West Ark High

Tall Glass of Handsome

Clarke put on as big of a smile as she could muster without it looking totally fake.

"Hi," she stepped in front of the petite brunette heading towards the stairs. "Student Council is putting together a Quiz Bowl team to represent the school. Looks great on a college application." She held one of the flyers from the stack under her arm out to the girl.

The brunette smiled, pink tinge to her cheeks from nervousness. "Um, no thanks," she answered shortly, pushing the paper away.

Clarke took another step in front of her as she tried to make her escape. "It's a great way to make friends and, like I said, great for college applications."

The girl shook her head and dropped the smile, making her look less friendly. "I'm not interested so please leave me alone."

Clarke pursed her lips and watched as the girl walked off briskly, taking the stairs two at a time. Wheeling back around, she saw that Bellamy was sitting on the bottom most step with his stack of flyers beside him while Finn leaned against the railing. "Your method seems to be falling short, Princess," Bellamy quipped.

Clarke scowled, but didn't argue with him because she knew he was right. When no one offered any ideas on how to convince people to join the Quiz Bowl team, she decided the best course of action was to make flyers and simply spread the news about the event around the school.

She had recruited Finn and Bellamy to help pass out flyers with her that morning before school started (with much protesting from Bellamy) but it ended up being a bust and a waste of paper. At least five hundred kids had walked past them to get to the school within the half-hour they had been camped out at the steps and they still had most of the flyers Clarke had printed out the night before.

"Twenty dollars to print out two hundred copies and we've only given out six lousy flyers?" Clarke collapsed on the base step with a huff. She didn't even bother hiding her scowl when Bellamy raised an eyebrow.

"Geez, Princess," he muttered dryly, "I don't think I've ever seen you this bent out of shape before." Clarke gave him a hard look. "Over something so trivial at least," he amended.

"Think on the brightside." Finn set his stack on the ground and took a seat next to Clarke on the step. "We got six people to at least consider joining which is a start."

"Negatory," Bellamy murmured under his breath.

"Excuse me?" Finn asked, and Clarke picked up on the slight accusation in his tone.

Bellamy shrugged. "I saw one kid throw his away immediately after Spacewalker walked away and the redhead Clarke was talking too used hers as a napkin after she accidentally spilled her coffee on her skirt."

Clarke groaned, arching her back as she buried her face into her knees. "Well that's great. We're worse off than we thought." She felt someone's hand resting on the small of her back comfortingly.

"Don't waste time pitying us, Clarke," Bellamy said. The touch on Clarke's back tensed and she could imagine Finn shooting daggers at Bellamy.

"Not much luck today, huh?" Jasper's voice filled her ears.

Clarke finally looked up to see her brother and Octavia standing a little too close together for Clarke's liking. "You could say that," Bellamy grumbled, setting his face into his hands.

Octavia chuckled softly. "What's the matter, Bell? Giving up so easily?"

Bellamy rolled his eyes but said nothing. Jasper furrowed his eyebrows. "How long until your deadline again?" he asked.

"Four weeks," Finn answered. "Which is actually a lot of time when you think about it."

Clarke sat up straighter, eyeing Jasper's twitching hand. "So," she motioned between Jasper and Octavia, "are you two like a "thing" now?"