Panem High: Freshman Year

Chapter 21

Just two days after the Kentwells' Christmas party, and the very day after Christmas, Johanna was having her mom run all over to prepare for the New Year's Eve party she had decided to throw for her friends. There were plastic dishes to be bought, desserts to be baked, hors d'oeuvres to be prepared, rooms to be decorated and invitations to be addressed. While Kayla was at the grocery store buying party snacks and ingredients for the meal Johanna had requested, Jo herself was sitting at the kitchen table making invitations. Which was not an easy feat if you had nine-year-old Graham Mason running circles around your workspace and screaming about being a he-man, and riding a wicked sugar high, as was the case for poor Johanna.

"God, would you quit hootin' an' hollerin'?" she exclaimed, using a phrase she'd picked up from Mac and slamming her fist on the table, sending a few of the felt-tip pens she'd gotten as a Secret Santa gift from Thresh flying off the table. "And pick those up!"

"Neverrrrrrr!" he cried, flexing his skinny little arms and running faster.

"Graham," Kayla snapped, flying into the room in a frenzy. "Leave your sister alone." She turned to Johanna as she put her fifty-seven shopping bags on the counter. "How are the invitations coming along?"

Jo looked down sheepishly at the mostly blank pieces of white cardstock in front of her. "I think I have a template now," she said, which was half-true. She did have a general idea of how they were gonna look, but she had yet to finish one.

"Alright, well, have them done by dinnertime so you can drop as many off as possible after we eat."

Johanna took a red marker and uncapped the brush tip and wrote 'Happy New Year' in swooping cursive. She drew three small arrowheads facing inwards on either side with the fine point. With the fine tip of a lavender marker, she wrote 'Join us to celebrate the New Year', and underneath, in a golden yellow marker, 'Thursday, December 31st', '5:00pm', '41 Islanders Retreat', and 'RSVP to johannaamasonn@gmail.com by December 30th' each in a different line. Alternating between those three colours, she drew a dozen or so small stars in the top right corner for a decorative touch. Finally, in a thin black marker, she wrote 'Formal' as a footnote.

She repeated this seventeen times and slid them into white envelopes, which she then addressed in fancy red script: Clove Kentwell, Cato Hadley, Glimmer Belcourt, Marvel Sanford, Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Delly Cartwright, Mac Grant, Madge Undersee, Gale Hawthorne, Finch Crossley, Thresh Morrowson, Jamie Westbrook, Leo Johansson, Michaela Fernsby, Tristan Mitchell and Dylan Walsbane. (Jamie, Leo and Michaela were in Combat with her and Cato, and Dylan was one of her friends who lived down the street.) As an afterthought, she drafted one more invitation and addressed it to Will English (primarily for Madge, but with the excuse that he played volleyball with Cato and Marvel).

She helped her mom make dinner while Graham ran around the entire main floor, yelling out war cries and flexing his tiny arms some more until he finally ran off his sugar high and barely made it to the kitchen table before collapsing onto his scrawny ass, right as the pasta finished cooking. Johanna rolled her eyes and mixed the creamy alfredo sauce into the fettuccine and served Graham a big bowl full, and slightly smaller portions for herself and her mom.

They ate in silence at the kitchen table (she wasn't sure why they had a kitchen table, exactly, because the long one in the massive dining room was perfectly nice, but that was "for dinner parties only, Johanna Marlene Mason, don't you touch it"), and after dinner she biked around and delivered the invitations.

Johanna spent the better part of the next few days running errands with her mom. At the party store buying decorations, the grocery store buying ingredients for cupcakes and her mom's spectacular punch, at the bank to take out some more cash, at the bakery in Old Savannah buying fancy squares, at Tara's Black Tie Boutique buying a dress, at the bank again, at Payless buying shoes, at the salon getting her nails done, and then at the bank some more.