Author's note: Curse writer's block…

HoT tOpIc: Glad you like it. And thank you for putting it in your favourites!
Jokestress Lamine: Glad you like it, too! Mike Teavee DOES rock! As for Daniel and Claire…I ain't saying just yet…
Sunrise over the Tango Factory: Well, well, well, look who it is! Cheers for your reviews, Bex! And no need to apologise for crap reviews…I've come to expect them from you :P
boogle: Ooh, another groupie, lol. I seem to be drawing the 'Red Dwarf' crowd. Anyway, thanks for the review, hun!
soccerstar8281: Glad you like it. And as for updating soon…well, I just did.
Bordest Person alive: Thank you :)
Randomguitaristetc: :P Shut up, Helen! I know you think Mike should be burned, there's no need to tell me in a review. Hehe. Luv ya really, darlin'!
miyuyux33: I sent you an email. You can see my reply on that :)
Wonkasgrl12: Thank you! I will :D
MikexViolet 4eva: To be honest, I think it's quite saddening that you only read MikexViolet fics without giving others a chance. It will eventually be MikexViolet, and also MikexVeruca. For the record, I don't think there was any need to sound quite so threatening. Thanks, anyway.
Leesy Metallium: Heh! I love every bit of him, not just his face! Thanks for the wonderful review:)
ZK: ANOTHER Dwarfer! Thanks for your…er…constructive critiscism? Next time, gimme a bit more than 'write what you're gonna'. K? Luv ya! X
pohatufan1: Sorry that I made you giddy! Glad your enjoying the fic, and I hope you will continue to R&R!

4

Claire fidgeted with the small slip of paper. Daniel's handwriting was damn near impossible to read, but she thought she could just about make out Mike's number. She wouldn't normally have been up this early – nine o clock Saturday morning was a fairly new experience for her – but when she had woken up she found she couldn't get back to sleep again. She picked up the phone, but immediately slammed it down again.
This is stupid! She told herself, Mike's a known bully, he's self-centred, and he's egotistical. As cute as he is, there isn't a chance in hell he's actually going to go to the dance with you.
Claire poured herself an orange juice and settled into her homework. For five minutes she worked well, but then her mind started to wander back towards Mike. So what if he's self-centred? She asked herself, People change, sometimes. And, like you said yourself, he's cute!
She picked up the phone again and toyed with it in her hands. Maybe he wouldn't be up yet. After all, even she had only been up for a few minutes. She reluctantly put the phone back down again.Having finished her homework, she picked up the remote and turned on the TV. She got the fright of her life when there, clear as daylight, Mike was on the screen being interviewed.
"All I had to do," the on-screen Mike said, looking extremely bored, "was track the manufacturing dates, offset by weather and the derivative of the Nikkei index. A retard could figure it out."
As his dad spoke more gently to the reporters, Claire shook her head slowly. This was beyond belief. It wasn't so much that Mike had actually won the fourth Golden Ticket that confounded Claire, it was the fact that Mike clearly wasn't bothered; he was sat cross-legged on the floor, deeply involved in a video game, and hadn't even changed out of his pyjamas. She jumped as the screen yelled, "DIE! DIE! DIE!"
There was a 'ratta-tatta' of machine guns as Mike finished off a level on his game, "In the end, I only had to buy one candy bar."
"And how did it taste?" one of the reporters asked.
"I don't know," Mike said, looking incredulous, "I hate chocolate."
"How do you feel about going to the factory?" another reporter asked. Mike shrugged as the next level of his game started up. One of the cameras moved round to get a better shot of Mike, and accidentally hit the 'off' button on his game.
"Hey!" Mike shouted indignantly, "You made me lose, idiot!"
The cameraman mumbled an apology and continued to set up as Mike turned the TV back on and watched a programme that seemed to consist entirely of scantily dressed girls dancing around on podiums. Claire found herself flicking through other channels to see what programme Mike was actually watching, but most of them seemed to be reporting on the fourth Golden Ticket winner. She gave up and watched as Mike read out the instructions on the ticket. She turned off the television half-way through and sighed. She liked Mike a lot, but even she was willing to admit that he didn't really deserve that ticket. Not that anyone would ever question him. They'd get a black eye if they did.

That evening, Claire sat on her bed, tossing the phone from one hand to the other. All day that was all she had been doing. Contemplating. The paper with Mike's number on it was screwed, ripped and tatty; if it had been unintelligible before, it was certainly unreadable now. It didn't matter, though, as Claire had managed to memorise his number from dialling it so many times. She took a deep breath and quickly stabbed numbers on the phone without even thinking. Don't mention the factory, she told herself as the phone rang. Three rings, that was a record for her; normally she would have chickened out by now. Four rings. Five, six, seven. She was starting to get anxious. Eight…nine…
"Hello?" a voice finally came from the other end.
"Hello," Claire replied, "Mr Teavee?"
"Yes, how may I help you?"
"Could I speak to Mike, please?"
"Er…" Mr Teavee didn't seem all that keen on that idea, "Who shall I say is calling?"
"Claire Hockley. I'm a…a friend of Mike's," she lied.
"OK, I'll just get him," Mr Teavee said. Although he had clearly put his hand over the receiver, Claire could swear she heard him sigh despairingly. After a mumbled conversation, presumably between Mike and his dad, Mr Teavee picked up the receiver again and said, "I'm terribly sorry, Claire. Mike is…busy at the moment."
"Oh," Claire said, not managing to keep the disappointment out of her voice. There was a short pause then Mr Teavee said, almost determinedly, "I'll get him to call you back."
"Thank you," she said glumly. The line went dead as Mr Teavee hung up. Claire, however, kept the receiver clamped firmly on her ear. Mike hadn't been busy. The sound of his video games had been clear over the phone. Staring out in front of her, Claire slowly lowered the phone to its base. Almost immediately, it rang; she jumped and knocked it over. Scrambling to pick it up, she had barely put it to her ear when she yelled, "Mike?" down the phone.
"No," a boy said from the other end. Regaining her composure (and picking herself up from the floor) Claire asked who they were.
"Will you go to the school dance with me?" the boy said.
"What?" Claire asked, "I asked who you were!"
"Will you go to the school dance with me?" the boy repeated.
"Not until you tell me who you are!" Claire persisted. She shut right up when she found out who it was…

"OK, OK!" Mike shouted at his dad after the seventeenth time of asking if he would call Claire back. He got up, turned off his computer and brushed past him, adding, "Jeez!"
He'd had a good, long time to think about it, and Mike had decided that he would take Claire to the dance. If anything, it was a new experience, and if he didn't like it, he could always go back to hating everything in sight. He picked up the phone and got Claire's number (which had been ripped off the bottom of the portrait) out from his pocket. He dialled and waited.
"Hello?" Claire said.
Hearing her voice again settled Mike down a bit, "Hi, it's Mike."
"Oh," she sounded quite aggravated, "Hi."
"Uh…" he hesitated; what am I supposed to say now? "D-dad said you called earlier."
Nice save, Mike!
"Yes. But you were busy," Claire said, putting extra emphasis on 'busy'. Mike winced. He'd only said that so he could avoid talking to her.
"Uh, yeah, sorry. Unavoidable," he added.
"Oh, were you about to lose a life?" she asked irritably.
"What?"
"Nothing. Look," she changed the subject, "I called before to see if you wanted to go to the dance with me."
"I see. Well-"
Mike was about to say that he would, but Claire interrupted him.
"But then you were, uh…busy…"
Mike cleared his throat nervously, "Right…"
"Then I got another call. A date request, to be exact. And seeing as you were taking your sweet time, I said yes."
"What?" Mike asked, "Who was it?"
"So you'll have to find someone else."
"Who was it?" Mike persisted. He could tell Claire was smiling, even though he couldn't see her.
"Fourth Golden Ticket winner, huh?" she said slowly, "What's with that? I thought you didn't like chocolate."
"I don't," Mike said bluntly, not quite sure how the conversation had ended up going in that particular direction.
"Then…why?"
Mike paused, trying to think of a plausible explanation; 'I did it for my ego' just didn't have a good ring to it.
"I don't really know," he said after the pause became unbearable, although it was a lie, "I just, sort of…came across it."
"Came across it?" Claire asked incredulously, "You said you only bought one candy bar."
"Yeah," he replied, "And it just so happened to have the ticket in it."
Please be buying this, he said desperately to himself, PLEASE be buying this!
"There's something I'm missing, here. None of this makes any sense. I really don't understand why you would get, and keep, a Golden Ticket when you hate choc-…oh," she seemed to suddenly realise something, "I get it."
There was another excruciating pause before Mike said, "So, who was this guy, anyway?"
"Don't try to change the subject."
"You changed it first!"
Yet another pause. Mike was getting quite annoyed.
"See you at school, Mike," were the last words Claire said to him before slamming the phone down. She didn't sound happy.

Author's note: You'll have to wait for a few chapters until you find out who Claire's going with...sorry! If ANYONE tries to ask me who it is I'll...I'll...poke my tongue out at you. So you better be careful!