have paid good money to see that on tape again." Jamie gave a wry chuckle after she said this.

"That would have been funny… It seams on one occasion your camera was needed," Trina pondered with a smirk.

"HEY! What about me?" demanded and exasperated (and smoke-surrounded) Kyou.

"You're okay, aren't you?" Jamie asked, though it was more of a statement.

"Uh… well…"

Tohru, who had been watching the whole scenario pass with a blank expression on her face, blinked twice and seemed to come back to life. She turned to the three new transfers and gave a sweet smile. "Would you three like to go to the park with us after school? It would be a nice chance for all of us to get to know each other a little better, don't you think?"

"No! You can't let her (he said this word like it was scum) came after she set me on freakin' fire," Kyou protested, pointing to Luci.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Kyou! I should have asked everyone if it was alright before I invited them to come with us anywhere," Tohru blabbered, looking on the verge of tears.

"Nevermind," he grunted. "It's fine. They can come."

"Then we accept," Jamie said with a grin.

"Then I'm bringing my camera, ya know? Just in case," Luci stated firmly. Jamie and Trina simultaneously shook their heads.

So it was settled. The three new girls, who had already made an interesting impression on their classmates, were going to hang out with Tohru Honda and company after school.

A/N: I hoped you liked it! I had way to much fun torturing my editor Shelley with this. Much like Shigure does to Mi-chan. Go me! My next chapter will be out… as soon as Shelley sets the date (Maybe… -evil grin-).

Editors note (Shelley): You're so evil! –breaks down crying in a corner-