I don't know yet???

ten

Charlotte went up to Eleanor's new house for the first time on Eleanor's birthday in mid-December. It was probably the coldest winter North Carolina had had in quite a long time.

    Charlotte watched the snow delicately fall around the house as her car pulled up the long driveway. It was a huge houseㅡeven bigger than Charlotte had imagined, though she was prone to under-exaggeration.

    The door was immediately Charlotte's favorite part. It was warm-toned stained glass in the pattern of a sunrise, and with the light filtering through it (though minimal) it looked golden. Charlotte rang the doorbell, which instantly projected the gentle sound of a bell choir, like she had seen at the mall once when she went with a girl she had met at school back in third grade.

    Eleanor answered the door, quickly pulling Charlotte into a tight hug. "You came!" she exclaimed.

    "Of course I did," Charlotte said. "I RSVP'ed."

    "There was an RSVP?" Eleanor asked. She shrugged. "Hm. I didn' know."

    Charlotte snickered and stepped inside. She set her bag down, and then untied her white tennis shoes. "So, is anyone else here yet?"

    Eleanor shook her head. "No. You're early."

    "I am?" Charlotte asked.

    "Yeah. The party starts in an hour."

    Charlotte shrugged. "Oh. Well, is there anything you want to do?"

    Eleanor looked around. "Well, we could go in the basemen'. It's huge! An' that's where the party would be anyway. I could teach you how to play some games. The girls know lots of games. But I think we're jus' gonna talk and watch movies."

    "What movies?" Charlotte asked.

    "Well, Nev said her favorite's Mean Girls. I think we'll watch that. Maybe somethin' else."

    "What's that rated?" Charlotte questioned.

    "Are you still not allowed to watch PG-13 movies? 'Cause that's alrigh', I guess we'll jus' watch somethin' else."

    "No, no, I can, I'm just not very used to it," Charlotte explained.

"Okay," Eleanor said, nodding. "I don' think it's too bad, but if you nee' t' stop, we can, alrigh'?"

"Yes, that sounds good," Charlotte agreed. "I hope they all like me."

"They'll love you!" Eleanor exclaimed. "You're great, of course they will!"

Charlotte shook her head, making a sour face. "I'm not sure. I'm not very good at people, especially not new ones."

"That's alrigh'. It'll be fine."

Charlotte sighed, brushing some dark copper colored hair behind her ear. "Alright. If you're sure."

    Half an hour later, a girl named Kat arrived. "Sorry I'm early," she said with a wide smile, taking off her coat in a way that made it look almost enchanting. She was the most graceful any eleven-year-old could ever possibly, taking long, straight strides towards her friend before pulling her into a soft, brief hug.

    She turned towards Charlotte. "Hi. I'm Katerina. Kat for short."

    Charlotte shook her hand hesitantly, and kind of oafishly. "My name is Charlotte," she replied quietly, avoiding eye contact.

    "Nice to meet you," Kat replied, grinning. "So, where are you from?"

    "Um, you probably wouldn't know it."

    "Yeah. Guess I don't know much about the geography of North Carolina. Or geography at all. I hate geography."

    "Why?" Charlotte asked. "I love geography."

    "Too many pointless numbers," Kat explained, waving her hands about animatedly. "Math, I can deal with. I love math, actually; math is great! But in math you get to do things with the numbers. In geography they just kinda...sit there."

    "I see. But I still like geography, even more so than math."

    "Math is my favorite," Kat said. "And then science. And then reading, because I get to read about science. Don't tell anyone else that, though. According to, like, the laws of the universe or something, I'm not supposed to like science because I'm 'cool and popular', or whatever, but I think that's kind of dumb."

    "I don't think it's dumb," Charlotte said. "Everyone needs hierarchy, and every step of the hierarchy needs social norms. If everyone was totally different, the world would be chaos."

    Kat shrugged. "I don't think so, but whatever. Eleanor, do you have any thing you wanna do now?"

    "I thought we coul' frost' the cake together. I mean, I thought we all coul' fros' the cake together, but two people is good enough."

    Kat nodded. "Okay. I love cake, oh my gosh. My mom never lets me have it! She keeps complaining about how it will make me gain weight. I don't really care, though. It's good."

    "Let's go!" Eleanor exclaimed, grabbing one of Charlotte's wrists and one of Kat's, and pulling them into the kitchen, where lots of food coloring and vanilla frosting had been laid out.

    "What kinda cake are you having?" Kat questioned.

    "Chocolate-strawberry marble," Eleanor replied with a wide smile. "Gav and Trisha let me pick it out all by myself. I thin' I chose well."

    Charlotte wasn't all too familiar with any cake other than store-bought yellow vanilla cupcakes with the large mounds of neon-dyed frosting on top. It seemed like Eleanor had put a lot of work into this party, this kind of party that Charlotte had never had for herself before. She felt a wave of jealousy, quickly burying it as she squeezed a few drops of lime green food coloring into a bowl of frosting.

    Besides Kat and Charlotte, everyone else was late. Charlotte felt a bit mad at them: after all, they were taking this party for granted. This was Charlotte's first. Probably their millionth, but it was all the same. They should care. They should come on time, unless they have some sort of excuse (she doubted they did).

    Yet again, Charlotte found herself thinking about the negativities of human beings. She didn't even think about stopping this time.

A/N: this was promised to @ollogy . I am sorry. I tried.

so you think anythings gonna happen with these people ever?

let's play a new game with this story. it's called spot the foreshadowing. please try it I want to see how obvious it is thx

enjoy! happy thanksgiving everyone!