A.N: Hello lovely readers, my laptop finally let me install the old Microsoft program so I finally get to write out a chapter, and upload it the first day of Spring Break no less! Let's give a big round of applause to Fran for the wonderful last chapter she wrote for us! I'd like to thank her, and all those that reviewed that chapter, so, Thank you!Okay, just to warn you, this is defiantly the longest chapter we have ever uploaded, the chapter itself is nearly 4,000 words long and this is not helping make it shorter. We could have split it into two chapters, but I thought that would just be annoying, so here it is in one chapter, ENJOY!!!
Brooke's Zen of the Day: You can't spell STUD with out STD!!! (I got that from my 'Russian' friend)
Brooke
I staggered through the house, feeling like I was walking really weird; ever since I woke up this morning I'd been feeling rather stiff; practice was a bitch yesterday. It was only around 10 o'clock in the morning yet the house still felt rather empty; wow, people are really lazy huh? I sat in the rather open living room because I was too lazy to walked down the millions of steps to go to the beach, like I said, people are lazy and seeing as I am a people…
Either way, I sat on the only, overly stuffed couch for a while until I heard Katie walk into the room, staggering mostly because of the fact that she was still half asleep. I almost cracked up when I saw her messy, bed-head; now, most people look funny with bed-head, but with Katie's hair being as big and curly as it is; when she has bed-head, she seriously has a fro. I am not kidding you, she honest-to-god has a fro in the mornings and it is fucking hilarious!
"Wow Brooke, your up early." She slurred slightly when she noticed me sitting there.
"Not really, it's already past 10:30." I told her causing a look of slight confusion pass over her face as she thought it over slightly.
"Yeah, but that's early for me." My pyromaniac friend finally stated making me laugh slightly. A few minutes went by before either of us said anything.
"Dude, I'm hungry." I stated as I stared straight ahead at the porch.
"Then go get something to eat."
"But I'm not that hungry." Katie sighed as I looked at her expectantly, hoping I'd get her to make me some food.
"No, I am not going to make you breakfast, you're a big girl, you can fend for yourself." She told me like she was talking to an idiot, before she got up and started heading towards the kitchen.
"Then where are you going???" I asked confused, causing Katie to turn around and smirk at me, her eyes clearly telling me that I had just been outsmarted.
"I'm going to get myself a bowl of cereal." Damn it! I'd been out smarted!!!
I scowled at my retreating friend (hey, let me use the word, it makes me feel better) before getting up to follow her slowly. By the time I got in the kitchen Katie already had a box of 'Lucky Charms,' and was already giggling about the 'magically delicious' joke that was for sure going to pop up. Yes, we are extremely perverted, why do you ask?
Either way, I walked to the pantry-like-thing-a-ma-jiggy and grabbed the box of 'Captain Crunch' instantly thinking of its nickname, 'Crap 'n Crunch.' Not only are we perverted; we're immature too! Yay for us! I sat down at the small table as Katie set down a bowl in front of me and I got to pour my cereal and some milk as she did the same. We sat in silence as we munched on our cereal before turning on the incredibly small T.V that looked like it came from the 1940's. It only got the local News channel but it is nice to actually know what's going on in the area, especially when it comes to the weather, even if you have to squint to see the picture. A few minutes of static eventually cleared enough for us to be able to actually understand what was being said and see the picture more or less and the very first thing who ever was talking said caused Katie and me to scream at the top of our lungs.
"What's going on?!?"
"Are the soul reapers here?!?!?!?!"
"Is everyone okay?"
"Why are you trash screaming?"
These are all the questions we heard 'Spada yelling as the came running into the kitchen like they thought the world could be ending in a matter of seconds. As they rounded whatever corner they were coming through they saw Katie and me jumping around in circles, screaming our heads off happily. We stopped mid-jump to stare at the 'Spada who were just looking at us like we were crazy, (which, to be honest, we kinda are) before we saw Fran push herself to the front of the pack to see what was going on, bringing the guy who said the last question with her.
"What's going on guys?" She asked us rather confounded while Ulquiorra rolled his eyes at us 'trash.'
"Do you know what day it is???" We asked more than excitedly together like we shared the same brain.
"Um…."
"It's the fourth of the FREAKING JULY!!!!" I yelled causing the 'Spada to wince my volume. Fran's eyes widen with this information, obviously she'd lost track of the days along with us. It's very hard to keep track of trivial things like that when you're living with deranged, murderous villains.
"So what? Yesterday was the third of the freaking July and tomorrow's going to be the fifth of the freaking July, STOP YELLING!!!!" Grimmjow yelled, angry at us for waking him up at a normal wake up time for everyone else who isn't a grumpy, deranged, house cat.
"For God's sake man, do you not get what this means?" I questioned happily as I ran up and started shaking said house cat, who merely glared at me in irritation, but I was in too much of a good mood to let him dampen it.
"This means the sky is going to explode with all the colors of the rainbow, this means cook outs and parades!" Katie started ranting, of course the pyro would mention the two 'fiery' aspects first.
"Oh my god, we need to get shopping!!!" Fran realized suddenly her brown eyes widening once again at this insight. She was right, because of our forgetfulness, we had none of the needed Forth o' July products. Without a second thought, the three of us jumped into action, running around the house as we got dressed, got money, and woke up a rather asleep Lilinette whose such a heavy sleeper that she didn't even wake up with all the yelling a screaming that had been going on downstairs. I'm not sure what the 'Spada were doing when we did this, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with figuring out who was going with us seeing by the time we got to the min van Stark and Ulquiorra were waiting for us. It was then I realized that Stark had to have gotten up with the screaming, 'cause none of us woke him up.
"SHOTIE!!!" I yelled happily as I hopped into the front seat.
"Driver." Katie yelled after me, psh, like anyone else was going to drive, she's basically our own personal driver, whether she's willing admit it or not. We all piled into the blue-beast and drove off, I gave directions to Katie and we almost got lost getting to town, but we eventually got there by following the steady flow of traffic that was going down the main road. When we finally did make it to town, it took us forever to find a parking spot, but eventually it was accomplished with much swearing, yelling, flying of birds, and such, we had to walk a few blocks to get to the stores, but at least the van wasn't in the middle of some field somewhere like Katie was going to do with it.
"Alright, so, we need to get food to cook for dinner tonight, graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate, Jell-O, cream cheese, and whatever else we deem necessary. Got it? Split up!" And with that, we moved to get what we needed. Pushing a cart, I scanned thoroughly through the isles for anything I thought we might need while Lilinette babbled on next to me, obviously not seeing how important it is to have everything for the Forth seeing as she's never had a Forth o' July, actually, none of the 'Spada have, those poor souls…
I walked down the isles, cart already holding a decent amount of stuff, and I was trying to figure out if I had everything from my third of the list when I saw one of the most needed things that had somehow made it off the list. Two words, water guns! Seriously, how were we going to survive the summer without them??? Lilinette and I pilled in about ten of the best quality squirt guns we could, not the wimpy kind either, I'm talkin' about the kind that can shoot water as far away as the eye can see, with pressure that could bruise even the toughest of men. This was going to be so much fun!!!
After picking out the right squirt guns, Lilinette and I made out way to the check out lines where we found Fran and Emocar waiting for us, Emocar was pushing the 'emocar-t.' "Hey guys." I greeted, laughing at Fran, who was holding onto her Emo's arm and smiling happily while Emocar remained impassive, acting like he didn't even have Fran dangling off his arm, that alone told me that he actually cared about my friend, aww. How cute!
"Oh, hey! I think Katie and Stark are around her somewhere…" Fran told us as her mind started to wonder off at the end of her sentence. Lilinette snickered slightly as I looked around the store to see if I could find my lost friends, it wasn't very easy seeing as the store was rather big and, seeing as it was the Forth of July, the place was crowded, "Oh look!! Here they are!!!" Fran yelled, pointing epically, causing the people around us to turn and see what the crazy girl was pointing at.
"Yes! Here we are!!!" Katie agreed as she ran up to us dragging a rather, unwilling Stark behind her. "Do we have everything we need?"
"I think so, everything we need to get here at least."
"Well, let's go!" Lilinette declared happily before we waited in line for about ten minutes before finding out that we were in the express lane and we had way more than the eleven item limit. So, we had to get out of line and get to a different lane and waited for another fifteen to twenty minutes because this wasn't the express line and it's a proven fact that everything's slower if it doesn't have the world 'express' in it.
The town was still crowded by the time we got out of the store and walking down the street with all those grocery bags was rather hard, for Stark and Emocar. Dude, they are so whipped, it's really funny. By the time we got to the car I was starting to feel a little sticky in the hot July sun and really couldn't wait to get back to the beach house and feel that nice cool Lake Michigan breeze but we had one more stop left.
"So where are we going?" Katie asked in the drivers seat.
"Straight ahead, I'll tell you when to turn." And with that, we were off to the races, Katie weaved in and out of traffic and speeds that were more than illegal, I was amazed we hadn't broken the sound barrier yet. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who wanted to go home.
"RIGHT!!!" I yelled suddenly causing Katie to cross another lane of traffic in a semi-U-turn that almost got everyone in the vehicle killed, or in some cases, re-killed. We ended up at a farmers-market that was pretty crowded compared to what I'd seen in earlier years.
"Trash." Yup, that's the only comment we got about our near death experience, how comforting it is to know that we've gotten so close to dieing that a near death experience is just 'trash.'
"What are we doing here?" Lilinette asked, peering over the seats to make herself heard.
"Were getting supplies, duh." I stated like it was obvious as I got out of the car and started walking towards the green building as I heard more car doors open and shut behind me as my friends followed, although I'm pretty sure Stark was dozing in the back, so that didn't involve him. As I was grabbing the items I needed I heard a rather terrifying sound.
"Dude, they're selling fireworks!" Someone help us, Katie found the fireworks, I'm mean, it's not like I wasn't already planning on getting some, but it just seemed like a bad idea having her know about it… Oh well, we'll just put Stark in charge of making sure she didn't blow herself up, like I said, he's whipped, he'll do it.
By the time we made it back to the house it was already around 1:18pm. The house was relatively quiet, which worried me, but I had more important things to worry about. After blockading myself in the kitchen until Katie, Fran and Lilinette gave up trying to figure out what I was doing and went down to the beach, I started making my 'surprise.' Every Forth of July my mom would make her 'famous' 4th of July Tort and I know Katie has loved her tort ever since I had it for my birthday a few years back so I thought it would be nice to continue the tradition and surprise my friend. I started boiling water for the Jell-O, put the fruits from the farmers market into the fridge, and began crunching up the graham crackers for the bottom layer.
I was worried when I started putting down the cream cheese mixture down 'cause I knew if the Jell-O got through to the bottom, it would get mushy. Taking my chances, I went to pour the Raspberry Jell-O on top when Grimmjow walked in a scared the shit out of me.
"What the hell are you doing in here??" I'd been so focused on my project that I hadn't even noticed that there was anyone else in the house so when Grimmjow startled me I literally jumped up and ended up sending the hot Jell-O water through the air, which ticked me off but I wasn't able to stay mad for long though. Turning around I saw a rather, red, Grimmjow, and by red, I don't mean red in the face, I mean red as in, his face, clothes, and even his hair looked rather red as the sugary liquid dripped down, cracking me up.
"I'm sorry, sorry. You just look so, so…" I couldn't even finish my sentence without cracking up at the sidesplitting sight before me as Grimmy-Kitty glared at me.
"Are you done yet?" He asked sounding highly agitated, which only made it funnier, you can't take serious an angry kitty covered in red Jell-O, no matter how hard you try, he's just not scary, and the harder he tried to be intimidating, the funnier he looked.
"N-no, HAHAHAHA!!!" I continued laughing my ass off for a couple minutes while Grimmjow just glared at me until I had to just throw a towel at his face and turn away to calm down. "Okay I'm done."
*Glare*
"What? Maybe if you hadn't tried to sneak up on me you wouldn't have gotten covered in Jell-O." I pointed out, defending myself from the evil eye I was getting. Now with the red coloring off his face, he seemed a lot more threatening.
"Well if you paid attention once in a god damned while, maybe you wouldn't have gotten freaked out idiot!" He was obviously rather mad about this, so I thought, why not go for broke and have a few more laughs on his behalf?
"Maybe if you weren't always so sneaky, you wouldn't be all sticky right now, you're sneaky, like a puma!" I stated happily, emphasizing 'puma' while making 'cat claws' with my hands to make fun of my 'Puma'-Kitty.
"I'm a panther, not a puma."
"Like a puma!"
"I'm not a freaking puma."
"Sneaky, like a puma!"
"I'M NOT A FUCKING PUMA!!!"
"…..Puma."
"GAHHH!" Grimmjow finally gave up on me, throwing his hands up in the air while I smiled happily before getting back to work on my tort by starting to boil some more water and got out a couple new packages of Jell-O mix.
"Bye Puma-Man!" I called as he stormed off, laughing at the annoyed sounds he mad as he stormed out of the house. Man, I'm really good at annoying him huh?
After that incident I was able to finish my tort relatively quickly seeing as all I had to do is pour the Jell-O, put the strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries in and place the entire thing into the fridge to let in set. Looking at the clock, I saw it was around 3:15, which made sense with all the distractions I had when cooking, and by distractions, I mean Grimmjow being an idiot.
I went down to the beach after cleaning up and found my friends tanning on the beach, fast asleep. While the public beach side was rather busy our part of the beach was still rather roomy, so we didn't have to worry about running in to people. Picking up a pale, I went to the water's edge and filled in to the brim before walking back over to my friends. Smiling evilly, I poured the pales contents on to them, making sure to get all three of my friends wet.
"AHHH!" they all screamed, jumping up before glaring at me.
"Oh, hey guys," I greeted as innocently as I could, "Did I get you wet? I'm sorry, I was trying to get some mud so I could make a sand castle, would you like to join me?" Katie's evil growl told me that it was a no, so instead, I started running for my life as if I was being chased by a pack of rabid fangirls who were mad at me for calling their 'man' gay.
We ended up hanging out on the beach for most of the afternoon before we had to go up to start making dinner, which consisted of hot dogs, cheesy hot dogs, hamburgers/cheeseburgers, and watermelon, we grilled all but the watermelon and ate outside. At one point, a few of us, (Lilinette, Katie, Fran, and myself) got into a watermelon seed fight where we spit seeds out at each other. It was funny 'cause Lilinette and Katie used Stark as a shield so Fran and I spat a BILLION seeds at him for aiding the enemy, we're not afraid to harm innocent bystanders, or human shields, which is why we could never be trusted in a hostage situation.
After we tried to ditch out on cleaning up after dinner, but got caught and were forced to clean up, we grabbed a few blankets, our stash of fireworks and I smuggled out my tort as we headed back down to the beach to wait for the sun to set. Weirdly enough, the public beach was still rather packed when we got down there, I didn't think they had a display over Lake Michigan…
Either way, the sun was still up by the time we got set up so we still had time to mess around. Fran was able to drag Emocar into the water and seemed to have set up a splash fight while Katie and Stark sat on a blanket to 'supervise.' Harribel sat in a lawn chair and read a book, Szayel was taking 'samples' of whatever the fuck he could find to study later, Grimmjow… I'm not sure what he was doing, and Nnoitra was in the house because he refused to participate, which is fine by me, especially after the 'swimming trunks' incident. Can you say, nightmares? Lilinette was also not at the beach but that's because she 'accidentally' threw my tort into the water so she was hiding in her room away from my wrath.
"Hey Brooke!" I looked up from the spot where I was sitting, letting the tied wash over my legs as wave came in and out, "You wanna play chicken with me and Emocar???" Fran yelled from a ways out, the waves were rather big, crashing over her neck in water that was normally between her elbows and shoulders.
"Sure, I just need to find a partner!" I yelled back as I glanced around for a partner, seeing that every possible choice was busy, I had to find one myself. "Hey Fran, come help me find Grimmy!" Fran ran in to aid in my search as Emocar slowly followed, not really caring, I'm not sure how Fran was able to make him agree to playing chicken with her in the first place.
"Hey Puma-Man, where is you??" I yelled as we started probing the beach, Fran looked at me weird and I just shrugged in the 'it's-a-long-story' kinda way. "Here kitty, kitty, kitty."
"Dude, do you think he could have gotten stuck up a tree?" Fran asked me, making me crack up at the thought of some fireman's face when he got a call about a cat stuck in a tree to find a blue haired thug hanging onto a tree branch for dear life. We eventually found him in the house sulking by himself.
"Grimmy, we found you!" Fran yelled happily, Emocar no longer following her, we'd left him on the beach during our search party.
"What do you want." He said grumpily, obviously not in the mood to socialize much.
"We need you to play chicken with us 'cause we only have three people and we need four." I explained causing him to roll his eyes.
"Then get Katie."
"But she's to busy snuggling with Stark."
"What about Lilinette?"
"She's… preoccupied at the moment"
"What about Nnoitra?"
"Ha, I laugh at you."
"Well find someone else because I am not getting in that water." He scowled at the thought, he's more like a cat than I'd believed. I was more than ready to continue arguing with him, but Fran had a different route in mind.
"Your just mad that Uqlui-Kun's getting' some and your not." I almost died right then and there at the look on Grimmjow's face when she said that. I already knew about there, 'moments,' for reasons that will scar me for life but I'm guessing that Grimmjow didn't know about it yet.
"Come on Brooke, let's go find someone else." Fran said, turning around a leaving, with me right behind her, still holding in my laughter until we were out of earshot of Grimmy-Kitty.
The rest of the night went rather smoothly and before you knew it, the sun had set and we began arguing over where we should set off our fireworks and if we needed to wait anymore. I could tell Katie was excited for the fiery explosions and didn't want to wait any longer when suddenly Fran stopped us.
"Guys! Turn around!" Skeptically, we all turned towards the water and with in seconds the dark sky was alive with vibrant colors ranging from red to green to orange to blue. It was fanatical, and obviously well planned. Like I said earlier, I didn't even know about a planned fireworks display, yet somehow Fran knew, and exactly when they were set to go off… Weird.
"There amazing!" Katie gasped as she looked up at the beautiful colors and shapes.
"Yeah… They're magically delicious!*"
"Brooke."
"Hehe."
END CHAPTER!!!
*the Lucky Charms joke from the very begining
A.N: So, what did you think of our Forth o' July celebration? I know that it's not near the forth and that it's not a holiday everywhere, but this story takes place in America, and here it is a holiday and Katie and I want to try and introduce the 'Spada to important holiday's and that, for us at least, is one of 'em.
Now that you've read, please review or the terrifying rice crispy's god will rain spoil milk upon your head and cause all your cereal to be soggy!
Lilinette: Amen!