A/N: For some inexplicable reason, this started out as a simple, fun-in-a-melodramatic-way bunch of gossip; hence the chapter title. And then . . . it devolved into a quasi-unintelligible and indulgent ramble about how graduating makes everyone's lives different. I can only blame this on my own personal grievances right now, and I hope that nobody will mind the turn into the depressing too much, and I resolve to make the next chapters happy . . . or happier. There's a lot of drama in Whoville, according to me. Go fig.

"Look at them."

None of Sarah's friends replied to her statement. They were all lost in their own thoughts, which ran the gamut from glum to miserable. Sarah sighed and carried on as though nothing had happened — which, in fact, it hadn't. She gestured once again at the lunch table next to them, where Jamie and her friends were chattering about the upcoming school dance. She added, "Sitting there like normal high-schoolers, completely oblivious to the dark truth of the world." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Know what that truth is?"

"That they're grounded for sneaking off to the Whoniversity all night?" Sally asked.

"That the girl of their dreams will never love them back?" Patrick suggested, staring out the window with his chin in his hand.

"That their mother pulled a Queen Gertrude and married some guy less than six months after their father died, and that their new 'brother' is their most hated enemy?" When Ned said this, Sally put her arm around his shoulders, her own troubles forgotten.

"No," Sarah said. "That nothing goes with purple!" She threw her arms in the air. "Look at this! Can't wear red! Can't wear blue! Can't wear pink, or green, or orange, or anything! All these normal-looking Whos in their nice colors can have any type of dress they want —"

"Not me," Ned interrupted.

Sarah ignored him again; she was getting quite good at sidestepping her friends' impossible moods. "I will have to wear something that looks hideous because of my stupid, stupid color. And nobody cares! What shall I do with my life now?"

If her plan had been to drag them out of their gloom, it worked. Sally pointed at a cheerleader a few tables away. "Trish is purple," she said. "You won't be alone, at least."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Trish is lavender, Sal. Lavender's not the same as purple."

"Actually," Ned said, "it is. It's a shade of purple."

Sally turned to him, nodding. "I definitely thought it was in the purple family. Like a cousin something."

"No, closer than that. It'd be Purple's weird Siamese twin."

"Whatever!" Sarah exclaimed, though she couldn't quite hide a smile. "The point is that lavender is much prettier than purple, and I will have nothing to wear to prom."

"So wear nothing," Sally said.

Ned smirked. "You'll be a hit."

Patrick, who alone was still mired in unhappy thoughts, looked up with wide eyes as soon as the words registered. "You can't do that!" he said. ". . . Can you?"

"Fine, fine, make jokes," Sarah said. "It's no big deal for you" — she jerked her chin at Ned and Sally — "you guys have each other. Patrick and I . . ." She paused for dramatic effect, "have no one."

Something Sally's eyes brightened. It was a light only Patrick noticed, and he stared at her in horror. "Why don't you two go together?" she asked, gesturing at Patrick and Sally with her fork. "I mean, if you both have no one to go with."

"As friends?" She glanced at him thoughtfully. "I don't know. I was hoping for something a little more . . . well, romantic. No offense," she added hastily.

He shrugged, looking depressed again. "None taken."

"But then again . . . oh, all right." Sarah turned to him, holding out her hand. "If neither of us have a date by prom, we'll go together. Deal?"

He looked at her outstretched hand and hesitated, his expression a mix of disappointment and happiness. After a moment he shook it, his smile wan. "Deal."

"She's going to find someone else."

Sally knelt down and straightened a piece of wood that was slowly being fed through a saw. "What makes you say that?" she asked absently. She wished she had more attention to spare for Patrick's problem, but the giant rotating blades near her fingers were a higher priority. That was what he got for striking up a conversation of this sort in woodshop.

He set the drill he was holding on the table (Sally was relieved that he hadn't turned it on yet) and ticked the reasons off on his fingers: "She's beautiful, she's smart, she's funny, and she's purple. Ignore whatever she thinks, guys like purple girls." He sat down. "I can't exactly compete with your average Joe Who, can I?"

Sally took off her goggles and flicked off the saw. "Of course you can," she said, giving him a one-armed hug. "You're clever and cuddly." She'd hoped that he would laugh at the alliteration, but he just sighed. She stood and pulled the goggles over her eyes, then held her hand out to him. "Come on. We can talk while we work, but this chair won't build itself."

"Have you talked to Sarah?"

Ned raised his eyebrow at Sally. "Yes, Sal. In fact, I introduced you to her in sixth grade, remember?"

She laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. "I meant since lunch, you doof."

He shook his head. "We don't have any classes together," he said, "and since they don't walk home with us . . ." He gestured at the surrounding neighborhood as they walked, to indicate the lack of Sarah or Patrick.

Sally was too busy thinking to be amused. "Okay, so I'll be the one to talk to her. You can deal with Pat. But this is a tricky situation, so we'll have to be very careful . . ."

He stared at her. "What the heck are you talking about?"

She paused mid-babble. "Oh right," she said with an embarrassed laugh. "Let's just say that we're finally not the ones with romantic problems."

"You're not going to say anything stupid, are you?"

Ned laughed, turning to Sally. "You're lucky you're cute, Sal, because the personality isn't so —" He was interrupted as she grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him. The suddenness and intensity of it made his head spin, but he gave her a goofy smile as she pulled away. "That's not going to make me talk any smarter," he said.

She smiled and gave him a final peck. "I can live with it," she replied, and pushed him into the classroom. "Remember, talk. Not stupid."

"Not stupid," he repeated, crossing the room and sliding into the chair next to Patrick. He studied his current project — a painting of a stapler with devil horns, flames, and an evil face — with exaggerated nonchalance. "So you're going to prom with Sarah," he said.

Patrick froze, his brush dripping paint on the floor. He collected himself, though his face was still red. "Yes, unless one of us finds someone else."

"Uh-huh." Ned took his friend's brush and patted at the edges of the painting with it. "And who are you thinking of asking?"

Patrick shrugged, his affected look spoiled by the fact that he was chewing on his lip. "No one, really. I mean, it wouldn't really be fair to Sarah if I ditched her, would it? Besides, these kinds of things need to be spontaneous, not ruined by forthought or complicated by —"

"You like her."

To Ned's surprise, Patrick's expression quickly changed from surprise to amusement, and he chuckled to himself. "I knew she'd tell you," he said, shaking his head.

"Well, she needed my help to — wait." Ned glared at him. "You mean you don't think I could've figured it out on my own?"

His friend snatched the paintbrush back as the teacher approached and whispered, "Ned, you're a lot of things. But 'perceptive' and 'observant' are not among them."

"Aren't those synonyms?" he asked.

"No. Wait . . ." He shrugged. "I think you're right. Anyway, it doesn't matter."

Ned stared at him in shock. "How could it not matter? And of course I'm right!"

"It doesn't matter because it's never going to happen. Sarah, I mean. She doesn't think of me that way."

"She could, though," Ned said, leaning forward eagerly. "Sally didn't like me, either. Not until I told her and she gave the idea a chance. It's not one of those things girls think about their friends, I guess." He dismissed the notion with a flippant shrug and added, "Besides, prom? Most romantic night ever. You'll be dressed up, and there'll be music and dinner —"

"And you and Sally," Patrick interrupted.

"Like a double date. A fancy double date. Wouldn't it be a good time to talk to her about it?"

He shrugged, but Ned could tell that he liked the idea. "I guess," he said. "If she doesn't decide to go with someone else, that is."

"Don't worry," Ned replied, leaning back with a smile. "Sally's working on that right now."

"So . . . Patrick."

"Yes?" Sarah looked up from the Whostory textbook they were supposed to be reading from.

"Prom."

She looked confused. "We're going, yeah," she said.

Sally took out a sheet of paper and began to doodle on it with careful nonchalance. "Unless you find someone better."

"Actually, no."

Her head jerked up at this proclamation. Could things really turn out so well so easily? "What do you mean?" she asked, trying to keep her excitement from showing.

A hint of it must have been visible, however, because Sarah sighed. "I knew this would happen," she muttered.

"What?"

"You think that I'm going to prom with Patrick because I like him. Listen, Sal." She glanced up at the front of the room to make sure the teacher wasn't looking. "I know you want everything to work out like it did for you and Ned. It's cute and all, but Pat and I aren't like that. I used to like him, sure, but that was last year."

Sally remembered something along those lines, but she'd been too caught up in the Ned-Jamie drama to give it much thought. Her cheeks flushed with guilt.

Sarah continued, choosing not to notice. "I got over it. And I"m going with Patrick as a friend. Nothing more."

But why can't it be more? she wailed silently. But she knew that bringing this up could reveal more than she wanted. "So why not find someone else?" she asked.

"Because prom is so much harder for guys. Like if I couldn't get a date, I could go by myself, or maybe with Kira." Kira was Cassandra's sister, and surprisingly a friend of both Sally and Sarah. She didn't eat lunch with them, as she had a mild aversion to boys, but she was always friendly (albeit in a cool, almost imperious way). "Guys are different. They need a date or it's just lame. And even if Patrick could go alone without looking like a loser, he wouldn't. You know he's only going because we'll all be there. I can't ditch him."

Sally was struck by her selflessness, though she still didn't fully understand. "Why does this matter so much, though?" she asked. "I mean, Pat hasn't gone to any dances so far, and it hasn't been a big deal."

"But we're juniors, Sal. There's only so many times that we'll get to be together before we graduate. So I want us all to hang out as much as possible until then. And I know" — she said, seeing Sally open her mouth to argue — "that Whoville's a small town that barely anyone ever leaves, so we'll probably see each other all the time after school, but we might not. Even if we do, it won't be the same. We'll be old. We'll have separate lives."

"This is depressing." She tried to be glib, but she couldn't help but feel a little choked up.

Sarah shrugged, looking down. "It's true." She laughed and leaned back. "Besides, we only have a year of having life be predictable and quasi-uncomplicated. Why ruin that with moping around all by our lonesomes?"

Sally grinned and pretended to study the textbook. Pulling out two pieces of gum, she said, "To one more year of silly teenage troubles?"

"I'll chew to that."

"Nothing's resolved, then?"

Sally paused, thinking the situation over. "Well, not quite. Patrick thinks that Sarah might someday have a crush on him and is planning on telling her about how he feels on or before prom. Sarah doesn't like him in that way at all, and I don't think she'll change her mind. So we probably made everything much, much worse. And now I'm bummed out because our lives are only a year away from chaos and depression."

Ned looked confused. "Why are you so cheerful, then?"

"Because this is all high school. We have to enjoy these petty dramas for as long as we can, before all the grown-up troubles hit us." She leaned back with a contented sigh, staring up at the cloudy sky.

He gave her an admiring smile. "Sarah really gave you some perspective, huh?"

"Maybe," Sally said with a shrug. "At the very least it's a new think to be thunk." She winked and hauled herself to her feet. "And — oh! I have to meet Sarah at the mall in ten minutes! And I have to pick out a dress!" Her face paled at this and she added, "Oh, what if they're all out? Or what if they look hideous on me, or the sales clerks are mean, or —"

"What happened to 'this is all high school drama'? I thought none of this stuff mattered in the grand scheme of things!" Ned cried, appalled by her sudden change of mood as much as the hasty retreat she was beating to the park entrance.

She paused long enough to give him a look of exasperation. "Of course not, but it matters now."

With that, she was gone.

He slumped to the ground, picking at the grass. "Hard to argue with that."