Friday after school, the Manhattan girls raced to the lodging house. They had a lot to do before the party started. All their belongings were shoved into the drawers to make more room for all the people. Then they actually had to clean it. Although they hadn’t lived there long, the room was a giant mess. So much for girls being neater than guys.

"This is gonna be so much fun," Spaz yelled out, jumping off the bed she was currently sitting on, "When are they gonna get here?"

"Soon," Nova replied, laughing slightly at the hyper girl.

"How soon is that," Spaz asked, "Five, ten minutes?"

"Yes Spaz, they’ll get here from Brooklyn and Queens in 10 minutes," Sodapop told her sarcastically, "They only have to run a couple miles."

They stopped talking when a knock sounded on the door. Sparks was the first to jump up and reach it. When she opened the door however, she stopped smiling, "Yes, what do you want?" She let out a slight giggle.

Jack peered into the room for a second, "Just wanted to let you know that the guys are having a poker game tonight. If you hear some noises downstairs, you’ll know what it is."

"Thanks, but I’m sure we won’t hear a thing," Snow spoke up, grinning, "We’ll probably be too loud to even remember you guys are downstairs…let alone in the same building."

"Sorry Jack, but we’ll be having too much fun," Stutter told him, "Have fun at the poker game though."

All the girls burst out laughing the second Jack left, closing the door behind him.

"That was priceless," Sunshine told the others, "The look on his face…"

"He has no idea," Ducati agreed, "Oh well, he’ll find out soon enough." The girls exchanged a grin at this, nodding excitedly.

"Yes," Blitz said with a strong New York accent, "They’ll be surprised. It’ll be fun."

"Of course," Aqua commented with a rare smile, "Boys are always easy to fool."

"I have to agree with you there," Bookworm spoke up, "They won’t know what hit ‘em."

"Now, we need to clean up the rest of the room," Nova reminded everyone. They groaned, "Hey, I don’t want to do it either."

"Who volunteers to go down and get water and soap," Bookworm asked. Nearly every hand in the room went up, "Uh, mops too?"

"Ok, we all go," Sparks yelled out, already heading out of the room. All the other girls immediately followed.

"This might take a while," Nova commented as she headed out of the room as well. Bookworm stood in the room for a second before rushing after them.

XXX

The girls finished cleaning the room in about thirty minutes. While some of the girls were putting the stuff back, there was a knock on the door.

"I’ll get it," Spaz was there in seconds, since she was waiting anxiously a few feet from the door, "Welcome!"

The girls behind the door stared at her for a second before walking inside. Smartass didn’t look too happy about being around more hyper girls, but knew she would have to get used to it.

Pillow immediately ran in, "Hello," she shouted, grinning widely. A few of the girls blinked slowly at her introduction. Aqua, who had just entered the room after her, winced from the sound.

"Nice to see you too," she sarcastically greeted the young girl as she came in. Pillow squealed upon seeing her and ran over, hugging her tightly. Aqua looked uncomfortable in the embrace and sighed. She pushed Pillow lightly, but with no luck. The girl wouldn’t move.

"It’s been forever," Pillow remarked, grinning up at her. Aqua gave her a small smile back, trying to ignore the other girls who were laughing at her discomfort.

"Yeah…you can let go now," Aqua told the girl. Pillow slowly let go and ran around to get to know everyone.

"Who was that," Nova asked, walking over.

"My best friend’s little sister," Aqua replied, "I’ve known her for years, but I’m still not used to her. She’s too hyper."

"She’s cool," Chaos commented suddenly, startling the two girls, "I don’t know why you think she’s hyper."

"She doesn’t know what she’s talking about," Smartass commented, "That girl is getting on my nerves. Please tell me you have some way to get her to shut up."

"It’s impossible," Aqua told her, "Believe me, I’ve tried before." Smartass sighed, making it quite obvious that she didn’t want to be there with all the crazy people.

"So, what are we doing first," Mink asked, quite loudly too.

"I’m surrounded by idiots," Smartass mumbled before walking away.

The girls talked for a while to try and decide what to do. Several games were mentioned, these including about every card game, story-telling and even dress-up. The last one was quickly shot down though. And of course, it was Pillow who suggested it. In the middle of their talk, another knock sounded.

"That must be the Queens’ girls," Scribble said.

"Come in," Sparks yelled out. The four girls walked inside the room, quickly noting that everyone else was already there. Glinda looked at the large group of people and walked in slowly.

"What are you guys doing," Shooter asked immediately.

"That’s what we’d like to know," Dani told them, "We’re trying to decide."

"I can tell people all about their signs if anyone’s interested," Zodiac suggested. To her slight surprise, some people stood and made their way over to her. They formed a small group in a corner. Zodiac seemed excited about finally having a chance to do it.

Whispers could be heard from that corner. Some girls seemed amazed at how close their signs came to their personality.

"Ok, those who want to do story-telling can go over there," Artist said, taking over momentarily after hearing the suggestions…not that anyone else minded. She pointed to another corner of the room.

"What else was there, cards," Rebel asked, "We can play over there." She headed off in another direction, some girls directly after her.

For a while, it was mostly quiet in the room, except for the occasional giggle from Pillow, who seemed to find entertainment in running around and yelling. It annoyed almost everyone else to the point of wanting to scream, but they all seemed to be able to ignore her.

There were yells of triumph from the poker winners, followed soon after by groans of defeat from the losers of the game. The story-telling was going well too. The girls took turns at it, getting laughs, gasps of surprise, and sighs of relief from the audience. Every once in a while, a loud shout could be heard when the stories reached their climax.

Finally, Stutter started to get everyone’s attention. She went around the room, whispering to the girls. Soon, all the girls were in a huge group, listening to the plan…if you could call it that.

"I think we’ve waited long enough," she told everyone after she had finished, "The guys are downstairs right now, playing poker."

A few of the girls headed out the door and downstairs. When they reached the guys’ bunkroom door, one of them knocked. Jack answered the door, "What?"

"We’ve talked and agreed that you guys can come to our party," Nova told him.

"Hear that guys…" Jack yelled out, "We can…"

"You can come…on one condition," Nova continued with a smile. The other girls copied her grin.

"What condition," he asked suspiciously.

XXX

"Well, that was embarrassing," Blink remarked minutes later. He looked out over the crowd of girls, who were currently laughing at what the guys had to do. The other guys that had dared to join were clearly uncomfortable.

"That was better than any show Medda could’ve done," Chaos commented between fits of laughter.

"That was a great idea," Sparks told Stutter, "Making them sing ‘My Lovey Dovey Baby’. I had no idea they could sound like that!"

"At least we weren’t wearing dresses," Mush shrugged.

"Don’t give ‘em any ideas," Race warned him in a whisper.

"So, can we join you now," Jack asked, growing impatient with them.

"One more thing," Sodapop told them. The guys looked at each other in fear. She suddenly started laughing, followed by the other girls, "Just kidding. Come on in."

XXX

The party actually went well. Mush was caught trying to start a game of Spin-the-Bottle once and stopped. To be quite truthful, a few of the girls were disappointed by that.

Race quickly found out that girls did know how to play poker when he lost 2 dollars in a game. Skittery was quite annoyed by Pillow, who kept coming up and asking him to smile. When he did, she would return 5 minutes later to make sure. Eventually, Joseph was called up to deal with security to keep his sister away from him.

Basically, the party allowed the girls to know the guys better. And by the end of the night, some of the girls had formed different opinions of the guys than when they first met. And the rest discovered just why they liked the guys in the first place.

XXX

Notes: Ok, I know the ending wasn’t very descriptive, but I did what I could. And what happened with Skittery has happened to me in real life. Anyway, I hope it was an enjoyable chapter. And now, I have to go read Ch. 5 of ‘The Lord of the Flies’.

Shout-Outs:

Ccat – I know it was short, but it was the best I could do with the time I had. Thanks for reviewing!

Dimonah Tralon – Party!!! Yeah, I can write them at times, but I never really go to them. I don’t get invited to parties often. And my own aren’t that great.

Koodles4you – My stories make you smile? Yeah! I promise to update when I can. Auditions are this week for Romeo and Juliet. If I make it, I’ll have even less time. But I’ll have to see.

SmartassLeprechaun – Well, the schedule is different. Usually we know musical before, but not the others. My weekend was way better than my week. As I said before, I finished Driver’s Ed. and I went out with my boyfriend. What can be better than that? Besides, the new episode of Teen Titans was shown last night. Great episode!

Shooter O’Brien – Ok, he’s yours! I think I’ve already said that though. Then again, I’m suffering from senioritis already. I’ve had it since I set foot in high school! LOL. I hope this party rocked!

ShortAtntionSpaz – A party with Newsies! It can’t get much better than that! I want one too! Um, I have a newsie outfit, but I doubt that counts as having a newsie in the neighborhood.

Sparks Kelly – Yeah, Race is cute isn’t he? My friend is totally in love with him! Well, him and Spot…You rock too, because you review! Yeah for you!!!

TheAngryPrincess13 – Thanks for the review and I’ll try to keep it up.

Allaboutelephants22 – Yeah, I hate that book! Hmm, I wouldn’t have minded making a movie about it, but only if I could film. And hey, Ralph is better than Jack at least! Actually, I dislike all the characters equally. And I skimmed through the rest of the book, so I kinda know the ending already. Nothing wrong with that, right? I will get the pictures up soon too!

Akiko Iris – Yeah, it was interesting to write about! I’ll work on the pics when I can.

Buttons14 – You’re welcome! I’ll put them in more later. I love basing characters off all people.

Moonlights Sundance – Parties are fun? Hmm, I wouldn’t know. I don’t go to them! Not that I get invited often in the first place. And I loved writing the part with Race. I figured he’d be one of the more likely to show up in Brooklyn.

Chapter 15