Kissed by Team Crafted //tc 3

Back to School

~Nicole's POV~

Friday came quickly, and before I knew it, we were all piled into Adam's car, Alesa at the wheel, going to Staples to buy school supplies.

Now, everyone else might've been preparing for high school, but not me. I wasn't going to be a teenager until New Year's Eve. I'll be going into seventh grade.

I'm still nervous about Algebra One and all that, but it's not as stressful as everyone makes high school sound, I bet.

We pulled into the parking lot, and got out of the car. I took the list of materials out of my pocket, and we all walked together into the store.

"What does everyone need to get first?" Alesa asked, leading us to the back-to-school section.

"I need three accordion binders," I announced. "One for morning classes, one for afternoon, and one for specials, and music lessons."

"We need binders, too," Hannah and Kyle said in unison. "But the ring kind," Hannah added.

"I need a ring binder, too," Winta agreed.

"Well, I think binders are over there, and folders are in the next aisle, so if you all stick together, you can go get supplies. Meet me at the check-out; Adam wanted me to look for some printer cartridges."

"Be right back," Hannah announced as soon as Alesa had left. "I'm gonna go get those little baskets for us to put our stuff in."

Hannah returned after a few moments with the baskets, and we all followed Winta down the aisle full of a variety of binders and folders. I scanned my options, grabbed a few binders, and kept walking. One item down, at least fifteen more to go.

~~~

When I got home later that day, I ran up to my room and scanned over my purchases (I bought everything with my own money, just to clarify).

I had gone with a mint green, white, and sky blue theme for most of the items.

I had: a sky blue and white chevron accordion binder, a plain mint green accordion, a sky blue accordion with white polka dots, a mint green pencil case (the fabric, zip-up kind), a pack of three highlighters, a pack of twelve pre-sharpened pencils, scissors, glue, a rainbow-assortment of ballpoint pens, nine folders, seven notebooks (all matching most of my folders), and a brand-new, mint green backpack with white lace accents. I'd call this a back-to-school, shopping success in my world.

I also went to Target with Alesa, Winta and Hannah (Kyle didn't want to go), and got a couple essentials items of clothing for school. A fuzzy, warm, tie-dye light blue and dark blue hoodie, black jersey shorts with a white seam, some new socks, and a pair of black leggings. Now, I don't go shopping as much as the other girls, so I needed some more than them.

~~~

{the next day}

~Adam's POV~

"Hey guys," Hannah frowned, dragging her feet as she walked into the living room. Her hair was dripping wet, her clothes were soaked, and her poster that used to say "Donate Money to Help the Tōhoku Tsunami Victims" was now unreadable. The marker had run so much all the letters smeared together.

"What happened?" Alesa asked, as Kyle entered behind Hannah.

"Our fundraiser flopped," he sighed, crumpling up his own runny posters.

"Why?" Alesa ran to get them some blankets since they were shivering.

"Well, we weren't even making that much money, even though at least five hundred people passed us, and then, to top it all off, it started to rain," Hannah cringed, reliving the memory.

"We had to walk home soaked," Kyle added. "It was pretty bad."

"You could've called me to come pick you up," I offered. "My fundraiser ended awhile ago."

"Oh," I added, "I also decided that we could ship out all the donations on the first day of school."

"We didn't know that, so we didn't want to interrupt," Hannah retorted, and Alesa handed her a blanket to wrap around herself. Kyle took one, too, and huddled underneath it. "And that's fine."

"How was your fundraiser?" Kyle asked politely. "Since you were trying to raise money, too."

"Mine actually went well," I replied. "I raised over five thousand dollars."

"Wow!" Hannah gasped. "Good for you. We only got..." she took some change out of her pocket and counted it. The blanket slid off her back when she let go of it. "Seven dollars and eighty-two cents."