The buses were loaded with students getting ready for the trip to Charlotte for the annual Sparkle Classic. Cassie, Lucas and Karen stood around watching all the confusion of teachers trying to take attendance of all the students and students running around looking for their friends.
"Well I hope you two don't think I'm just being an overprotective mother following you around." Karen joked.
"Which we know you are." Lucas replied with a roll of his eyes. "Seriously Ma, were old enough to take take of ourselves, you don't need to chapersone us wherever we go."
Karen just shook her head with a smile. "This coming from the guy with the shoulder injury." She looked at Cassie. "And the girl with the broken leg, Cass you really should keep off of that." She said in concern.
"Mom you heard the doctor, he gave me the all clear to go to this thing, I've got a smaller cast on and I'm getting stronger with each passing day." Cassie tried to assure her mom when she spotted Brooke and a bunch of the other cheerleaders huddled around Coach Durham. "I wonder what's going on over there." Cassie said as she started to hobble over to the crowd with her mother and brother following close behind.
"Coach there is no way we are going to be able to fit all of our cheer stuff on that bus." Brooke said.
"I suggest you try Miss Davis if you want your squad to participate, and I suggest you lose the tone." Whitey said calmly.
Brooke huffed before continuing. "Why don't I just bring my car, I've got more then enough room for all of our stuff in my trunk, please Whitey." Brooke said knowing she had crossed a line but not caring at the moment.
"Grownups call me Whitey, students call me Coach Durham." Whitey reminded the young girl. "And as for your car, its a school policy on trips like this not to allow students to drive themselves, I'm sorry Miss Davis, but thats the way it's going to be."
Brooke then spotted Karen. "Ms. Roe, could you bring you car so we could put our stuff in it?" Brooke asked.
Cassie looked at her mom, pleadingly.
Karens sighed but then nodded. "Ok." She agreed.
"Great." Brooke shouted. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Brooke said as she ran over to the older woman and wrapped her arms around her neck. "Thank you." Brooke said as she let go. "Your a life saver Ms. Roe."
Karen laughed. "Your very welcome." She smiled, she liked Brooke. Sure she wasn't crazy about her at the beginning but the more she got to know her, the more she saw what both her kids saw in her. "Brooke what have I told you, call me Karen."
Brooke smiled and then walked over to Cassie. "Your mom's the coolest." She said with a laugh. "So how's the leg?"
Cassie shrugged. "On the mend, I finally got a smaller cast."
"That's great, you'll be back on the squad before you know it." Brooke said as she put her arm around Cassie's shoulders. "So you riding with us?"
Cassie looked from Brooke to her mom and then back to Brooke. "I don't know." She hobbled over to Karen. "Mom, is it cool if I ride on the bus?"
"I don't know sweetie." She said but then thought about it deciding Cassie should be allowed to have fun with her friends. "Ok go ahead." She said as she watched Cassie's face light up.
"Thanks." Cassie smiled. "It's cool Brooke."
Brooke shrieked. "Cool, you can sit with me. There's some new cheer routines I want to run by you anyways."
Cassie laughed. "Even if I'm not able to be apart of them?"
"Duh! You know what your doing as well as anyone and your good at giving input." Brooke said and then shot a look at Peyton who was walking across the parking lot next to her father. "I used to talk about these things with someone else, but that all changed." She said bitterly.
Cassie sighed. She wanted things to go back to normal between Brooke and Peyton and she hoped that going on this trip, getting away from their everyday lives, would help them.
Peyton walked up to the group that had formed with a man. Cassie guessed he was her father.
Whitey smiled and walked over to the group. "Well I guess all you kids have met the chaperones."
Lucas groaned at the mention of the word. He couldn't believe his mom was chaperoning a trip, she hadn't done this since elementary school. This weekend was going to be some kind of torture, he decided. Brooke and Peyton were both not speaking to him, his mom was chaperoning, and he had to spend the entire weekend with a whole team who thought he was a loser. Great. Just great.
"Larry Sawyer, meet Karen Roe, your fellow chaperone." Whitey introduced the two.
Karen smiled warmly at him. "Good to meet you."
"My daughter has told me a lot about you, seems she is very fond of you." Larry said as he and Karen started walking away from the kids.
"Well Peyton is a great girl. I've enjoyed getting to know her a little better, Lucas has done nothing but talk about her since the beginning of this year." Karen stopped suddenly realizing she had just spilled one of her sons biggest secrets. "Oh my god, I shouldn't have said anything." She said as she covered her mouth.
Larry smiled unable to hold back the laughter. "Well, we will just keep this our little secret." He smiled at her.
Karen laughed. "Thank you."
"You have twins right? I think Peyton mentioned something about a son and a daughter?" Larry asked genuinely interested in her. He didn't know what is was about her, but for whatever reason they hit it off, right off the bat.
"Yeah, Lucas and Cassie. Luke plays for the Ravens and Cassie's on the cheerleading squad, but she won't be playing this weekend, she has a broken leg still from the accident." Karen explained.
Larry nodded. "I heard about that, too bad. Peyton seems to really like Cassie, they've become good friends from what I can tell."
Karen smiled. "Yeah they have. It's weird, up until this year neither Lucas or Cassie have really talked to anybody outside of their group of friends, all of a sudden they've got a ton of new friends." She said with a laugh.
Lucas, Cassie and Peyton stared at the two.
"How weird is this?" Cassie asked.
Lucas nodded in agreement. "Our mom, and your Dad." He gestured to Peyton.
"He's never really talked like that to any women since my mom." Peyton said a little weirded out by the situation. She still had feelings for Lucas and the fact that her dad was flirting with his mom, was a major gross out factor.
Three hours later the bus loads of students finally pulled up at the Mariott Hotel in Charlotte, the hotel that was hosting the event. Cassie and Brooke spent the entire time planning out new cheers while both Peyton and Lucas sat alone with their head phones implanted firmly in their ears. Lucas actually fell asleep on the ride over and didn't even wake up when the bus arrived and people started to depart.
Cassie shook her head as she laughed at her brother. She shook him until he awoke and shot her a glare.
"What?" She asked innocently. "Were here, moron." She laughed.
"Ok everybody, rooming arrangements have already been decided and won't be changing." Whitey said as he passed out the sheets of paper with the numbers on them.
Peyton groaned when she saw that her and Brooke would be sharing a room but then smiled when she realized that Jake was in the room next to theirs. That would be her escape plan, she decided, if Brooke decided to kill her in her sleep.
Lucas and Nathan showed up at their door at the same time. "You've got to be kidding." They said simultaneously.
"Coach, is there some sort of mistake?" Lucas asked.
Whitey laughed at their situation and shook his head. "Nope, all basketball player's roomates were decided based on alphabetical order. Sorry boys." He smirked as he walked away.
"Should of changed your last name." Nathan said. "Then we wouldn't be in this mess."
"Me, your blaming me for this?" Lucas asked. "Even if I had changed my last name to Roe, we still would have been in the same room genius." He pointed out.
"Whatever dude. You stick to your side of the room, I'll stick to mine. You ignore me, I'll ignore you, it'll be the same way it's been for the last 17 years." Nathan said.
"Fine." Lucas threw his stuff down on the far side of the bed and grabbed the remote.
"Your kidding me? There's a basketball game on and you think your going to watch some cheesy reality show?" Nathan asked when he saw what Lucas intended to watch. Nathan grabbed the remote from his estranged brother's hand and switched the station.
Lucas groaned, this was going to be a longer weekend then he anticipated. He got up and walked towards the door. "Whatever, I'm going to find Jake." He said as he walked out of the room.
Cassie finally found her room. Since the rooming arrangements for the cheerleaders had been established before she joined the squad, she had her own room. It was a large room with a two double beds. On one hand it would be nice to have someone to talk to, but she knew that if she really wanted to talk to someone, her moms room was just down the hall and Brooke and Peyton's were three doors down. On the other hand, it would be nice to have sometime alone.
She plopped her stuff down on the bed nearest the large window overlooking the city of Charlotte. She had loved coming up here when she was a kid with her mom, Lucas and Uncle.
Keith. She forgot to call him when she had promised to the night before. She sat down and threw her crutches to the floor. She pulled her cell phone out from her coat pocket and flipped it open and hit 3 on the speed dial.
Two rings later she heard someone pick up. "Hello?" The low voice of her Uncle said.
Cassie smiled, no matter what she was doing or how she was feeling, Keith could always make her feel better. "Keith?"
"Baby-girl." Keith smiled when he heard his niece's voice. "How's it going? You finding it easier to get around without that gigantic cast on your leg?"
Cassie laughed remembering the other day when her Uncle laughed as she struggled to hobble around with a 50 lb cast, at least that's how heavy it felt.
"Yeah, I can finally move." Cassie said.
"So I guess I'm joining you for dinner tonight." Keith said sounding excited.
Dinner? Cassie thought. What dinner? "Your coming to Charlotte just to have dinner with us?" She asked sounding completely confused.
"Charlotte? Why would I drive all the way to Charlotte? Cass are you sure you haven't been taking to many of those pain meds, cause you know what the doctor said." Keith joked.
"Very funny, but I'm serious. My mom, Lucas and I are in Charlotte. Luke and I are involved in the Sparkle Classic competition and mom came to chaperone. She did tell you didn't she?" Cassie asked suddenly feeling horrible for mentioning anything. She didn't want to hurt her Uncle.
"Cass, you can't be in Charlotte, because your mom invited me to dinner tonight...unless she forgot." Keith sounded so sad that Cassie wanted to reach threw and hug him. She felt enormously guilty and a little angered by her mother's seeming forgetfulness.
"Keith, I'm so sorry. I thought she told you." Cassie said honestly. "I feel terrible."
"Honey, its not your fault. You didn't know." Keith assured her. "I'll be fine, ok. You have fun in Charlotte with your friends, just being a kid." He put emphasis on the word kid because he sometimes felt that Cassie forgot what being a kid meant. She had been forced to grow up incredibly fast for a girl her age and had never really had much of a childhood. Lucas was the same way.
"I'll try, Uncle Keith I swear I didn't have any idea. But maybe when I get back we can do one of our famous pizza and movie nights?" Cassie asked hopeful.
Keith laughed. It was a tradition he had started with his niece when she was a little girl. It used to be they would do this once a week when she was younger. He and Lucas would spend one entire day together playing basketball and doing guy stuff, and to make sure Cassie didn't get left out, they would do their pizza and movie night.
"Sure baby-girl. I'll look forward to it, I'll let you go now." He said noting that she sounded tired.
"Ok bye Uncle Keith." She said and waited for him to say goodbye and hang up.
Cassie sighed, still having a guilty feeling in her stomach, she grabbed her crutches and limped towards the door. She opened the door and was surprised to find Haley standing on the other side.
"Hales." Cassie said not sure why her best friend was here. "What are you doing here? I didn't know you were coming to the Sparkle Classic."
Haley shrugged as she entered Cassie's room. "It's cool, I wasn't planning on coming until Nathan invited me."
Cassie nodded. She hadn't spoken to Nathan in days, she was still pissed at him for wanting to delibrately use her to hurt Lucas. She knew he and Haley were on better terms, and was happy for them. "Oh"
"Look Cass, I know your still pissed as hell at him, and I understand why, but I really do think he changed for the better. I've seen a lot of changes in him in the past couple weeks. Maybe you should give him another chance." Haley said.
"I don't know Haley, I've given him more then enough chances to prove he can be a decent guy, and he has blown it everytime." Cassie said.
"Just talk to him, you won't regret it." Haley assured her.
"I guess." Cassie sighed. "So how'd you know which room was mine?"
"Oh I asked Brooke and she told me you had a room all to yourself." Haley said.
"Yeah, they had all the room arrangements set months ago." Cassie explained. "Need a place to crash?" Cassie asked and laughed knowing Haley wanted something.
"How'd you know what I was going to ask?" Haley laughed along with her friend.
"I know you and I also know that because of the no-coed rooming rule, that you and loverboy could not shack up together." Cassie said. "But its cool, you can stay in here."
"Thanks Cass." Haley hugged her. "You look so much better, your leg is finally healing." She noticed.
"Yeah my injuries from the accident are about the least of my problems right now."
"What's going on?" Haley asked concerned.
"Oh you know typical stuff. My mom apparently neglected to tell Keith we weren't going to be in Tree Hill all weekend and he was planning on coming over for dinner tonight. Lucas and Nathan are roomed together so I pretty much have to make sure they don't kill eachother, and Brooke and Peyton are still at eachother's throats. I don't know what else could possibly go wrong." Cassie said.
Haley looked down after hearing her friends rant. "Well then you really won't like what I have to tell you."
Cassie all of a sudden looked nervous. "What?"
"When I was downstairs I saw Theresa and a bunch of the other cheerleaders. It looked as if Theresa somehow managed to get chickenpox."
Cassie's eyes widened. This was turning out to be the weekend from hell, and it was only Saturday.