Just Another Lie, Right? [Kleinsen]

•24•

I walked into the school gym to find almost everything already set up. Music was playing already and a majority of the decorations were set up.

"What the hell?" I said, walking up to Alana, who was a short distance away from me. Her hair was put into two space buns with a singular strand poking out of each. She was wearing a purple and black dress that puffed out almost like a tutu down around her knees, and she was wearing a lot of eyeliner.

"I'm a witch!" Alana said, doing a fancy little twirl before pulling out a broom from who-knows-where.

"I knew that." I said , rolling my eyes, "I mean why is everything set up already? You told me to meet you here at 4 to get ready."

"Oh well I just stayed after." Alana explained, "And since I had all the decorations, I just started by myself. And... finished, too."

I looked around the gym. She really did do an exceptional job decorating. There were purple, green, orange, and black streamers streamed throughout the room, while on the ceiling there were black and orange twirling hanger things. In the corners of the room, there were small tables with small but mighty bluetooth speakers, blasting music which I just assumed came from Alana's phone. The concession stand, (which currently lacked concessions because Evan hadn't arrived yet) was covered with a black table cloth and had jack-o-lanterns on each end. To top it off, there were spider webs with plastic spiders in them littered around the entire room.

"You sure did a good job." I said in awe, and Alana smiled proudly.

"Thanks. I still need help setting up a photo booth, though. My mom agreed to take pictures of people, and I got Alexis to paint a spooky backdrop, but we need to get lighting and stuff." She said.

I nodded and followed her to her car where we got out some bulky lighting equipment. If this was anyone else, I'd be surprised they had this stuff just hanging around, but this is Alana.

Just as I was working with a weird box of light on a stand, I felt someone tap my back. "Gimme a sec..." I mumbled, making sure to lock the weird box of light on a stand in place.

I whipped around to see Evan, in a pretty usual outfit. He was wearing a purple and white striped polo and khakis. His hair, though, was an absolute mess. It look like he attempted to style it, but then decided against it after putting in a bunch of hair gel.

"What the fuuu-" I started before Evan cut me off.

"My hair was messy; I tried to fix it; hair gel sucks." He said simply. 

I laughed, "Do you have to come over for hair gel lessons?" I teased.

"Pff, no."

Evan smiled, pausing for a second before saying, "What are you supposed to be?" His eyes were fixed on my everywhere-hair. "You look worse than you did Tuesday morning."

A laughed, before running to the concession table, which now had bags of chips and soda on it, grabbing my pom-poms and running back to Evan. I jumped and landed with my arms in the air. "C-E-I-L-I-N-G" I chanted in a high-pitch, cheerleader-like voice, "LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE CEILING!"

Evan shook his head, "I am so confused..."

I put my hand my my hip and smirked, "I'm a ceiling fan."

Evan stared at me, confused, for a second before bursting out in laughter. "Oh I get it now!" He said.

I laughed with him, "Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a genius."

"Is the photo booth done?" Alana asked as she walked in with a box.

"Yep-o." I said before jumping around the photo station waving my pom-poms, almost knocking over a lighting box.

"Well then I'll need help with this." She walked over and opened the box she was holding, and inside there were...

"Ketchup bottles?" Evan asked, evidently confused. He had the right to be, though, because I was actually pretty bamboozled myself.

Alana smiled, "We're gonna be making a haunted house! Duh!"

"Really?" I asked, a little surprised of how out-of-nowhere this came, especially coming from a person like Alana. "You never said anything about a haunted house."

She shrugged, "I wanted to surprise you, I guess." She said, pulling out a ketchup bottle. "I assumed we'd splatter this across the Science hallway and get Kelley, Rebecca, and Jonathan to jump outta classrooms or something."

"What about us?" I said, slightly offended, "I wanna scare the living shits out of people!"

Alana and Evan frowned, "I kinda assumed we'd stay out here and have fun ourselves, instead of having to work." Alana said.

I crossed my arms, still holding my pom-poms, "Screw that." I said, " I much rather scare people. "

Alana shrugged. "How about half-and-half? That way you can enjoy the dance like the rest of us a little too?"

I made a scene of drooping my head a little and frowning, though really, the compromise seemed pretty decent. "Fine."

Evan fidgeted with his fingers nervously. I wish I knew what was going on inside his head, because he sure did seem a little upset.

"Do you wanna come scare the living shits outta people too?" I asked the two, except it was directed more towards Evan. Maybe he was feeling left out or something.

Alana shrugged, "Nah, I'm cool. The dancefloor's gonna need some supervision other than Mrs. Yiek."

"Uh..." Evan stuttered. " I'm kinda... eh... scared? Of haunted houses. "

I gaped at him, " No way. " I said, but he nodded. Part of my really wanted to drag him in anyway, but I didn't want to hurt him in the process, so I just sighed and said, "Ok then." Evan looked surprised that I just let him go like that.

Alana looked at her watch, "'K. Dance starts in lime 10 minutes, so if you're gonna do the haunted house, you may wanna change."

I looked down at my outfit and smirked at Alana, "The scariest things are the things you can't explain."

"So you're not gonna change?" She asked for clarification.

"Nah."

"Ok well you can go join Rebecca, Kelley and Jonathan in the Science hallway. We'll see you at 7." She said, and I nodded before heading out of the gym.

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Published: 8/9/19
Word Count: 1089