Survival Of The Fittest

[[Jamie Snicket continued]]

"I hate ribs."

Searching her locker for the law books at the back, Jamie grumbled annoyingly at how much work she had to still do. Being away for a month due to something as boring as a fractured rib was the stupidest bullshit she'd have to endure for a while, and on top of that she'd been told to miss prom due to it not healing enough in time. Absolute bullshit. Who the fuck misses out on prom due to a fucking rib? She probably missed out on all of the good gossip shit too, prom was always a drama area-

Stopping herself and banging her head against the side of the wall of the locker, she sighed. No use worrying about this now. It was in the past, and now she had to just focus on her law studies. Soccer would be OK to go to in a month, and then it'd all be back to normal on the senior trip. And her mother actually worried about her for once. With a quick flourish, she closed the door of the locker and reset the number dial to zero. First period was break then double law, so there was no need to rush. Maybe she'd find one of her girlfriends and get some of the info she'd missed out on.

Or maybe they'd abandon- No. Let's not think about that.

Jamie rubbed her eyes, muttering to herself. "A couple of months of doing nothing and it's made me insane. Great."

[David Zimmer, continued from Guava Jelly]

Some changes are difficult to adapt to. Sometimes it is mayor. Sometimes it is minor. This time, it definetly was minor. David once again gently touched his head. The long blonde hair, one of David's favorite physical aspects, were gone and replaced with a shorter one inch cut. What one has to do for a woman. It was overwhelming.

Anyway, given that David had nothing to do at that moment, he went to the lockers. Maybe he would find someone to talk there. Hearing a bang, David turned around the corner. Jamie Snicket stood at her locker. Seemed like she was the source. The boy was surprised to see her. Jamie was absent for... a month or so, David wasn't sure, because of something with her ribs. Good thing she was able to go to school now, even if David wasn't particulary fond of her or any of her friends.

He walked towards her, laconically raising his arm to great her.

"Hey Jamie! Long time no see. How're you doing?"

((Mallory McCormick continued from Tiger in the Night.))

Where's my freaking--aaaaaaaggghhh!

Mallory glared at the contents of her locker like that jersey that used to belong to her older brother would just spit out her English notebook. Unfortunately, it didn't. She must have left it at home. Along with the fortnightly essay for English tucked inside it. Well, crap. Mr. Collins was not going to be happy about that, and Mallory was skating thin ice with English as it was.

Oh well, it wasn't due until the last part of the day. Mallory could probably run home and grab it. Just a bother, is all.

Mallory shoved her locker closed and made to leave when she saw Jamie Snicket nearby. Huh. Thought she was dead or something. Hadn't seen her in the last month, and Jamie was one of the girls on the soccer team, so Mallory knew she hadn't just not noticed her. She'd be a shit soccer captain if she couldn't remember which girls turned up.

Mallory bounded up to her, being beaten slightly to the punch by some guy she didn't know. The moment he was finished talking, Mallory half-yelled, "Snicket, soccer practice, where the hell you been? Is your rib still fucked?"

Pleasantries were for suckers.

((Kat Tolstoff continued from High Fashion, High Prices))

This is stupid.

Kat was going on autopilot as she headed through the halls. She'd already been accepted to college, so why did she have to attend class? Was there anybody who was actually going to look at her grades now?

Snicket, soccer practice, where the hell you been? Is your rib still fucked?"

Kat winced as someone shouted right next to her for Jamie, as if Jamie was a mile away instead of a few feet and the only way to reach her was through two cans and a string. Jamie had been out for the past month for a broken rib or something.

"Hey, Jamie. How're you doing?" She approached Jamie at her locker and asked her in a normal tone of voice. Like normal people.

((Alexander de Gaulle continued from A Breath of Fresh Air))

Alex looked back at his watch for the fourth time in a row just to make sure of time. He had a bad habit of over checking it, but he didn't really care, it never bothered anyone and it was always nice to know what time it was. When he looked up he was finally in front of his locker. The lock stared at him as it waited to be toyed with so that it would allow the door to open. No problem, just gotta remember that combination…. What was it? 17 39 20…… wait… was it 58 21 34…. Damnit! Alex tried each combination as it rattled off in his head, each one didn't yield the result desired. The door remained locked, keeping Alex's school supplies behind it. One of the few things Alex had trouble remembering was his combination, he should just write it down, but whenever he did it would get lost.

Alex turned around and before he let out a sigh, he noticed a group of other students gathered around one locker. He didn't really know any of them well, but one of them he hadn't noticed for a while, Perhaps they are catching up and she has been gone, Alex thought to himself. Since Alex was being kept away from his stash of supplies needed for his next class he walked over to them. Idle conversation sometimes stimulated his mind and allowed him to remember his combination.

After the approach Alex said, "Hey, what's up over here?" He was both genuinely interested and he needed the conversation to stimulate his mind.

(Emily Rose start)
Emily walked down the corridor in her own little world,music blazing out the headphones. She was enjoying the temporary peace despite the mass of people around her. Her mood was ruined when she realised she had math next. She couldn't stand the class, it was just mind numbingly tedious. She moved towards her locker to get the textbooks she needed for her lessons. As she approached her locker she saw a few of her friends stood around having a conversation.

She recognised Dave and was about to go over and greet her friend when she noticed a larger group rapidly forming around him. She knew most of the figures but there was one she couldn't immediately place.She saw, well more accurately heard, Mallory despite  her music being at top volume. The girl really had a set of lungs on her, Emily found she was mildly impressed. Despite Mallory's apparent inability to use an indoor voice Emily quite liked the girl. The girl liked soccer and music which made her good in Emily's book. Emily smirked as Kat Tolstoff visibly flinched at the cacophony of sound , an unsurprising reaction as she couldn't have been more than a foot from Mallory. She finally realised who the other girl was....of course Jamie Snicket another soccer player. The girl may sound like a character in Dickens but the soccer team had missed her power and presence over the last month.

Out the corner of her eye she spotted Alexander De Gaulle. She didn't really know the guy but he seemed friendly enough, even if his love of math and chess perplexed her. He seemed to be fiddling with his locker combination, she assumed it must be some weird new puzzle for him or something.

She debated going over to the group as she was interested in their conversation. First she needed to grab the books from her locker, where they were precariously balanced in a large pile. She leant to get her maths textbook from the bottom of the pile prompting it to collapse, shit I've never been any good at Jenga she thought. The cascading books sent a few footballs from a bag, which she hadn't returned after practice, bouncing into the hall. With neat reactions she controlled the first football before it bounced off, an effect which was slightly ruined by  another ball bouncing off her head and down the hall. The ball bounced slowly towards the group, well that gives me an excuse to go over Emily thought.

Resting her face with her left hand and giving a sarcastic smirk, Jamie sighed. "Jesus fuck. If I wanted a pity party I would have flashed my tits at the football jocks."

With a quick glance around, Jamie shook her head at Mallory, completely ignoring the rest right now. First priority was to get the captain not trying to bite her head off, especially considering that she heard about how lackluster the defence was without her. "I'm all OK to play now, long as nobody decides to kick me in the side again," she chirped, grinning for a bit. It'd been too long since she had kicked the ball around.

Second priority was Kat, with the general info on what she missed out on. The other guys could eavesdrop in if they wanted to. Not like she was one to leave people out of the loop. "I'm going good, unless you count missing out on a month of work and all the prom gossip. Anything interesting happen?" Might as well get it from the horses mouth if she wanted any info.  A small stretch to test her sides before putting down her books. This could take a while.

Looked like a nice bunch of people were suddenly flooding in. Much to David's pleasure. He felt really good with so many people around. Mallory, the girl's soccer team captain, was not so pleased with Jamie's absence. David heard of the rather weak games they had recently thanks to her. She should be happy to have Jamie back, but alas, some people can't talk in a civil manner. Admittingly, David didn't expect anything else from her. Kat was... someone David didn't particulary like, but at that didn't matter at the moment. Maybe she was more than a popular bitch? Third addition was Alexander de... Gaulle. Some guy David wasn't familiar with. Time to change that. The last person coming to their group was Emily. He was happy to see her, and raised his invisible hat to greet her quietly, and then picked up her football.

After Jamie sorted things out with Mallory, she asked if something interesting happened. David knew for sure that whatever he knew, it wasn't interesting for the likes of Jamie and Kat, so he kept shut, and instead gave the ball he collected to Emily.

"Here you go." She probably didn't understand him anyway, with this loud music.

Now where on earth did all these people come from? One second just Snicket and what's-his-face, then suddenly WHOOSH. Like a million people. Okay, three, but it felt like a million. Mallory was cool with this, the more the merrier. Okay, so one of those girls was from that group of bitchy bitches (Kat? She was pretty sure it was Kat, because she thought of kittens when trying to remember the name) but, then again, so was Jamie, so that was to be expected.

"Well, good. Team's all over the place. It's all broken ribs and hangovers and I'm, like, 'what the hell.'" It wasn't really an exaggeration. There weren't that many senior girls playing soccer, so when anyone was missing it tended to be obvious.

Jamie was asking for anything interesting, but Mallory couldn't really think of anything. It was the off-season, so she couldn't say something like 'the Seahawks were bitchin.'' She guessed there was prom stuff, too, but meh. She wasn't big on being locked in a room with terrible pop music. Although, the dresses... prom dresses were fuckin' beautiful. (The good ones, anyway.)

So rather than throw in a reply, Mallory just started daydreaming about the sort of prom dresses she would make if she ever started up a nice boutique.

Some people came in and out. Whatever. Then Jamie had to answer Mallory about how she was doing. Finally, Jamie was able to talk about relevant shit.

"I'm going good, unless you count missing out on a month of work and all the prom gossip. Anything interesting happen?" Kat just shook her head.

"Nothing really outside of prom. I'm going with Cody, Mara has Mike Fisher, and Stacey's got Travis. But …" She looked around and whispered. "Somehow, Naomi decided to go with Oswaldo Marx. How the hell did he manage to pull that off?"

Alex listened to all of the conversation going on. One of the topics was soccer and another one was prom. Hearing about the soccer topic he thought to himself, Oh that's right, this girl is on the soccer team, if she's been out it explains why it hasn't really been as good. Luckily with the topics going on, Alex's combination was far from his mind, hopefully soon enough he would have a eureka moment and remember what it was.

The other topic that was being discussed was prom, Alex whispered to himself, "Oh yeah, I should probably start thinking about prom." It wouldn't really be much use though, Alex had no idea who he would want to take and who would even want to go with him. He hadn't really been too focused on it during the year, but since it was approaching he did want to go.

Alex continued standing while others approached the group; it was nice to have more people involved in the conversation. Although he himself wasn't necessarily too involved, he could still listen in on more people talking. Alex wanted the conversation to somehow start involving him, but that was a bit selfish so he just kept waiting.

Emily smiled as David raised his invisible hat, the mock gentlemanly gesture amused her and she decided to reply in kind. However, she quickly found herself devoid of any inspiration of a suitable gesture. As such she simply bowed her head to him with a smirk. As she looked up she realised he was holding her errant football and had said something to her. She wrinkled her eyebrows as she tried to work out what he said, but without the ability to read minds or wind back time it looked like mission impossible. As such she did what she always did in these situations and made a guess. "Cheers mate" she said taking the football out of his hand and praying he hadn't said anything which that statement would not answer.

As she turned to leave she realised she was being very rude. These were a group of people she liked, well for the most part, she shouldn't just swan off. However as she grabbed her troublesome  maths textbook she realised there was an exercise she should have done the night before but had been caught up with music practice. Social decorum took a back seat compared to avoiding her parents' wrath, an inevitable result of not doing her homework.

Besides, the current favourite topic of conversation around the school was the prom and that was not a topic Emily really wanted to be reminded about. Her decision validated, Emily walked off hoping to find someone to help her with the confusing world of maths.

( Emily Rose continued in Kick Balls )

((This thread's jammed, so skipping order to get Mal out.))

Mallory didn't really pay attention to the rest of the conversation. She'd got what she wanted, namely a chance to yell in a friendly way at a fellow soccer player. And she still wasn't in the mood to talk gossip, so she decided to wander off while everyone else was still talking. They probably wouldn't really notice, Mallory never had anything useful to contribute to the local gossip, except when she blurted out something that seemed obvious to her which ended up somehow embarrassing everyone in the vicinity.

Yeah, not a day for that. Mallory quietly trotted off.

((Mallory McCormick continued in Bitches be Crazy.))