The Self-Harmed

~Gone shopping~

Mr. Pepper walked into his classroom carrying box. It was normal for him to carry boxes, but what if this was the money that Ayelie was talking about.

"Alright," He grinned. "Okay it's no secret that we're having a winter ball."

"Whoo!" Everyone yelled.

I looked over at Ryder who just grinned at me.

"We called your parents and they all gave you money to go shopping." Mr. Pepper called setting the envelope down. "You'll go out in groups for lunch so after you get your money go meet in the food hall to get your group together!" Mr. Pepper quickly passed out the envelopes.

I opened mine and peeked inside.

"Yikes."

"How much?" Ryder bent down and picked up my backpack.

"Not much."

"You can tell me Charlie." He said. "I won't think you're some spoiled brat."

"Well Jackson want's to spoil his only daughter." I said as if I was in trouble.

Ryder smiled at me, "How much did he give you?"

"A thousand."

"Yikes." His face mirrored mine.

"Exactly."

We hurried through kids to the lunch room. We had all planned that the first one there would snag Maggie for our group leader. Owen and Caden where waving their hands at each other, with Maggie close by, talking to Clara who was waving her hands. We hurried over. Owen and Caden where talking about the new video game I had bought him, and Clara was talking about how she wanted to do her hair. Ayelie and Alex came over, Ayelie in the lead elbowing her way through the crowd. Alex let her pull him along as he watched the floor.

"Okay everyone's here?" Maggie asked.

"Yeah." Ayelie made it to us.

"Alright lets go." She led the way.

Ryder grabbed my hand and we all followed Maggie to the bus. The bus let off at a shopping strip. All the other kids ran to the first store. We had two hours to shop. We all walked down to the last stores because everyone was shopping in the front and we wanted to have outfits that didn't match every other person. And that's when I saw it. A Masquerade shop.

"Okay." I told everyone. "Wouldn't it be cool if we looked like no one at the dance?"

"Yeah." Ayelie said carefully.

"Let's shop there." I pointed.

"I don't know." Clara said Slowly.

"Come on it will be fun." Caden jumped in with. "We can all get masks and take them off at mid night."

"Okay." Clara said. "But don't get mad if I can't find anything."

"Do get mad if I find something." Ayelie said, leading the way. "Because It's going to look fucking fabulous."

"You know." I told Caden as we fell behind everyone. "We make a pretty good team when we're not trying to take each other down."

He grinned at me, "Best mask wins?"

"You're so on." We hurried into the store.

Ayelie yanked down a dress.

"I think this is it guys!" She hurried to a dressing room.

Ryder put a white top hat on his head.

"What do you think?" He asked Owen.

Owen nodded, "I like it."