Chapter 10

It was Friday night, 30 minutes until the party started. Of course, her mom said she wasn't allowed to go to the party until all of her homework was finished. And she had it finished, except for one thing: the algebra assignment. Everything else was done.

But she had been working on the most impossible chapter: the dreaded multiplication and division in algebra. Every one else in her class understood it except her. Even Lori understood it.

"Oh, this isn't fair!" She yelled again. She stood up and started to walk towards her closet to get her suitcase to pack her overnight bag. She didn't take two steps before she tripped over her algebra book and she went sprawling. She hit the floor with a loud thump that disturbed her Jewel CD.

"Owwwwww!" She moaned. She slowly pulled herself up to a sitting position in front of her closet as her mom came bursting through the door. Courtney looked at her mother. "Yeah, mom. It's done." She lied through her teeth.

"Okay, you ready to go?" Her mom looked around her room looking for some kind of a suitcase or something.

"Not yet..." She leaned forward to grab her overnight bag and started pulling clothes into it.

"But I will be in like 5 minutes. Okay?" She looked at her mom and gave her a look that basically said 'back off'. Her mom stepped out of the room.

"Well don't be too long." She looked at the clock. "You've got to be there in 15 minutes."

"I know mom," She snapped. Her mother sighed as she stepped out of the room.

"Okay, CD's," She pressed the stop button on her CD player and pressed eject.

"Jewel," She put it into her CD carrier case. "Savage Garden, um...." She scanned her CD rack. "Oh, duh. Hanson. um....." She picked up the two CD's and placed them in the carrier. "...No Doubt, Bush, ....I love that song! Um... Mariah, um....." She once again seached the CD rack.

" COURTNEY!"

"Oh shit!" She swore. "I'm coming, mom!" She yelled down to her mom.

"HURRY UP!"

"Yeah, yeah." She muttered. "Okay!" She leaned back on her heels as she scanned the rack once more. She reached out to grab another CD.

"COURTNEY!"

She drew her hand back and she closed the CD carrier. "Good enough." She threw some clothes in her suitcase, picked up her CD carrier and Ouija board and walked out the door, closing it behind her. ****************************************************************************** "Ouija, are you there?" Jessica asked the Ouija board as she had her eyes closed, concentration traced in her features. The candle light from the many candles in Jessica's room shone their bright orange light spookily on everyone's faces. Courtney shuddered.

"Scared?" Bethany leaned over and whispered.

"No." Courtney curtly replied. She pulled her knees up to her chest and encircled them with her arms. She looked back to the Ouija board where Jessica and Lori were in the process of asking the "sprits" a question. Well, trying to anyway.

"Ouija? Okay, here's my question. Does Brian Sheehan like me?" A few people snickered at this. Courtney couldn't tell who, for they were hidden in the protective shadows the candles supplied.

Lori scowled at the gigglers. She had her eyes squeezed shut and she crossed her fingers as she waited for a reply. A few moments passed. Cherish yawned. Bethany fidgeted. Nicole checked her watch. Dasha yawned and moved from her sitting position on the bed and sprawled out on the full length of the bed.

"Ouija? Hello? Any-body-home?" Nicki half shouted to the "sprits" as she bent over the Ouija board. Lori was still sitting there, waiting for the Ouija pointer thing to move from it's stationery position on the board.

"Shush, you guys! It's moving!" Lori whispered, still deep in concentration. Her fingers were still crossed. "Come on," She coaxed. "Come on!"

"Um, Lori, sorry to like totally crash your hopes, but I don't think it's moving." Courtney stated as she too stretched and yawned.

"No, it just moved! I swear!" Lori opened her eyes and looked at Jessica. "Did you feel that?" She asked, half alarmed.

"No Lori, I didn't." Jess told her. She got up from her cross-legged position and rested on her knees. "Oh my legs hurt!" She complained to anyone in particular.

"You've been kneeling over that thing one hour too many." Cherish joked as she sat down on the bed.

"Anybody hungry?" Helen asked the group. Everybody moaned. Colleen threw a pillow at her. "Okay, okay! I was just kidding!" She threw the bag of peanut M&M's to her left and moved over to her sleeping bag.

"Helen, you've got to be kidding! We all consumed like five pounds of those things before! I'm stuffed!" Amanda said as she picked up her pillow and went to get her sleeping bag from the other side of the bedroom.

"Amanda," Nicole said as she picked up the M&M's bag.

"What Nicki?" Amanda laid down on her sleeping bag.

Nicole continued as she studied the candy bag. "How could we each eat five pounds? This is only a three pound bag. I mean...." Amanda threw her pillow at Nicki.

"Shut up Nicki!" Amanda yelled. Nicole started laughing and got Amanda started.

"SHHHH! You'll wake up my parents!" Jess warned.

"Sorry!" Amanda whispered loudly. She received a dirty look from Jessica. She rolled her eyes as she laid her head down and met the hard floor. "Ow! Where's my....."

She looked at Nicki who was holding her pillow, taunting her. "Uhhhh." She whined. "I want my pillow back!"

"How bad do ya want it?" Nicole teased.

"Unh! Nicki!" She stretched her arm as if trying to snatch the pillow though she was about five feet away from it.

"SHHH! You guys! This thing keeps trying to move!" Lori complained.

"Lori! It's not working!" Courtney said. She put emphasis on every word.

Lori stuck her tounge out at Courtney. "Be quiet Courtney. It is moving." She muttered.

"Uh-huh. Sure it is." Erica said.

"No, really, it is. Look." Lori told Erica.

Erica moved over to the board. "Maybe...." She trailed off.

"Hey Court," Jess whispered in Courtney's ear. Coutrney turned around.

"What?"

"Let's go outside." She whispered.

Courtney glanced at the clock. It was 11:47. "Jess, it's.."

"Almost midnight." Jess finished for her. "I know. Come on, we can look at the stars."

"Ya know, it'd be almost ten o'clock out in California right now." Lori piped up.

"That's great Lori." Jessica said nonchalantly.

She turned back to Courtney.

"Well, I'm still used to California time." Lori said matter-of-factly.

Jessica looked back at Lori. "Oh great! So that means you'll be just getting tired when we're all fast asleep!" Jessica rolled her eyes at Lori as she was protesting.

"No I won't Jessica. Shut up!" She turned her attention back to the Ouija board.

Courtney started to laugh, then thought better of it. She looked at Jessica. "Jess, where are we gonna go? I mean, we can't exactly just walk out the front door."

"I know we can't. But we can climb out the bathroom window."

"And do what? Hang from the window ledge?" Courtney replied sarcastically.

"No, stupid! Sit on the roof!"

"Ohhhh! Okay. Let's go." She started to get up. "Wait a sec, what about everybody else?" She whispered as she was halfway between a sitting position and a standing position.

"We'll just slip out silently and hopefully no one'll notice."

"Or we could ask if anyone wants to go." Courtney suggested.

"Okay." She looked around the room. Nicki and Amanda were deep in conversation, Dasha was asleep on the bed, Cherish was reading a book, Lori and Erica were still trying to squeeze the answer to Lori's question out of the Ouija board, Helen and Colleen were both fast asleep on the floor and Bethany was reading the latest issue of YM.

Courtney looked at Jessica as Jessica looked at Courtney. "Nevermind." They both said as they stood up.

"Hey, get your Hanson CD's. Let's listen to 'em." Jessica suggested.

"Okay, lemme get it." She walked over to her CD's and grabbed her CD player and her Mmmbop CD.

"What about Boomerang?" Jess whispered to Courtney as she walked back to her.

Courtney held up the CD player. "It's in there."

"Oh. Okay." She paused, then walked over to Cherish and told her that they were going up on the roof. Cherish nodded.

"Have fun, you two." Cherish called after them.