February 3, 2009

"Hey Carls." whispered a voice in my ear. "Carls." and I was being shook gently the voice continued "Carly, you gotta get up for school."

At that point I realized it was my brother waking me. I peeled my groggy eyes open.

"Good morning!" he said cheerfully.

I groaned and sat up.

"Breakfast will be ready in about five minutes." he said, still upbeat "We're having waffles!" And with that he ran out of my room singing about waffles, leaving me to get ready for school.

My fingers automatically dialed my locker combination as I thought about breakfast. MAAAN those were good waffles. Oh, great, I've turned into Sam.

I snapped back out of my food dreamland, and hastily grabbed my things for class.

I turned around and saw Freddie walking to me, a wide grin plastered to his face "Hey Carly."

"What are you so happy about?" I asked.

"Tomorrow's my birthday!" he practically exclaimed, the excitement bursting out of him.

"Oh." the word came out of me in a dulled tone. Freddie's birthday tomorrow and I still had nothing for him.

"What?" Freddie asked me, now concerned because I'd said 'oh' how I did.

"Um…" I thought quickly. He didn't need to know I still hadn't thought of something to get him for a gift "I just didn't think you were one of those people who got all excited about their birthday before it even happened." as soon as the excuse escaped my lips, I knew it was total jank. I even got excited about my birthday before it happened.

But Freddie bought it "Well," he began but was cut off by the warning bell "Oh, we gotta go to class!" he grabbed my hand and started pulling me to our first hour.

By math, my second hour, Freddie Benson had consumed every inch of my mind. It was bad in first hour, but now, I couldn't even tell you what the teacher was speaking at this very second.

I just thought over and over again about ideas fro Freddie's birthday. I couldn't get him anything technological for three reasons; One, I knew absolutely nothing about tech anything. Second, Sam was kinda already giving him something in that area. And third, even if I did get him something 'tech-ish', chances are he would already have it.

I also thought about getting him a video game too, but that just seemed so impersonal compared to what Freddie gave me. Not to mention how his mother only let him have games approved by her, which was very few.

I even thought about just getting him money or a gift card again, but that was even worse than the game.

I groaned.

"Is something wrong Carly?" the teacher asked me, referring to my groan.

"Oh, uh…I'm just having a little difficulty solving this problem." I lied.

"Well, then don't skip ahead and try to do the problems before you learn them." Mrs. Sharpe said nicely.

I smiled at her and nodded before I looked down at my desk to face my open book.

It had been hours since school ended. Now Sam, Freddie, and I were sitting on the couch in my living room. We'd just finished playing two hours of Cupcake Slam, and we'd all lost plenty of games, meaning we'd all had to do silly stuff since we lost. Like I had to run up and down the stairs in twenty seconds or eat veggie pudding.

"So," I began "What do you guys think we should do now?"

I heard a "Sit." from Freddie and a "Nothing." from Sam.

I laughed at my friends' laziness, but I had to admit, I was pretty beat too. "You just wanna watch movie again?"

"Fine," I heard Freddie say "But if it's another chick flick I'm going home."

"Well, we're watching a chick flick so bye!" Sam said.

I gave her a stern look, and then turned to Freddie. "How 'bout we watch that new mystery movie Spencer bought." I suggested.

"Mystery On Melbrook Lane?" Sam questioned and I nodded. Then I turned to Freddie. Once he gave his approval, we got all set up to watch the movie.

I popped popcorn, and dimmed the lights so it would be like in a movie theater. Then we all got into comfortable positions on the couch. Freddie was on the left side, sitting right up. I was right next to him in the middle, and Sam was laying down taking the rest of the couch with her feet on my lap.

"Everyone set?" I asked and my friends nodded.

I turned to the screen, and only then did I realize that no one had put the movie in. "Okay," I said "Who's gonna put the movie in?"

"I got it." Sam said. The she screamed "SPENCER!"

Eight seconds later, my brother came running out of his room in his duck boxers, holding an umbrella for defense "What's going on!?" he yelled as he waved the umbrella around.

"Can you put our movie in?" Sam asked snickering lightly like the rest of us.

My brother sighed in annoyance "You freaked me out for a movie?"

"Well, we didn't know you were all dressed up in ducks and ready to fight." Sam smiled.

Spencer walked over to the three of us "Why couldn't any of you put the movie in?"

"Eh, we were all comfortable and didn't want to move." Sam replied, sounding exhausted.

Spencer sighed and asked "What movie?"

"Mystery On Melbrook Lane." Freddie answered.

"OOH!" Spencer squealed like a high school girl "It's SOOO good!" he quickly hurried and popped the DVD into the DVD player. "Enjoy!" he said and went into his room.

I was into the movie for the first half an hour, but my mind wandered to birthdays again somehow, and I was thinking of Freddie. I had less than a day to think of a gift, buy it, and wrap it.

My thoughts stumbled to the anklet Freddie had gotten me almost a month ago. He cared about me so-

I was ripped from my train of thought a hand was placed on top of mine. I looked over at the boy next to me. Freddie was looking at the screen, attempting to act nonchalant.

"Freddie." I sighed quietly. His face went to disappointment as he removed his hand and placed it back on his own lap.

Poor kid, he was in love with me and I didn't love him back. He holds onto me forever when I give him a hug. And I'd always catch him looking at me longingly. When will he get it? I don't feel that way about him, I don't want to date him, and I don't get butterflies in my stomach thinking about him. When I give him a hug, it's purely friendship, I don't want to kiss him, and I don't love him. We were friends. That's all we were and all we'd be.

I laughed quietly to myself, almost inaudible to those around me, about how many times Freddie had tried to get me to go out with him. I'd bet one kiss would make that boy the happiest guy in the world. Even a hug from me sends him shooting to the stars.

Then, realizing how off track I was to my original direction of thought. Okay, Freddie's birthday. I've ruled out tech stuff, games, and money or gift cards. Well, what else is there!? What else in the world could this boy want!? He was Freddie. And Freddie only really cared about roughly five things. He cared about school, no way am I giving him something related to school, tech stuff, already ruled that out, his mom, no gift in that, iCarly, Spencer had that covered, and…

The fifth thing popped into my head. Yes, it could work. I could definitely give him something related to this. And I was positive no one was giving him anything involving this. Plus, above all, I knew he'd love it.

"I got it!" I yelled internally.

Freddie looked at me "Got what?"

Okay, maybe it wasn't internally.

Sam glanced at me "Do you know who killed Trudy?"

I didn't have a better excuse so I nodded.

"Well, don't tell me." Sam ordered "I wanna see if I can beat Fredwina at figuring it out."

Freddie scoffed, but didn't say anything as he turned his head back to the television with a look of determination on his face. I knew he was going to try his best to find out the murderer before Sam.

But I couldn't pay attention to the movie even hough I'd solved my problem. I was so excited I just sat there thinking how awesome Freddie's gift was, because, well, it was awesome.

Yay! Carly has a gift idea…but what is it? Probably obvious but whatever! Carly daydreams a lot in my stories huh?