The Label Maker

CHAPTER FIVE: MOVIE MISHAPS

 Gwen couldn't have been happier that school was over. With Emma coming over at seven, she had several hours to spare. She started off with tidying up her room. Despite how reckless Emma is when it comes to schoolwork, there is nothing more she can't stand than a messy bedroom. To save herself the time and undesired chatter, Gwen simply picked up while she had the time. The big clean took two hours. She even threw a load of laundry in the wash. She had an hour and a half left to wait. She casted a glance at her backpack that was sitting on the ground in front of her closet. Her three homework assignments were tempting her. But she refused. She wasn't doing any homework. Not Friday. Not with Emma coming over soon. She settled on doing it Saturday morning. She always thinks best in the morning anyways. With homework out of the question, she needed something to occupy herself with. She thought on the day's events and looked for anything someone might have said for her to look at. Then she remembered Mrs. Brunds' website. It took Gwen several guesses to remember it correctly. She took a seat at her desk and typed the web domain into the search bar.

After the page loaded a turquoise page appeared in front of her. In a large, fancy script font were the words "JUST BLOGG IT!" in capital letters. Under the title of the page was a small subtitle reading, "you write it, they read it, and we publicize it." It had a funny ring to it when said aloud, but Gwen thought it fit for the website. On the side of her screen were multiple tabs. She found a tab entitled "sign up today." She clicked on it. The sign up information was basic. Name, age, birthday, and email was required. After that, she was asked a series of mini questions. Most of them were just things like favorite colors, foods, interests, things like such. Gwen continued to fill out each question honestly. After a few minutes she was done. At the bottom of the page was a big, red button. In all caps it read, "CREATE ACCOUNT."

She hovered her mouse over the button for several moments. The worst that could happen is that she doesn't like the site. She can always deactivate her account. With that thought in mind, she clicked the button and a new page appeared before her. It was a white page with multiple sections to it. One was titled, "blogs." Another, "share." She realized that she was able to customize her own page. She could choose any colored background, any layout she desired. The only problem was that she didn't know what to do. She navigated to the website's main blog page. Here, multiple profile icons were displayed along with snippets of their most recent blog updates. Gwen clicked on a few profiles to get some ideas as to how she should set her page up. She settled on making the background a light shade of purple. Her blog boxes were going to be a darker shade of purple. The text was going to be white. Before she had the chance to do anything else, there was a knock at her door. She shut her laptop.

"What?" She calls.

"Emma's here," Farrell informs from the other side of the door.

"Be down in a minute!" Gwen states. She put her laptop to sleep and slipped on a sweatshirt and leggings to cover herself up. She flung her door open and bounded down the stairs. Emma sat on the couch scrolling through something on her phone. She looked up and smiled.

"Ready to go?" Emma asks, standing up, pocketing her phone in her jeans.

"Go where?" Gwen asks, scratching her forehead.

"The movies! You promised you would come with me tonight. We are supposed to see the Visit," she whines.

"Okay, okay. Just give me like two minutes. I gotta brush my teeth," Gwen laughs. She ran back up the stairs, Emma's footsteps behind her own. She followed her into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat as Gwen brushed her teeth. She also ran a brush through her hair and twisted it into a french braid. She went back into her room, grabbed her phone, purse, and slipped on a pair of black flip flops. She was ready. As the two friends reached the movie theater, a light drizzle started to pick up. By the time their tickets were bought the sky was black with storm clouds. The rain picked up into a heavy downpour. The movie wasn't until eight. They had thirty minutes to wait around and chat. Gwen ordered a small pizza. Emma bought unsalted pretzel bites without cheese. They spent the remaining minutes to their movie chatting over simple things. Somewhere along the way, the topic of the conversation turned to Gwen's run in with RJ.

"So, want to explain what happened? And don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about because Tailan told me," Emma says, kicking her leg lightly.

"Well how does Tailan know?" Gwen asks, trying to keep her voice level. She didn't want to talk about it.

"I don't know. I'd imagine that RJ told him," she infers, shoving a whole pretzel into her mouth.

"I highly doubt that," Gwen snorts.

"Why do you say that?" Emma laughs.

"He doesn't seem like the type of person to share his feelings and daily experiences. I don't know," Gwen admits, finishing off her third piece of pizza.

"Well if you truly don't know, why don't you just ask him?" Emma says, nudging her head up a bit.

"What are you?" Gwen's vice fell flat as she couldn't help but turn around. Sure enough, there RJ was along with a bigger group of friends. Among them was Tailan (who seems to be his right hand man), Tucker, Tucker's girlfriend, Ingrid, Nicole and her boyfriend, Garrett, Harper, and obviously, RJ. He was hanging a little behind everybody else. Not even Tailan was at his side. He didn't look like he wanted to be there. Gwen couldn't stop staring. Outside of school, all in one place, were the people she disliked the most. They were the ones who were on top of the Riverbrook social ladder. Gwen turned back around to face her friend. She was at the movies with Emma. She shouldn't care about who else was at the movies. It was none of her business.

"Emma stop staring it's rude," Gwen instructs, closing her eyes.

"Well they are staring back. What am I supposed to do?" She protests.

"They are not staring," Gwen denies, as she slowly peeks over her shoulder. Sure enough, they were all looking in the girl's directions. Gwen turned back around, a sour expression on her face.

"See, I told you they were staring," Emma pouts.

"Let's just go get our seats. Previews should be coming on soon anyways," she encourages. Gwen stood up first. She closed her pizza box for she still had four pieces left. She waited for Emma to stand up and follow her. As soon as the two were ready they began to walk to theater thirteen where their movie was going to be shown. They sat at the very top row, in their usual movie seats. With their feet resting on the railing in front of them and the remainder of their food in their laps, they settled down. After phones were silenced and turned off, previews began to roll. Each preview lasted a minimum of three minutes. By the time the actual movie started, Gwen realized that she and Emma (for the most part) had the theater to themselves. There was a single person scattered here and there, but other than that, completely empty, dark, and silent. That is, until Ingrid along with her other friends strolled in. They were obnoxiously loud. Hearing the beginning of the movie was impossible over their raised voices. Phones were on and in their hands casting light and shadows against the walls. Eventually they found their seats and quieted down... To a certain extent.

More than halfway through the movie Emma was boiling. She wasn't able to sit still. She was ready to pounce on the group of peers in front of her. Finally, Gwen was starting to get angry as well. "Let's just go," Gwen whispers, setting her pizza on the ground.

"Yeah. The movie kind of sucks anyways," Emma whispers back, standing up after her best friend. Together, they walked down the aisle. As they passed their fellow student peers Gwen heard snickering from behind. She heard Emma sigh.

"Ignore it," Gwen hisses, taking the last step to level ground. It was still raining when they got outside. Clutching each other's hands in the dark night, they ran to the car. As soon as she heard the click, she jumped into the car. The engine roared to life as Emma twisted the key in the ignition. Slowly, she began to drive out of the parking lot. On the side of the theater walked a hooded man. He looked miserable and cold.

"Emma we should ask if he wants a ride," Gwen points out.

"Are you kidding me? I'm not letting a strange man into my car!" She denies. Gwen casted a begging look at her friend until she finally gave in. "Fine. But I swear if one of us end up dead, I'm blaming you," she teases, hitting Gwen in the arm. She pulls her car over to the curb. She rolled down her window which started to get the interior wet.

"Hey do you need a ride?" Gwen shouts from the passenger side. The man turned around and slightly peered inside the car. Gwen didn't need to look twice to believe who she was asking into her best friend's car.

It was RJ.