Disclaimer: Do not own Ant Farm

Chapter 17

"Aw, would you look at that?" Olive looked down through the large window of the London Suite. "Fletcher kissing a girl! Who would've ever thought of that! In Tokyo! This is history in the making!"

"It's…great," Chyna agreed.

Olive stopped from her Fletcher – gazing for a second to study her friend. Chyna seemed a lot more reserved that she'd expected her to be.

"No, you don't understand," Olive tried to explain. "This kinda thing has never happened to Fletcher, like, ever! I've been his friend since kindergarten. He'd shared with me so many stories - some funny, some gross, some plain weird – and none of them had anything to do with kissing a girl, not even once. This is like his first EVER!"

Chyna nodded to show that she understood. Still, she didn't seem even a little more excited for Fletcher.

Olive decided that her next bit of news would bring a little more reaction from Chyna. "That girl he just kissed – that's Janice Takahashi – she's that world class swimmer that Skidmore wanted me to help recruit. And not only that – we succeeded, she's going to join us at the Ant Farm."

"WHAT?"

Chyna looked worried, like she had a test to take in like ten minutes, and she didn't study for it at all.

Olive was concerned for her friend. "Chyna, are you ok?"

Chyna took a deep breath, and she looked composed again. "I'm fine, I'm ok."

"You sure?"

Chyna just nodded.

"That girl is a snake," Chyna finally said.

"What?"

"Think about it! World class swimmer, but she pretends to drown, and she needs Fletcher of all people to rescue her? I'm telling you, Olive, that girl is evil, and I think she's going to make sure Lexi catches us tonight, at the party."

"Wait, she knows Lexi? Lexi is here?"

After Chyna caught Olive up to speed, Olive asked, "So why not just skip the party? And if she decides to tell Lexi, we'll hide, so Lexi won't find us?"

"I sort of thought about that, but her kissing Fletcher down there changes things. He'll definitely want to go to the party." And then there was the whole matter of Janice following them all the way back to the Ant Farm. There was no hiding from it.

"And who could blame him?" Olive put her hand on Chyna's shoulder. "His first girlfriend. I say we let him go to the party. We're all going to go back home eventually. At least this way, he can say that he had the time of his life in Tokyo, and he did it all with the very first girl to ever like him back."

Chyna's shoulders slumped. "Yea, I guess you're right."

"So what are we going to wear to the party?"

"I don't know," Chyna answered. But then she leaned in, "I think I know where we can get some clothes."

Hours later, Olive was up to her neck in London's clothes and footwear. She'd long since discovered the perfect dress to wear for the party: a simple, yet elegant white dress with pink straps. The horror was finding the right pair of shoes to match!

"No, that's not right, maybe this, nope, this doesn't work at all -" she said as she threw shoes after shoes after shoes over her shoulder. She felt a little like a puppy digging for the perfect bone to chew on.

"Hey!" She brightened. She stopped to inspect a pair that looked like it might work with her dress – a pair of slingback pumps in sand leather. She tried it on and inspected herself in front of a mirror.

Voila! The combination worked. She loved the look, but after inspecting herself further, she frowned. Something was missing…

She decided that it was probably the hair. It needed, more volume. It looked flat, and very plain. Suddenly, she felt down. What was she doing playing dress up? She was just Olive Doyle, your typical, next-doorsy, regular girl, not some hot-shot celebrity about to prowl the red carpet.

She walked out the closet, and down the steps, when she heard – "Wow, you're smoking hot! You look even better than Maddie in that bikini!"

Angus's jaw dropped so low that Olive blushed. The longer he stared, the more red she got.

To get him to do more talking and less staring, Olive teased, "So is that all I am to you? Another hot blonde?"

Angus scoffed. "No! Why would you think that?" Angus looked like that was the stupidest thing Olive had ever said.

Olive was skeptical. "Really?"

Angus looked uncomfortable now. "Of course! You're much more than that!" That was all he had to say on the subject, and began to walk away – but Olive blocked his path.

"Like what?" She challenged.

Angus was silent.

"See," Olive was triumphant, "I bet you don't know a thing about me."

"Please. I know your birthday is August 25, 2000 and you were born in Fresno, California. Your eyes are hazel green, and you have a birthmark in your – "

"HEY! You shouldn't know that! And anyway, those are all things you can probably look up on the computer," she said with a hmph.

"True. I also know that your favorite thing to eat at the cafeteria is baked potatoes. You're really scared of the mashed kind because you think they're un-natural. If you're feeling cross with someone, you kinda squint your eyes – yea, kinda like what you're doing right now. You love little kids. You're an only kid, but I bet you've always wanted a younger sister – "

"How would you know that?"

"I see it in your eyes. I have a lot of only kids in my extended family."

"Oh – I see." Angus certainly paid a lot more attention to her than she'd thought.

"Yep. Anyway, can we take this talk somewhere else? I'm hungry."

Olive shrugged. "Sure. Where do you want to go?"

"There's this ice cream place just around the corner that I want to take you to. They supposedly make the best black sesame – "

"Oh! What's that?"

"Only the best ice cream flavor in the world! It kinda has this peanut butter after-taste to it, but it's not peanut butter – "

Together, the two made their walk to the shop.