The Isadora Diaries:

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Friday, April 13th

Okay, this entry is going to be so long that I honestly don't know if I'll stay awake long enough to finish it.

Did it work? Did I delete the videos? Are Klaus and I friends again?

Well, if I told you that now, I'd ruin the story.

Wait, what? This is a diary entry...

Anywho...

No spoilers.

Let's start at the beginning shall we?

My day started with Duncan jumping on my bed, wearing his Jack Sparrow costume. "Come on, Isadora! We've got to get to the Black Pearl before Sherlock does! Or else he'll end the world with his Sherlock-ness!"

I groaned against my pillow. "Let me sleep."

"Isadora! You! Have! To! Get! Up!" He yelled, jumping on my bed with each word.

I threw my arm and hit him squarely in the face. "Ugh, shut up!"

"Ow!" he sat back and rubbed his nose. Then he said in a nasally voice, "I think you broke it."

I rolled my eyes. "I didn't break your nose you big...pirate? Duncan, why are you in your costume? We have to go to school first."

Ignoring me, he tilted his head back and pressed the sides of nose together. "I'm bleeding! Am I bleeding?!"

I snatched Duncan's hand away from his nose. "No, you're not bleeding, quit exaggerating-oh, Snicket! You're not bleeding!"

He gave me a confused expression. "Okay, well when you say it like that, I don't know what to think."

I gave him a shy smile to hide how panicked I was feeling. "Um, your nose might be bleeding just a little-"

His eyes went wide. He covered his nose. "Crap! Get me some tissues! Do you want a bloody bed?"

I hurried to my bathroom and grabbed a little too much paper and threw it at Duncan's face. "Stop bleeding!"

"I can't control the flow of my blood!"

"Well, start practicing!"

"Stop bleeding. Stop bleeding. Stop bleeding. Stop-"

"What are you doing?!"

"I'm trying to control the flow of my blood! Like you just told me to!"

"You can't control the flow of your own blood, why would you believe you can?!"

"Hey! What's going on in here?"

The light in my room switched on and my brother and I turned to see our dad standing in my doorway. He looked at the bloody tissue Duncan was holding up to his nose and crossed his arms. Shaking his head, he said, "Sorry, Hook. Not today."

I collapsed on my bed laughing at my dad's awesome reference, but Duncan frowned and cried out, "What?! Dad she gave me a bloody nose!"

Dad only laughed. "Your mom's the doctor. She's that way." He gestured his head toward the room they shared.

"Dad!"

I laughed. "Okay, Dad, that was really mean!"

He chuckled. "I know. I'm sorry." He walked to Duncan's side and instructed him to tilt his head back and other things you have to do when you have a bloody nose, and he told me to fetch my mother.

As I hurried to my mother's room, the fear of what she would do to me when she found out I gave my brother a bloody nose grew inside me like crazy. Well, I thought to myself, I just won't tell her. I knew she would find out sooner or later, but I preferred later over sooner.

I opened the door to my parent's bedroom and saw my mother standing in front of her mirror in her bathrobe, brushing her hair.

"Mom, Duncan's nose is bleeding."

She gave me an incredulous look. "No!"

"Yes," I nodded. "You should tend to him immediately."

Mother didn't bother asking how it happened. Instead, she ran out of the room to fix his nose. I went back to my room, too, and I found Quigley standing at the threshold of my room watching my parents with Duncan. Once he saw me he asked, "What did you do to him?"

"It was an accident!" I defended. "Besides, he woke me up in the most annoying way possible. He brought it upon himself."

My dad heard us talking and looked back at us. "Go eat breakfast while your mother and I fix your brother."

Duncan seemed like he was in good hands (our mother is a doctor), so we obeyed.

Quigley got right to eating, but before I grab the cereal box, Quigley said, "Why was Duncan in his costume? The dance isn't until tonight."

I lost my appetite. At the mention of the dance being so soon, and steadily getting sooner, my stomach became too full of butterflies to leave anymore room for food.

"Are you okay, Iz?" Quigley asked. "You look a little sick."

I snapped out of it. "Oh, yeah! I'm totally fine. I'm just going to go ahead and get dressed."

Quigley shrugged. "Okay," and he continued eating.

I walked back up to my room where my parents were slowly leading Duncan to the hallway bathroom with his head tilted back. There wasn't that much blood coming out anymore, so I figured he be okay, and I felt a little less guilty for making him bleed.

As I got dressed for school, I couldn't help feeling anxious about tonight. Would Mark's plan work? I figured it would only go right because of sheer good luck, and considering I haven't had that much in a while, I was seriously worried. What if Bea messed up with the questions? What if Haley wrote the wrong answer? What if I couldn't get a hold of her phone? What if I couldn't delete the videos in time? What if she decides to post them? All these questions ran through my head, and with the headache I was getting, I might as well have been thinking about them at all at once. Do you know how hard it is to be feeling afraid of five things all at the same time and not go insane?

It's quite difficult.

For twenty minutes, I just sat on my bed, staring at the wall and freaking out inside.

Maybe I was overreacting, but what if I was under-reacting? Could there be more to be worried about?

I pushed that thought out of my head. If I wasn't overreacting before, I was definitely overreacting now.

Finally, my father called for my brothers and I to get us in his car. He had driven us straight to school for a while now because he hasn't been needing to go into work so early and he knows that letting my brothers sleep in later will benefit everyone. Especially if I get to sleep later. If I have to get up for anything before the sun has risen, I'm planted into a bad mood for most of the day and might end up yelling at any little early birdie who happens to greet me.

I got in the car with my brothers,and I was almost surprised that was Duncan, now in normal clothes, was going with us.

"Mom wouldn't let you stay home?" I asked.

"Isadora did give you a bloody nose after all," Quigley smirked.

"Stay home and have the two of you tell people I stayed home because my sister gave me a bloody nose? I don't think so," Duncan said. "Just don't talk about it."

It rolled my eyes. Boys and their pride. "Duncan," I began, "why did you have your costume on this morning? You weren't planning to wear it to school were you?"

Duncan shook his head. "I feel all cool and pirate-ish in it."

"Pirate-ish?" I laughed.

"Yeah," he smiled nervously. "I was also hoping to scare you, but we know how that turned out."

I laughed again. Sometime, my brother could be so ridiculous.

Did I say 'sometimes'?

I meant all the time.

Anywho...

When we got to school, Bea ran into us-literally.

"Isador-ah!" she cried as she bumped into Duncan, who fell into me, who fell into Quigley, who fell into a poor unfortunate sixth grader. We pushed ourselves one another and muttered apologies to the sixth grader who ran away as we'd plan on falling on top of him.

"Bea!" I said. "What's gotten into you?"

She took my hand and led me away from my brothers. "I have to talk to you!" We sat down on benches next to the office, and she pulled out a folded piece of paper from her backpack. "Read it."

I hesitated, not sure why she was being so frantic.

"Go on," she said. "Read it."

I lowered my eyes to the top of the paper. "'The Dating Game Contestants'. Bea, what's wrong? It's just a list of the contestants."

"Read," she ordered more harshly.

I obeyed and began reading the list, "'Katelyn and Jonas'. Aww, Katelyn and her boyfriend entered? That's so cool, I hope they win!"

"Isadora!"

"Fine, fine, sorry," i apologized and continued reading the list. It wasn't very long, there were only four couples on the list...but that wasn't long enough.

"Bea," I said, trying not to panic, "where are Klaus's and Haley's names?"

"I'll tell you where they're not-on the list of contestants!"

"But why?!" I said a bit too loud bringing some unwanted attention towards myself. I ignored the awkward glances from the surrounding people and lowered my voice. "Bea how are we going to get Haley's pass code if she's not a a part of the game? We've tried everything else!"

"I tried talking to Miss Barb, but she said she only gave the spots to the first four people who came to her."

"Let me guess," I said, making it perfectly clear that I was annoyed. "Haley was the fifth?"

She nodded. "That's right."

I groaned and covered my face with my hands. "Well, now what?"

"I thought about calling Klaus and Haley into the game with the other contestants, or replacing a couple with them, but what if Miss Barb gets angry?" Bea said.

I stared at the list, feeling worse than I had ever felt. It was like all hope I had of getting Klaus back had incinerated into a pile of ashes.

No. I was going to get my best friend back. "I'll handle it, Bea," I said. "I'm going to Haley's pass code and I'm going to get my best friend back."

"Okay, I thought I was your best friend," she said with fake sadness.

"Sorry," I smiled, "my best guy friend. You know I love you!"

She laughed. "I know! But what are you going to do? Haley refuses to let us get near her so we can't see her put it in. No one we know will go up to her and find out for us. And there's no way that Miss Barb is going to let us add Haley and Klaus to the list. She was a bit over dramatic when she was talking to me about keeping only four couples."

I paused.

If I hadn't known any better, I would have said that there was a light bulb in my head. "Bea," I said, "when did you talk to Miss Barb about the list?"

"This morning."

I smiled. I hadn't lost to Haley. At least not yet. Bea had forgotten one small crucial detail about Miss Barb, and that was her strange mood pattern. In the morning she was totally cranky, it's a miracle that she allowed us to explain our idea of the dating game at all, but in the afternoon...

"Isadora? Why are you smiling?" Bea asked, looking confused.

I just smiled bigger. "Because Miss Barb is the nicest woman in the world, and she would be happy to add Klaus and Haley to the list of contestants."

From that moment up until we had to leave first period, Bea and I planned what I would say to Miss Barb. I couldn't make it seem like I wanted Klaus and Haley to be in the game for the wrong reasons, so I would say that Klaus and I are good friends (which is technically true, at the moment), and he was so excited about the game and really wanted to take part in it (which wasn't true). Since Miss Barb is so starkly sweet during the afternoons, I was sure that that would be enough for her to change the list.

I thought my future meeting with Miss Barb as I entered my history class and took my seat next to Klaus.

Great. I had to ignore Klaus. Again.

History class used to be my favorite class of the day, but now it was becoming my least favorite.

Luckily, the teacher started class before Klaus could say anything, and I was very thankful for that.

We worked until the bell rang at the end of class. I lifted my books from the desk quicker than wind could blow away a feather and zoomed out of the room so wouldn't stop me after class.

I made it halfway to my locker before he caught up with me.

"Isadora," he said, using my arm to pull me back into him, "please talk to me. I'm starting to feel like you hate me."

I shook my head without thinking. "I don't hate you."

"Then why won't you talk to me?"

I hesitated. I couldn't tell him the truth. At least...at least not yet.

Before I could say anything, Klaus made that adorable puppy dog face that he always did when he was really upset. "Isadora, I just want my best friend back."

I couldn't help myself. I hated seeing him look so sad; it broke my heart. I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. At first he stumbled back, stunned by my random action, but he wrapped his arms around me, too.

Then I looked up, and I realized my mistake.

I pushed myself away from Klaus, "Can't talk now, bye!" And I hurried away from him down the crowded hallway. I didn't stop until a certain blonde grabbed my shoulder and turned me around to face her. "What was that?"

"What was what?" I asked trying to make it sound like I didn't know what she was talking about.

Haley only glared at me. "You know."

"It's hard, Haley!" I blurted out, my voice cracking on the word 'hard'. "He's my best friend. You can't expect me to stop caring about him so quickly!"

"Well, work on it," she said. "I still have the videos, and I'm not afraid to show them to everyone."

I shook my head. "You don't need to do that."

She held up her phone. "Oh, don't I?"

"I promise, I'll work harder! I won't hug him anymore!" I said quickly, crossing my fingers behind my back. "Just give me another chance."

She rolled her eyes. "I really shouldn't, but I will. One more slip, and everyone knows about your performance last weekend." Then she gave me the fakest smile anyone on the planet could ever make. "See you in math." And with that, she skipped away, as if she were an innocent school girl instead of an evil friendship-breaker.

Lunch finally came around and I was feeling a bit nervous. I wasn't entirely sure why. After all, Miss Barb is almost a complete pushover in the afternoon. Maybe nervousness is just my default emotion.

"You know what you're going to say?" Bea asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. It shouldn't be too hard right? I mean, she's always super nice in the afternoons."

"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, it's fine. This is my mess, and I want to clean it up on my own."

Bea shrugged. "Okay, but I'll be standing right outside. I got your back."

I smiled. She always did, really.

"Uh-oh," she said, looking past me. "Romeo at 1:00."

"Romeo Santez? Didn't he move away last-" I turned around to see Klaus walking towards our table. Oh, I thought.

I grabbed Bea's hand and began dragging her away from the table. "I feel like we should go see about that list right now."

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

"Hey, guys, wait up!" Klaus called, running up to us. "Guys, wait!" He ran in front of us and blocked our way out of the lunchroom. "Isadora, can we talk?"

Bea crossed her arms. "Um, we're busy doing girl stuff right. In case you haven't noticed, you're a boy, so you wouldn't understand."

I glanced over at Haley's table to see her watching us very intently. I had to make sure I didn't do anything too friendly, but I didn't want to be too mean either. "Klaus," I said with a frown on my face to make Haley think I was being mean. "If you promise not to tell anyone I said this, then I promise I will talk to you later."

Klaus looked confused, but he nodded. "I promise. But why...?"

I shook my head. "Now just really isn't a good time." I turned my head back to Haley's table to see her getting up and making her way over to us. "Gotta go!" I said, grabbing Bea's arm again. "Bye!" And I pulled her past Klaus and we ran together to Miss Barb's office.

"Wow," Bea said, panting a little. "He is way persistent."

"Tell me about it," I muttered. I looked at Miss Barb's name above her door. "Well, here goes nothing."

"Good luck," Bea gave me a reassuring smile.

I thanked her and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" said Miss Barb from inside. I couldn't tell if she was in a good mood or not because she didn't sound mean or nice when she said it. She just sounded...somewhere in the middle. I took a deep breath as I opened the door and stepped into Miss Barb's tension/cinnamon filled office. "Miss Barb, can I ask you for a favor?"

"Don't let rain clouds
Cloud all of your parades
Let the other side of darkness kiss your face
Into the sea, into the sea..."

~ White by Lights

;)