A/N: Thanks to my reviewers Dancin' Dani 11, Fenrir of the Dark Moon and Midnight Rebel Spy. I really appreciate the support!

By the way, I added a little to the end of chapter one, just so everyone knows! (as of 7/31/09)

July: Beach

The sky washed the walls with a pink hue as Olette blinked sleepily. She winced as the twilight sun assaulted her eyes leaving white spots in its wake. She sat up momentarily blinded, groping for the curtain. She found it and was about to draw it closed when she glanced out the window. The orange streets reminded her of something. Standing on the pavement, waving at a friend, calling him(?) her(?) to come down from the room she was now sitting in. But if she'd lived in this house all her life, how could that be true?

She pondered the memory while getting dressed and eating breakfast. Her friends were always praising her amazing memory so she found it hard to believe she'd forget a person, a friend. She wasn't sure if she'd imagined the memory or not. She decided to ask for a second opinion when her mother entered the kitchen.

"Mom?"

"Yes dear?" Olette's mother turned away from the fridge and towards her.

Olette finished her milk and put the cup aside. "Was there anyone else ever living in this house? I mean, before us."

Her mother took out the orange juice and closed the fridge. "No dear, this house has been in our family for a few generations now." She joined Olette at the table. "Why do you ask?"

Olette sighed. "I had sort of a flashback this morning and I'm not sure it was real."

"What was it about?" He mother asked, pouring the juice into a cup.

"Well, Hayner, Pence and I were standing outside our house and waving at the window of my room and someone was inside. It wasn't a member of our family, but I feel like it was a friend. We were telling him or her to come down."

Olette's mother frowned in thought. "I don't remember you having any other close friends besides Hayner and Pence. And we've lived here your whole life so the situation doesn't make sense. Seems to me you just imagined it."

Olette yawned. "Maybe I haven't been getting enough sleep."

Olette's mother gave her a look. "Now don't neglect your sleep honey. I know it's summer, but you need to be well rested!"

Olette nodded, bringing her dishes to the sink. "I know mom. I'll get more sleep, I promise."

"All right then."

Her dishes put away, Olette headed for the door. "I'll be back before seven mom!"

"Okay, be careful and have fun!"

"Bye mom!"


Olette took a deep breath and sighed happily as she strolled towards the Usual Spot. The air had a slightly salty tang from wafting over the ocean. "Maybe we can go to the beach today!" She thought out loud. She brought a hand back to touch the purse stowed securely in her pocket. "I wonder if we have enough munny…" she mused, pushing aside the worn curtain into the Usual Spot.

The nook was empty when Olette entered. Her mood soured when she saw the mess of papers, photos and toys strewn about the ground and furniture. "Those boys, I don't know why I put up with them." She grumbled, gathering the items and organizing them. After a lot of frustrated mumbling and moving around, Olette was finished. Breathing a sigh of relief and satisfaction, she was about to plop onto the couch when a flash of color under the table caught her eye. She bend down and discovered it was a picture. Reaching under, she grasped the corner and brought it up so she could see it more clearly. The image made her smile. It was a picture taken the year before, right before summer vacation. It showcased her, Hayner and Pence in front of the mansion sporting big smiles. Standing up, she gently placed the photo on the radiator in the back, angling it so the sunlight highlighted its color. Studying the photo more carefully, she frowned. For some reason it seemed that the space behind Pence was strangle empty. For a moment, she thought there was something, or someone who was supposed to fill that space…

"Yo Olette! Earth to Olette!"

"Huh?" Olette jumped when she realized Hayner was waving his hand in her face.

"Jeez." Hayner said, pulling his hand back. "You looked like you had been frozen or something."

Olette shook her head to clear it. "Sorry, I guess I just zoned out."

Hayner scoffed. "Probably comes from reading those books all day."

Olette put her hands on her hips. "Hey! At least I don't try to get through them in one night!"

Hayner was about to counter her comment when Pence burst into the room.

"Hey guys! What's u- whoa…this place is clean…" Pence stood at the entrance, eyes wide, surveying the room.

Olette folded her arms. "That's right. You guys left this place in such a mess it was disgusting! Out of the goodness of my heart, I cleaned it up for you. You guys owe me big."

Hayner and Pence gave each other a glance of guilt. "Sorry Olette." Pence said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Forgiven." Olette said, smiling at Pence. She then snapped her gaze over the Hayner, an expectant look on her face.

Hayner appeared to be thinking, his brows furrowed, one hand on his hip, the other scratching his head. Seconds passed and Olette began tapping her foot impatiently.

Suddenly, Hayner's face brightened and he slapped a fist onto his other palm. "That's it!"

Olette unfolded her arms. The look of impatience on her face was replaced by one of confusion. "What's it?"

"I know how we can make it up to you!"

A small smile appeared on Olette's face. "You do?"

"You do?" Echoed Pence, a look of utter confusion on his face.

"Yup!" exclaimed Hayner. "Drum roll please!" He said, gesturing dramatically towards Pence. The black haired boy seemed to momentarily forget his confusion as he grinned and tapped mock drum roll on the table.

"Olette," Hayner said, pointing at his female friend. "We will make it up to you by…….taking you to the beach!"

Olette clapped her hands laughing. "I was actually thinking we should all go this morning!"

"That's a great idea Hayner!" Pence said, halting his drumming. "I can already taste the pretzels." He continued, looking up wistfully and licking his lips.

Hayner and Olette laughed. "All right then, on to business." Hayner said seriously. "Olette, what's our cash fund?"

Olette reached back and took out the communal purse, dumping its contents on the table. "Let's see…we have…600 munny." She said, stacking the bills in piles.

Hayner stroked his chin in thought. "Okay, a ticket to the beach costs 900 munny, and if we all want 300 munny to spend on pretzels, and we already have 600 munny, that means we need…"

"Hold on a sec." Olette said, quickly doing the math in her head. "3000 munny."

"All right, so that means we all need to make 1000 munny before the last train leaves at 2:00!" Hayner started running out of the nook. "Meet at the station at 1:45 with cash in hand!"

Pence and Olette gave each other knowing looks then headed after him.


"I wonder what jobs are available." Pence said as he and Olette strolled up to Market Street.

"I don't know. Hopefully someone will need a mailman. I like doing that job."

"Yeah," Pence said. "I hope I don't get stuck busting bees again. I looked like a tomato for a month."

Olette giggled. "I remember that. You kept smearing ointment on your face and glaring at Hayner the whole time."

"Let me tell you, if they have that job available, he can have it!"

The two turned a corner into Station Heights and made their way to the board where people posted available jobs.

"Awesome!" Olette exclaimed, pointing at the first listing. "They need a mailman all right!"

"Let's see what else." Pence said, running his finger along the listings. "Hmm…guess I'll give Poster Duty a try."

"Okay!" Olette said, stretching. "Let's get to work!"

Pence waved goodbye as Olette headed to the post office then started up the hill to Tram Common. On the way he passed a small crowd cheering. He pushed his way through to see Hayner in the middle, keeping a ball afloat with a Struggle club. "You go Hayner!" He cheered, clapping loudly before moving on.

Next to the billboard at Tram Common he found a man with an enormous stack of posters.

"You the new poster guy?" He said, gesturing to Pence.

"That's me!" Pence said, grinning.

The man returned the grin. "Great!" He held up the stack of posters. "I have these advertising the Struggle tournament next month. I'd like you to put them up all over town, starting here. Try to hit as many places as you can, but don't put too many in the same place, or else people will get tired of seeing them. But of course, put them close enough that people will be reminded of the event. You can put them in stores, on windows, on walls, on the billboards, wherever you think they'll attract attention. If you're done before 1:00 I'll give you 1000 munny, how does that sound?"

Pence smiled. If he did this job right, he'd be all set! "Sounds great!"

"Awesome!" said the man, handing the stack of posters to Pence. "It's about 11:00, so that gives you a good two hours! Thanks a lot and good luck!"

"Thanks!" Pence called, already running to the nearest wall.


"Thank you very much!" Olette said. Pocketing the bills with a flourish as she walked away from the post office. In one hour she had managed to deliver all the letters and earn 600 munny. "Only 400 more to go!" she said cheerfully, walking up to the billboard again. "Now, let's see what else is available!"

Olette's smile turned to a frown when she glimpsed the only available job. "Trash pick up?" she said dejectedly. A sigh followed. "Well, it pays 400 munny so I guess I'll take it!"

Olette slowly made her way up to Tram Common and to the alleyway the job indicated. There she found a kind looking old woman.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here!" The woman said, smiling. "I have all this trash bags here from my tenants but they're too heavy for me to put in the dumpster."

Olette forced a smile. "I'll be happy to help you ma'am."

The old woman bowed deeply. "Thank you so much dear. I'll be inside if you need me."

Olette looked at the massive sea of black and smelly bags in front of her and sighed. "This is turning out to be some day."


Fifty posters later, Pence's legs started to hurt. One hundred posters later, he felt as if he was walking through quicksand. One hundred fifty posters later, he was afraid his arms were going to fall out of their sockets. Two hundred posters later, Pence thought he was going to die.

Exhausted and incredibly hungry, Pence limped back to Tram Common eyeing each Struggle poster he passed with a fiery hatred. He reached the man, glimpsed the clock and groaned. 1:30.

The man had a sympathetic look on his face as Pence approached him. "Hey, great job! Thanks so much for your help! Unfortunately you didn't make it by 1:00 but you did such a great job I'm gonna give you 900 munny!"

Pence tried to smile but only felt his lips twitching. He took the munny with shaky hands, croaking out a thank you before collapsing in relief on a bench. "100" pant "munny" pant "left" pant "to" pant "go."


With a grunt, Olette heaved the last of the trash bags into the dumpster and wiped the sweat from her forehead gratefully. "Done!"

"Oh! Thank you so much my dear!"

Olette turned to smile to the old woman who was carrying a large glass of lemonade. "Drink up sweetie, you deserve it!"

The tired girl gratefully took the glass and drained it, feeling her strength return with each gulp. "Thank you." She said, handing the glass back to the woman.

"You're welcome dear. And since you did such a wonderful job, here's 500 munny." The old woman took the bills from her pocket and pressed them into Olette's hands.

Olette gasped. "Oh, I couldn't, the job was only for 400 munny!"

The elderly woman chuckled. "My dear, if there's one thing I learned in life it was never be afraid to accept more munny. Please, you earned it."

Olette smiled. "Thank you."

The munny safely stowed in the purse, Olette was about to head towards Station Plaza when she heard a cry for help coming from Station Heights. Panicked, she quickly turned and ran towards the direction of the sound.

Reaching the top of the hill she stopped to gawk at the scene before her. Hayner and Pence were using all their strength attempting to push a cart filled to the brim with merchandise up the hill.

"Olette!" Hayner cried, his voice straning. "Don't just stand there! Help us!"

Olette snapped out of her reverie and ran to help her friends.

"What happened?" she asked as she took a place beside Hayner and started pushing.

"A man asked if we could help him take this cart to Station Plaza for 600 munny. I needed 500 more and Pence needed 100 so it was perfect! That is, until we started!" Hayner said, grunting under the weight.

"Not that!" Olette said, her own voice straining. She turned her eyes towards Hayner's face, which looked slightly puffier than usual. "What happened to your face?"

Despite being under so much weight Pence laughed. "Hayner got stuck with bee duty today!"

Hayner slammed his foot hard on the ground. "Yeah! And she only paid me 200 munny! Stingy lady!"

Olette giggled then pushed harder on the cart. "How heavy is this thing anyway!" She cried.

Hayner let out a groan as he started sliding back. "Who cares, just push!"

After much, heaving, grunting and sliding, the three managed to get the cart up the hill and to Station Plaza. The man shook each of their hands gratefully and, to their great surprise and delight, paid them each 600 munny. They waved as the man loaded the merchandise on the train then happily put all the munny in the purse…just as the clock struck 2:00.

Silence followed, then Hayner threw his head back and shouted in utter frustration, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"


The Usual Spot again. The three exhausted and disappointed friends sat eating bars of sea-salt ice cream.

"Aww, I can't believe we missed it." Hayner said sadly, dejectedly licking his ice cream.

"Cheer up Hayner, at least we have more munny for ice cream." Pence said, biting off a huge chunk of the blue bar.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess."

"Hey," Olette said, carefully licking a drop off her Popsicle stick before it landed on her shirt. "Didn't we lose our munny last year, before we got tickets to the beach?"

The two boys sat deep in thought.

"Yeah…I remember that!" Pence said, his eyes lighting up. "Someone stole it right?"

Olette nodded. "That's right. I think one of us tripped and someone swiped the purse then."

Pence's head bobbed in agreement. "Uh huh. Who was the one who tripped anyway?"

"I don't know." Olette said. "Was it you Hayner?"

Pence laughed. "Yeah, it was probably Hayner!"

Hayner voiced a protest. "No it wasn't! I wouldn't be that stupid! Besides, I was at the ticket booth. It had to be one of you two."

Olette shook her head. "Wasn't me!" Pence's head copied Olette's. "Me neither."

Hayner scoffed. "Well, your brains must be messed or something, 'cause it most definitely wasn't me."

Silence followed. Then Pence remarked quietly, "I still think it was Hayner."

Hayner protested again as Olette and Pence laughed. They were so caught up in amusement that they didn't notice the curtain to their hangout being pushed aside…

"Is this a private party or can an old friend join in?"

The three friends turned towards the direction of the voice. Their eyes widened, taking in the boy with the huge grin, blue eyes and spiky hair…

"Sora!"


RESTORATION bzzt AT bzzt 75%. MERGING bzzt DATA bzzt NOW.


A/N: Chapter 2 finished! Once again, I managed to finish right on time! *sigh* I need to stop doing that… Hope you enjoyed this chapter! One more to go!