Survival Of The Fittest

((Nathan Lovegrove Pregame Start))

Nathan sighed as he surveyed the tables set up in the yard. He and Michelle had tried to make things more or less organized, but Nana just had so many things that they'd eventually decided needed to be sold or given away rather than kept. Most of it had been sitting in boxes in their garage or attic since Nana's house had been sold and she moved in with the family. Michelle had already spent a good part of the morning complaining heartily about having to haul boxes and the folding tables out, and all the back-and-forth trips needed.

"Why do old people have so much junk?" She said for the third or fourth time, half-heartedly trying to adjust a pile of old sweaters that neither of them had ever seen their grandmother wear.

"Well, you just get stuff over time and she's in her seventies..." Nathan went back to the piece of cardboard he was writing on, pressing harder on the sharpie, which was running out of ink. He had a small pile of signs already, which they were intending to set up down the road to direct passers-by to the yard sale.

"Getting old sounds like a nightmare," Michelle decided. She bent down to coo at Titan, whose leash was currently tied to the leg of one of the tables. "Right, Titan? Getting old suuuucks." The dog thumped his tail against the ground and licked at her fingers when she reached out to pat him.

"I'll just give all your stuff to Goodwill when you get old then," Nathan assured her. She made a face at him, then glanced over his shoulder and frowned.

"Uh, Nathan? Do all the signs look like that?"

"Like wh- oh goddammit." Sure enough, instead of "YARD SALE", the sign in his hands read "YARD SARD" in bold letters. A quick look through the rest that he'd done revealed that nearly half of them had the same mistake. Nathan sighed again and rubbed a hand over his face, feeling an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck.

"It's not a big deal," Michelle tried to reassure him. "People will know what you mean."

"Yeah, no, I'm not putting these up so everybody can take pictures and tag me in them on Facebook. The good ones should be enough." He sorted out the faulty signs and handed them to Michelle. "Go put these in the recycling bin or something, and I'll go set the rest up."

He got to his feet and gathered up the rest of the cardboard and the tape he'd set aside. They'd just have to make due with what was left and it'd be fine. That was what he told himself as he taped the first sign to the lamppost on the street corner.

((Mia Rose continued from Pool Slingshot))

For the most part, Mia was used to the Arizona heat. She'd lived in Kingman her entire life, after all, so the blazing heat and general humidity wasn't so much a problem for her. She spent half her life in the pool anyway, where the only chance the heat might affect her was if she fell asleep on an air mattress or something. Given she was much happier racing back and forth in the water rather than floating on top of it, that wasn't one of her greater concerns. She couldn't really imagine what it must be like for anyone visiting Kingman from, say, Canada.

Even so, that didn't mean that Mia was completely immune to the sun. This was especially true whenever she did any of her sports that weren't pool-based. No matter how long you lived here, running almost non-stop for upwards of an hour was gonna take its toll on you after a while. In a way, Mia sometimes liked to think of it as a greater challenge. If she could train in the heat, and excel at that, then participating in competitions in milder climates should be a cinch.

Right now though, Mia was definitely not thinking that. Right now, all she was thinking was that she would like a goddamn break, even if just for a second. She had a water bottle in one hand, and a dog leash in her other, with Pepper keeping pace alongside her. She was managing to keep her breath steady and even, but the sweat on her brow gave away the effort she had been putting into her jogging. She wanted a quick pause, but there was no point in creating a schedule if she was just going to break it. There was very little that could cause Mia's exercising focus to be lost, cats being one of them. Sadly, whenever Pepper was at her side, cats became quite the rarity on her jogging route.

As Mia turned a corner, however, something else managed to divert her attention away from her jogging. One of her classmates was taping something to a streetlamp, and said something had the words ‘Yard Sale' emblazoned across it in large letters. Mia skidded to a halt (she always liked to imagine dust clouds and a cartoon screeching noise appearing whenever she did so), took a gulp of water, and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She could always rationalise this as a break for Pepper's sake, after all.

The boy posting the sign was one Nathan Lovegrove, a pretty chill guy, all things considered. He was another sporty type, which made him a-okay in Mia's book, even if their chosen sports didn't necessarily mingle.

"Heya Nathan! So, a yard sale, huh?" Mia asked, reaching down to scratch behind Pepper's ear. "Whatcha got on offer, then?"

Nathan wasn't allowed to stew in his lingering embarrassment and irritation at himself for long before Mia came barreling down the sidewalk. Being around people like her usually lifted Nathan's mood, and Mia herself was a sweetheart, if a bit naive. Plus she had a dog, and that was always a point in someone's favor.

"Hey Mia. We've got lots of stuff out for sale." He gestured towards his driveway and the tables set up around it. "Most of it's knick knacks and decorations, but there's some kitchen stuff, and books and movies. And clothes, but I think they're, uh... not your style." Unless Mia had suddenly developed a fondness for excessively-embroidered cardigans, but Nathan had a hard time picturing that.

"Oh, and our dog's out by one of the tables. That won't be a problem with yours, right?"

((Jane Madison continued from (For a Film)))

Jane was ambivalent towards yard sales. On one hand, they could be a bit trashy, with sleazy people and junky stuff. On the other hand, it was often more fun than shopping at a regular store; you never knew what you were going to find! Taking a walk on a Saturday was something Jane liked to do for that reason. She liked to see if people were hosting yard sales, just in case she found something nice. Yesterday was payday, too, so Jane had some cash on hand.

So when she walked up to the yard sale in Nathan Lovegrove's yard. She didn't know Nathan himself very well; he was a quiet guy, and they didn't interact much. She also spotted Mia Rose talking to him; Mia was a sporty girl, and Jane didn't know her much either. She was pretty chipper though. "Oh, hi." Jane said loudly, waving at the other two. Mia had a dog with her, which Jane approved of.

"How goes it?" Jane asked, approaching the two with her hands on her hips. "Mind if I look around?"

Before Mia had too much of a chance to reply, it suddenly became a party on the street corner. Jane Madison had somehow trundled up without Mia even noticing her, which she totally blamed on the blood pumping through her body at about a million decibels right now. She tried to disguise the fact that she had jumped slightly by stretching her arms up in the air, before taking a large gulp of water and raising her hand in greeting towards Jane.

"Hi Jane! I'm doing pretty alright, figured it'd be acceptable to take some time outta my running to investigate this little yard sale." Mia grinned before turning back towards Nathan.

"That all sounds pretty neat! Well, I guess aside from the clothes, if you're right. I'm sure I'll be able to find something that isn't super expensive. I mean, I don't really carry much money around with me when I'm exercising. And don't worry about Pepper! He's a big ol' softie, aren't you? Aren't you, silly?"

Mia knelt down to stroke Pepper, who responded by looking up at her expectantly, tongue hanging out. Softie or not, she imagined he would probably be too tired to cause any real problems. Still, better to be safe than sorry. She'd keep a watchful eye on him at all times. Mia stood up, took another drink of water, then started to walk towards the Lovegrove's driveway.

"A'ight, I'm going to have a look through! I'll let you know if I see anything I want, Nathan!"

Nathan raised a hand to return Jane's wave, smiling more easily now. "Yeah, go ahead. We just got everything set up, so I'd say now's the best time to look around." He stuck his hands in his jean pockets and followed Mia and Jane back towards his driveway.

Titan was very interested, standing up and approaching as far as the leash would allow so he could investigate the new arrivals. He sniffed excitedly in Pepper's direction, wagging his tail harder against the leg of the table he was tied to. Nathan laid a steadying hand on the table, hoping that Titan wouldn't get too overexcited; he was still just a puppy, but he was probably big enough to knock the table over if he really tried.

Michelle reappeared from the garage, sipping a Coke that she'd retrieved from the fridge. "What's up, guys?" She didn't know anyone in Nathan's grade all that well, but there was no reason not to be friendly.

Dogs! Jane was a big dog person. They were so happy all the time!

"Aww." Jane crouched next to Mia's Pepper and patted it on the head. "Who's a good boy. Er, is it a boy?" She asked, not particularly inclined to check.

Someone walked out of the house, probably Nathan's younger sister judging from her age. "Oh, hey. Not much, just looking around." Jane smiled and started browsing the various tables, looking over the goods. It looked like a lot of old clothes, a bit dated, even, but she kinda liked that sort of junk.

Picking up a light pink sweater, Jane looked it over. "How much are these?" She asked, looking over to the others.

Mia grinned as Jane moved to fuss over Pepper, as well she should. Pepper wasn't just a good dog, he was the best dog, in Mia's eyes at least. As much as she adored kitties with all her heart, the main problem was that if you introduced a total stranger to a cat, then nine times out of ten, the cat would react in a rather unfavourable manner, either via a scratch or via running the heck out of there. Dogs, on the other hand, were always excited to see you, never mind the whos and wheres. Pepper, for instance, was currently torn between being excited over this wonderful new person, or this interesting new dog. Whilst Pepper was pretty much always well behaved, especially right after going for a run, Mia made sure she had a firm grasp on his lead. Better safe than sorry, after all.

"Pepper is a good boy, aren't you? Aren't you, you silly thing? Aren't you?!"

Mia knelt down as well next to Pepper, giving him a third target of living creatures fussing over him, quite possibly blowing his little doggy mind. Whenever Mia was around cute fluffy animals, she totally forgot what embarrassment was and began gushing over them.

Luckily, it seemed as though Jane had seen something on one of the tables that interested her, as she was now looking at that, rather than at Pepper. Mia gave Pepper one final pat, before standing up to wander the tables herself. There was someone else standing around, who Mia guessed was Nathan's sister or something; she looked a little too young to be from their class. Then again, looks could be deceiving! Maybe she was older than everyone else out here.

Whatever the case was, and whoever the newcomer might have been, Mia gave her a friendly wave as she picked her way through the aisles. Nathan was right; there were a lot of decorations scattered around, and a lot of rather… bulky jumpers and cardigans. Even if Mia had wanted any of them, which she rather definitely did not, she wasn't sure how she'd be able to take them home without weighing her arms down immensely.

Hmm, actually, that could potentially be a really good work out.

Mia picked up one of the cardigans by the sleeve and held it in front of her with a look of bemusement on her face. Nathan was right again; it was definitely not something she would have worn under any circumstance. It looked warm, at least, but it was there that its appeal towards Mia ended. Even then, it looked like it could easily circumnavigate ‘warm' and head straight to ‘boiling'. Mia looked up at Nathan and grinned, still holding the cardigan.

"Yeah, uh, funnily enough, I can't really see myself wearing this whilst running or exercising, Nathan. I'm pretty sure that guy who traveled across Antarctica was wearing this at the time."

Mia giggled at her own joke - always a good sign - before putting the cardigan down and pawing through the rest of the items on display.

"You said there were a few books and movies around here, right?"

Michelle returned to Titan's side, patting his neck and making sure he didn't strain to hard against the leash. "Aw, did you make a new friend, Titan? Did you?" She cooed, going back to ignoring Nathan and his classmates. The more dogs, the merrier, in her opinion. Especially if they were big friendly dogs that just got so excited whenever someone paid attention to them.

Nathan considered the sweater Jane was holding. They hadn't gotten around to setting a price on everything they put out, and frankly hadn't been expecting to make too much money off of Nana's stuff in the first place. Once they packed up, everything that hadn't been sold was going to Goodwill. "Let's say ten dollars? Does that sound good to you?" Nathan had no idea how to appraise the value of old things, but he was pretty sure nothing here was going to get a spotlight on Antiques Roadshow.

He did have to grin at Mia's quip about the other sweater. "Yeah, I didn't think so. Probably a good thing that you and my grandmother don't have the same taste in clothes, though."

"And books and movies are over... here." Nathan located the correct table after a moment of searching. He paused to shoot a bemused look at the VHS copy of Titanic sitting on the edge of the table. What was the actual likelihood of someone wanting to buy that? Or even being able to, seeing as how nobody he knew of still owned a VHS player? "Not a lot of DVDs, but some of the books are pretty good. Except for that Left Behind series, I wouldn't touch that unless you just want to laugh at it. It's... not good." Not that he'd actually been able to finish it, between his frustration at the characters and his usual issues with reading.

"You know they made a movie based off of it starring Nic Cage? I kind of want to see it just for how ridiculous it has to be."

Jane blinked. "Ten bucks, you serious?"

That seemed like a lot. That was more thrift-store costs, not garage sale. It was a nice sweater and all, but it wasn't really warranting that kind of price. "Maybe five?" She said hopefully.

Regardless, her attention was redirecting itself to the conversation about Left Behind. Having read the first one, Jane wholeheartedly agreed about it being worthy of mockery. Like, it was such a dumb Christian thing. Jane was Catholic, though not a particularly devoted one, and frankly the idea that only Protestants would be saved was kind of offensive.

Really everyone should've been raptured except, like, the total douchebags and murderers and stuff. But whatever.

"Do you have any HG Wells stuff?" She called over to the other two, before making her way closer to the table they stood by.

((Super sorry this took so long! For whatever reason it just kept on escaping me, whenever I tried to write it ;-; ))

Mia was always a little worried whenever Pepper was around new people, particularly if said new people had animals with them. He had always been the more excitable of her two dogs, and given he had now encountered three new people and one new dog, she'd been almost certain he'd go slightly mental around them. Thankfully, it seemed as though this run had taken more out of Pepper than she'd assumed, as he seemed content to just sit by Mia's side, tail wagging and tongue lolling out. Mia absent-mindedly continue to stroke his head as she talked with the two others.

She did have to frown a little as Jane attempted to haggle for the price of the sweater. It seemed a little unnecessary to Mia; ten bucks wasn't a ridiculously steep price to be asking for, after all. She guessed ‘the customer was always right', and all that, but eh. It still seemed a little rude. Maybe that was why she never, ever wanted to work in retail.

Whatever. It wasn't worth getting too worked up about, really. Mia focused instead on what Nathan had been telling her. She giggled as she imagined exactly what she'd look like in one of those sweaters.

"Haha, man, I don't like, y'know, judging books by covers, but if I saw myself wearing that at school, I don't think I'd wanna be friends with myself!"

Mia picked up the copy of Left Behind that Nathan had mentioned. It told her absolutely nothing about what was inside, but the anti-recommendation made her intrigued, more than repulsed. Mia hardly ever read for fun; hell, she hardly ever read for school either. There just wasn't enough time in the day for reading when she had to do literally anything else. Still though…

"Man, now I wanna pick this up and see just how bad it could actually be." Mia said, grinning. "You know you're sending me down a dark path, right? You got any other recommendations so I'm not tempted by this scourge upon literacy?"

Mia really had no idea when she'd even be able to read any of the books scattered on the table in front of her. Maybe on a long, boring car journey she could catch a few chapters or something.

Nathan shrugged at Jane's reaction, not overly bothered. "Five bucks, sure. We're trying to get rid of the stuff more than to make money." It wasn't like they were expecting anyone to want to drop a lot on Nana's old things to begin with. They'd probably have to resort to donating or just giving away the leftovers when they were done here.

He grinned back at Mia as she examined the book. "I mean, if I can't convince you that it's not worth it, you just might have to experience it for yourself. But if you really don't want it, we've got..." He moved over to her side to look over what they had again. "Let's see, lots of westerns, some of those romances where everyone on the cover is half-naked..." And he was pretty sure those had belonged to his mom once upon a time and had just been left at Nana's house, but Mom wasn't admitting it.

"Some recipe books, if you're into cooking. Dunno about H. G. Wells or anything like that, sorry Jane. Lots of old Reader's Digest collections, so there might be something you're interested in somewhere in those."

"Every bad thing you say about this tempts me more and more. It's like the Pandora's box of literature at this point."

Mia wasn't quite able to suppress a giggle, as she imagined opening the book to be greeted by a host of demons and ghouls and stuff, all spouting terrible prose and flouting every grammar rule in existence.

… Actually, that would make a pretty decent read all by itself. If only she had any skill at writing fiction at all.

Mia tucked the book under her arm. She had to admit, she really wanted to know just how awful it actually was. And even if she didn't read it, what did it matter? It wasn't as though she'd spent her entire life's savings on this thing, after all. Quickly checking what little money she had on her, she guessed she had just about enough to buy something else. And why not? Again; she wasn't going to be forcing her family out of their home because she bought two books at a yard sale. Even if she never ended up reading the book herself, maybe someone at home could get a laugh or two out of it.

Turning to look at the pile of books Nathan had gestured towards, Mia skimmed over the titles. She failed to control her giggling again when she reached the romance novels, the impeccably good looking and overwhelmingly white main characters wearing clothes that were torn in precisely the most scandalous of areas. Aside from that though, the only things that really caught her eye were the cook books. Hand on heart, Mia knew that she'd never find enough time to earnestly start learning to cook properly, but hey, maybe it would be useful someday. No matter what she chose to do after school, she'd have to cook for herself. Unless her swimming career raked in enough money for her to buy a mansion, butler, maid and cook. That'd be nice.

Mia also had no idea what would be the best recipe book for her in terms of the food contained inside, so she went for what was clearly the second best option, picking up the book with the cute girl on the front cover. Placing it alongside Left Behind under her arm, Mia quickly checked the time on her iPod. Hmmm. She was almost veering of schedule. She'd have to make up for the break in her run anyways when she got back home too. It sucked, because she was enjoying talking with Nathan, but there would be other chances to do so, surely.

"Yo, Nathan!" Mia waved the two books in his general direction. "I think I've got everything I want. How much is this all gonna cost?"

"I think those are three dollars each. Does that sound alright?" Nathan wasn't entirely confident in his ability to estimate prices after Jane's reaction, but at least he'd already known that he didn't have a future in retail. Mia seemed less likely to quibble about a few dollars here and there too, nothing against Jane.

"Hope Left Behind is worth it. You really don't know what you're getting yourself into." He made sure to keep his tone light to make it clear that he was teasing; as much as he'd disliked the book, he didn't want to just totally trash it. Surely someone out there had found it enjoyable. Heck, Mia herself might find something in it that grabbed her attention.

"Uh… yeah! Sure, that sounds good to me!"

Mia hadn't bought a book since… well, actually, Mia wasn't sure she'd ever personally bought a book herself. Reading was cool and all, and she'd had the whole ‘read a book, stay in school, don't do a drug' thing drilled into her since she was a kid, but it just wasn't something that interested her that much, normally. She wasn't sure how much they would normally cost, but three dollars each sounded good at least, and was in her current price range too.

Anything was better than having to pay your entire life savings for college textbooks anyway.

Trying to juggle the books, Pepper's leash and her money wasn't an easy task, and for one horrible second, she was certain everything was about to fall to the floor, but she managed to hand the money over to Nathan eventually.

"Here you go! We'll see what I think of it, but I'm pretty sure the last book I read was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so my tastes aren't exactly the greatest!"

Mia laughed as she checked the time again. Okay, she really needed to be heading off in the next minute or so, and she imagined Pepper felt the same way too.

"Hey, Nathan, I should probably be heading off soon-ish. Gotta keep a schedule, y'know? Plus, I think poor Pepper's feeling a little tired, aren't you, you big softy? But we should totally meet up again sometime soon, if you're not busy!"