disclaimer: i own two pairs of stolen 3d glasses + a bag of m&ms but not the clique characters or the song mr. blue sky. (:

prompts ; a lion, a peanut, leprechauns, vogue, a purple teddy bear
genre ; fluff & romance
type ; threeshot? maybe fiveshot?
pairing ; clairington! ftw.

for blueberry, i love you.

mr. blue sky

and don't you know, it's a beautiful new day today ...

I see Derrick Harrington and I run.

—

Okay, wait.

Let me start over.

My name is Claire Lyons—Claire, like the normal girl name, and Lyons, pronounced like the lion. I never knew my father, and I only remember how my mother looked like. She was the soft kind of pretty that you don't notice until you're up close. Eyes the colour of the sky during summertime, dark blonde hair like threaded gold, and a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. I don't know much about her, and probably it's going to stay like that for the rest of my life.

See, I'm an orphan.

My mother fell in love when she was thirteen, the same age I am right now. She ran away with him when she was seventeen, and eloped when she was eighteen. By the time she turned twenty, I was learning how to talk and my father jumped off a cliff. I guess that's when things started sucking. I was barely two years old when I was dropped off on the doorstep of my mother's best friend, Judi Lyons.

Sometimes I ask Judi why my parents left.

She doesn't like it when I do that, and I feel bad for making her so uncomfortable, but I can't help it. I want to know. Whenever I ask, she gets this weird look on her face and she scrunches up her nose and she pats my hand real gently. "People make choices in life that aren't always the best ones, Claire. People make decisions without thinking of the consequences, and it doesn't always turn out right in the end."

"Why?" I would ask. "Why would they do that?"

"Because they're young and they're beautiful and they think they will live forever," Judi says.

Then she leans over to kiss me on the forehead and excuses herself and leaves the room with tears in her eyes. Sometimes I go upstairs and I can hear Judi crying in her bedroom. And I feel bad all the way to my core, because I know that Judi and my mother were as close as two peas in a pod. In her sock dresser she has dozens of pictures of the two of them, from when they were just babies to when they started high school.

And I feel bad all the way to the core, because people shouldn't have to die. They shouldn't have to leave.

I wish they really did live forever.

—

When I turned four, I found out that Judi was going to have a baby. Her husband and my godfather, Jay, took me to the hospital and we sat in plastic blue chairs for seven hours. I don't remember much but I fell asleep after a while and when I woke up, we were back home, and in Judi and Jay's bedroom, there was a squealing pink peanut with tufts of bright red hair here and there. He was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen.

I'm not joking.

He was a peanut.

A leprechaun peanut.

Even then, I knew I was going to love him.

—

"Chris says that you're a real looker," Layne Abeley said to me casually one day while we were in my bedroom, flipping through old copies of Vogue and Cosmo magazines I'd taken from Judi's dresser. I looked up when she said that, wrinkling my nose in confusion. I'd only spoken about a dozen words to Christopher Abeley in my whole life, partly because he was two years older and partly because Layne avoided her brother at all costs.

"What's that mean?" I asked.

Layne laughed. "You know, for a geek, you can be really thick sometimes."

"I'm not a geek," I said stubbornly. "I'm just good at school."

"Right," Layne said, rolling her eyes. "It means that Chris thinks you're pretty."

I felt myself blushing. "Really? He told you that?"

Layne nodded, like she'd just delivered some world changing news to the president of the United States of America herself. There was a devious sparkle in her striking emerald green eyes. "He told me right after you left when you came over last Friday. We went shopping and had a sleepover, remember? And after you left, he said, 'You know, Claire's grown up. She's a real looker.'"

"More words than you guys have said to each other in a year," I replied, deliberately trying to act nonchalant.

Layne gave me a knowing smirk. "You bet," she said.

—

I hate how things change and you're not ready.

Todd and I had had a great relationship that was as close as any brother and sister. But when I hit thirteen and he hits nine, we're suddenly miles apart. I started wearing a bra and he started caring about things other than Pokemon cards. I got my period and he learned how to assemble a toy airplane. Every time I tried to talk to him, to salvage what little of our friendship we still had, he would turn away, muttering something about how his business wasn't for girls.

And one day Cam Fisher goes up to me and says, "Wanna go out?"

I look around, confused, and say, "We're already outside."

"I—I mean—I mean, like," he stammers, turning bright red. "Like, out out."

"He's asking you to be his girl!" One of Cam's friends shouts, so loudly that it causes a bunch of people to turn around and stare.

I stare at Cam, totally shocked and feeling like I want to be anywhere but where I am right now. "Cam—"

"Never mind, Claire. Just—just forget it," he mutters and he's already turning away, already walking towards the school and looking down at the ground, where he doesn't have to see the faces of his friends, who have seen the whole thing and are now cracking up and yelling things at him I can't quite catch.

Suddenly Layne appears at my side. She gives me a look that makes me feel like I did something horribly, horribly wrong. "Claire," she says, "you might be the only person in our class who knows what the Pythagorean Theorem is, and you might the be the only person in the school who's ever been able to place first place in the Annual Provincial Science Fair, but you're sure the dumbest when it comes to boys."

—

I hate how things change and you're not ready.

I really, really hate it.