"That party was the best! I mean, I thought I was going to have to go through a pity thing because he was poor or something but really he's rich? Anyway, he is so teaching me DDR moves!" Nikki said as they walked along the stores looking for something amusing.

"You thought that too? Good, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!" Said Jen as relief flooded her features. The two had decided to spend time together at the mall without the boys today. Jude wasn't coming today since it was the day after his birthday and his mother was taking him on 'inner self' journy in the nature. Nikki had just gave it the term "Crazy Camping" since they were most likely going to be meditating and lighting candles and stuff... Though if he thought his parents were weird, he never met the Wongs.

"Oh look Nikki! This would look so nice on you! Why don' you try it on?" Mrs.Wong cooed as Nikki wrinkled her nose at the blue girly dress her mother was pointing too. What self consious person would dare where that? It was so... Frilly. The baby blue was so fuzzy that Nikki wanted to recoil just at the thought of wearing it. All, "I'm a bad-ass stubborn punk" stuff aside, that dress was UGLY!

Ths was insane, how could she have agreed to invite one of her friends to shopping with her parents? It had been this way ever since Nikki was born. Her parents would coddle and embarrass her to no end. Not only that, but their style sense seemed to be very backwards, as they were wearing retro 50's clothing. Her parents weren't even born in the fifties! She didn't want to spend the day boring herself and her best friend, so she decided to ditch them.

Nikki quickly grabbed Jen's hand and rolled her eyes, "Let's go into the arcade and hope we lose my parents." Nikki said as she started to drag her confused friend towards the arcade while her parents were looking at more puke-tastic outfits for her.

"But we're supposed to be here with your parents! My mom wouldn't let me go unsupervised and someone could kindnap us or we'll get lost or-"

"Oh shush, it's okay. We'll be fine I promise." Nikki said as they headed down the escalator giggling. Oh weren't they being bad little girls! Nikki knew her parents would be super worried, but she didn't care and as Jen started to loosen up more, she actually thought this was kinda fun. If there was one thing the girls had in common then it would be definitely their amusement for pranking. When they reached the bottom they made a mad dash towards a random store. It was a clothing store but whatever, they could hide for now.

"Oh my gosh, I can' believe we did that! Your mom and dad will be so mad!" Jen said in a hushed tone but giggled nonetheless. The two children were hiding in a clothing rack and peeking through the gaps of linin and long skirts. Nikki giggled aswell blushing as a small snort came out. This made the two girls laugh harder as they quickly covered their mouths to stifle the noise.

"I-I know, d-don't" she laughed again barely able to make out the sentence. "-worry, it-it'll be allright! I'll take the blame and besides, my parents let go of things easily." Now calm, the two relaxed as they watched the outside world for awhile, making fun of and scaring a few costumers that walked by browsing.

The two were wondering about going somewhere else as suddenly they heard the clothes shuffle behind them. Their heads spun around to look at the intruder to their little hide-away, pressing their backs against the layers of hanging clothing as two hands roughly pulled aside the material.

"I knew there was some spoiled brats hiding in here!" Cried the red-head worker as she glared down at the two frightened girls. Well, actually they were more in a shocked stupor than frightened. Heck, the only thing frightening was those god awful khakis and pepto-bismol baby tee. The teenaged employee looked about ready to shove the two out so Jen and Nikki quickly ran out themselves.

"Like Brandy what's going on?" Asked another worker. Again the two girls gasped as out came another girl clone, except this one was blonde. Seriously, aside from eye and hair colour they looked like twins.

"Hey Bianca, these two were hiding in the delicates rack where we keep all our silk dresses!" The red-head named Brandy pointed at the disheveled clothes hanging off the metal bars.

Scary... The two clones stared at the terrified two eight year old girls and they snorted and laughed together like evil little witches. The third one came out, a brunette that once again, looked exactly like the other two. There whole persona screamed "Fashion Follower!" as neither one was unique in any sense.

"What's going on here?" She demanded, obviously something like the store manager around here. Her eyes bore holes into them as she glared. The other two clones had stopped laughing to continue their rampage of accusations.

"Brenda! They were ruining our wonderful clothes!" Bianca said dramatically as she rudely pointed a finger to Nikki and Jen.

"Those twits messed up our alphabetical fabric selection too!" Said the other evil one, Brandy. That was when their leader Brenda put her hands on her hips, stalking over the two and casting over an eeiry shadow. The other two mimicked her actions as the three towered over Nikki and Jen and they started their freaky lines.

"Like, get out you twits"

"Before we like,"

"Call mall security, yeah"

Each one echoed and Nikki blinked as Jen raised her eyebrows. "Oh-Oh okay. Sorry" Jen muttered and pulled Nikki by the hand outside the materialized domain the three hags had control over. "Didn't mean to cause trouble!" She yelled back as they sprinted out and sat down next to the bench that had the photo booth and vase next to it.

"Did you see that place? What a nightmare! That place was full of those 'in' clothes and there was sooo much Khaki!" Nikki complained and shuddered. Her eyes went over to the store they were previously in and her eyes squinted to look at the sign and name. "Khaki Barn? Oh, should have known"

Remember about the whole bit where Jen wasn't as mature as Nikki was? Well, for her that type of clothing stanza, labelling and getting the feel of what was her style wasn't really there yet. The only thing that she kept in mind when looking at clothes was this looked nice and pretty, while this doesn't. She was only eight, after all. "The khaki looked nice though... But those three girls scared me!" Jen said with a shudder as she remembered their identical faces, with their identical uniforms... It was like robots had taken over in a Valley Girl type of way.

Nikki snorted and folded her arms, "Oh well, just know that when I grow up I want to be nothing like them. I would never allow myself to work in that store. Ever."

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The day drilled on as they pranked various store owners and solicited everywhere they went by taking their time. They laughed and had fun together, so much that they forgot about Nikki's grieving parents. As they were sitting down at a bench just kicking their feet, they were once again surprised from behind.

"What are you kids doing here alone?" Said an accented male voice, almost like that of a veteran or something. They turned there heads and stiffened when they saw a security cop staring down at them. The guy must have been in his mid-thirties, possibly even late from the lightness and light brown patches on the side his head. He had a strong chin that was set in an unattractive hard look as his eyes held a 'no nonsense' gleam.

"Um... W-we're ah-" Jen started but was harshly cut off.

"Not a peep from you! This mall is under kinder code 12, there has been enough trouble with you punks so I will be forced to take you away." The security guard said and Jen turned pale. Nikki on the other hand, burst out.

"Taking us away? Where? Who are you anyway! Ahhh!" Nikki threw out at the guy and he hushed her.

"Who am I? I'm Ron, Ron from the Rent-a-cop. You girls will be taken to the lost and found children's section near my office, where I can keep a close eye on you. Come on, get up soldiers!" The two girls stood up quickly with panicked expressions as the were marched over to the place as if they were fugitives in a kiddy boot camp. There in front of a door with a scary looking smiley face (like it was looking at you in an evil sense saying, "Come in... Come in...") and Ron fumbled around with his many keys. He then opened the door but didn't exactly step inside or let the girls in, poking a head in and checking the room as if he was afraid it was rigged with bombs or something. Definitely paranoid, this one...

"Finally!" Came a kid's voice from inside. "I thought you were going to leave me here to die!"

"Silence child, you're serving your time... Peeking inside woman's change rooms was a very bad thing to do indeed. Where's your honour maggot?" Said Ron the Rent-a-cop inside to the brightened and eerily white room and the two girls exchanged a look.

"I was curious!" was the abashed reply "I just wanted to see what was so special underneath those skirts anyway... I didn't see much I swear!" With a disgusted shake of his head, the cop let the two girls in.

"Stay in here until I round up some more kids and then I'll make the announcement for your parents to come here for you." he said and shut the door, locking it so there was no way out. It gave the children an acute sense of claustrophobia as they looked around the small, windowless white room. All there was, was a few white chairs. No windows, no toys, no nothing.

Nikki was breathing heavily, scared now. She turned around to look at their other 'inmate' and she felt her heart nearly stop.

There, slumped against the chair was none other than Jonesy Garcia. The black haired Latin childhood friend of her's. She gulped as she felt her throat constrict slightly and go sore. He raised his eyes to look back at her and was shocked aswell. Then, a small grin formed on his pouty lips as he stared back at her interestingly and casually at the same time.

"Is that you Nikki? Wow, we haven't like seen each other in about what, three years?" He asked and got up. He was wearing a white loose T-shirt with a red hemline across the collar and sleeves. Then as always he was wearing his jeans that unlike most boys, did not fall baggy but would fit nicely on him. He gave his friend a cute smile and she smiled back.

Jen looked blankly between the two and you could almost see the question marks popping out of her head. Snapping out of her stupor, Nikki nodded. "Yup, that's me good old buddy. Moving back to China was fun but I missed you Jonesy." she said casually, as friends usually do when talking about this kind of stuff. Funally adressing Jen she smiled and raised a hand to point at Jonesy.

"Jen this is Jonesy, he was my best friend since we were in the playpen." she then pointed a hand back to Jen, "And Jonesy, this is Jen. She's my best friend from when we moved back here." Jonesy had gotten up, wearing a grin that was cute yet not the same as when Jude or Wyatt would smile. In fact, it almost had a personal trademark of it's own.

"Yo signorina! Nice to meet you!" he said and politely extended a hand. Jen shook his hand and gave a "You too" back. Nikki grinned and then quickly started with the bombard of questions.

"So you learned Spanish finally huh? What was Spain like? Did you meet people? What's new?" She asked all together, leaving the poor boy blinking and wondering where to start first. He scratched his head for a second, wondering what might be news to his old friend. With a shrug of his shoulders and the trademark grin, he finally answered.

"Well Spanish was easy when like, NOBODY knew how to speak English well...Though I messed up alot." It was like going in flashback mode as he remembered being told by his older cousin to say to a pregnant lady, 'Gee miss, did you eat a lot or are you naturally fat?' That, of course, was not a pleasant experience. "And Spain was cool, the weather was nice and I played floor hockey with some boys who wanted to learn." Thinking to himself with a grin and a blush he said, "I also met tons of people" Like those flamingo dancers... They were so nice to me...

By then Nikki was snapping her fingers in front his face to wake him up. Startled he finally remembered the most important thing. "Oh! Also I'm a big brother now!" Nikki was genuinely surprised and gave him a hug. "Congrats Jonesy! Wow, is it a brother or a sister?" she asked releasing him from her grip.

He gave that toothy grin again as he smirked at her mistake. "They are two brothers all right. One just a baby and the other two years old." He noticed the surprise and relished in it. How he loved being in the center of attention.

Soon all three were engaged in a fleeting conversation, mostly questions from Jen and Nikki. Jen, who didn't know Jonesy very well was starting to get a good idea of what type of person he was. She thought he was quite funny and interesting, also he was Nikki's best friend so Jen's loyalty prevailed and she wanted to be as much involved as possible. The same went for Jonesy, who sympathized with Jen's divorce saying that if that happened to his parent he wouldn't know what to do. He was a big brother and all so it was his duty to make sure that they had a stable family. Nikki was happy to say in the least, he excitement clearly shown on her face. This was her childhood best friend and she started making plans for them to see each other right off the bat. She was trying hard not to neglect her new friend from them, but she got carried away at times.

Regardless, Jen assured her it was okay while Jonesy said she and any other of Nikki's friends would be cool to hang around with. He even went to the same school as them and although he didn't know it yet, he was in the same class as Jude and Wyatt.

So wrapped up in their conversation, all three jumped when the door burst open and in came two pairs of parent. One was the Wongs and the other the Garcias. they rushed over to the children they were responsible for, immediately scolding them and offering promise of punishment to each one. Except for Jen of course since Nikki took all the blame casually and the Wongs couldn't do anything but tell Jen's mother of what had happened. Ron the Rent-a-Cop was certainly gleeful to tell his part of the mischief the kids had caused.

Neither one looking the least bit guilty as the parents had finally acknowledged each other and they began their adult family friends bonding. The woman exchanged gasps and squeals at seeing each other and talked about new news in rushed tones. The men exchanged casual greetings and a pleasant handshake, talking in indifferent voices about how much time had been spent apart and all that manly pride talk. It was a comical sight for Jen as she smirked, trying not to laugh at the two different scenes. As for Nikki and Jonesy, they rolled their eyes and exchanged a familiar look.

Parents... They are so annoying.

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Don't kill me...

Wow, when I saw I got reviews by my e-mail alert thingy that weird yahoo or something popped up in my head saying, "You-got-reviews!" So... While I was running away from an angry mob and sobbing at how uselessly long that last chapter was, yet still feeling fuzzy from all the compliments (You guys are so getting a mega glomp from me! One of these days.. Let meh just stop running) I wrote this with Jonesy! Yay! Now stop chasing meh! . Thank you

And SORRY for the lack of quality in thus one, I guess I'm trying to rush to the good stuff. FINALLY things can get going and yes sniff This is the last time we see them as eight year olds... Excpect funny things and fluff in the future. XD