Stories, of the 'nugh, oh, ah ha' kind.

'Evil!! Ooo, you just wait. . . '

The Story . . .

If your not Nola, or Audrey, or Liz, you won't find this as half as amusing, but *grins* as it does hold some basic mockin humor, it might prove amusing to you, beware, its kinda long . . .

Alright, cause your probably not Audrey or Nola or Liz, I'd bettah explain some what . . . alright, written by us four, (thus, why the styles are slightly different and you get yucky males such as Andrew Mehrtens fostered off onto other people and as some bits are incredibly unflattering *grins* random acts of revenge :P) and are generally used for entertainment purposes. This one isnt finished, and I doubt it will be, as other stories are being written too (if ure lucky (or not), I might be bothered posting the war story up . . . if I can get it of Auderie), oo, added point (thanks to Dim), alot of our characteristics are in here, so :P This is us . . .

Breakfast on a Saturday morning was always hectic. Even with Rachel in Canada and Kambyl in Rotorua, the house was still full.
"Nola, pass the jam," asked Audrey. Suddenly, the kitchen door burst open and Liz rushed in, cheeks flushed, and a real estate magazine paper in hand. She blurted out something incoherent.
"Whoa Liz, calm down. Think, then speak," Dimuthu said. Liz took a deep breath.
"You know how we've been looking for a place for all of us to stay? I was looking through this magazine and I found something." Liz placed the magazine in the middle of the dining table. She pointed at one page and everyone crowded around to look. It read:

Heaven's Village

This beautiful and large piece of land is perfect
for those with large, close extended families or
budding entrepreneurs. The land has several small
buildings which are suited for housing and also
included is a pool with connected spa and a court.

"That sounds kinda expensive," Melanie pointed out.
"Well, I thought so too. But I called up the agent and he said they're open for negotiations and he also invited us down to have a look. They're having an open home at 11am. Do you guys wanna go?" "Sounds good to me," said Nola. The rest agreed.

~~~

They parked on the street and walked towards the gate.
"Wow, this is big!" Audrey commented as they walked through. The land was actually an entire block. There were about six small houses spread along the edges of the land with the driveway stretching around to all the different garages. In the middle of the houses was a small field, court, a spa/pool and a small maintenance/gear shed.
"Awesome!" Philippa grinned in admiration. They walked around looking in the houses and checking out the courts and pools.
"I think this is too expensive," decided Audrey.
"I think we should find the real estate agent." Liz led them towards a small group of people where she figured the agent was. A man started to walk towards them.
"Are you Miss. Horne?" he asked.
"Yes. You must be Mr. Sealy. "
"Of course. Do you like what you see? I know the price may be something to hesitate at but it is really a good purchase." Mr. Sealy gave a smile.
"What is the price you're hoping for?" asked Dimuthu. Mr. Sealy told them.
"That's actually really good for such a large amount of land but I don't think we can afford it," said Nola regretfully. v"Mr. Sealy!" A loud voice behind them called out. A minute later, a large blonde man had joined the group. Liz gasped when she realized who it was.
"That's…that's…oh my gosh…that's…" she stuttered.
"My friends and I are very interested in buying the land," said Jeff Wilson. Liz recovered from her earlier shock.
"Hey! We want to buy it too!"
"Um, Liz, we can't afford…" Philippa was silenced by an elbow in the ribs.
"I'm sorry miss but first in first serve," replied Jeff.
"How many of you want to purchase the land?" demanded Liz.
"Uh, four of us but…"
"Well, there are six of us so we should have priority!" Jeff gave Liz a strange look.
"So you're interested?" asked Mr. Sealy.
"Liz, we can't afford…"
"Yes," Liz blurted out. She ignored Audrey's glare.
"WE CAN'T AFFORD IT!" Melanie exclaimed.
"There is an option," said Mr. Sealy. "I have four groups of interested buyers. If you all want to buy, I can arrange that you all buyers pay an equal share and I can organize who stays in what house etc. What do you think?"

~~~

In the end, all the buyers agreed. Jeff and his friends got two houses, Liz and company got two houses and the other two buyers received one each.

~~~

A (hectic) week later, everyone had settled in, and the cardboard boxes were finally out of sight. Nola collapsed onto the couch next to Audrey.
"Alright." She said, "I've finally got the kitchen sorted out." She grinned at Audrey.
Just then Melanie walked emerged from the kitchen,
"Hey guys, Phill, Dim and Liz are at the pool, they wanna know if were gonna come down."
"Sure, wanna go swimming?" Audrey asked Nola. Nola nodded.

~~~

Liz performed a perfect dive and come up for air - on the other side of the pool, only to almost drown again when Jeff Wilson walked through the gates in Speedo's. Dimuthu fought to hide a grin, which was undoubtedly more control than Phillipa who laughed outright. Jeff glared at her.
He dived in and surfaced beside Liz.
"Hi," he grinned at Liz, who was trying her best not to laugh.
"Hi," she said, and ignored the faces Dimuthu and Philippa were making behind his back.
"Elizabeth Horne right?" he said.
"Yeah," she said, a little surprised.
"You're the new star shooter on the silver ferns right?"
Before Liz could answer, Melanie came screaming out of their house down their driveway, with a water gun in her hand, trying to shoot behind her.
Behind, Nola came sprinting after her with a super soaker in her hand, also screaming, but shooting at Mel and whatever was behind her.
Then, came Audrey, cackling evilly with a hose in her hand.
"Stop! Stop!!" shrieked Nola, as they ran around the pool.
"You evil evil people!" Audrey said, who was soaking as well.
"What happened?" Dimuthu asked.."I was trying to find some dry towels, which Melanie I thought was your job to put away.."
They all glanced at Melanie who shrugged red and said
"oops".
"…. When these evil evil people," Audrey indicated
Nola and Melanie who grinned widely back, "attacked me with these water guns."
"But she picked up the hose!" Melanie said defensively,
"And she came running after us too!" Nola added.
"You guys are so immature," Dimuthu said. Audrey,
Melanie, and Nola looked at each other and grinned. Suddenly they all turned on Dimuthu, Philippa, Liz and Jeff and started spraying them with water. Shrieks and laughter filled the air, as the four stuck in the pool scramble to get out. Everyone stopped as a scream pierced the air. They all turned to Nola who was looking pale.
"Skanky!" she squeaked, looking at Jeff in his speedos. Melanie and Audrey were cracking up laughing, and soon everyone was in fits, except for Jeff, who had gone as red as a tomato.
"Hey it's not that bad…" he complained, defending his choice in swimwear.
Mel nodded "yeah, it is."
"Oh, leave him alone," Liz said, ignoring the sly looks she got.
"Yeah, it's not fair to pick on a guy when he's a loner," Nola said, and laughed at the indignant look on Jeff's face.
"I'm not a loner." He said.
"Then where's your friends who you bought the houses for? Or did you just buy them to be annoying," Audrey said.
"They're coming…" he trailed off mysteriously, then grinned as he produced a water gun from behind his back, and squirted a stream of water at Liz.
"Hey!" she said. " I didn't do anything to you," then grabbed Nola's super soaker(with a polite excuse me) and shot him in the back. Water guns emerged from the shed, and soon a full fledged water fight had started.

~~~

"I am soo wet," Liz complained, as they trudged back into the house.
"Yeah, but that was so much fun!" Melanie grinned at Nola.
"And it was so funny when…when…" Audrey trailed off into laughter. She, Dimuthu and Philippa grinned at each other.
"Speedos!" they all chorused in unison. Everyone (minus Liz) cracked up laughing. Then they all suddenly stopped and shuddered as they remembered the sight.
"Bananas shouldn't wear stuff like that." The two houses they occupied were next door to each other. Phillipa, Liz and Dimuthu stayed in one while Audrey, Nola and Melanie stayed in the other.

~~~

"Great," Nola groaned as she stared at the empty shelf in the fridge. Her turn to cook and there was no milk.
"What's so great?" Audrey asked as she and Mel strolled in.
"No milk," Nola replied.
"Liz don't have any either," said Mel.
"How do you know?" Audrey looked at Mel.
"Well, I couldn't find our Milo . . . " she trailed off as Audrey pulled the Milo packet out of the pantry.
"Do you think the neighbours will have any?" asked Nola, changing the subject.
"Let's go find out," Mel grinned at the idea of meeting their new neighbours.
The three split up and went to the other houses (minus Jeff's who they wanted to avoid after the Speedo incident).
Nola knocked on the door. It was opened.
"Hi, can I help you?" Nola's mouth dropped open. She quickly recovered and stuck out her hand.
"I'm Nola, I'm your new milk, I was wondering if you had any neighbour?" She blushed as she realised what she'd just said.
"I mean…I'm your uh…Do you have any milk?" The guy laughed.
"Hi. I'm Christian." He took her hand. "I have milk. Would you like some?"

~~~

The door was opened.
"Oh my gosh…" Audrey stared in shock at the guy who had answered the door. "You, ah, you, um, hi. I live over at that house. Do you uh…have some milk we could have?"

~~~

Melanie rang the doorbell impatiently. The door swung open. Her eyes went wide.
"Have you got milk?" she blurted out.
"Uhh, yes, we do."
"Good, don't move." Melanie rushed off, leaving the poor guy standing there by himself.

~~~

"Nola! Audrey!" Melanie ran through their front door. They ran into each other in the lounge, milk splashing everywhere.
"Guess who lives next door!" They all blurted out in unison. They looked at each other strangely.
"Christian Cullen lives at number three." Said Nola cautiously.
"Dion Nash at number four." Nola and Audrey looked at Melanie who yelped.
"I left him there!!" she ran past them, spilling what was left of the milk.
"She had better bring back some milk." Muttered Audrey.

~~~

Melanie walked up the drive to see the guy she had left in such a hurry waiting with milk.
She grinned a greeting.
"Hi, I'm Melanie." she said, accepting the milk.
Damn he's gorgeous. She thought.
"Damien." He answered. He stepped outside, turning to close the door behind him
Nice butt too. She thought, taking a peek.
(Note From Teh: Sorry guys *grins*)
"I live over at Number Two." Damien smiled at her and nodded.
"Yeah, I saw you guys this afternoon." He grinned at the shock of seeing the three girls soaking wet walk up their drive and disappear inside.
"Yeah, well, thanks for the milk." Mel smiled sweetly at him. He nodded.
"Anytime." Melanie walked halfway down the path, then turned and around and came back.
"Were sorta having a neighbourhood house warming, wanna come?"
"Sure. When is it?"
"Uhhhh, tomorrow at seven, at the pool." He smiled.
"See you there." Melanie nodded, and wondered how she was gonna pull it off.

~~~

"You said what?!" Audrey, Liz, Phill and Nola looked blankly at Melanie.
"A house warming?" asked Nola.
"Yeah, at the pool tomorrow at seven."
"Tomorrow?!"
"Yup."
"Mel!" Melanie grinned an apology at Audrey.
"Well, it gives us a chance to get to know the neighbours."
"Uh huh." Said Phill unbelievingly.
"Lets see, Christian Cullen." She said counting,
"Dion Nash," Audrey sighed.
"Jeff Wilson,"
" - SPEEDO'S!" Burst out Phill and everyone cracked up.
" - and the gorgeous guy at number five." Melanie grinned.
"What gorgeous guy?" asked Phill.
"I have dibs on him." Mel said to Phill.
"Hey, you can't have dibs on a guy." Pointed out Nola. There was a scream and Dimuthu came running through the door.

"You will never guess who's playing in Paradise (aka the field)!"
"Uhhh, Jeff Wilson?" suggested Liz.
"Christian Cullen?" asked Nola
"Dion Nash?" suggested Audrey, Dimuthu gave them strange looks.
" No, it was Ryan Philippe!"
"Eww!" Chorused Nola, Audrey and Liz. Dimuthu gave the m the evils.
"DUCK!" cried Nola as a rugby ball came flying through the window.
The ball was soon followed by a greasy looking man/woman who Dimuthu smiled sweetly at.
"Sorry 'bout that ladies - that shrimp that calls himself a rugby player can't catch the ball to save himself! He called himself Christian or something.' Liz smiled sweetly at Nola.

~~~

The next day Melanie was running around trying to organize the house warming pool party. She figured she would get everyone to bring a plate and a water gun - that should keep everyone entertained.

~~~

7 'o' clock came and went. Melanie, Liz, Nola, Philippa, Dimuthu and Audrey all sat by the pool alone.
"Who needs those great looking guys anyway" Phil groaned.
Just as they were about to leave they were attacked by a group of gorgeous looking guys carrying buckets filled with slime.
Liz screamed "Don't you dare" at Jeff just as he poured the green slime all over her nicely done hair.
In return she pushed him into the pool.
Meanwhile, Audrey was trying to wrestle her gun back off Dion, who had come up behind her (while she was having fun bombarding Ryan Philippe with water bombs) and tried to take it off her.
"Let go!!" Audrey yelped, yanking it, then gasped as Dion, who had just at that moment decided to loosen his grip lost his balance and fell towards her. She instinctively stepped back, only to find nothing behind her but water. In a tangle of arms and legs and laughter and shouts, they fell into the pool.

Audrey emerged flustered, her hair straggling all over her face. She shoved it off, and looked up to see a video camera. Suddenly Nola's head popped around the side of it. With a wide cheesy grin Nola waved and indicated the red light, which meant it was recording.
"Ah, another video to my collection," Nola said, then yelped as Audrey and Dion came towards her with an evil glint in their eyes.
Melanie, Dimuthu and Philippa were watching this whole scene and cracking up laughing, when Mel suddenly let out a scream, which was cut off by a splash in the pool. Coming up, she dunked Damien (who had tackled her into the pool) back down into the water. She yelped as he grabbed her leg, which made her lose her balance, and she slipped back into the pool.

"Shame Melanie!" Dimuthu laughed out loud, but suddenly stopped short as she looked up. "Oh my gosh…"

"Hey Danny; here!" Dion called out. Daniel Vettori, who had just entered the courtyard looking extremely bewildered, jogged over. Try as he might, he couldn't suppress the grin over his face.
"You guys look a bit busy," he commented.
"Yeah, just a bit," Dion grinned, and ducked a water bomb, which Philippa had been aiming at him. It missed him, but unfortunately, Vettori wasn't too quick and got plastered by the huge balloon. As if a switch had just been flicked, the area fell silent. Daniel stood drenched in his clothes, with a look of absolute shock on his face, and a huge red mark on his cheek where it had hit him. Bits of balloon hung on his hair and a little piece swayed in the wind on his ear.

A muffled giggle cut through the silence. Everyone looked to see Dimuthu red faced, practically doubled over with laughter. One by one everyone couldn't hold in the laughter any longer, and cracked up over the sight of Daniel. However, this didn't last long, as Daniel picked up the hose and grinned wickedly.

~~~

"Shhh!" Melanie hushed them up. After a short break to grab extra ammunition (i.e. water bombs) and for Daniel to grab some swimming trunks (no skanky speedos!!); they had decided to play a water gun version of cops and robbers; except this time it was guys against girls. This meant Mel, Audrey, Liz, Dimuthu, Phil and Nola were on one team, and Dion, Christian, Jeff, Daniel, Damien and Ryan were on the other.
"I think they're behind our house!" Mel said to Audrey. Dimuthu and Philippa crept up behind them.
"Can you see Liz and Nola?"
"Yup, but Jeff's goose guarding them." Mel frowned.. "hey, he's not allowed to do that."
"I don't think it particularly matters right now…." Audrey pulled Mel back and started sprinting away. "Run!!"

Out of nowhere, Daniel and Damien had appeared, and were presently throwing water balloons and shooting super squirters at them. The 'catch' was only legitimate if the cops (the guys team) managed to shoot or hit the robbers (the girls team) with some sort of water ammunition.

"Ah ha you missed!" Dimuthu said, then regretted it as Daniel stopped running long enough to aim his Mega Super Soaker 5000 at her.

"Noooo!!" Dimuthu screamed, but was saved as Daniel was suddenly branded by a water balloon right between his shoulder blades.

"OWWW!" he cried out, and whipped around to see Mel's waving goodbye to him, disappearing around a corner with a wide grin.

Meanwhile, Nola was sitting down looking calculatingly at her confiscated water gun. While in 'jail' they weren't allowed any arms, but once freed, they were allowed to take them back, or steal any of the guy's stash of arms. (Oh, stealing of the other team's weapons/ ammunition is allowed. Each team has a stash of arms like extra water balloons, which was hidden away from the other team.)
"Don't even think about it," Jeff said, and kicked the water gun furthur away.
"About what?" Nola asked innocently. Drat, she thought. Sighing, she stood up. "I thought we said no goose guarding," she said.
"Hey, you guys broke the rules by going inside the houses."
"She needed to go toilet!!" Nola exclaimed. She shut up as Liz nudged her in the back. Looking past his shoulder, she saw Audrey sitting on top of the fence, hidden behind the branches of a tree.
"So," Liz said casually, "how's getting back into rugby?"

"Oh, it's really good…"
Nola left the two conversing, and she casually strolled around the enclosed area. She looked at Audrey who was indicating her to get ready.
Suddenly out of the clearing on the other side of the 'prison' Phil came screaming out. Pretending that she didn't know Jeff was there; she looked at him in surprise and suddenly turned away to run.
Jeff took off like a rocket and was after Phil in a second. Audrey came sprinting towards them and 'freed' them, and helped them take as much ammunition as they could carry.

"Liz, c'mon!" Nola urged.
"I feel so mean…" she said.
"Hey, you wanna win?"
Liz quickly hurried after them.

"Damn, damn," Phil cursed as she realized their plan wasn't foolproof. Jeff was an international sportsman and he was gaining on her. Which house were Melanie and Dimuthu behind again? She couldn't remember. Was it four…or five? She grinned as she spotted Melanie's jacket from behind the gear shed. She zoomed behind it.

"Gotcha!" Ryan and Damien grinned as she looked in dismay at the water spot on her leg. Melanie and Dimuthu were sitting glumly behind the guys. Damien had taken Melanie's jacket and had been waving it around. "Cheaters," Phil glared at them.

Nola, Audrey and Liz stalked after Dion, Daniel and Christian.
"Let's ambush them," Liz grinned. "We can take on the stunted bald man and his friends any day." Nola glared at her.
"Well we need a plan then. I think I have one…" Nola whispered her idea and the girls grinned at each other. They quietly followed the guys behind one of the houses. Nola quickly ran around to the other side and hid behind a bush. She made a coughing noise and then giggled. As predicted, the guys froze suddenly. Liz and Audrey (who were behind them) watched as the guys gave each other knowing smiles and started to sneak towards the bush. Liz hoisted the Super Soaker onto her shoulder. She glanced at Audrey who had three water balloons ready for throwing.
"NOW!" screamed Nola. Liz and Audrey jumped out from their hiding spot and fired like crazy. Nola jumped up to and helped to hit all the guys.
"I think we got them." The girls lowered their weapons and smiled sweetly at the guys who were absolutely sopping.
"You look like drowned rats," Audrey commented. "And now we've got a deal for you."

"Deal?" Daniel asked as he wrung water from his sleeves. They handed over their guns at Liz's command.

"Yeah but first I have to talk to Christian," Audrey led him away from the group and they started whispering to each other.

"Hey, what deal is this? Audrey didn't say anything about this," Nola gave Liz a confused look. Audrey and Christian rejoined the group.

"So you'll help us and you'll get what you want?" Audrey gave Christian a look. He nodded.
"Follow me."

Melanie decided to distract the guys so they could get away.
"So Ryan…" she said conversationally, "How's Reese? Aren't you married to her?"
"Don't you read the tabloids? We divorced about two years ago." Ryan gave her a funny look. Melanie mentally kicked herself as she remembered Dimuthu being extremely excited about "her sexy baby being single again" or something like that. Now she looked really ignorant. She decided to piss him off.
"Well it's not like I wanna fill my head with junk about you," she said to him.
"I'm glad you feel that way. I don't think your head could handle it," he snapped back.
"Hey, at least my head isn't full of grease and I don't look like the opposite sex!"
"Look like the…I do not look like a woman!" Ryan glared at her. Philippa cracked up laughing.
"Oh, come on. You've got girly lips, girly hair, girly eyes, girly…"
"Hey! I do not look girly!" Ryan gave everyone the evils as they were all laughing their heads off. Suddenly, a loud yell was heard.
"Jeff! Where did you guys go?"
"That's Christian. They must have captured the rest of the girls." Jeff grinned. "Over here!" he yelled.
Christian, Dion and Daniel appeared. Without warning, Audrey, Nola and Liz came zooming around the corner and hit the rest of the guys with water balloons.
"Yeah! We won! Shame!" Melanie, Dimuthu and Philippa jumped up happily.
"Christian man, how could you rat us out like that?" asked Damien.
"She cut me a good deal," Christian gestured towards Audrey.
"What was that deal anyway?"" asked Liz.
"That if Christian helped us win, he could take Nola on a date," Audrey replied. Everyone looked at Nola who seemed shocked but not unhappy.
"That's so sweet!" grinned Melanie.

After drying off, they decided to have a BBQ. Jeff stood by the stove turning the sausages.
"So, is this everyone that lives here now?" asked Liz.
"No," said Christian. "There's one other guy that stays in my house. You guys would know him, it's Tana Umaga."
"And two other guys flat with me," Jeff added in as he put some lamb on the BBQ. "Andrew Mehrtens and Justin Marshall." Melanie gave Audrey an 'ewww' look at the mention of Andrew.
"In our house it's me, Danny, Stephen and Chris. Chris Cairns that is," informed Dion. Dimuthu turned to Ryan.
"And is it just you and Damien in the other house?" she asked.
"No. There's actually another guy. I asked him to come tonight. He'll be here soon. You may know him, his name is Brian Krause."
"What?" exclaimed Audrey, suddenly paying heaps more attention, as was all the girls now.
"Leo!" Nola smiled.
"You do know him. Well it's just us three but we have a friend coming for a visit from America. He'll be arriving in the next few days. I don't know how long he'll be staying for. If you guys know Brian, you'll know him. By the way, can we trust you guys to keep quiet about us staying here?"
"Of course. We won't tell anyone that has anything to do with the media. So who is this guy coming for a visit?"
"I don't know if we should tell you," said Damien reluctantly.
"Peas?" Melanie gave Damien her most charming smile.
"O…Okay. His name is Seth Green"

Audrey dropped the salad bowl she was carrying, throwing the contents all over Girly Boy. Melanie and Phillipa stood gaping, and Liz and Nola screamed suddenly. Damien gave them weird looks.

"You can't be serious." Dimuthu stared at Damien, who shrugged.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Melanie walked over and hit the back of his head.
"And you didn't know if you should tell us?!" Damien grinned an apology. Melanie glared at him.
"Evil."
"Look at me!!" the famous Ryan Phillipee was covered in head to toe with Audrey's coleslaw, with Audrey herself shaking with silent laughter, the shock having passed quickly.
"I can fix that." said Nola confidently. She strolled over and gently pushed him into the pool with a grin. Everyone fought to their conceal laughter.

Once the laughter and grins died off (Girly Boy still lounging in the pool) Liz walked towards Dimuthu, standing at the edge trying to have a conversation with Ryan.
"Hey Dim." Liz grinned at her. "I just wanted to say sorry."
"For what?" asked Dim innocently.
"This." And with that, Liz bumped Dim, causing her to fall squarely onto Ryan.
"Oops." Replied Liz calmly. She turned to see Damien and Dion advancing like predators.

~~~

Later than night, much later, in fact, Phillipa was finding it incredibly hard to sleep. She waited about fifteen minutes before grabbing her duvet and rushing next door, to where she could see lights flickering in the front window. She rushed over, and ran through the front door to find Melanie watching TV and eating chips on the sofa with her own duvet. Mel glanced at her before moving over on the couch so Phill could sit.

When the morning finally arrived, Audrey and Nola stood at the Lounge door taking in the site. Half the neighbourhood had somehow managed to insert themselves into their lounge without them noticing.. Damien's stomach made itself useful as a pillow for Mel, his feet thrust in Dions face. Ryan politely made do with the massive couch and all its cushions, while Dimuthu lay peacefully on the floor beside him. Phill looked uncomfortably sprawled across Christian and Daniel, with Jeff bunched in a heap in the middle, The tv was quietly showing cartoons in the early morning light, Melanie being the only one awake to watch it. She smiled a good morning at them and returned her attention to the cartoon. Nola disappeared for a moment, only to return with her video camera and a mega phone, of which she handed to Audrey.

Audrey took it gratefully and waited until Nola had turned on the camera. Melanie saw with interest what they planned and put her hands to her ears seconds before Audrey let lose.

The effect was all that they could've hoped for. Doonas and Duvets flew like they had never flown before, arms and legs were intertwined with boxers and pyjamas, everyone fell onto everyone else, and landed into a nice disorganised pile, with perfect facials, making great footage for Nola. They both grinned at the still half asleep facials and kindly offered everyone breakfast.

An hour or so later (once everyone had returned dressed), they all sat in paradise enjoying the picnic breakfast Audrey and Nola had offered. Phillipa soon bored off her cornflakes and picked up the frizbee.

"Anyone wanna come play frizbee?" she asked. Daniel was on his feet before she had finished asking, and delightfully spilt milk all down is front.
"Someone's an eager beaver this morning." Taunted Mel, standing next to Phill. He blushed when everyone laughed at him and Dimuthu grabbed a couple of paper towels and soaked up most of the milk of his shirt. He waited patiently for her to finish before rushing to play frizbee with Philippa, Mel and Damien . Dimuthu thoughtfully watched him leave.

"Playing mother?" asked a voice next to her. She looked up to see Ryan watching her carefully.
"No." Dim defended. She found everyone else looking at her in disbelief and blushed a rosy red.

Daniel caught the oncoming frizbee and threw it in the general direction of Phillipa, who at the moment was distracted by something Melanie said, and got hit. Daniel rushed over in a frenzy,

"AreyouokaydidihurtyoucanIdoanything" blurted out Daniel.
"Whoa, Danny Boy, calm down." Damien offered a hand to Phill and pulled her up.
"Are you alright?" he asked calmly. Phill nodded with an embarrassed grin.
"See, she's fine." Damien twirled Phill around. 'Danny Boy' didn't look too happy.

"I'm hungry." Declared Melanie.
"You're always hungry." Answered Phill. She was rewarded with a slap across the back of her head and a grin. Damien placed an arm around Mel's waist and they walked up towards everyone else. Daniel saw that with a thoughtful expression. He fall into place beside Phillipa and tried the same. But Phillipa wriggled away from him and bounded across what was left of the distance between them and everyone else. She sat down next to Dion with a smile and drowned her juice while Dimuthu pulled Daniel down next to her.

"So that's what I thought we could do this weekend," Dion said. "What do you think?"
"What? What sounds good? What about this weekend?" Mel interrupted.
"Dion suggested we go to that new laser strike up in the city," Audrey filled in for her.
"Cool! I've heard about that," Daniel said.
"I'm game," Damien said, and the general consensus was a yes.

~~~

"Okay, okay," Ryan tried to get everybody to settle down. "I've got it." Everybody had gone over to Audrey, Mel and Nola's house that night for a night of charades, games and anything else they felt like doing.
"Do you notice it's always our house that everyone comes to?" Nola commented to Audrey, which earned her a lot of 'shhhss' and even a pillow.
"Okay," Ryan said again, after giving Nola a glare which she returned with a cheesy smile. He made a square.
"Tv show," they chorused.
He held up two fingers.
"Two words."
He paused, then held out his arms around him, imitating fat, then blew up his cheeks. The sight of this was just too much for everyone, who cracked up laughing.
"You look like a Mr Puniverse contestant!" Mel hooted, tears coming out of her eyes. Everyone cracked up even more, and Ryan cracked a grin, unable to escape the cheery mood of their gathering.
"Okay, okay," Jeff said, still smiling, "Give the guy a break." Ryan waited until they had all settled, then held up two fingers.
"Second word," They said. He paused, then touched his ear.
"sounds like…" He paused again, then got down on his knees, screwed up his face, and put his two hands in front of him like paws.

This of course made things worse, and everyone cracked up again, except this time it was almost hysterical. Poor Ryan went bright red again, but joined in the laughter.
"Whoops!" Nola said, "the pizza!" and she got up and headed to the kitchen. "Anyone want anything else to drink?"
"I'll help you Nola," Audrey said, and helped her pick up the cups, dismissing Nola's thanks. ("It's my house too," Audrey replied.) As the two exited, refusing the extra offers of help, Ryan sat back down.
"I'm not doing it anymore," he said, ignoring the "awwws" and "why not's."
"Because you keep laughing" he said.
"What was it- at least," Dion asked.
"Full House," he said.
"Oh, I get it, the second clue was supposed to be a mouse," Dimuthu said.
"I thought it was a rabbit," Philippa said, then cracked up.
"Mr puniverse," Mel said, then ducked the pillow that was chucked towards her. Amidst the laughter, the front door opened.
"What's so funny?"
Everyone turned to see Seth appear, with Brian at his back.
"Hey! Guys, you're early," Ryan said, grinning, and got up to greet them with "manly" hugs. They turned around, and Ryan introduced them to the group. "Over there is Liz and Jeff," Liz and Jeff smiled and gave a little wave.
"Beside them is Dimuthu, Philippa, Dion, Daniel and Christian," They all said 'hi' and gave little waves and smiles.
"And there is Melanie and Damien," Ryan finished up. "Audrey and Nola are in the kitchen."
"Okay," Seth and Brian looked a little blown away.
"So where do we put our stuff?" Seth asked.
"I'll take you guys over to our house right now," Ryan said, and led them out. "We'll be back soon," he called out.
"Oh my gosh!" Philippa said. "They're even better looking up close!" She didn't notice the look on Daniel's face.
"Yes!!" Mel agreed. "They seemed sooo nice!"
"And that's nice in both ways!" Liz grinned cheekily and they laughed. None of them noticed the looks on the guys faces as they got darker and darker.
"They're not that hot," Dimuthu said, off handedly.
"Better than Mr Girly woman," Mel said.
"He's not a girly woman!" Dimuthu said defensively.
"He so is. He's so girly, have you seen all of his girl features?"
"How many times do I have to say I'm NOT a girl!" Ryan said, returning, but with a slight smile.
"Okay pizza's ready!" Audrey said, coming round the corner. However, she didn't expect to see Seth and Brian standing there, and nearly collided into them. Luckily, she managed to stop short, unfortunately, Nola who was coming up behind her didn't stop in time and accidentally knocked her forward.

Audrey stumbled, and Seth reached out to catch the plate, but yelped as it burnt him. Audrey managed to save it, but lost her balance and fell straight back onto Brian who caught her, but was knocked back when the plate hit him in the chin. Everyone stopped as they took in the scene of Seth trying to cool his hand, Audrey sitting in Brian's lap, and Brian, rubbing his chin. Nola looked down at them with both her plate and Audrey's plate in her oven mits.
"Are you guys okay?" She asked worriedly. Dimuthu came over and led Seth over to the kitchen.
"You'd better get that under water…." Nola quickly put down the plates as Dion came forward to help Audrey up, and Mel came over to help Brian. Everyone swarmed around them, asking if they were okay. Brian just grinned sheepishly, and Audrey turned to him.
"Sorry I sat on you, are you okay?" she asked.
"I'm fine, how are you?" he asked. Audrey laughed. "I'm okay."
"I'm Brian," he said, and held out his hand. Audrey shook it, and he clasped it warmly.
"I'm Audrey."

~~~

Audrey stepped out onto the courts, and breathed in the crisp morning air. She'd woken up early that morning, feeling strangely fresh after the long and entertaining night before. It'd been a huge success, with everyone reluctant to leave.

She dribbled the ball slowly, missing the feel of the ball; she hadn't played in so long, and the season wasn't due to start for another month or so. She went in for a lay up, and as it swished through, she jogged after it, stopped and went for the three pointer. It went through cleanly and she congratulated herself.
"Good shot!" She started as the voice broke through the silence. She turned to see Brian there, grinning at her.
"Sorry, I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"No," Audrey said, and smiled.
"Do you mind?" he said, and indicated the ball. She shook her head and passed it to him. He took a shot and got it in.
"Shot," Audrey said, picking up the rebound. "Do you play?"
"I used to, now I get so busy.." he trailed off. "That's kinda why I took some time off. It was just too much." Audrey nodded understandingly. Brian looked at her.
"How would you like to take me on." She snorted. "I think there's a bit of a disadvantage there," Brian shook his head.
"No way, look, I'll let you start with the ball…"

~~~

Liz groaned as the sun shone into her face. In the distance she could hear the muffled shouts of laughter and the sound of a basketball. Was she dreaming. She opened her eyes and looked at the clock. Eight thirty on a Saturday morning? What on Earth? She tumbled out of bed and got dressed.
"Hey Dim-" she broke off as she saw Dimuthu's bedroom was empty. She headed to the kitchen where the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted out.
"Hey Phil-" she stopped again as she realised no one was there. She stepped outside, following the noises coming from the courts. She grinned as she saw the scene in front of her.

Nearly everyone was on court except for Ryan who was reffing, and Daniel who she couldn't see. Otherwise, it was everyone else on court; guys against girls.
"Here Jeff!" Brian called, and took the pass from Jeff who was being hassled by Dimuthu. Brian dribbled the ball deciding on what to do.
"Hey!!" he called out indignantly as he was suddenly left dribbling thin air. He whipped around to see Audrey running up court with the ball. Everyone cracked up laughing and clapped as Audrey finished the steal with a neat drive and basket.
"Hey Lisabeth!" Nola called. Jeff turned and grinned at Liz and then got his head whacked by Dion who had passed to him.

Everyone cracked up laughing. Nola grabbed the loose ball and dribbled down the court.
"Oof," she said as somebody came flying at her from behind, knocking her over.
"I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" asked Christian as he rolled off her.
"I think my knee is cut. I'll go back and get a bandage."
"Do you want me to carry you?"
"Of course not! I'm not that pathetic!" Nola grinned at the now sheepish Christian. She started to walk back. When she reached the house, she stopped suddenly. Something - wait, no - someone was moving around at the back of the house. Maybe a burglar? Nola sneaked around to the back of the house. She scanned the backyard.
"Hey…" she felt a hand on her shoulder along with a man's voice. Nola automatically snapped into self-defense mode. She whipped around and grabbed the guy by the shoulders while kneeing him in the groin. He effectively fell to his knees and Nola smashed his face with the heel of her palm. He keeled over.
"Owww…my nose…I think you broke that and bruised ah…um…owww." The guy rolled over.
"Oh my gosh!" Nola stared in shock at Andrew Mehrtens who was clutching his face.
"Are you okay? Oh, I thought you were a robber! I'm, so sorry!"

~~~

Melanie went for a shot and it swished through.
"Shot!" Audrey ran past with a grin.
"Yeah, good shot," said an unfamiliar male voice. Melanie turned around.
"Hey Tana! You're here man! Come join in…wait, let me introduce everyone." Jeff and Christian introduced the famous Tana Umaga to everybody that was playing.
"Hey look - I think that's Justin with Nola and…ohmigosh, is that Andrew they're helping?" Christian rushed over.
"What happened man?" he asked. Nola turned bright red.
"Your friend here beat the crap out of him thinking he was a robber," Justin said, barely suppressing a grin.
"Woah Nola! Self defense right? What did you do to him?" Liz looked at her.
"She broke my nose and kneed me in a very unfortunate area," moaned Andrew.
"Nola!" Melanie struggled not to laugh.
"I'm so sorry! But what were you doing in our garden?"
"Me and Justin got here this morning and we weren't sure which house number we were meant to be at so…"
"You sneaked around," finished Dimuthu. "Couldn't you hear us playing basketball?"
"I could, that's why I came here." Tana informed them. "By the way, you're really good." He looked appreciatively at Melanie who made a face accompanied with a 'nungh' noise.
"We did hear noises but they were mainly girls giggling and yelling…"
"Yeah, Ryan was reffing," smirked Dion. Ryan gave him a dirty look as Mel gave Dion a high five.
"…anyway, we didn't figure Jeff and Christian to be up so early on a Saturday on their own free will," finished Justin.
"I know why Jeff and Christian are up so early" whispered Audrey to Dimuthu. Dimuthu looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Nola and Liz." Replied Audrey with a grin.

"Hey, Nola right?" Andrew came up behind her. Nola nodded and turned around.
"Oh hi," she smiled gulitly. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to hurt you like that." He rubbed his red swelling nose.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Look, I was wondering, what are you doing Saturday night?"

Tana went to dump his bags at Christians. He walked in the front door and stared. Clothes, food, towels, mess. Tana grinned and dumped his stuff in one of the empty rooms before walking back outside.

"What am I supposed to do?" asked Nola. "I guess I owe him."
"Yeah, I mean, you did beat him up and all." They both walked in the back door.
"Oh . . . my . . . gosh." Audrey and Nola stood in the kitchen and looked at the swarm of insects that had invaded their house. They swarmed over the carpet and towards their feet.
"Eww!" Nola jumped up onto the table, pulling Audrey up with her.
"Melanie!!" Audrey yelled. "What did you do?!!"
"I didn't do anything!" Mel yelled back. "Why do you always think I did it? I guess this means there are bugs in that room too huh." Melanie jumped onto the coffee table in the lounge and climbed out the window.

She bumped into Tana.
"Hey." Melanie glanced at him.
"Hi . . . . oh! Hey, can you help me get Nola and Audrey out, they're stranded by bugs on the kitchen table." Melanie led him round the back and waved at them through the window. They were greeted with sarcastic faces.
"So, this means you wont be staying here tonight, right?" Melanie nodded.
"You can stay at our house.' He suggested cheerfully.
"I was gonna stay at Liz's . . . ."
"I got dibs on Liz's!!" cried Audrey.
"Where am I gonna stay?" wailed Nola.
"At Andrews." Audrey grinned.

As it turned out, Andrews was the only place Nola could stay, With each house filled with no extra beds, she didn't have much of a choice.

"Hey guys!" Everyone was in the process of carrying temporary sleeping gear to other houses when a car pulled up.
"Hey!" Dion and Daniel ran out to greet Chris Cairns, Stephen Fleming and Adam Parore.
"It's about time you guys got here."
"And it looks like we arrived at a very busy time," Chris commented.
"Our house got infested with bugs." Audrey said, hauling out the extra air-beds for people to sleep on.
"Woah now wait!" Daniel said. "This causes a problem with the sleeping arrangements, cause now Adam's here as a guest, we gotta find a new place for him to stay." Suddenly there was a kufuffle and loud crashes and bangs. Nola came tearing out of the house, and nearly slammed into Seth who was being a sweetie and helping Audrey with her stuff.
"I know what to do!!" Nola said over eagerly. "Adam can stay with Andrew, and I'll sleep on the floor at Liz and Dimuthu's!" Nola smiled brightly. (NOBODY) Everyone nodded, seeing this as a good (BAD) solution. (*grins* sorry nols . . . )
"I can't wait until the exterminators get here though," Phil said, cringing as another bug hopped past her.

~~~

"What I want to know is," Audrey said, munching on an apple, "is how come they came to OUR house and not anybody else's." The bug exterminator guy smiled at Mel, Audrey and Nola, who had gathered at the house to find out what had gone wrong.
"Yeah, it does seem odd. Me and my team'll have your house cleared by the end of the day, and we'll definitely find out what went wrong."
"Thanks so much!" Nola said, and ushered a still inquisitive Audrey, and an already restless Mel away.
"Phew, I'm glad Stephen and them arrived when they did. Imagine having to share a house with Andrew Mehrtens- yechh!" Nola shuddered.
"Speak of the devil…" Audrey muttered, as Tana and Andrew approached, (Andrew still limping.)
"How are you?" Nola asked worriedly, still feeling majorly guilty, even if Mehrtens was a bit of an eager beaver, he was still a good guy.
"Fine," he said. Meanwhile, Tana was talking to Melanie. "So how's your house?"
Melanie groaned. "It's bugged. And it's gonna be smelly."
"I hope you don't mind the mess. Christian and I are trying to clean it up…" Audrey left Tana trying to impress Melanie, and indicated she was headed to Liz's. She was across the courts when she saw Brian. He waved and smiled.
"How's the temporary bed situation going?"
"Cramped, very cramped."
"Ryan, Seth and I have heaps of room if you do need to bunk anywhere,"
"Nah, it should be okay."
They smiled, then Brian said, "Hey, Nola's taking Andrew out on Saturday as an apology thing, and suggested you might like to go along, but you didn't have anyone to go with. Do you mind going with me?" Audrey, stunned, was silently cursing Nola in her head, but truthfully wasn't too depressed about it…
"Sure," she said, and smiled.

"So how would you like to come with me on Saturday?" Tana had posed almost the exact same question on Melanie as Brian had just asked Audrey.
"Sure," Mel shrugged, she wasn't doing anything too spesh.

"Hey Audrey!!" Audrey stopped as Dion came running up to her.
"Hey!" She said, and smiled.
"How's it?"
"Fine, how're things going with Stephen and Chris…"
"Oh, they're dealing. So uh, you know how Andrew's going somewhere with Nola on Saturday, Nola said it would be cool if I wanted to go, so would you like to come?" Audrey stood there for a moment shocked. "I'm uh, already going," she managed to say.
"Cool! I'll see you there -," he was cut short by Daniel who hollered at him to get his butt over to their house. "Sorrry," he apologised, and headed off, leaving Audrey still confused.

Liz was busy cleaning the shelves when she heard a knock. Thinking it was Audrey or Nola she said, "It's open!"
"Hey," Liz bumped her head at the sound of Jeff's voice.
"Ow!" she said, and emerged from the cupboard, self conscious that she was only in her sweats and her hair was in a messy ponytail. Jeff however thought she looked cute, and came forward and touched her head. "You okay?" Liz blushed.
"Yeah I'm fine, just a little startled." She gave a weak laugh. Dammit, she thought.
"So Nola said that Andrew and her were planning a group get together thingee, on Saturday, and I was wondering if you'd like to go with me.." he trailed off, the implication obvious. Liz grinned. Her heart did a skippy happy thingee.
"Sure," she said with a calm smile. "I'd like that."

"Hey Philippa!" Daniel came up eagerly as Phil was trying to stuff Melanie's giant bean bag into the door.
"Hi," Philippa said distractedly.
"Hey, would you like to go with me on Saturday night to Andrew's thing?" Philippa suddenly stopped pushing the bean bag.
"What?" she said, and turned. Daniel blushed. "I mean, only if you want to, cause I know everyone else is going andIthoughtyoumightliketogowithme." He finished off quickly.
"She'd love to go with you, and I'd love you guys to come!" Nola interrupted, coming up behind them, and putting her arm around Phil's shoulders. "Wouldn't you Phils?" Philippa looked at Nola suspiciously.
"Uhhhh…."

~~~

Dimuthu grinned at Ryan.
"Sure I'll go with you on Saturday," she said.
"Cool," Ryan wore an excited puppy expression.

~~~

Christian and Jeff approached Philippa.
"Hey, what's this big bash on Saturday we're hearing about?" asked Christian. Phil thought of what Nola had done to her this afternoon.
"Well, Nola's organizing this big thing, and you're invited. I know she'll love to have you there Christian," Phil grinned.

~~~

Liz shot the ball cleanly through the hoop.
"Hey Liz." She turned around to see Damien.
"Hi. Are you coming on Saturday?" she asked. "Saturday? What's happening?"
"Nola and Andrew are having a big thing. I don't think Mel has a date. Why don't you come and surprise her?" suggested Liz.
"That sounds cool."

~~~

They all agreed to meet at a new restaurant in town Saturday night. Nola, Andrew, Jeff, Liz, Tana, Melanie, Phil, Daniel, Ryan and Dimuthu arrived first. Audrey came in next, looking slightly flustered.
"Hey, what's wrong? Where's Brian?" asked Liz.
"Brian's parking the car. Who the heck let Nola invite Dion as well?" Audrey cringed as Dion walked through the door. Behind him were Christian, Damien, Seth and Justin. Nola and Melanie went white.
"Who invited them?!!" The guys cruised over. Brian came in.
"I'm going to the buffet table," Audrey said, not too calmly.
"Me too!" Melanie and Nola practically jumped out of their seats. The three rushed to the buffet table. "I'm coming too!" Everyone else followed.

~~~

Dinner was rather quiet as the main talkers (Mel, Nola, Audrey) seemed to always have food in their mouths. This quieted the conversations considerably.
"Hey Liz, wanna dance before dessert?" Justin smiled at her.
"Uhhh…"
"Hey, she's my date, I'll ask her to dance!" Jeff glared at him.
"She doesn't belong to you, I can dance with her if I want!"
"Hey guys, calm down. Liz can dance with who she wants to but Jeff is her date," Andrew said. "Since you're my date, wanna dance?" Andrew turned to Nola. Christian, who had just put a piece of meat in his mouth started choking.
"She's your what?"
"My date. What's your problem?"
"You. How could you do this you double-crossing, piece of…"
"You wanna take this outside?" Andrew taunted. Christian got up and stormed over to Andrew. He slugged him.
"Yeah that's right," Jeff said as he punched Justin.
"Um guys…calm down…" Daniel mumbled. Dimuthu sighed.
"He's so cute when he's nervous," she said to Phil. Ryan overheard.
"Have you been hitting on Dimuthu?" he raged at Daniel. Without warning he socked him in the gut. Daniel made an 'oof' noise and fell back on Justin.
"Get off me!" Justin shoved him onto Christian who gave him a kick to get him out of his way. Soon, they were all in a pile with flying fists and feet.
"Come on Mel, we should do something," said Damien.
"Hey, if Mel is doing anything, it's with me. I'm her date, pretty-boy." Tana glared at him. Damien looked at Mel.
"You're dating this guy?"
"Whaddya mean, 'this guy'?" Tana and Damien joined the fighting group. Waiters rushed about in a panicked frenzy.
"Get your boyfriend off Daniel!" Phil yelled at Dimuthu.
"Get your date off my Ryan!" Dimuthu yelled back.
"Justin, Jeff…calm down!" shouted Liz.
"Christian! Andrew! Stop it!" screamed Nola.
"Damien, get off him…ow! Tana don't kick him there!" Dion, Seth and Brian attempted to pull everyone apart.
"We should get out of here," Brian looked at Audrey. Dion gave them a funny look. Audrey smiled weakly.
"He's my date…" she tried to explain. Soon Brian and Dion were throwing punches too. Seth looked at the near hysterical girls.
"You New Zealanders are strange," he commented.
"Look out!" Audrey pulled him out of danger as Christian slammed Andrew down on the table. It came crashing down and food and dishes slid everywhere.
"Woah!" Jeff slid on a piece of salad and fell, taking down Justin and Daniel with him. Ryan, who had just thrown all his weight into punching Daniel found only thin air and fell down too. Damien slipped on some spilt coke and his flailing arms hit Liz. They both slipped into the pile of fallen people and Liz, on instinct, grabbed Melanie, pulling her down as well. Just then, Brian threw a punch at Dion but fell forward. Unable to avoid the pile, they joined it, taking down Christian who accidentally slipped and dragged Dimuthu, Phil and Nola too. Soon, only Audrey and Seth were left standing, and they were both cracking up at the sight of all of them in a pile, food and drink everywhere with psycho waiters running around.
"Ow…I think my ribs are crushed…"
"I think I've cut myself…"
"Someone call 911…"
"You mean someone call 111…"

"Get off me!" yelled Melanie. "How pathetic are you!?!? Look at you!!" Melanie climbed out from underneath Jeff.
"Yeah!" Phill joined in, standing beside her. Audrey and Seth stood snickering not far away, and everyone else just lay where they were, to sore to be bothered moving.
"But he said he was your date!" said Damien miserably. "I am! But it doesn't mean anything!"
"It doesn't?" Tana looked hurt.
"And its not like you own me! I can go out with who ever I want! Damn, you and I are not even anything!!" Melanie turned and walked out in a huff.
"Look what you did." Tana tried to hit Damien.
"Don't even think about it!" Liz and Nola dragged the assorted fighting couples apart.

"Alright, so Daniel likes Phill, except Phill doesn't like him, but Dimuthu does, but she's with Ryan." Seth let out a breath and Audrey nodded.
"And Justin and Jeff both like Liz, and Tana and Damien both like Mel." added Audrey.
"And Christian and Andrew both like Nola, which leaves you with Dion and Brian, right?" Audrey blushed,
"Yeah, it does."
"So where does this leave me?" Seth asked. Audrey shrugged.
"Take your pick, there are too many guys and not enough girls." Seth grinned.

Nola picked up the phone after discovering everyone else seemed to be busy?
"Hello?"
"Hey, is that you Nola?" Nola cringed.
"Yes it is. Hello Andrew."
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what happened tonight."
"That's alright." Said Nola dimissivly.
"Umm, and I kind of have a favour to ask." (Note from Mel: Sorry Nola)
"Sure, what is it?"
"Uhh, well, see would it be possible for me to stay there for the night, Jeff and Justin aren't really being to hospitable here."
"Uhh well, see, were kinda squashed as it is, couldn't you stay at Ryan's or Christians?"
"That's just the thing, Christian and I aren't getting on too well (Gee I wonder y?) and You don't want to know why I don't want to stay at Ryan's . ." Nola raised and eyebrow.
"It's just that I'd feel more comfortable sleeping away from him." Andrew said uncomfortably. Nola sighed.
"Hold on a sec while I check it out with everyone else."
Tana rushed to the spare room and knocked on the door. "Hey Mel? Hello?" He pushed open the door. He was rewarded with a pillow in his face.
"Look, Tana, I'm fine, no, I don't need anything to drink, yes I know where the bathroom is, and yes, I know were you are if I need you, but I don't alright? I'll be fine right here, good night." Melanie pushed him out and closed the door. He waited a moment, thinking.
"I'm sorry!" he yelled through the door, and walked away much happier.

Andrew lay in the dark and thought of the rough night he had had. The tragic night had started with him getting whacked in the face trying to break up another argument between Justin and Jeff, and then he ran into Christian, of which he was rewarded with another bruise, (though, not before giving Christian a few) he grinned. And then with sleeping arrangements sorted (Liz, Phill and Dim in their room, Audrey and Nola in the spare room, and Andrew on the couch), he had walked into the spare room on Audrey getting changed, and got yet another bruise, and Audrey was speaking to him. He didn't think Nola was too happy with him either.

~~~

"Uhhhh-ugh;" Audrey groaned, burying her face in her pillow. Nola suppressed a grin.
"Aww, Audrey; it's not THAT bad;" Nola tried to comfort Audrey, who try as hard as she might, couldn't get over how embarrassing it was to be seen half naked by skanky Andrew Mehrtens. Audrey abruptly got up as she heard muffled laughing.
She turned to Nola, who was sprawled on the floor with some papers, and was holding her jumper to her face in order to keep from cracking up laughing.
"Evil!" Audrey said, and threw her pillow at her.
"I'm sorry!" Nola laughed; "but the look on his face, and then yours…I so needed my camera!"
"It's not funny!" Audrey said, and as she got another flashback, she let out another groan.
"What's wrong?" Liz asked, popping her head round the door.
"Audrey's mulling over flashing to Andrew Mehrtens," Nola grinned, and Audrey let out an insulted cry, which earned Nola a very sore slap on the arm.
Rubbing her arm, Nola (still grinning much to Audrey's annoyance); moved over for Liz who came into their spare room and sat down.
"Where's Phil and Dimuthu?" Nola asked, stifling a yawn.
"I think Phil went to Daniel's and Dim to Ryan's. Just to check on how they're going."
"And aren't you going to check on how Jeff's doing?" Audrey said.
Liz looked shook her head. "I was going to, but then I realised that HE was the one who started it, and all because Justin wanted a simple dance." Liz shook her head. "Males."

~~~

"Dimuthu!" Philippa called out to the silhouette of Dimuthu who was making her way back to their house. Dimuthu turned and waited for Phil to catch up. Phil studied her closely. "Are you okay?" Dimuthu looked at her a little dreamily. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." She sighed happily. "So how's Daniel."
"He's fine, a little sore, but I'm going to see him tomorrow morning anyway." Looking at her watch she yawned. "I mean, later this morning." Walking past house 1 they were startled by a loud shout. They paused and listened carefully. Suddenly a huge crash came from the inside. The lights in all the houses came on, and people came charging down their driveways.
"What's happening?" Liz asked worriedly, as they all tried to cram into the front door.
"We don't know!" Dimuthu said, and led them all towards the racket. They hurried in to find Jeff and Justin wrestling on the floor. Liz made a move to stop them when Christian held her back.
"Leave them."
"But-" Liz started. Dion shook his head and agreed. "Nah, they need to just let it out. It'll never go away if they don't-"
"And season starts soon and we cant' have two opposing star players," Tana added. They watched as Jeff and Justin finally came to a stop, panting and exhausted. They lay sprawled on the floor, eyeing each other.
Finally, after a stare out; Jeff held out his hand. Justin grinned and took it.

~~~

Mels blinked as the sun poured into the room. She had the strangest feeling that someone was watching her. She screamed as she looked up and saw Tana at the door, grinning at her adorably.
"Morning!" he said, and started to walk in when Mel threw her pillow at him. However, unknown to Mel, he was carrying a breakfast tray for her. The pillow caught the unaware Tana smack in the face, and whilst trying to balance the breakfast tray, he tripped over Mel's shoe lying on the floor. As if in slow motion, Tana toppled towards Mel, who's face had gone scarily pale, while the tray got thrown into the air. Tana landed on top of Mel, and the tray crashed down onto his head. Half an English muffin landed on top of the tray, the other half in Mels hand. Bits of egg splattered Mel's face and orange juice was all over the covers.
"Hey Tana-" Christian broke off as he saw the scene. "Oops, excuse me," he said, and quickly stepped back out.
"No!" Melanie cried, pushing of Tana. "it's not like that!" Christian meanwhile, had taken a double take, and when he realised something wasn't quite right, came back and looked again. He laughed at the ludicrous sight of food splattered everywhere, and a pained looking Tana and indignant Mel.
"How come I never get breakfast in bed?" Christian asked, and ducked the muffin that was thrown at him in answer.

~~~

"What's that?" Nola asked, as they heard a loud rumbling noise. Frowning, Audrey put down the socks she had been pairing up.
"Liz!" Audrey motioned at Liz to turn the vacuum cleaner off.
"What-" Nola, who'd been washing the dishes motioned for her to be quiet. All three paused and listened as the rumbling got louder. They all left their respective chores, and headed outside. They headed to the courts, where everyone else seemed to be gathering.
"What's up?" Audrey asked, craning her neck.
"Jeff decided it was about time we had an indoor gym. I mean, winter's on it's way, and we cant' play outside in the rain." Daniel said.
"Hey has Jeff's supplies come-" Andrew who'd come jogging up to the group stopped suddenly as he saw Audrey. Both of them looked away from each other, much to the amusement of the others.
"Where's Mel and Tana?" Ryan asked. Everyone noticed that Ryan had his arm around Dimuthu's waist- and the pair had been acting very close since last night. Christian grinned. "They're getting cleaned up." Audrey raised an eyebrow.

As Christian explained the story, Mel and Tana came out. Most of them had burst out laughing, but Damien did not find it very amusing. However all this was put on hold as Jeff came excitedly towards them, waving his arms about.
"The supplies are here! We can get started now." He said to the guys, who nodded and headed towards the trucks (the rumbling noises) to unload the materials.
"Uh; get started?" Phil said.
"Yeah, well, we bought all the supplies, but we decided it'd save a lot more money if we built the gym."
"And have the building collapse on us?" Dimuthu said skeptically.
"No no, don't worry about that- the main frame and concrete foundations are getting done by professionals, but the other stuff like doors, windows, lights and stuff are being done by us." Jeff explained.
"Awesome! No more grazed knees!" Nola said, and they headed over to help the guys.

~~~

Andrew hurried back to the house he was staying at. He had volunteered to make lunch because Christian had looked like he was gonna throw a hammer at him. And Nola had glared at him when he had offered to lift her up so she could fix a crack in the gib-board. And Audrey wouldn't talk to him or look at him. And everyone else was sniggering about that stupid incident. He walked into the house and started pulling out various ingredients. Twenty minutes later, he had finished. Suddenly he paused. He raced to his overnight bag and searched through, pulling out a little bottle. He looked at it for a minute.
"Don't be stupid," he thought. "Nothing's gonna happen." He had purchased the 'love' bottle off a strange lady ages ago on a dare from his friends. He decided it was harmless to put it on Nola's dish, it really wasn't gonna do anything but give him some false hope for a while. He didn't believe in stupid things like potions anyway. Andrew shook his head.
"Idiot," he told himself. She doesn't want you potion or no potion. Shaking his head in disgust at himself, he decided to throw away the bottle. Running back to the kitchen, he tripped over. The bottle flew out of his hand, its' contents spilling over some of the lunches he had prepared. Andrew picked himself up and ran over to the lunches. The clear liquid was unidentifiable in the dishes he had prepared. Andrew shrugged.
"Doesn't matter," he told himself, "It's probably just water."

~~~

"Wow, you can cook," Liz complimented Andrew as she finished her meal.
"Okay everyone, back to work," ordered Jeff.
Slowly they all gave their dishes to Nola and Brian who had offered to clean up and then went back to whatever they were doing. Audrey wandered over to Mel.
"Mel, you missed a spot. And you have to cover those nails too."
"This spot…No wait, that's just a bug. Here?" Mel pointed.
"Yup. Good job man. I'm supposed to be helping Justin," Audrey smiled.
"Then why aren't you?"
"I need to go to the bathroom." Audrey turned and ran into the house Brian and Nola had disappeared inside of.
"Hey guys, working hard…" she stopped short as she saw the scene before her. Brian was kissing Nola and she was pushing him away. They both stopped and looked at her. Audrey turned and walked out with them quickly following.
"Audrey, I didn't do anything…he started kissing me…" Nola chose to say this just when they were standing in the middle of where everybody was working. They all stopped abruptly. Audrey gave her a forgiving look but turned her wrath upon Brian.
"You kissed her?!"
"Um yeah but…"
"But you liked her all along and was just using me to get close to her!"
"I was…"
"You were getting desperate because Nola wasn't jealous of me or anything so you thought you'd kiss her! You are a loser! You used me! You are the lowest of the lowest! You are scum! You are a no-good, self-absorbed, arrogant, crappy, smelly jerk who I never am going to talk to again!" With the whole dramatic thing going, Audrey stormed out closely followed by Nola, Liz, Dimuthu, Phil, Melanie and Dion.

~~~

"Are you okay man?" Melanie looked at Audrey worriedly.
"Yeah I'm fine. My feelings for him weren't that serious. I was just bummed cause he just used me. Plus it was fun yelling at him." Audrey gave them a small smile.
"Someone better go comfort Brian…" Phil trailed off at the dirty stares she was receiving. "Nothing."

~~~

After a few minutes more, work resumed as normal except for Brian who had left. Melanie glared at Jeff.
"You said the small nails!"
"I meant the big nails!"
"Next time don't tell me to get the small nails if you mean the big nails!"
"Okay, okay, sorry. Can you please get me the small nails?"
"Sure." Melanie turned and walked towards the maintenance shed where they were keeping the smaller supplies. She stopped suddenly when she opened the door. Inside, Justin and Liz were making out.
"Sorry…" Melanie quickly backed out and raced back to Jeff.
"Where are the nails?" asked Jeff.
"Sorry, I couldn't find them."
"Couldn't find them…here, I'll show you where they are." Jeff started towards the shed.
"No Jeff…don't go there…Jeff!" Melanie winced as he opened the door. She watched as Jeff stepped inside the shed too and loud shouts and screams as well as many thuds were heard.
"Jeff stop…"
"You piece of crap!"
"You want a piece of me?"
"Stop it!"
"I can't believe you…"
Melanie turned away, very scared of what Jeff was doing to Justin. She watched as Tana walked up to her.
"Do you have the plasters?" he asked, looking dazed. A massive gash on his cheekbone was spilling blood.
"What happened?" Melanie whipped a tissue out of her pocket and pressed it to his face.
"I came up behind Ryan when he was hammering and he swung the hammer back a bit far. It hit me." Tana made a face.
"Sit, you look a bit shocked," Mel ordered.
"What's that noise?" asked Tana (referring to the shed) as he sat.
"Justin and Jeff are fighting again…" Melanie trailed off as Tana leaned over and gently kissed her.

~~~

"So anyway, I think I'll take Mel out tonight," Damien said as he walked with Audrey and Dimuthu towards the gear shed.
"That's so sweet," Dimuthu gushed. Audrey nodded her agreement.
"And you…" They all stopped, shocked as they watched Melanie and Tana kissing for what seemed like ages.
"Don't they need to breathe?" Audrey whispered to Dimuthu. She was watching Damien look more and more devastated with each passing minute. Suddenly, there was a loud crash and Justin came flying out the shed. Jeff came out too - only he ended up sitting on Justin and punching the crap out of him. Liz followed, screaming and hysterical. The noise drew everyone to the shed.
"What did I miss?" Daniel said to Chris, looking very surprised. They all looked at the scene with Jeff, Justin and Liz and then saw Melanie sitting on Tana's lap.
"Woah…" Nola looked very shocked. Audrey and Stephen rushed over. With Liz's help, they pulled Jeff off Justin but they needed Christian's aid to keep him off.
"Calm down…" Christian gave him a warning look.

Melanie glanced at Liz, then everyone else, and fell off Tana's lap. Damien turned and left quickly. Dimuthu looked after him as he left, and blantantly wondered if she should go after him, she was relieved of the thought when Melanie jumped up and rushed after him, leaving Tana with a smirk on his face. Jeff watched Justin with thunder in his eyes.
"Don't even think about it." warned Nola.

Damien slammed the door to his room behind him. A few seconds later, Melanie was banging on it.
"Damien!! Open the door!! C'mon!" It was quiet for a moment, and then the window opened and Melanie climbed in, she frowned at her shirt where it had torn on the windowsill.
"Ugh, look what you did."
"Look what I did?! Look what you did!"
"I didn't do anything. He did it, and it just happened."
"It just happened?! For six long minutes, it just happened?!" Melanie raised an eyebrow.
"You timed? Ugh, get over it Damien, its not like we were offically anything!" He looked at her with sad puppy dog eyes and left the room.

Despite the events that had happened that day, they still all went out to the new Laser Strike in town that night. Everyone but Damien was there. Jeff and Justin still on uncertain terms, Liz trying to make the best of the situation, and keeping them apart at all times. Dimuthu was with Ryan, Audrey and Dion, Nola with Christian, who throughtout the night, had obviously decided to keep an eye on Brian, who, despite all attempts, had found that Nola was most definetly avoiding him, and Audrey certainly wasn't talking to him. Phill was there with Daniel, and Andrew was tailing along, in a rather downcast mood, and Melanie was trying with utmost failure to keep away from Tana, whose cockiness has grown considerably throughout the day.

Armed with Laser Guns and sparkilng vests they headed into the arena, both on separate teams; Audrey, Melanie Jeff, Phill, Daniel, Andrew, Christian and Dion, against Brian, Tana, Justin, Liz, Nola, Ryan, Seth and Dimuthu. The game rules were simple, and followed along the lines of cops and robbers, if you were hit, you had best run because if you got caught, your oppenent had half a minute to get you to their base before your power was restored. First team with all players in their base won, and yes, players could be rescued with a catch, their ammunition was limited to five shots for the next three minutes. Rule of the game, don't get caught.

It started off reasonably well, Audrey catching Seth and Ryan (surprisingly) catching Daniel. As the game wore on, it got a little more vicous, Melanie ran sleathly round a corner, hearing something behind her she turned and her gun whacked Tana in the face. Melanie glared at him and ran off. At the same time. Jeff waited for Justin to run past before tripping him up and firing at him, and escorting him to their base.

Liz came up behind Jeff and shot him.
"Jeff, we need to talk." Jeff looked hopeful and nodded. Liz led him off through a door and into a little niche where you couldn't bee seen from the outside. He looked surprised to see Justin there.
"Alright you two, now listen."

Once Audrey rounded up Seth, she looked at the others.
"Ohkay, that just leaves Liz and Justin to get." She grinned.
"Yeah, but where are they? I havent seen them for a while."
"I havent seen Jeff either." Melanie said.
"Ooooh, Love triangle." Audrey laughed.
"Well, we hafta get them before we can leave . . ."
Dion trailed off and pointed to the small hole to their left.

Everyone turned and looked at the trainer left out in the open, there was some skuffling and bangs from inside. Christian carefully rounded the corner and looked in.

He found Justin stuck between two walls, and Jeff and Liz desperatley trying to get him out. Christian cracked up and motioned for everyone else to look.

"We sooo have to do that again some time soon." Said Melanie, following Christian and Tana inside, trying to take refuge from the pouring rain.
"Yeah, but when? I mean, were booked . . . " Trailed off Christian, standing in the door.
"Christian!! Move it man, were getting soaked!" Tana pushed past Christian and stopped in front of him. He smiled.
"Why, hello." A female voice wafted through the air.
"Guys! Move it!!" yelled Melanie, still outside.
"Oh." Christian moved out of the way and let Melanie in. The blonde raised an eyebrow at the now soaking Melanie.
"And you would be?" she sneered in Melanie's direction. "Christian?" She attached herself to Christians arm and fluttered her eyes at him.
"Christian? Let's go somewhere were we can talk." Melanie mocked her shamlessly.
"And who is she?" Melanie looked questioningly at Tana, who was shaking his head.
"His ex girlfriend, Alexandra Jane Juliard. Heir to her fathers million dollar empire."
"Uh oh, poor Nola." Brian knocked on Liz's door with Seth close behind. Phill opened it with a bag of chips in hand.
"Oh hey, I was gonna call you, everyone is coming over here later tonight." she grinned. "Most the girls are here already."
"Oh, well, we were gonna get videos and wanted to know if one of you wanted to come." Brian flashed a smile at her.
"Sure, hold on a sec, ill see if anyone else wants to come." She disappeared inside, and returned with her coat.
"Looks like its just us."

They rushed inside and were immediatley greeted by some luvly staff who regonized Brian and Seth. Half an hour later they walked outside to find half the street filled with people from the media. Brian protecivley placed an arm around Phillipas waist and attempted to pull her through the crowd.
"Are you Brian Krause's latest?."
"How long have you been married?"
"What are your interests in New Zealand?" "How long will you be here?" "
Is this a sexy threesome?"
Millions of questions were yelled at them, some of them making Phill sick. With a lot of difficultly they made it too the car.

'Oh my gosh!' exclaimed Phil as she entered the room with an armful of videos. Seth and Brian followed embarrassedly behind.
'What's up with you?' asked Dimuthu. Philippa began a lengthy explanation.

~~~

After everyone had arrived and managed to shut Phil by sticking tape over her mouth, they sat down to watch the videos.
'What shall we watch first?' asked Brian.
'An action flick' yelled Justin. All the guys agreed.
'I don't think so' said the girls in unison.
'You guys are just sissy's' said Dion.
'What did you say?' Audrey threatened him with a pillow - but before she could hit him she was wacked over the head by a cheeking looking Andrew. Nola then decided she would pay Andrew back and hit him so hard the pillow gave out feathers. Pretty soon everyone was hitting each other with their respective pillows.

~~~

After the excitement had calmed everyone down it was decided that they would watch 'The Rock' first. The room fell silent as the movie started - that was until Justin let out an enormous belch. Melanie elbowed him in the ribs. It was half way through the movie when Daniel, Dimuthu, Phil, Brian and Seth decided they were bored.
'Lets play truth or dare' suggested Phil.
'Why not Monopoly' said Liz. She was rewarded with pillows from Audrey, Nola and Melanie.
'Fine' replied Liz, 'we can use a bottle to choose who gets picked'.

~~~

When Liz returned with the bottle - everyone was in a circle and ready to play.
'I want to start' decided Liz with an evil grin. She placed the bottle in the middle of the floor and slowly began to spin it. When it had stopped spinning, it was in Seth's direction.
'OK, truth or dare?' asked Liz.
'Dare' replied Seth.
'In that case, I dare you to walk around our whole property five in your boxer shorts singing 'I'm a barbie girl'.
'No way' screamed Seth. Everyone laughed as Seth finally gave in and got up to give his performance.

~~~

"Whoohoo!" Everyone cheered as Seth emerged shivering from his front porch. They had all gathered outside on the front lawn outside one of their houses. They all stood laughing and joking.
"Go Seth!" Brian yelled, egging him on. Seth cursed in his head. Dammit, he thought; why didn't I take truth? Taking a deep breath he started off.
"I'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world…" he hollered. Everyone was in hysterics and cracking up as they watched him circle the property.
"Seth!" Everyone stopped as a stunning brunette approached them from behind.
"Janine?" Ryan said, coming forward.
"Janine?" Nola whispered confused to those around her. They all shrugged except for Brian and Ryan who approached her warmly and gave her a hug.
"What are you doing here?" Brian asked. "I came here to see some of my projects and to tell Seth mum needs us back in LA. Obviously you're a little busy.."
They gave a sheepish laugh. Meanwhile, Seth came hollering back behind them grinning but choked when he saw Janice.
"Hi-ii," he said brokenly, turning red. "Hey sis, what's up?"

~~~

"See ya later!" Everyone went round giving Seth a big hug.
"I'll be back;" he grinned, and got into the car. They all waved sadly as they waved him goodbye. As the car disappeared into the distance, there was a silent sigh in the group.
"So I guess you guys have a free room now?" Mel said hopefully, ignoring Tana's crushed look.

~~~

"So anyway, did you realise that when-,"
"-ANDREW!" Tana, Justin, Christian, Jeff, Nola, Mel, Liz, Phil and Dimuthu all exclaimed loudly.
"-just, be quiet," Dimuthu said, patting his arm condescendingly. Andrew looked like a chastised puppy. However in one moment he was chatting again about how many records could possibly be broken in the game. Justin rolled his eyes.

They were all sitting in their own sheltered box at the special ODI between New Zealand and Australia. Dion, Daniel, Stephen and all the other cricketers were on the pitch, and Justin, Andrew, Jeff, Liz, Nola, Philippa, Dimuthu, Audrey, Melanie, Damien, Brian, Ryan, Christian, Alexandra, and Tana, (*phew, I hope that's everyone!*), were sitting down watching it.
"So why doesn't the pitcher just throw it to first base?" Ryan asked, squinting at Daniel who was at that moment unfortunately scratching his derrière while waiting for Dion to field the ball and throw it back to him.
"There's no such thing as first base!" Audrey said exasperatedly for the 5th time.
"Then how does he keep safe?"
"He just stands behind the line."
"But why-," he was cut off by a cinnamon bun that was suddenly stuffed into his mouth by a very irritated Melanie. As he spit it out, everyone was cracking up laughing.
"Hey!" Audrey suddenly shouted as fat boy (aka skanky Shane Warne) hit a four.
"NO! Phogwoathoiehr!" she spluttered as one of the new rookies failed to save the rolling ball from going over the boundary.
"Philippa! Melanie!" Liz said a little annoyed as she got hit in the head for the tenth time by the koosh ball.

Brian, Damien, Melanie, Philippa, Justin and Dimuthu had quickly gotten bored of the game, and had started to hit around a koosh ball with whatever their imagination could come up with. For example Damien had Mel's shoe in his hand and was trying to catch little golf balls Justin was aiming at the opening.
"Ow!" The others turned as Brian, who had been 'going long' to catch a pass from Melanie slammed into Dimuthu and sat on top of her.
"Gerooffme!" Dimuthu cried, her voice muffled. Brian sprang up, spewing apologetic words. He stopped, reached out his hand and grinned charmingly. Ryan came and pushed Brian aside.
"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously.
As everyone crowded to see if Dimuthu was okay, Brian looked out towards the pitch and squinted.
"Uh; I dunno if this is some weird kiwi ritual, but somehow I don't think that guy's supposed to be on the ground writhing in pain…"
Everyone now turned to see Stephen Flemming, collapsed on the ground, his leg at funny angles to his body.
Letting out a gasp, they headed down to the ground. They knocked politely on the dressing room door. After a muffled "come in" they headed in and sure enough there was Stephen getting his leg seen to by a doctor.
The doctor shook his head. "Stephen; I told you to take it easy; and now you've gone ahead and shattered your patella." Stephen grimaced, obviously in great pain.
"But what about the game…" he gasped. "We don't have enough players."
"Well there's always…" Dion (now acting captain) looked towards Jeff.
"Will you?" Daniel asked, and the other black caps looked at him hopefully. Jeff, after a slight pause, grinned boyishly. "Sure."

~~~

"I can't believe we won!" Audrey cried.
"Yeah, with only two balls to spare," Justin snorted, and was bombarded with bits of food, a sock and even a flower head.
"C'mon guys!" Liz said, eager to get down to the pitch to congratulate the team (in particular Jeff.)
"Yeeeahhh!" Nola whooped, as they saw the team, and there were hugs and cheers all round. Audrey felt a tap on her shoulder and was given a pleasant surprise when Dion wrapped her up in a big bear hug and gave her a sound kiss.
Daniel attempted to do the same to Philippa but in giving her a hug, whacked her in the head with the bat he was holding.
"Oww!" Philippa said, rubbing her head, trying to ignore the suppressed laughter that the others (tried) to hold in.
"Eeeww, you're sweaty," Liz teased Jeff as he gave her a big hug, and as a response as she tried to push him away, he started trying to give her big glooby kisses.
"AFTER PARTY!!" one of the guys hollered, and as a cheer went up, the guys went to quickly get changed.

~~~

"I'm going to get a drink!" Audrey shouted to Dion, as she headed to the refreshment table.
"Do you want me to come?" Dion asked then let out a 'oof' as someone shoved him from behind. Audrey shook her head, and he gave her a little peck on the cheek as she went off.
"Oww," Audrey gave a disgusted look as a giggly blonde brushed past her with an Australian cricketer in tow.
It was a massive turnout at the party, with both the Australian and New Zealand cricket team and supporters there.
"OH!" Audrey suddenly exclaimed as she was grabbed from behind and kissed fully on the mouth. The shock had not worn off yet as they guy pulled away with a huge grin on his face that disappeared instantly as he saw that Audrey was not who he thought she was.
"I'm soo sorry-," Brett Lee stammered. Audrey, still shocked, slapped him then gave him an Audrey punch on the shoulder, then proceeded to kick him hard in the shin.
"So you should be," she answered.
"OWW!" Brett howled, rubbing his shoulder, all the while trying to grab his shin. "
I'm soo sorry," he continued, "I didn't realise that you were- I mean I wouldn't have kissed you if-,"
"-You kissed her?!" Dimuthu exclaimed, stopping short, oblivious to Ryan who she had in tow and nearly smashed into her as she stopped. Audrey blushed,
"Yes," she snapped. "You skanky dirty-,"
"Hey!" Brett said, defensive.
"Don't you 'hey' me!" Audrey shot back.
"What's happening?" Nola asked, as she, Melanie and Damien came up behind them.
"Audrey pashed that blonde guy over there." Dimuthu informed them. "Not bad," she added.
"Eeeeww!" Nola said. "That's Brett Lee! Aka Britney!!" Brett spun around as the others cracked up.
"Hey!" he said, still rubbing his arm.
"That hurt," he said.
"Well I didn't do it so you'd thank me," Audrey said sarcastically.
"Hey guys," Liz came along with Jeff in tow. She frowned as she took in the still hurting Brett and very angry Audrey.
"Well-," Dimuthu went to explain again, when there was a disturbance.
"Get out of the way- Brett! What's up man! We told you-," Fat boy, (aka Shane Warne) came barging through. "Mate! What happened to you?"
"I got attacked."
"Attacked?! I could have you up for sexual harassment!"
"Brett kissed Audrey," Mel quickly explained to Liz and Jeff.
"That's disgusting!" Liz exclaimed. Meanwhile, Shane Warne was staring very hard at Melanie. Melanie turned around and repelled away from him.
"Hey," he said to Melanie, and inched closer.
"No!" Melanie said, and elbowed him square in the chin. As his head snapped back, Damien who realised what had been happening, punched him in the gut (which sounded like a rock hitting a bean bag.)

"Oof," Fat boy groaned. He doubled over just as Mel stomped hard on his foot with her heel.
"Let's get away from these people," Melanie walked away to the opposite side of the room, ignoring Shane's cursing and rude gestures.
"Go put your head between your legs and bite your ass," Audrey said as she stalked past him, following behind everyone else. They all went over to the other side while beckoning the others to come.
"What happened?" asked Dion.
"Some skanky guy went and…"
"Mr. Dion Nash?" a waiter had come up to them. "There is a phone call from the hospital about a Mr. Stephen Fleming. Can you please follow me?" Dion excused himself before leaving.
"Man I hope Stephen's okay," said Liz. "That looked so painful."
"Yeah and…" began Audrey.
"Hi." Audrey was cut off by a voice she didn't want to hear.
"What do you want?"
"I wanted to apologise. I wouldn't have kissed you if I knew who you were," babbled Brett Lee.
"Yeah, or if he knew who your friends were," Fat boy was glaring at Damien and Mel.
"Tell your friend to get lost." Audrey was not impressed. Brett and Fat boy disappeared. Brett came back a minute later.
"I though I told you to get lost!" Audrey gave him an unfriendly look.
"No, you told me to tell Shane to get lost."
"Okay then, can you please go away?"
"I wanted to say sorry for…"
"We already established that. Now go away."
"But you haven't forgiven me."
"You're forgiven," Audrey sighed, exasperated. Brett grinned.
"You like me don't you?" he said skankily.
"Like a mosquito."
"You want me to bite you?" he said even more skankily.
"You want me to castrate you?"
"See ya," Brett quickly left.
"Yeah dat's right!" Nola grinned at her.

~~~

"So Stephen is moving out because he's found a better place and Chris is moving out because he wants to stay with his girlfriend?" Liz looked at Daniel.
"Yup."
"Why are all the guys leaving? Seth has gone too," Phil made a face.
"You repel them," laughed Dimuthu.
"Not funny," Phil glared at her.
"Pass me the hammer…" Justin pointed at the toolbox. Liz leaned over to pick it up.
"You know, I reckon you'd make such a bad father," Dimuthu said out of nowhere to Justin.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Well, you would be such a bad example. I mean, what was with that big belch?"
"I bet I would make a better father than you a mother."
"I bet not."
"Why don't we all have a contest?" suggested Justin. "We did this exercise at school on safety. How about we all carry an egg around and we have to look after it. The person whose egg lasts the longest gets to officially open the gym?" As this sounded fun, everyone agreed to it. Soon, plenty of little baskets with smiley-face eggs were lying around the construction site.
"Oh crap!" yelled Daniel as his hammer came crashing down onto his egg.
"One down," called Andrew, laughing. Suddenly, Liz, Brian and Melanie stopped.
"Woah, I feel dizzy," Mel said.
"Yeah, I feel different…" Liz stopped and looked at Justin. She remembered kissing him and was surprised at the disgust she felt. Suddenly, all her feelings for Jeff came flooding back.
"Woah, that is so strange." Mel was regretful that she had kissed Tana. She had a sudden need to talk to Damien.

Later that day, they had to quit working on the gym cause of the rain that had began to pour down.
"You know, if you had finished the roof already, we could still be working on the gym instead of moping round here." grumbled Andrew to Tana.
"Hey!! Its not like you did any better, what did you finish?"
"Quit it you too!" Christian gave them both withering looks. Daniel bounded through the door and slid across the wooden floors, just missing Christians egg.
"Hey hey hey! Watch it man! You just about killed Rupert!"
"Rupert?!" Daniel laughed.
"Hey, at least I didn't kill mine yet!" Protested Christian.
"Shut up." Daniel grinned. "Anywayz, the girls are swimming, you guys coming or not?"
"Swimming? In the rain?"
"Yeah, the pools heated."
"Oh, Ohkay then." Tana and Andrew leaped up.
"Coming?" asked Andrew to the still sitting Christian.
"Nah, I don't think so." Alexandra was still fresh in his mind. Andrew shrugged and left him.
"Aaarrgghh!! You killed my egg!! " Dion looked at Justin, who with a grin, shrugged and said "Sorry." Dion shook his head and looked at the splattered egg beside the pool.
"Hey, has anyone seen Christian?" asked Nola.
"Uhh, yeah, he was -" Andrew was cut off when Jeff dunked him
"Was at home moping." Finished Tana.
"Moping?" asked Nola. She sighed and climbed out of the pool. "I had betta go see him then."
"Nola! Heads up!" Audrey chucked a vortex in her direction. Nola saw it coming and dived back into the pool. Ryan, however, wasn't as quick, and got hit in the head, dropping his egg into the pool. It smashed on impact with the water. He looked at Audrey, and grabbed the nearest water gun, and gave no mercy.

"Christian?" Nola ran into their house seeking shelter from the still pouring rain. She stopped short when she saw Christian wrapped around a blonde and going hard at it. Nola turned and ran without bothering to look back.

She ran back to Liz's house (our house still being de-bugged) and ran straight into Brian.
"Oh, sorry." Brian moved out of the way before taking a decent look at Nola.
"Uhh, are you okay?" he asked, looking deeply worried at the tears streaming down her face. "No, I mean, yes, I mean, I don't know." moaned Nola. Brian place an arm around her, and Nola spilled out everything. He dried her tears and when she finally stopped blabbering, he leaned in and kissed her. Seth threw the American football over to Daniel, who missed it completely. While he waited for him to find the ball and throw it back, he wandered over towards Phill, who looked incredibly alone, and was trying to pick up a diving ring from the bottom of the pool. "Heya." Phill glanced at him. "Hey. Oh yeah, before I forget, can you issue a press statement and get the media off my back? They've been calling everyday since we went for videos." Seth was silent. Phill didn't notice. "And they think I'm going out with Brian." Phill shook her head. "I wonder who told them where you guys were." Seth was still silent. "Maybe it was the video manager." Continued Phill. "He was a little to friendly." Seth cleared his throat. "Uhh, no, it wasn't the Video Manager." Phill raised an eyebrow. "It was, uh, it was me." "What?" "It was me, I, uh, well, the press got it wrong, it wasn't supposed to be you and Brian." "Soo, your saying they were supposed to think it was Brian and you?" Phill looked confused, and Seth hid a grin. "Uh, no, it was supposed to be, uh, well, me and you." Phillipa dropped her egg. "What?" she asked. Seth suddenly seemed very interested in the egg splattered on the ground.
"What?" Philippa asked again insistently. "Why?" she added more bluntly.
Seth gave her a boyish grin and shrugged. "I've been getting hassled for going out with a lot of women whom I don't even know- let alone like, so I thought I'd get the press off my back by being seen with a fresh young New Zealand woman. It just so happened that it was you I went with to the movie store-and you were pretty," he added.
Phil blushed, then laughed out right. "Whatever." She knelt down to deal with her splattered egg.
Seth, looking disconcerted, was distracted as everyone who'd gone to grab some towels or something or other came back in drips and drabs.
"Seth!!!" yelled Ryan. "When'd you get back man?" "Just an hour ago. I came here and only saw Daniel and Phil being the lonelies, so I figured you'd guys soon appear," he gave a lopsided grin as he finished his explanation. "Hey Seth!" Even more hugs and hellos greeted him as the others came out. "NNOOOO!!!" A loud cry split the air as Daniel, back from fetching the ball skittered along the slippery concrete surrounding the pool and slammed into Liz who fell backwards into the pool juggling her egg. As if in slow motion, they watched horrified as Liz pushed Daniel away and attempted to keep her arm above her and her egg safe. As she landed they held their breath until she came up spluttering, the egg safe above the water in her outstretched hand. "Is it okay?!" Daniel quickly spun around from behind Liz and in doing so knocked the previously safe egg out of her palm and kersplat onto the side of the pool. "Uh oh," Melanie said, and they all took a step back from the pool. Liz turned around slowly to face Daniel who was sheepishly scratching his head. "Oops."

~~~

"I can't move," Dimuthu complained, leaning against Ryan for support. The rain had disappeared, and now the sun was shining down beautifully, leaving them all exhausted after their water fights and games.
"Why don't we go for a picnic or something," Dion suggested, picking a piece of water balloon out of Audrey's hair. They all shrugged and agreed and headed for their houses.
"Yummm.. what's that smell?" Liz asked. "It's coming from our house," she noted to Phil and Dimuthu. The girls all headed towards Liz's house, and entered cautiously. They saw Nola pummeling a block of dough. Surrounding her were biscuits and cakes, and in the oven were some muffins.
"Um…" they stood at the door, unsure of what to say.
"Oh, hey guys." Nola said cheerily, and turned around and continued to absolutely pulverise the dough.
"What'd the flour ever do to you?" Audrey joked. Nola stopped and gave a sheepish laugh.
"Where've you been?" Dimuthu asked, helping herself to a blueberry muffin.
"Oh no, Phil there are some nicer ones underneath the top ones. They're slightly burnt. Huh?" Nola turned around to answer Dimuthu's question.
"Where were you? We've been outside by the pool; didn't you hear us?" Nola shrugged. "I just didn't feel like it."
"What's wrong?" Liz asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You seem a little ummm.." Audrey trailed off.
"Weird." Melanie finished. Nola sighed and told them about finding Christian and his ex making out on the couch.
"Oh!" Melanie let out an exclamation and gave Nola a hug.
"Be careful, I'm floury."
"Oh," Mel said, and they laughed. Nola sighed.
"It doesn't actually matter…It's not like we were actually dating anyway. There are plenty more other cuties out there available…" she grinned and picked up a small ball of floury dough.
"Don't you dare- not in my kitch-," Liz was broken off as Audrey, (quick to defend herself,) picked up her own flour ball and threw one in her hair. Liz gasped as her hands automatically flew to check if it was okay. Angered, she picked up her own flour ball and threw it at Audrey who ducked- and ended up hitting Dimuthu and Philippa, who were trying to get away. Soon flour was everywhere, and the kitchen a complete mess. (Sorry lisabeth. Don't worry, we clean it up.)

~~~

"Okay, on your marks… get ready…" Andrew paused for effect, feeling very special as everyone was finally listening to him. When they had arrived at the park, they had found it surprisingly empty, and had decided to make an obstacle course from the playground. Ryan, Brian, Seth, Jeff and Daniel made one team, Christian, Tana, Justin, Damien and Dion another, and Audrey, Liz, Mel, Dimuthu, Philippa and Nola the last (the girls had six, so one guy from each of the other teams had to go twice. (Alexandra had had previous engagements for the rest of the afternoon). Andrew grinned as the starting three waited tensely. They looked up in annoyance to see Andrew smiling crazily at them.
"Andrew!!!" Justin bellowed.
"Okay okay. Get ready…..GO!"
Daniel, Tana and Mel sped off. The first obstacle was the monkey bars. Daniel fell off twice, and by the time he reached Justin to tag him for the next obstacle, Dion and Audrey were already off. The second obstacle was the tunnel ladder (the spirally ladder with the hoops), and Audrey was using her nimbleness to her advantage and was already near the end of her part to tag Liz.
"Agghhh!" They all turned to see Justin trying to clamber through the ladder and get stuck. His shoulders were too wide and had somehow managed to become wedged between two gaps, with his foot twisted in another lower rung, so he looked like some contorted monkey.
As they approached him they cracked up laughing, much to Justin's dismay. "Ha ha. Get me out!" he pleaded.

~~~

The obstacle race finished with the girls first, Jeff's team second and Justin causing his team to come last.
"Far out, how un-co are you man?" Christian shook his head.
"We spent half of the time trying to dislodge your shoulders."
"You have such hungus shoulders," Audrey and the rest of the girls were still laughing at the image.
"Shut up. So, I'm hungry, should we go grab something to eat?" Justin rubbed his stomach.
"Yeah, there's a Mickey Dee's just around the corner," Melanie said.
"I can't go, I've gotta meet Alexandra," Christian informed them. Audrey noticed the pained look that flashed across Nola's face. She glared at Christian and when that seemed to have no effect, she became really pissed off. She stormed over to him and picked up his egg.
"Say bye to Rupert," she said evilly as she crushed the egg. Christian watched open-mouthed. Audrey looked in dismay at her hand.
"Now I'm dirty." She looked at Christian's lovely white shirt before stamping on an eggy handprint.
"Hey…" Christian found his tongue. He gave dirty looks at everyone who was cracking up. "What did ya do that for?" Audrey, still rather angry, grabbed his ear before yanking him away from the group so they could talk in private.
"You are such an insensitive loser!" Audrey raged.
"What do you mean?"
"How could you do that to Nola? You asked her out and then when your ex steps in, you go all whack and get with her! I wouldn't mind that much except you hurt my friend!" Audrey glared at him. Christian suddenly looked very tired.
"I don't know." He sank down onto a nearby bench and covered his face with his hands.
"Alexandra doesn't even mean that much to me ya know? She's just so…I don't know. I guess when she threw herself at me I was flattered. I didn't think Nola minded. I mean, I asked Nola out but I wasn't even sure she wanted to go out with me. You made that deal with me without asking her." Christian looked at Audrey who smacked him in the head.
"So you're insecure as well as insensitive," she fumed. "Of course she likes you! I thought you liked her too so I was giving you two a 'push' along. But instead you fool around with your ex and chase Nola into Brian's welcome arms! You're so stupid!"
"I know…I was going to meet Alexandra to break it off from her." Christian sighed. "I feel so bad."
"You're so male." Audrey patted him on the back.
"I'm sorry about Rupert."

~~~

A few days later, the only people with living eggs were Audrey, Nola, Tana and Jeff. They were finishing up the gym.
"Hey Audrey," Christian helped her put in a doorknob.
"I broke it off with Alexandra. She was pretty pissed like she thought I was meant to be grateful. But she's gone now. Oh, and I apologised to Nola."
"Good….wait hold that harder." Audrey smiled her approval.
"What am I gonna do?!!!" Christian suddenly burst out after a few moments of silence. Audrey stopped to stare at him.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nola said she's going out with Brian now and I feel so…so…"
"Depressed?" Audrey asked. Christian nodded.
"And I don't know what to do."
"What did you expect? That she'd drop Brian because you're free now? Nola's not like that." "I should hope so," Brian breezed in. Him and Christian glared at each other. "Back off cave men. Get back to work," ordered Audrey. ~~~ "Thanks for making lunch," Melanie finished her sandwich. "No problem," Justin grinned proudly because his cooking was edible. "Oh everyone, the paint arrived. They threw in this free sample but I don't know what is." Jeff pulled out a can. He set about opening it. "Catch!" Tana and Ryan who had been throwing around a rugby ball yelled a warning. The ball bounced and hit Jeff. Startled, he accidentally kicked the can. It went flying and the contents came splashing down on everyone minus Nola, Audrey, Tana and Ryan. "What is this stuff? Is it toxic?" asked Liz. They were all completely covered in the liquid. Nola hurried over to read the ingredients on the can. "Quick! Go wash it off!" she stressed. "I'll get the hose! Ryan rushed off with everyone else in tow. "What's in it?" Audrey asked Nola. "Silver nitrate." The two stopped suddenly. They turned to each other and cracked up laughing. ~~~ "It's not funny!" Liz and Phil were glaring at Audrey and Nola who were smirking. The silver nitrate had done its job by staining everyone a black colour. "When will it come off?" asked Justin. He examined his splotchy black arm. "A few days. Maybe a week." "You must be kidding." Melanie glared at Jeff. "I blame you." Jeff looked pained. "Don't you have a game in a couple of days?" Liz asked Daniel who looked at Jeff with looks that could kill. "And you guys have that promotional ad to do" Audrey, Nola, Tana and Ryan fought to stop laughing. "What am I going to do?!" Phil wailed, as she tried to get rid of the brown/black stain with a cloth. "Don't worry Phil- I think you look beautiful." Daniel said, grinning. ~~~ "It's not funny!" Liz and Phil were glaring at Audrey and Nola who were smirking. The silver nitrate had done its job by staining everyone a black colour. "When will it come off?" asked Justin. He examined his splotchy black arm. "A few days. Maybe a week." "You must be kidding." Melanie glared at Jeff. "I blame you." Jeff looked pained. "Don't you have a game in a couple of days?" Liz asked Daniel who looked at Jeff with looks that could kill. "And you guys have that promotional ad to do" Audrey, Nola, Tana and Ryan fought to stop laughing. "What am I going to do?!" Phil wailed, as she tried to get rid of the brown/black stain with a cloth. "Don't worry Phil- I think you look beautiful." Daniel said, grinning. Everyone cracked up at Daniel's very poorly done attempt to flatter Phil, seeing as she was covered in silver nitrate stains and felt really bad. Phil glared at Daniel, and spun on her heel to the bathroom. "What? What did I say?" ~~~ "The gym'll be ready next week. And I've still got my egg," Jeff smirked. "So have I," Audrey mocked his tone, and Jeff shut up. "Yup, I've still got my little one-," Tana said, and in cute boyish way, produced his egg which had been swathed in cotton wool and kept safe in a little container. He frowned. "Hey, where'd he go?" Tana frantically searched his pockets. A look of pure panic washed over him. "Oh no, oh no!" "Hey, calm down," Dimuthu said. "Tana," Mel grabbed Tana's arm while he frantically went searching for it. "CALM DOWN!" Mel said firmly. "Look, we'll find him now. We'll start at your home." Jeff, Audrey, Mel, Tana, Dimuthu, Christian, Liz, Ryan, Dion and Seth headed to look for Tana's egg. As Tana and Mel entered the house, Andrew, and Justin were busy making themselves something to eat. "Hey have you guys seen my- UGHHHH!" Tana suddenly cried out as he saw his egg lying behind the heater. He rushed over and on his knees, picked it up. He unwrapped the cotton wool an looked at it. "It's okay!" Tana let out a sigh of relief. "But it's cracked all over," Justin frowned. "So what?" Tana said defensively. "It's not leaking."
"Um…" Audrey leant over, and took the egg from his hand.
"It's hard." He looked at her blankly.
"He's not leaking because he's been cooked." Tana's face fell.

~~~

"Poor Tana," Liz said, as she and Audrey were folding some laundry.
"Did you see his face?" Audrey couldn't help but laugh. "He was so cute."
"Hey guys! They're back!" Dimuthu called from outside, referring to Phil, Daniel, Brian and Nola who'd gone down to the local hardware store to pick up some more nails etc. for the gym.
"Hey, who's that?" Mel said.
"Hey guys!" Daniel called out and clambered out of the car- only to trip on his untied shoelaces. Phil went to pick him up.
Meanwhile, Nola and Brian got out of the car followed by a strange guy. Audrey turned around to see if Liz was okay as Liz suddenly gasped as she realised who it was.
"Hey Michael!" Ryan and Seth came forward to greet the stranger.
"Who?" Audrey asked. "Michael Vartnan!!!" Liz stuttered. "Who?" Mel asked. "Hey- it's the cute teacher guy from Never Been Kissed," Dimuthu mused out loud. "Oh," Audrey and Mel finally recognised him. Brian brought him forward and began introductions. As he came round to Liz, Liz gave him her sweetest smile, and he grinned back at her. "Hey Jeff, you okay?" Justin asked, as Jeff suddenly got a twitch in his cheek, and began clenching and unclenching his fists. "Fine." He said curtly, but watched with slitted eyes as Michael told Liz and the others a joke and they cracked up laughing. Dion noticed Michael taking in their silver nitrate sprayed bodies. "We had a little accident with silver nitrate," Dion explained. "Oh," Michael nodded understandingly…kind of. ~~~ "Mel!" Nola and Dimuthu said at the same time, warning Melanie for the fifth time not to touch the assorted goodies they were making- in particular the chocolate fudge. "Where do you want this?" Nola asked looking at a very weird looking pastry which Dimuthu had told her to make. "Just over there." "Hey!" Ryan popped his head round the door. "Hi," Dimuthu accepted his kiss as she continued to beat the filling for the pastry. "I got your fruit," Ryan said, very pleased with himself. "Wow, do you want a reward?" Mel asked sarcastically. Ryan gave Mel a withering look which she returned with a big smile, which put him off. "Stop it," reprimanded Dimuthu, as she continued to bustle around the kitchen. "Phil! Put it down. You too Mel." Nola said warningly as Phil aimed a grape at Melanie who was (unknown to Phil) also aiming a piece of apple stalk at Phil. "Phil, I thought I told you to get some icing sugar," Dimuthu frowned. "I'll get it!" Daniel said eagerly. "NO!!!" They all shouted, unfortunately they were too slow. Daniel picked up the tin but somehow managed to trip over the phone cord, whack his head against a cupboard door, bang his knee against a stool and cause the tin to go flying straight out of his hands, narrowly miss Dimuthu's shocked face and go out the open kitchen window. "OW!!" They all cringed and gasped as they heard a voice curse. They all headed outside and found Andrew covered in icing sugar rubbing his head. "Hey, what gives?" "Are you okay?" Nola asked, going to help him. Dimuthu hit Phil and elbowed Mel who were trying not to laugh, while trying to stop from cracking up herself. "You look like a white leopard!" Ryan said, amusement all over his face. "Huh?" Andrew gave him the evils as he realised that he still had silver nitrate over his face. "Hey guys- whoah what happened to you?" Dion cracked up laughing as he took in the sight of Andrew. Daniel meanwhile emerged from the kitchen, rubbing his head while trying to nurse his knee. Andrew took one look at him and groaned. "You again?" "Hey, sorry man- but I got hurt too." "You always get hurt," Mel said, which was all too true. They all helped a limping Daniel and dazed Andrew into the house. "Do you guys know where Audrey is?" Dion asked, brushing a little icing sugar off himself. "Umm… try the gym," Nola said. Dion thanked them and waved. "HEY!" Nola and Dimuthu said simultaneously as Dion nicked off with a chocolate muffin. He turned and gave them a grin while taking a bite of the muffin. "How come he gets one?" Mel sulked. ~~~ "Hey, Liz right?" Liz gasped and inwardly cringed as she realised that she had her hair in a messy bun and was wearing her old sweats to finish of the last bits of paint on the door. She turned, and put on a bright smile. "Hey Michael." "You need help?" he asked, noticing Liz trying to reach the top corner of the door. "Cheers," Liz said, handing him the brush. "What?" he asked, with a slight smile on his face. "Thanks- it's a Kiwi thing." "Oh, right," he said, with a laugh. He's soo nice, Liz thought, checking him out. Wait! What am I doing?! Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, she said, reminding herself of her sausage fingered banana present boyfriend; which was very hard to do as Michael was wearing very tight jeans, and was looking drop dead gorgeous in the late afternoon sun. "That should do it." "Yup," Liz agreed, though not quite on the same topic. "Are you okay?" "Oh what? Yeah, thanks," Liz blushed prettily as she snapped out of her daydream. "So what are you doing tonight?" Michael asked. "What?" "I mean, are you doing anything special?" he paused as Liz just stared at him. "Oh, right too fast? Sorry…" "Oh, no it's just that-," Liz faltered as she stared at the point behind Michael. "Hi Jeff." ~~~ Audrey strolled happily along the path, thinking of the big dinner they were having tonight, celebrating the near completion of the gym. I wonder if Liz needs any help, she thought, before catching a glimpse of colour through the bushes. She stopped, and headed in that direction. She stopped again as she realised it was Seth sitting by himself on top of a hill, which looked over the city- it was really quite stunning; however he looked very deep in thought. She turned to go back when Seth instinctively turned. "Hey!" he gave her that welcoming sweet half smile. "Hi," Audrey said, unsure of what to do. "I hope I'm not disturbing you.." "Of course not," he said, and patted the space beside him companionably. Audrey after a slight hesitation went and sat beside him. They sat for a few moments in a comfortable silence, watching the gorgeous view, the wind slightly blowing and the sun warm. "I've been meaning to talk to you…" Seth began. ~~~ "There, that should be it!" Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Dimuthu put the finishing pieces of decorative fruit on the pavlova. "It looks gorgeous hun," Nola praised her honestly- it did look da bomb. "Hey! Cheater!" Melanie cried out, as Ryan hit her player with a missile. "Ha ha- OWW!" Ryan rubbed his shoulder where Mel had just whacked him. Philippa, Andrew and Daniel cracked up. "Where's Justin, Brian, Tana and Christian?" Daniel asked. "Christian and Tana are helping Jeff and Liz at the gym, Justin and Brian went to go get some drinks." Andrew said, wincing as he took the ice pack away from his head. "Keep it on," Mel said, still looking at the screen. "I SAID KEEP IT ON!" Mel said firmly, and paused the game ("hey!" Ryan added annoyed,) and turned to give Andrew a warning look. He hastily put the ice pack back on. "Hi," Dion came back, and entered the kitchen. "I can't find Audrey," he said, frowning. Nola looked puzzled. "Really? Oh. Umm, well, I don't know where she went. Guys?" The others shook their heads indicating they had no idea either. "Have you tried their old house?" Dimuthu asked. "Nope." Dion said, and headed back out. "Wait!" Nola said. "I'll come with you- I have to grab some more utensils from there anyway." "I'll come!" Phil said, bored. "Me too!" Daniel said, and tried to stand, but hit his leg on the coffee table. "OWW!" He cried, and fell back down. "Umm, I think you should stay here." ~~~ "Yeah, so anyway, then he told me that-," Nola interrupted Phil's story. "Sorry hun, hang on-." They paused at the noise. "What's that?" Nola asked, and headed towards the moving figures. Nola gasped and burst out smiling when she saw Seth and Audrey intertwined in a very intimate embrace. "What?" Phil said, and let out an unconscious giggle. Seth and Audrey sprang apart, but not before Dion saw them. "NO!" Nola said, and grabbed a handful of Dion's shirt as he started forward. ~~~ "Hey what's that noise?" Daniel asked. "I don't hear anything," Ryan said. " I think you've had a few too many knocks on the head." "No, I hear it too," Dimuthu said. They all paused and noticed the distant shouts and thuds. Dimuthu, Liz and Ryan ran outside, followed by a hobbling Daniel and dazed Andrew. They met up with Brian and Justin, who had just finished dropping off the beverages at Brian's house. "Where is everyone?" Justin asked. "What's the commotion?" Brian asked at the same time. "It's coming from the gym," Mel said, and they all ran over, as the shouts got clearer. "Oh! Some big hot shot huh? (crash) Think just cause you're American you can- oof!" (thud) "Get off me you freakin dumb - oww! - idiot!" (bam). "JEFF!" They heard Liz's scream as a huge crash followed with an eerie silence. "Now look what you've (crash) done! You better pay for that!" "Me! I- oof- didn't even- OWW!" Suddenly Jeff and Michael came rolling out of the door, followed by a very angry Liz. Meanwhile, a sore Christian and Tana followed. They had obviously been caught up in the wrong fight. Seeing Brian, Ryan, Justin and the others, they nodded and all the guys jumped on Jeff and Michael to keep them apart. "GET OFF ME!" Jeff yelled, trying to still punch Michael. "He's crazy!!" Michael yelled, struggling against the firm hold. "Um, why can I still here screaming?" Dimuthu asked. "Uh oh." They all turned as they saw Phil come tearing down the hill. "Help!!" she screamed. "Dion and Seth are KILLING EACH OTHER!" "Oh no!" Dimuthu and Mel turned to follow Phil but they quickly jumped out of the way when Seth and Dion came rolling down, still throwing punches. Nola and Audrey were chasing after them. "Stop it!" they were both screaming. They both jumped into the fight to stop it. Dion threw a punch at Seth as Nola innocently stepped in. Seeing the oncoming fist, she ducked and the punch smashed Audrey as she tried to hold Seth back. Seth was trying to get at Dion and accidentally kicked Nola in the shin. She and Audrey staggered backwards. "Owowowowowow!" Nola started to hop around madly clutching her shin. Brian rushed forward to help her. "Okay, ow." Audrey looked dazed and half-fell, half-sat on the ground. "Ohmigosh! Are you okay? I', so sorry!" Dion rushed over to her. ~~~ The aftermath of the fights was quite tragic. Liz was not speaking to Jeff or Michael and they weren't speaking to each other. Audrey was ignoring Seth and Dion and they were giving each other the silent treatment. Nola had a big greeny-purple bruise on her shin and Audrey was sporting a black eye. Christian and Tana also had several bruises. As well as this, Brian and Christian were also not on speaking terms. "Ow…" Audrey groaned as she pressed the icepack to her head. "Stupid males." "Yeah, you got that right." Nola gingerly rubbed her shin. It was later that night. After an awkward celebration dinner (at which Audrey and Jeff's eggs were smashed leaving Nola the champion) they had all gone back to their houses, but all the girls were sitting around at Liz's house eating chocolate. "I like males, especially ones called Ryan," Dimuthu grinned. "He's not male, that doesn't count," Mel told her. "I don't have boy trouble either. Me and Damien have officially started going out." She smiled, contented. "Daniel is scaring me. He's following me around like an obsessed puppy." Phil moaned. "But I should probably tell you." She blushed. "Justin asked me out." "Aww…" Mel grinned at her. "Well I'm terribly confused over who I like…." Nola sighed. "Christian or Brian? I like them both." "Brian's cuter," informed Dimuthu. "But Christian likes you a lot." "I feel sorry for Christian, but Brian is really sweet." Audrey offered her opinion. "Okay, let's talk about something else, let's talk about Liz." Nola turned to smile at her. "I felt bad today. I saw Michael and almost forgot about Jeff. I mean, things are going so well between Jeff and I but it's not fair on him if I like other guys." Liz broke off a hunk of chocolate. "Poor Liz. But Michael is really cute," Audrey grinned. "And he doesn't have sausage fingers." "True." Melanie grinned as she popped a piece in her mouth. "But I suppose you and Jeff…well, you have…history." ~~~ The gym was finished. The doors had been tied shut with a big ribbon. Nola stood at the entrance with a pair of scissors in one hand and her egg in the other. She grinned. "I officially open this gym with my winning egg." She leaned forward to cut the ribbon and in doing so, dropped the egg and it went splat. "Damn." Everyone cheered as Nola cut through the ribbon and it fell away. She opened the doors with a flourish and led the stampede inside. Liz handed her a basketball and Nola placed herself at the free-throw line. She took the shot and it swished through. "Woo hoo!" Audrey grinned as everyone whooped and clapped. "Game time!" They separated into two teams - Audrey, Liz, Brian, Dimuthu and Christian against Nola, Melanie, Jeff, Seth and Philippa. Everybody else sat on the side as subs for anyone who got tired. Michael was reffing. Christian and Jeff jump-balled. Jeff tipped it to Mel who started dribbling down the court. She passed it to Philippa who buried the shot. "Nice one!" cheered Daniel enthusiastically from the sideline. Brian got the in-bound pass. He dribbled it up and had it stripped away by Melanie. The loose ball rolled away and he and Nola went after it. They crashed into each other as the ball went out. Laughing, they helped each other up. Christian looked on, envious. "You know, this nitrate has almost come off." Melanie was examining her arm when the ball was passed in. Seth tipped it to her and because she wasn't looking, she got smacked in the head. "Mel! Are you okay?" Damien rushed over. "I'm fine," Melanie shook her head. "I'll sit for a bit though." Andrew took her place. Jeff had the ball. He went for a shot and was jostled from behind by Christian. He looked expectantly at Michael who didn't do anything. Jeff slammed the ball down and stormed over. "That was a foul! Do you know what a foul is?" Jeff glared at him. "I didn't see anything." Michael stared back. "Why you little…" Jeff readied himself to take a swing at him. "Stop it!" Audrey walked over. "Quite your bickering." She whipped out her Fox 40. "I'll ref. Michael, you sit down. Daniel, play for me." Daniel happily ran on court, tripping over his own feet before righting himself and setting up defense. The game ended 28 - 26 to Nolas team. Later that night Audrey was out taking a late night walk trying to clear her head. Out of nowhere, Seth fell into place beside her. "Uh uh, I'm not talking to you." said Audrey, still walking. "What was I supposed to do? Tell him? Tell everyone else?" "It would've saved you a lot of bruises and now everyone thinks I like you! Especially Dion, just cause they saw us in a stupid 'intimate embrace'" Seth laughed. "Thanks for not telling, that would've been really embarrassing if they had found our that I was basically pouring my heart out in your lap." "Pouring your heart out wasn't the only thing you left in my lap." Replied Audrey, remembering the incessant flood of tears. Seth shrugged. "Well, it was easier just to let go and spill everything. Besides, I bet it did look like more from behind anyway." "So, can I tell Dion now, and get this whole thing sorted out? I'm actually kinda missing him." Audrey smiled. So did Seth. "Sure, besides I'm going away in a couple of days anyway." "Really? For how long?" "A week or four." Seth looked away. "Your going away for a month and you didn't even tell any of us?!" "That, That's not true, Damien knows, so does Michael, that's why he's here now." Audrey quieted her objections. "So, why are you going? Better question, where?" "Oh no where too spesh, just back to LA, I'm supposed to guest star in a couple of episodes of Angel." Audrey's eyes went wide. "I'm incredibly bored." Declared Melanie. "When are you not?" asked Audrey. Melanie sent her withering looks. "Yeah, so am I" agreed Phill. " "Oooo, I know, lets . . . " Dimuthu lowered her voice and whispered something . She was answered with nodding heads and eager input. "Hurry, he's coming!" Phill hopped about on one foot trying to make them go faster. Audrey shoved the last of it under the bed. "Hey guys, what are you all doing down there?" Christian looked down on Nola, Audrey, Liz, Melanie, Phill and Dimuthu. "Uhh, uhhh." Stammered Nola. "Audrey lost a contact!" blurted out Dimuthu. The girls suddenly looked at the floor. "Oh, want some help?" Christian got down on his hands and knees and started looking for 'Audrey's contact'. The girls were trying desperately not to laugh. "Hey, what are you all doing in my bedroom?" Tana swaggered in. "Be careful." Warned Christian. "Audrey dropped her contact in here somewhere." "Oh." Tana was soon tip toeing around everyone. Soon, Michael, Brian. Dion, Damien, Ryan, Justin and Jeff were crowded in Tanas bedroom still looking for Audrey's contact. One by one, the girls slipped out, leaving the guys lookin like idiots still walking carefully for fear of stepping on Audrey's non existent contact.

"Shhhh!" Melanie hissed, as they all giggled crazily.
"Wait, wait!" Nola whispered hurriedly, and rushed off, to return a few seconds later with her camera. She indicated for someone to follow. Liz nodded, and came around with her. They hot footed their way over to the window. Liz held back a branch for Nola as she started recording through the window. The guys were still groping around on the floor.
"Look look!" Philippa cried, as the others came behind them. "Tana's looking under the bed."
"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" A piercing shriek cracked through the air. They cracked up laughing as Ryan lept a metre into the air, jerking his hand out from under the bed. At that same moment, Tana belatedly pulled out his hand and also let out a horrified cry. Ryan reeled back into Daniel, who stumbled into Dion.
"What what?" Jeff asked bewildered. The guys all scrambled away from Tana and Ryan.
"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFFF!" Ryan shrieked.
Encompassing his hand was a bunch of slimy putty- that was moving on it's own. He screamed as it worked it's way up his hand. He flicked his hand wildly, and a blob flew off and landed on Brian.
"UGGH!" he cried, and flung it off onto Justin.
"Ugggghhh!!!" Justin echoed and flung it straight into Dion's open mouth.
"PHOYYOIHTYHHDSHDGH!" Dion frantically spit it out, onto Jeff's hand.
"OH NO GROSS!" Jeff said, and smushed it into Michael's smug face.
"CALM DOWN!" Christian roared, but cried out as Tana's flailing arm smacked him in the face.
"Eeww it's in his nose!!!" Phil cried, and the girls all clutched their stomach in pain as the laughter kept coming. It was all Nola could do to keep the camera upright.

Christian desperately tried to get the slime off him which was crawling up his cheek, and ripped it off and threw it away; unfortunately straight into Damien.
"UUUggghh! NO!" Damien cried and skittered around wildly.
The girls were in hysterics as the guys danced around, flinging the slime to the ground. Finally it was in a pile in the middle, with a blanket thrown over it.
"Hey…" Dion said, and all the guys frowned at the laughter coming from out the window. They opened it, and saw all six girls, on their knees, tears coming out of their eyes, clutching their sides.
"Did..you.. see… their… faces?" Audrey gasped.
"You did this?" Damien cried indignantly. They all nodded stupidly, still laughing.
"I don't think it's very funny." Jeff said woodenly.
"You didn't see yourselves- now that's funny!" Dimuthu hooted.
"You could've killed us!" Daniel said.
"Killed?" The girls all cracked up even harder at this.
"It's just putty!" Nola managed to get out.
"Putty doesn't move." Ryan said curtly. Melanie shook her head. "Yeah, but we put some of this chemical stuff in, and it made the putty react to light."
"It wasn't actually moving, it was just expanding," Dimuthu explained, slightly calming down. "They thought it moved!" This brought around fresh gales of laughter. As they calmed down, the girls took in the guys' very hostile stance. They were standing in a bunch, arms folded over their chests defensively, with insulted looks on their faces.
"Aawww, did we hurt someone's feelings?" Liz asked mockingly.
"You even scream like a girl!" Mel cried out, laughing again at Ryan who looked insulted and highly embarrassed.
"No, our feelings are NOT hurt, and I do NOT scream like a girl." Ryan retorted emphatically.
"Nah, just like a grandma," Daniel snickered. They all tried to hold in their laughter. Ryan gave them the worst look.
"It was pretty- uh, high pitched," Michael said, smiling.
"High pitched? High pitched?" Ryan's voice became dangerously high. As they all tried to keep under control, Jeff noticed the camera.
"You RECORDED it?!" Jeff squeaked.
"Of course," Nola said, and cried out as Justin lunged for it. "NO!" Nola said sternly.
"That's not fair!" Daniel whined. A very evil glint suddenly entered Tana's eye. He disappeared, then suddenly a blob of slime came hurtling towards the girls. They shrieked as it landed harmlessly right beside Phil's leg.
They guys all grinned and copied Tana by running to the pile of slime. However, when they returned to throw it at the girls, they had gone.
"Where?-," they cautiously looked around.
"HERE!" the girls screamed as water from the hose was suddenly blasted straight at the unsuspecting guys.

~~~

"Well, that was fun," Dimuthu grinned, as they all sat around the fire place in Liz's house. After everyone had had their shower and gotten clean of slime and water, they'd gathered at Liz's house for a late supper.
"Are you still bored?" Audrey asked Mel. Mel sighed. "Yeah," and she grinned at the looks she got.
"Guess what?" Nola said, coming into the living room, looking at Audrey and Mel in particular. "Our house is ready to be moved into again tomorrow!"
"Thank GOD!" Dimuthu exclaimed heartily. "Uh…. Not that I don't like you guys here." She ducked as pillows came flying at her. ('Smooth,' the others said, laughing.)
"It would be nice to have the free space again," Liz added.
"Do you need help moving?" Damien asked from a comfy position on the couch, putting his arms around Mel from behind as she leaned back against him.
"Yup, that would be nice."
"I'll help too," Dion offered.
"Me too," Brian said.
"Me-,"
"Okay! Why doesn't everyone just help if they can!?" Audrey said, ending the 'i'll helps' that were suddenly coming.
"What if you don't want to?" Phil asked, and laughed as she received several pillows in answer.

~~~

"Who took our beanbags?" Audrey said accusingly, as people looked guiltily away. The entire driveway was a mess, as they moved furniture, home appliances and accessories back into the house.
"Eeew, it smells- musty," Philippa said with her nose crinkled.
"No…" Nola said defensively. "It just needs airing out." She took in the disbelieving faces that were returned and laughed. "Okay, fine- we've got air fresheners somewhere."
"Hey!" Audrey said again. "No one's answered my question yet."
"What question?" Ryan asked. "OWW!" he said, as Audrey slapped him as she walked past with a lamp in her hand.
"What was that for?"
"For not listening," Audrey said brusquely.
"What do they look like?" Justin asked innocently.
"You know perfectly well what they look like," Liz said. "You've got one sitting in your lounge right now." Justin gave Liz a "gee thanks," look, which she returned with a bright smile.
"Well- go get it!" Audrey said. Seeing as she held a cricket bat in her hand he wasn't about to object.
"Where's the other one then?" Nola asked puzzled. Michael noticed Justin heading back with the bean bag in his arms and said, "Hey, Brian, Ryan; you guys have one just like that in your living room too." As Brian and Ryan cringed, Audrey gave them the one eyebrowed look, and as they sheepishly grinned, she pointed to their house.
"Go. Get. Now." Brian reluctantly set off. Meanwhile, inside the house, Melanie was (supposed to be) sorting out the appliances for the kitchen. However, she had quickly become bored of that, and was looking in fascination at Audrey's new walkman which was sitting on the bench.
"Mel!" Dimuthu said, coming in with a box in her hands.
"What?! I didn't do it; knives, forks- right over there, yeah." Mel sprung away from the walkman like a hot potato and ended with a very guilty grin, and avoiding eye contact.
"What?" Philippa laughed, coming up behind Dimuthu with candlesticks in her hand.
"Don't worry," Mel said quickly.
"Look!" Phil gasped, looking out the kitchen window.
"What- Ooooo," Dimuthu said cheekily. The three grinned as they saw Dion creep up behind Audrey and suddenly wrap his arms around Audrey's waist.
"He shouldn't do that," Mel warned.
"Why- oh." Philippa said, as Audrey whacked Dion in the head with the pillow she had, but made up for it by turning around to give him a kiss and then gracefully dumping her box into his grasp. They cracked up laughing at the indignant look on Dion's face, which caused him and Audrey to suddenly turn in their direction.
"Yikes!" They scrambled to get away from the window, however- they were too slow. Audrey walked towards them.
"Are we working over here?" Audrey asked, with a look on her face saying 'I doubt it'.
"Uhhh…" They were momentarily lost for words.
"Look! It's Damien, he's back!" Mel said, eager for the diversion, and skipped off to greet him. Damien had gone to pick them all up something to eat for lunch, along with Andrew and Daniel.
"Hi ya," Mel said, giving Damien a big hug which he returned with a short kiss.
"Hey, miss me?" he teased, handing her a paper bag.
"Nope, just hungry," she said airily back, and happily walked away. The others laughed at his face. Daniel tried the same thing on Philippa.
"What about me?" Daniel asked, trying to be suave.
"What about you?" Phil asked back, not rudely, just honestly clueless about why he'd be asking her.
"Did you miss me?" he asked.
"Why would I-," Phil was cut off (and Daniel saved the embarrassment), when Andrew who was still in the car asked; "Could someone help me?" trying to get out of the door which was made difficult by the five bagels which were across his lap. Everyone laughed and Nola and Melanie helped him up before snatching the food and running into the house.

~~~

Alexandra Jane Juliard was annoyed. No one, no one at all, got the better of her. If that little weasel Christian and his floozy (sorry Nola) thought they were gonna be happy, they had another thing coming. With plenty of cash to burn and time to kill, revenge would be hers. And it would be sweet. Idle minds are the devil's playground. Alexandra smiled evilly; the saying was too true.

~~~

Melanie picked up the paper and examined the TV guide section. Audrey took the sports section and checked for the NBA results. Nola flipped through the main section. She saw a flash by the window.
"What was that?" she asked as the doorbell rang. Audrey got up to answer it.
"Hello?" She looked suspiciously at the semi-okay looking guy at her door. He grabbed her and kissed her. "What the he…" Audrey spluttered. She pulled away and glared at the guy before giving him a viscous backhand slap. Her knuckles left a painful looking red mark. The guy gave a terrified look before sprinting away down the driveway and out the gate. Audrey angrily slammed the door and stormed into the kitchen.

The guy ran out the gate and clambered into a car. Alexandra was inside already and glaring at him.
"You idiot!" she hissed. "That wasn't Nola!" "But
she was a short Asian…" stammered the guy.
"Not that one! There's only one other girl and it's not her! I'm paying you $50 to do this and you better do it right!" Alexandra glared at him. "Now I'm going in again. Wait for 5 minutes and then try again. And get it right!" Alexandra gave him a look through narrowed eyes before getting out of the car with her camera.

The doorbell rang.
'I'm NOT getting it," Audrey grumbled. Nola shrugged and got up. She opened the door.
"Hello?" She looked suspiciously at the semi-okay looking guy at her door. He grabbed her and kissed her. Nola was shocked and thought she saw a flash. Ignoring that minor detail, she pushed the guy away before rewarding him with a harsh forehand slap. The guy grabbed his stinging cheek before turning and sprinting down the driveway and out the gate. Nola slammed the door shut and stormed into the kitchen.
"The same thing just happened to me!" Nola raged. Audrey and her looked thoroughly disgusted. The doorbell rang.
"I'm NOT getting it," Nola grumbled. Melanie looked fearfully at the front door. She picked up a frying pan and opened the door.
"Hey…" Melanie whacked whoever it was with the pan.
"OW!!!!" Damien staggered backwards, clutching his head. "What the heck was that for?!" Melanie dropped the pan and rushed over.
"I…I thought you were someone else!" Melanie helped him inside, apologising the whole time.
"Who? Freddy Krueger?" Damien rubbed his aching head. "You hit hard."

~~~

Christian went to get his mail.
"Hey Christian!" He looked up to see Nola and Audrey walking over.
"Hi!" he grinned at Nola. Audrey gave him an 'I'm not amused at being ignored' look. He ignored her and reached into his mailbox.
"You would not believe what happened this morning," Nola said as she reached into her own mailbox. (All the mailboxes for the houses were outside by the gate). "Oh look, something for you." She handed Audrey some envelopes. ("Bills" she grumbled.)
"What happened this morning?" Christian asked conversationally. He frowned. "I wonder who this is from?" He looked at a white envelope with nothing on it but 'Christian'. He opened it.
"Looks suspicious," Audrey commented. He looked in surprise at the Polaroid photograph he pulled out.
"What is that?" Nola leaned over and then let out a shriek. "Hey!" It was a photo of the semi-okay looking guy kissing her. She ripped the photo out of his hand and started tearing it up.
"Brian doesn't need to see that!" she glared at Christian. He gave her a hurt look in return.
"Don't look at me! Someone gave it to me! Who was that guy?" Christian asked.
"Some weirdo who assaulted me and Nola this morning. He just popped up at the door and kissed us for no reason and then went tearing down the driveway." Audrey looked disgusted again. Christian made a face.
"Well it did look like he had just grabbed you in the photo." Christian shrugged. "Brian will never know."
"I'll tell him anyway. I have Audrey and Mel to back up my story." The three walked back to their houses. Outside the gate, Alexandra cursed. What the heck? Nola wasn't going out with Christian? Alexandra curled her lip in distaste. She was going out with Brian. Christian had dumped her for an unavailable girl? Now she was pissed.

~~~

"I'm hungry," Melanie declared. It was nighttime. Liz, Dion, Brian and Damien had crowded into Nola and company's house. Melanie got up to go into the kitchen.
"Do you want anything?" she asked.
"How about some coke?" Damien asked. Mel nodded and walked in. What was that smell? It was coming from the microwave. She opened it and let out an ear-piercing scream.

~~~

"Who on earth would put a dead cat in the microwave?" Dion looked grossed out.
"That's sick." Audrey shuddered at the memory. "We have to get a new micro." Melanie shivered and Damien put a comforting arm around her.
"It's so disgusting." Nola made a face. "Poor cat." They had all dashed into the kitchen to answer Mel's scream. After seeing the cat, they had all rushed out into the living room.
"We have to get rid of it," Nola said sensibly.
"Not me. Unless you want me to throw up. It looks like it was…" Audrey gulped. "Run over." She shuddered again.
"I'll do it," said Brian, trying to be manly.
"Me too," Dion and Damien tried to look like they weren't scared of the cat. They went into the kitchen. They grabbed a black garbage sack and with a long branch from outside they opened the microwave. They all pinched their noses to avoid the putrid smell. Damien reached in with the branch. He flicked it out towards the sack. It fell in and all three guys jumped back. Brian slowly picked up the bag and then rushed outside to dump it in the bin.
"Real masculine," joked Melanie. "But thanks for getting rid of it." Melanie looked at Damien, who had sat down beside her.
"I blame you."
"Me? What did I do?"
"Who knows?" Daniel strolled into the room.
"Hey guys, seen Phill around?" He dumped some stuff on the table.
"I picked up ure mail while I was down at the boxes." Melanie jumped up and swiped the bundle.
"Junk, junk, junk, bill, oooo, something for you Nola." Melanie chucked the envelope in Nola' direction.
"I thought we got the mail already." Said Audrey. Nola shrugged and opened the envelope. A card covered in what looked like red nail polish read 'BEWARE!!'
"Alright." Nola looked suspiciously at everyone.
"Which one of you did this?"
"Did what?" asked Brian innocently. Nola handed him the card. Oh, my gosh - is that meant to warn you of something?" said Dimuthu as she read the card over Brian's shoulder.
"What kind of sick person is doing all these things to us?" said Nola impatiently
"I think I know who" replied Christian as he got up and left the room.

~~~

Alexandria was sitting on a park bench reading a book when Christian came and sat next to her.
"Oh, hello Christian darling - I just knew you didn't want to lose me"
"Why are you doing all those things to upset Nola?" he demanded, "What has she ever done to you?"
"She stole you off me of course - and then you dumped me for an unavailable girl - like, hello, that is so uhh!"
"I didn't dump you for Nola, I dumped you because, like when I told you last year when I dumped you, it's over. It's OVER, Alex," he said again firmly as Alexandra made a move to say something. "You were never there for me when I needed you, and the only time you have ever paid me attention is recently- when I'm finally smart enough to see you for the money sucking fame grabbing leech you are," he said firmly and nastily, detaching his arm from Alex's desperate grasp.
"Christian- please, you know that I love you-," she pleaded prettily, pouting her lips and batting her huge expertly done heavily make-up covered eyes. Christian made a very deliberate step back from her and gave her a look that was between pity and disgust. He shook his head.
"No Alex, not this time." With those last soft words he turned on his heel and with hands in his pockets, walked off, head bowed in thought. In the deserted park no one saw Alexandra Jane Juliard crumple to her feet. She looked up with blazing hatred in her eyes.
"It's over when I say it's over."

~~~

"Hey Cully! Over here!" Christian turned towards where shouts of laughter and cries of indignation came from. He grinned and trotted over to where Jeff had called him over.
They were all mucking about on the field, and there were vortexs and Frisbees and rugby balls being passed around in no particular order.
"Oww!" Jeff exclaimed angrily as a vortex hit him in the head.
"Sorry!" Mel grinned widely as she came to retrieve the vortex, not looking very apologetic at all. Jeff gave her a suspicious look and rubbed his head.
"Where'd you go?" Audrey asked, coming up behind them, a cricket ball in hand. Christian gave her a warning look, so that meant when Dion came charging at her from behind she was ready. She neatly stepped aside, and Dion instead shot straight past her and onto Damien.
"Get off me!" Damien said, pushing Dion off.
"Watch out!" Mel called, as the Frisbee that was supposed to be going to Damien instead went rocketing past and straight into Jeff-again. As they cracked up, Liz came hurrying up to Jeff, checking to see if he was okay.
"So, where did you go?" Audrey asked again, bringing the conversation back. Reluctantly, Christian explained that the weird stuff was happening because of Alexandra.
"Figures," Dimuthu snorted, coming up behind them. "She's so weird. I never trusted her anyway. And the hair thing? What was with that?" The others gave Dimuthu a 'huh?' look, but she was distracted by Ryan who'd come up behind her and tried to tickle her.

~~~

"And how are you today?" The okay looking check out guy at the supermarket openly flirted with Melanie, while she put the stuff on the trolley onto the checkout.
"I'm good, you?" She asked back friendly.
"I'm good. So.." he trailed off when he saw Damien come up behind Melanie with a dark look on his face.
The check out guy was suddenly very quick and silent. Mel hid her grin.
"Thanks," she said, and gave Damien a few bags while she took the lightest. She unwrapped a lollipop and stuck it in her mouth while giving one to Damien.
"Hey look, it's girly boy," Mel said, seeing Ryan's back, with the familiar group of girls hanging around him as more started to flock around him as they realised who he was.
"Are you sure? It doesn't look like him," Damien said frowning. Mel reached up and took off his sunglasses.
"Hey!" he said. "Nope, still doesn't look like him," he said.
"How can you say that- it's his girly hair-, I'll prove it," she said. "RYAN!" she shouted over the hubbub of the frantic screaming pre-teen girls. She choked on the lollipop as the guy turned towards them. It wasn't Ryan, but a guy who looked very much like him.
"Oh my gosh," Melanie said, and quickly grabbed Damien's arm and turned the other way, blushing. "Shut up!" she hissed at Damien who was cracking up.

~~~

"You didn't?!" Philippa squeaked as Mel nodded.
"Well how was I supposed to know? He had a bunch of girls around him like YOU," She pointed at Ryan who was smirking. "And besides, he had your curly girl hair," she said, and it was her turn to smirk. Then the doorbell rang.
"Got it," Mel said, and sprang up to get it. She swung it open and her smile froze on her face. It was the guy from the supermarket. She slammed the door back shut.
"Who is it?" Audrey asked, coming up behind her. "It's the guy from the supermarket!!" Melanie said, slightly panicky.
"What? Well don't leave him there!" Audrey exclaimed. Melanie squeezed past her.
"You get it."
"Me?!" Audrey said shocked as Mel nudged her forward. The doorbell rang again. She opened it as Mel hid behind the edge of the wall at the end of the hall.
"Hi." Audrey said, and stared at the average looking guy on the porch step, looking at her puzzled.
"Hey," he said, and Audrey noticed that although he was only an average looking schmo, he was very American and smacked of fame and arrogance.
"Hey, I know that voice," Ryan said from the couch in the living room. Recognition dawned on his face. "Justin?" he said, springing up.
"No it's not," Philippa said, staring at the strange guy.
"Justin," Ryan said, coming around the corner.
"Ryan!" the guy at the door said, relief sweeping over his hassled looking face.
"Man! It's good to see ya! When did you get here?" Ryan said.
"Just last night, I stayed at a hotel, but I drove down here in a rental car this morning," the guy explained.
"Come in! I'll get you something!" Ryan said hospitably. "You can crash here while Seth's gone- but the thing is Michael arrived here a couple of days ago too- so I hope you don't mind-"
"Nah course not," the guy grinned, and Audrey noticed it took some of his arrogance away. They turned to see the bewildered and confused faces.
"Oh, uh guys, this is Justin Timberlake," he said.
"Hi," they said hospitably.
"Have I seen you before," Dimuthu asked.
"Uhh…" Justin trailed off.
"He's from N'Sync," Ryan explained, as though it should be obvious. Audrey automatically took a small inconspicuous step back. Uuuggh, she thought, now she recognised him.
"Let's go get you settled…"

~~~

"I thought that it was here somewhere," Dimuthu said puzzled to Daniel, who had come out to the back with her to find the missing gas cylinders. They were planning on having a barbeque that night, and were setting everything up.
"Well it could be around-," Daniel broke off as he and Dimuthu looked up to see Liz and Michael kissing softly, completely unaware of their surroundings. Liz suddenly pushed Michael away, frowning, and started talking to him rapidly. Dimuthu pushed Daniel back, and they both headed quietly back to the house, leaving Liz and Michael to sort it out between themselves.

~~~

Liz pushed Michael away.
"Michael!" she said, blushing. She'd been looking for the table umbrellas when she'd bumped into Michael. They'd been chatting when he'd surprised her with very sweet and memorable kiss. However, Liz had pulled away. No matter how flattered she felt or how wonderful Michael was, Jeff was still her boyfriend, and Liz had been involved too much to let it just go for one kiss.
"Michael, no. I know I didn't pull away instantly- but we've already discussed this- remember at the gym, I don't want this happening, you know it's not right- I love Jeff and he's been with me so long," Liz rambled on.
"Are you convincing me or you?" Michael smiled crookedly, but Liz could see the hurt in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said softly again, and got up to head back to the house, leaving a very down Michael behind to think about what had just happened.

~~~

"Is that okay?" Justin T. asked, slicing the tomatoes for the salad.
"Yup, just put them over there," Dimuthu said. "Mel! Put it down!" Mel jumped away guiltily from the chocolate mousse sitting in the fridge. Justin T. gave her a smile. Mel just gave him a weird look and turned away to find something to do.
"I think that tomato's had enough chopping," Nola said amused, indicating the smushed tomato that Justin T had been slicing, which was now totally in tatters since he'd been watching Mel instead of concentrating on the tomato.
Justin T blushed and gave a little laugh. "So are Damien and Melanie a serious thing?" he asked.
"Very," Audrey said, giving him a 'No, bad boy', look. Justin T grinned, and went back to the tomatoes.

~~~

"Okay who's next?" Jeff, was very proudly wearing a chef's hat asked.
"Me!" Philippa said, and held out her plate obediently, waiting for her pattie to go on her burger. Peering over his shoulder Melanie screwed up her face.
"That one looks a little raw.."
"What are you calling raw?!" Jeff said defensively, and moved to block his beloved meats on the barbeque from Melanie's critical glare. Mel grinned, and trotted off to sit between Damien and Dimuthu.

Justin T who'd been talking to Ryan and Michael casually walked over to sit on the other side of her, under the pretence of wanting to talk to Dimuthu.
"You know you can come and stay with us if you want," Daniel said to Justin T.
"Do you mind?" Justin said.
"Of course not," Dion (who shared a house with Daniel) said. "Since Stephen and Chris left, we've got two spare rooms for no one." Justin T nodded.
"Thanks, I'd like that."
"How long are you staying for?" Dimuthu asked, munching on some salad.
"Uh, just for the summer- we (the group) decided to have a break- for three years we've just been touring and recording- we decided it was time for us just to have a break for ourselves." The others nodded.
"Hey look, they're back," Nola said.
'They' referred to Andrew, Tana, Justin, Christian and Brian who'd gone to pick up some more supplies and groceries. They brought out bags of food, while introductions were made between them and Justin T. Everyone settled down to an extremely noisy dinner, enjoying the outside and light atmosphere. Mel and Audrey cracked up laughing as they watched two tomatoes, a dollop of mayonnaise, a few pieces of onion and some egg come out of the other end of Tana's hamburger.

As the others turned to see what the laughter was about, Justin said "Tana man, you're so unco," just as his pattie slid off his plate. They watched as it seemed to fly guided by an unguided hand straight onto Daniel's head.
"UGGHH!" he cried, and flung it off onto Dion, who automatically batted it away. The rejected patti flew towards Andrew who was as usual gabbing away to Christian, and into his mouth.
"PHOWIEJ!" he spat it out, as the others were clutching their sides from laughter. As they continued to chat noisily, Nola noticed that Liz was avoiding Michael who kept looking forlornly at her, and she grinned when she saw Justin T attempt to engage Mel in conversation. They turned towards the driveway from the field (where the barbecue was happening) to see a taxi coming forth.
"Are you guys expecting anyone," Jeff said. At the shake of the other's heads, they watched as the person inside got out. It was another guy, who also looked American.
"Hey guys it's James!" Brian said, and he, Ryan, Justin and Michael headed over. The others followed more slowly. Dimuthu gasped, "It's James Van der Geek! I mean- Beek!" They watched as he turned, and it was indeed.
"Where's he gonna stay?" Philippa asked, referring to their already stretched to the limits housing.
"Hey man, you can stay with us," Tana offered generously.
"Cool- I'm James," he said, and offered his hand. Everyone introduced themselves.

They sat down again to eat, giving James some food. He stood up to get a drink, and nearly collided with Audrey, who was coming from the other way. They did that weird dancey thingee, where he stepped to one side, but so did she, so he stepped the other, but so did she, and after a few confused moments, she stopped, rolled her eyes, and stood back.
"Go," she said, and gave scathing looks to the others who were trying not to laugh.
"Look," Liz whispered to Nola and Mel. She indicated James who kept staring at Audrey, who took no notice of him. They stifled their giggles, although, Audrey gave them very suspicious looks.

~~~

"He's even skankier up close!" Mel said, handing Audrey a plate to load into the dishwasher.
"Mel!" Audrey said.
"What?! He is!" Mel said. Audrey nodded, but added, "Yeah, I know, but not so loud," and they cracked up.
"MELANIE!" they heard Dimuthu yell. "WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT NOT USING THE CLOTH NAPKINS AS A TEA TOWEL!!"
"Uh oh," Mel said and scooted out of the kitchen faster than anything.
"Hey," Nola walked in with a stack of dishes and cutlery.
"Is Mel okay?"
"I just hope Dimuthu doesn't catch up with her," and they grinned.
"So we're full again," Nola said referring to their housing situation.
"Yup- but who invited those two teeny boppy thingees here?" Audrey said.
"Well, Justin T's here cause Ryan always told him to visit on his break, and James knows Brian so he came for his holiday."
"Is this like a holiday destination?" Audrey said jokingly.
"Maybe they're looking for a fling… James was looking at you hard out before," Nola teased her.
"Eeeewww, NO!" Audrey said, though she blushed. "He was not- stop making things up!" she said, and whacked Nola with a tea towel. Nola skipped behind the counter, a teasing glint in her eyes. "Denial," she said in a sing song voice, and laughed, running out the door to duck the roll that Audrey had chucked at her.

~~~

After the dinner everyone settled down at Jeff's house.
"Should we watch a movie?" suggested Dimuthu.
"Nah, let's do karaoke." Justin grinned. All the girls (who didn't want to hear his whiny nasal voice) disagreed.
"Um, how about the dancing mat?" Audrey asked. Liz grinned at her.
"Sounds good…" The two jumped up and ran out of the house in a flash.
"Okay, I'm not sure if I like the sound of that." Justin and Christian gave each other worried looks. Soon, Audrey and Liz raced back in carrying a playstation and a folded up piece of plastic. They hooked it up to the TV as the others watched.
"Okay, explain?" Mel gave them a questioning look.
"I got this when I went back to Malaysia was it …last year? The year before? Can't remember…Anyway, it's great fun. And I vote Jeff does it first."

Audrey grinned at the unsuspecting Jeff who agreed. She unfolded the plastic to reveal a mat with various arrows and symbols on it. She turned on the playstation.
"What you do is choose a level of difficulty…yup…then pick a song…anyone, whichever…then you press start." Liz explained as Jeff followed her instructions. "Okay, the music will start and when the arrows flash up you have to press the right one in time to the music okay?" Liz grinned as the music to "Kung Fu Fighting" started. Everyone started to cheer and laugh as Jeff began to stomp on the buttons on the mat.
"You suck!" Mel laughed as the screen flashed up the word "FAILED".
"You looked like you were trying to kill cockroaches," grinned Andrew.
"I'll have a go!" Daniel stood up. He selected a song and it started up. Everyone was impressed as Daniel pressed all the right buttons with ease.
"Wow, you're good at this," Phil commented. Daniel, now distracted with her compliment, stomped on the down arrow. He slipped and tried to throw his weight forward. This made him hit the up arrow at the wrong time and he quickly stepped back. His feet tangled up and he ended up on his butt. Everyone cracked up laughing. Daniel glared at everybody but his expression became horrified when he realised that Nola was filming it all.

~~~

Later while Nola was having a go at dancing (and doing heaps better than all the un-co guys) Mel stood up to stretch.
"I'm raiding your kitchen Jeff." She headed towards the kitchen.
"I'll come," Justin T hurriedly stood up and followed her.
"Go Nola!" Audrey cheered as Nola finished. Her score came up as an "A".
"My turn," Andrew got up and stood on the mat. "I'm gonna kick ass."
"Or land on it," snickered Dimuthu. Poor Daniel turned crimson.
"I need a drink." Damien stood up and went to the kitchen. He walked in just as Justin was asking out Melanie.
"Why you little…" he picked up the object nearest to him and threw it at Justin T. It happened to be a lemon and it was soft so it split when it hit Justin's forehead.
"Oww!" he screamed in that oh-so-annoying-nasal-girly-whiny voice of his as the lemon juice dribbled down into his eye.
"What happened?" Audrey, Christian and Liz rushed in. The three struggled not to laugh when they saw what had happened.
"Damien! I can't believe you did that! I would have said no but you're acting all possessive! Maybe I will say yes!" Melanie glared at him, he glared at Justin T who smiled dazedly at Mel. Nola had just come in. She exchanged surprised looks with Audrey and Liz. Once again, they withheld their laughter.
"Do you wanna go see a movie? We could g catch one now?" Justin T said. Mel looked at him.
"Sure. Let's go." She linked arms with him and they swept out of the room, leaving behind a very disgruntled Damien.

They walked out the door, leaving everyone with incredibly shocked faces.
"You wanna take your car, or mine?" asked Justin.
"Look," said Melanie, "Your nice and all, but I kinda cant go out with you."
"What?" Justin looked crushed.
"I just did that to piss of Damien, and it worked. I'm sorry if you thought I was going to go out with you." Justin attempted to remove the pained looked from his face.
"Oh, no, I mean, that's fine."
"Really?" Melanie looked relived. Justin nodded.
"Oh, alright then. You still wanna go see that movie? Might as well go now, its not gonna be to happy in there now."

Back at Jeff's house, James wandered over the couch, and flopped next to Audrey, who was laughing at Dion's uncoordinated dance moves.
"Hey there." He said, going for suave. Audrey gave him a strange look.
"Hiiii." Audrey inched away from him, only to have him shuffle into the space.
"You like music, do you like music? I like music, yeah, musics good." "Umm, yeah."
"So, you wanna come see the music fest with me? I got backstage passes." James looked at her.
"Music Fest? I heard music fest and backstage passes, who said that?" Dimuthu zoomed in on their conversation.
"Yeah, James here has backstage passes to the Music Fest that's coming here." Audrey stood up and pushed Dimuthu in her place, much to James 'deer in headlights' look.

In the movie theatre, Mel and Justin sat near the back, throwing popcorn at a couple sucking each others faces off.
"Ugh, bored of this movie already, you wanna go get something to eat?" Justin nodded.
"Sure, where you wanna go? Wait, I've got it, I know the perfect place, c'mon."

Brian and Nola sat outside on the steps, gazing at the stars and listening to the muffled laughter coming from inside.
"Nola, you and me have been going out for a while now . . . " she smiled lovingly at him and took his hand
"And I think its time to tell you something."
"Sure, shoot."
"Alright, wait here a minute." Brian ran off into the darkness. Nola got up to follow him. Daniel appeared, slightly out of breath.
"Hey Nola." He said, all grins, he pulled her back down onto the steps.
"Heya Daniel. What happened inside?" she asked, noticing for the first time that the laughter had faded into silence.
"Oh nothing." He said, still grinning lopsidedly into the darkness.
"Hey, Daniel!" Andrew yelled. "Come here for a sec." Daniel, still wearing the grin, disappeared inside.

Once out of sight, Brian ran around the house and through the back door.
"Guys, guys, c'mon!" Brian ushered them out.
"Got everything?" asked Liz. Brian nodded.
"Where's she going, she's moving, Daniel, go stop her!" commanded Audrey.
"Here." Jeff passed the water balloons around.
"Where's the cake?!" hissed Brian.
"Calm down lover boy, its back there."
"We need Daniel back, " whispered Andrew. "Hey Daniel, come here for a sec?" A few seconds later Daniel emerged, and Phill pushed a couple of water bombs into his hands.
"Ready people? One . . . Two . . . Three!" The water bombs flew like parabolas and drenched the unsuspecting Nola.

"Argh!" Nola squealed and screamed and when the water bombs stopped coming, she saw Brian, standing with a huge chocolate cake lit with candles.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOLA!!" cheered everyone.

After cutting the cake, (and eating most of it), Nola ventured into the dark to get changed. She walked across the road and into their front lawn. She slipped in something squishy, and smelling, only to find it spread across the yard. Nola screamed.

Justin and Melanie walked down a secluded road after dinner in a very expensive (and incredibly ritzy : ) restaurant. Justin stopped for a moment, and picked a flower off the nearby bush.
"Here, this is for you." Melanie took it gratefully.
"Aww thanks."
"So, where to now? Home?"
"Nah, I don't wanna go back yet." A sign caught her eye.
"Wanna go ice skating?"

"Ew, ew ,ew." Dim couldn't help but laugh at Nola's face.
"This isn't funny, this so isn't funny, you think this is funny? DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?! I am COVERED in manure!!" Nola scrunched up her nose.
"You can get cleaned up at our house." Said Brian kindly.
"And wear your clothes? I don't think so." Nola stepped back into the dark brown crap that covered most of their yard. On her return, Damien came after her.
"Hey, hey, is Mel home yet?"
"Uh, no, not yet."
"What?! How long can a movie take, its been forever now!" Damien looked pained.

Early the next morning, Audrey and Nola woke to find people shovelling away the manure.
"Hey guys," Melanie greeted them at the breakfast table.
"What time did you get home last night?" asked Audrey. Melanie laughed.
"Not too late, about three, maybe four o'clock."
"Mel!!" Nola looked shocked.
"Well, hey. What did you do? I come home to find manure all over our yard!"
"So, are you and Justin an item now?" asked Audrey with a grin.
"Okay, no. We spent most of last night just playing around, movies, ice skating, clubbing, we went for a walk along Misson Bay, we did lots of stuff. But, I told him that I didn't want to go out with him, so its all good." Melanie looked pleased with herself.

~~~

The next morning they were all awakened by screaming and thumping on the front lawn. Everyone rushed outside to find Damien and Justin fighting in amongst flowers and horse manure.

"You WISH she liked you, she told me this morning that it meant NOTHING!" Damien said, and made a heroic dive to dodge a clump of crap Justin T chucked at him.
"HA! Just because you can't accept she has a mind of her own and could possibly- ow- like someone else!" Justin T. ducked behind a wheelbarrow.
"YEAH RIGHT! I think you might be needing a hearing aid- oh no- why not a new BRAIN?!" Damien said.
"You flippin'-," Justin T charged towards Damien.
"EW EW EW!" Dimuthu cried out as their tumbling smelly bodies rolled towards them.
"That is SO GROSS!" Philippa said, hiding behind Justin.
"Psst, move," Audrey said, making a little gap for Nola (with her beloved camera) to film through.
"Ow!" Nola said, as Melanie accidentally knocked her while charging outside.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!! THAT IS SOO DISGUSTING!!" Melanie said, and yelped as a brown covered flower hurtled towards her.
"FINE! If you want to act that way.." Mel said, and turned away.
"No wait! Melanie.." Justin T panted, scrambling away from Damien. "This idiot here came, picking for a fight-,"
"You liar!" Damien said, and threw a punch at him.
"Oof!" Justin T went sprawling forward, blood coming out of his nose. Audrey cringed, and backed away behind Dion.
"Blood make you squeamish?" James said, looking concernedly at Audrey.
"Yeah," Audrey made a face.
"Me too- I mean it's so red-," James stopped at the idiocy of these words, inwardly cringing. Audrey just gave him a weird look and shuffled closer to Dion.
"Oh my gosh!" Melanie went to Justin T, who was grasping his nose.
"OW! I ding da idiot broke by nose!" Justin said, his voice muffled.
"Damien!" Melanie said accusingly, who looked bewildered.
"Oh he's being a baby!"
"Being a baby?!" Dimuthu said, coming forward with some medical supplies. She shook her head. "Come on we'll go inside." They shuffled inside. Liz hurried to get a plastic cover on which Justin T could sit on. ("I don't want crap over my furniture," Liz said defensively at the suppressed smiles she got.) It turned out Justin T's nose wasn't broken, just bruised, and he'd gone back to Daniel and Dion's place to rest up.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crap had been taken away, and the front yard cleaned. (WHY it had been there in the first place, I do not know- was it supposed to be a gift?! A jealousy thing from Alex?!) Mel came in sighing heavily as she sat down on the table. Nola looked worriedly at her.
"It's okay," Nola said, and came towards her with a big plate of chocolate cake (from last night which she HAD NOT eaten all of!), and placed it in front of her. Mel took it and the fork thankfully, and shoved a huge forkful into her forlorn face.
"They're such idiots!" Mel said, her mouth full. Audrey and Liz walked in amused.
"pfrogyhiyhiretha," Audrey said, imitating Mel's muffled words. Mel laughed
"So I guess you're talking about your boyfriends.." Audrey said slyly. Mel quickly swallowed.
"No! I mean, Justin T is NOT my boyfriend- just because he's a little confused…"
"Mel, he thinks you're his girlfriend," Liz said, her eyebrows raised, biting into an apple.
"Well I'm not! I told him yesterday that it meant nothing-,"
"But he's American, what do you expect?" Audrey said. "They're so dumb, they only hear what they want to."
"Excuse me?" Brian said, coming in, but he was smiling.
"Oh, we were just saying how amazingly stupid Americans can be," Audrey said and grinned at his face. He pulled up a chair beside Nola, who slapped him.
"Ow, what was that for?"
"Yesterday. Oh, and I'm not very happy with you guys either," she said, and gave evils to Audrey and Liz, who just laughed and grinned back cheekily.
"But not you Mel, because you weren't here," Nola said, and smiled, missing Mel's guilty look. Brian snorted.
"Ha! She was the one who suggested- OW!" he said, rubbing his shin. "What was that for?" Mel looked innocently away.
"What was what for?" Nola looked suspiciously at Mel, however before she could say anything, James came shuffling in.
"Hi Audrey," he said, looking at Audrey with big goo goo eyes. Audrey merely gave him a cursory 'hi' and glance before continuing to read the front page of the paper which was sprawled over the table.
"Hi to you too James," Brian said, smiling dryly, knowing why James was so abnormally uncourteous.
"Oh, yeah, hey. Hey," he said to the others.
"Liz!!" They turned to see Jeff's head appear through the kitchen window. "Come with me to the gym?" he asked.
"Yup, sure," she said, and grabbed some gear before heading off with him.
"So Audrey…" James sauntered over to where she was sitting. Audrey looked up distracted. "Yeah?"
"I was wondering if you-,"
"Audrey!" Dion came jogging through the door and up to Audrey. He leant down and gave her a sweaty kiss, which she gave him a (not too hard) slap for. ('Ewww, you're all smelly and sweaty,' she said, 'like a dog.') After a look of insult on his face after that comment, and the laughs which it ordered, he told them that they were playing a game of basketball and needed her to ref since Andrew and Ryan kept arguing over who was right.
"Cool," Nola and Mel said, and after putting their plates in the dishwasher, skipped off ahead to the courts. Audrey grabbed her whistle and took Dion's offered arm.
"Coming?" Audrey said, to James.
"Yeah, should be fun," he said. No one saw his crushed look at Audrey and Dion's happy couple.

~~~

Damien scowled at his reflection in the water. What was he supposed to do- watch this hotshot from the states flirt with Mel and just expect him to stand by?
"Hey Damien right?" James came up to him, and Damien turned around.
"Yeah," Damien said, and looked up at him. James was looking extremely depressed and came to sit next to Damien.
"What's up with you?" Damien asked, frowning.
"Audrey." James said and sighed. Damien would've laughed if he wasn't having girl troubles himself. A noise behind them alerted them of Michael's entrance.
"Hey guys- what's up?"
"Nughh," Damien and James made a kind of mumbling noise. Michael sighed dejectedly as well.
"Yup- totally understand.." he came and sat next to them.
"You?" James asked.
"Liz," Michael said sadly, and all three of them stared silently at the water.
"Chics," James said, shaking his head.
"Yeah I mean all I said to Mel was-,"
"Audrey seems so happy with Dion-,"
"Liz confuses me so much-," All three guys started moaning at the same time. They laughed and had a 'male bonding' sort of a moment.
"You know what?" Michael said. "I've got an idea…"

~~~

"OH!" Mel cried in frustration. "Guys are just so UGH!"
"Yup," Liz said sadly, preoccupied. She hoped Michael was okay and hadn't taken her rejection badly…
"Where's James?" Dimuthu teased Audrey. Audrey made a face. "He's so weird. Like a disease that won't let go." They had finished their short game of basketball, and the guys were in the gym having a competition on who could chuck the most rugby balls into a bucket in the gym shed, when the girls decided to go and have a swim in the pool.
"Okay, I'll see you guys here in…" Nola trailed off, "five minutes?"
"Five minutes!?" Phil said. "That's not.." but was dragged off by Dimuthu who rolled her eyes. Laughing, Mels, Audrey and Nola headed to their house. As they approached the door, Audrey laughed.
"Remember when Daniel got his foot stuck in the bucket?" Mel took out her key as they laughed.
"Or when Tana- OH MY- WHAT THE?!!!" They stared shocked at the sight in front of them. Suddenly from Liz's house there was also a loud 'WHAT THE ?!!".

The reason why Melanie, Audrey and Nola were screaming was a completely different reason from why Liz was screaming. Liz had discovered a room full of flowers, chocolates and teddy bears. All had labels with the words "Love Michael" written on them. But, when the other three had walked into their house, a rather horrendous sight lay in front of them. Though Justin T, James and Christian (who had decided to join in when he saw what they were doing) had tried to do the same thing that Michael had done to Liz's place, it came out wrong. Someone had ransacked the house. Torn flowers lay all over the room as well as crushed pieces of chocolate. Teddy bears had been thrown about the room with the stuffing ripped out (poor teddies) and the labels with "Love Justin T" etc had been ripped. Everything was trampled and looked a sorry sight.

Justin T, James and Christian came running to the house, pleased with their surprise. The reaction was awful. Nola, Audrey and Mel whipped around, anger in their eyes…
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!!!" The three guys stopped short at the enraged yelling.
"What do you mean…oh," Christian peered around and saw the mess.
"It wasn't like this…it was meant to be…it wasn't…what…" blubbered Justin T. While the three upset girls surveyed the damage done to the house with the guys trying (but not being) helpful, Liz and Michael were having a heated discussion outside her front door.
"Michael, I told you I can't…"
"Look Liz, I know you feel something for me, you cant' just deny your feelings, I know I can't…"
"You're not making this easy for me…I love Jeff…"
"But what about me?" His sentence was met with a deafening silence. Everyone in hearing range stopped short and watched uneasily at the tension building between the two.
"Um, let's clean this mess up," Nola subtly shooed everyone inside to give the two some privacy.

~~~

While Liz was sorting through her feelings with (and about) Michael, Mel was picking up teddy bear stuffing from the floor. Christian, James and Audrey picked up the other rubbish lying around while Justin wiped the melted and crushed chocolate off the walls etc and Nola attacked the floor with a vacuum cleaner.
"Do you think this was…" Nola looked at Christian.
"I don't know. Alexandra can be petty, but I don't know how far she'd go," Christian sighed.
"Well the manure thing was pretty crappy," Audrey paused. "No pun intended." The door opened.
"What the h…" Dion, Andrew and Brian came in.
"Don't ask," Mel rolled her eyes. "Justin, I need to talk to you for a second." He followed her into the kitchen. ("I need to make some things clear…" she started off.)
"Are you okay?" Brian looked worriedly at Nola. "Someone's out to get you."
"You think? " Christian mumbled under his breath. Audrey gave him a warning look.
"I think us three need to talk as well." Nola looked at Brian and Christian. "We need to sort some things out." The three left the room.
"Can I ask what did happen?" Dion said tentatively. Audrey explained.
"You what?" Dion turned to James. "Are you hitting on her?"
"N…No…see, actually, I have a confession to make." James looked at the floor. "I don't actually like you like that," he gave Audrey an apologetic face. "It's just, well, I've been trying to make Philippa jealous, but she doesn't seem to realise I exist." James frowned.
"That's cool aside from the fact you were using me," Audrey said. All this time, Andrew had been silent and watching.
"I have a confession to make too!" he suddenly blurted out. "I still like Nola!"

~~~

Even after their talk, Justin T still followed Mel around like an obedient puppy.
"Justin, I already told you…" she started.
"You have hidden feelings for me, I know you do." Justin grinned arrogantly.
"No, I don't, I think you're a…" Mel tried again.
"You don't need to tell me, I know you like me," Justin said confidently.
"You are the most…"
"Hi Mel," Damien walked over. 'Great,' thought Mel, what a fantastic day this was turning out to be.

~~~

The discussion yesterday had not solved anything. Liz knew she liked Michael but she and Jeff…Michael had walked away from the conversation more sure that they were meant to be together, leaving Liz more unsure. She had to talk to Jeff. Quickly striding to the gym she burst in, glad to find Jeff alone. He was on the treadmill.
"Jeff, we need to talk," she started.

~~~

"Christian, hun, I know you still have feelings for me . . . " began Nola, trying to ignore Brians smug look.
"And Brian, I know you have the same feelings . . . " Brian nodded lovingly. Nola took a deep breath,
"But the thing is, I think I need some time apart from you two, from this love triangle thing we have going here."
"But . . " Christian looked bummed. Brian looked smug until he realized what she said.
"Wha . . Hey!"
"You guys understand, don't you?" Nola looked fearfully at them. "I mean, I still like you guyz, but this is getting a little much don't you think?" The boys both sighed.
"I think we all need some time apart." Finished Nola. "Okay?"
"Alright."
"Yes." Both Christian and Brian left looking a little dead. But unknown to them, Andrew had snuck up and had heard the whole conversation. He decided that if Nola was going to be his, then he needed to strike soon, so those two baboons wouldn't get in the way.

~~~

"Justin (T), woah, get off me!" Melanie shoved him away from her, after he had tried placing an arm around her.
"No! That's just repulsive." Melanie gave a disgusted look.
"Alright, see, the thing is, I like Damien, I went out with you that night to make him jealous, so he would stop being the domineering male he was, and he did, do you understand?" Melanie looked at Justin.
"I understand you have hidden feelings for me." He said with a skanky grin.
"No! Gross! No hidden feelings, no feelings, none, zilch, you disgust me totally, you and your girly Ryan hair, and your ugly nose, and your skanky mind, the only feelings I have is one of loathing!"
"Or lust." He said hopefully. Melanie groaned.
"Look." She said through clenched teeth. "I will beat you up personally to get this through your head, alright? I don't like you, I never have, never will. If you ever say anything about hidden feelings or any feelings, I will get you deported, understand?" Justin looked startled.
"So, you don't like me?"
"NO!!!!"
"Oh."
"Good. Leave me alone, and don't pester Damien, understood?"
"Yes." Justin finally realized that there was no way he was ever gonna get with Melanie. Ever. (alright people, you understand that?) (Sorry Mels. Cheesy grin!) Melanie walked off happy.

~~~

James watched Phillipa walk to the letter box and fell in step with her.
"Hey." She said happily. He grinned.
"Hello." James smiled and desperately tried to find something cool to say. "I like your shoes!" Philippa gave him a weird look and cracked up laughing as he realised she wasn't wearing any shoes. James went bright red, while Philippa couldn't stop laughing.
"I'm sorry, wait, I'm sorry it's just-," Philippa couldn't stop cracking up as James (mortified) tried to run off. Phil caught his arm, trying to fan herself with her hand while still laughing.
"It's okay, I'm sorry, it's funny." James grinned, and ducked his head, still blushing bright red.
"Sorry." Philippa, still grinning, shook her head. "It's okay." They continued to walk along chatting.
"So, uh, what are you doing tomorrow night?" James asked casually. Phil stopped.
"Uh, I'm sorry, I'm doing something with Justin-,"
"Oh, I'm sorry I-,"
"Oh no, James don't-." Phil watched him hurry away and sighed. Damn.

~~~

"HE WHAT?!!!!" Jeff roared, and stood abruptly to go and kill Michael.
"JEFF NO!" Liz grabbed the back of his jumper. "No," she said again warningly. Jeff jerked away angrily. "Are you defending him?" He asked accusingly.
"No! And don't talk to me like that!" Liz said angrily, hurt by the tone of his voice. "It's not like I wanted this to happen." Jeff sighed, and turned back around to face Liz, his face softening.
"I know," he said resignedly. He walked up to Liz and pulled her into a hug. Liz sighed and softly smiled.

~~~

"Hey Nola!" Andrew came running up to Nola who was taking a short jog around the field to get rid of some of her excess energy.
"Hey Andrew," Nola said, and stopped. They both looked around cautiously and when sure no one was looking, started talking.
"So is it working?" Nola asked, grinning. Andrew sighed heavily, looking extremely depressed.
"No, no change yet." Nola rolled her eyes. "I told you it wouldn't work. Audrey's not going to care if you pretend to like me." Andrew made a thoughtful face.
"Yeah, I guess so. You think I should try a different tactic?" Nola nodded.
"Definitely. Besides, I've been getting funny looks from everyone, and it freaks me out- no offense," Nola said, grinning. Andrew laughed.
"Nah, it's okay." He sighed again.
"So how do I get Audrey to like me?" Nola shrugged.
"There's really no way to make anyone like you. Just be yourself, and if it was meant to be, it would. However, you know that she and Dion are pretty tight."
"Yeah, but that doesn't stop me from liking her." Nola gave Andrew a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
"Poor little confused male." She ran off again before it clicked with him what she said.

~~~

Mel was still on a natural high when Damien found her mucking about with Dimuthu, Ryan, Audrey, Dion, Christian, and Tana on the courts.
"Hey," Damien said, and gave Mel a quick hug.
"Hello," Mel said cheerily, bounding beside him.
"Whoah, what happened to you?" Damien teased, a glint in his eye.
"Nothing, everything," Mel just grinned. He looked at Audrey and the others who just grinned back and shrugged.
"Okay Miss Bouncy," he grinned as she poked out her tongue. "How about you, and everyone else," he looked at the others as well, "joining me for the World Performer's Circus tonight?"
"Whoah! But they're sold out- how did you get tickets?" Dimuthu asked.
"I pulled a few strings…" Damien travelled off mysteriously, and when he saw Melanie's disbelieving look, he grinned. "Okay, so my friend had them but couldn't go so gave them to me. Anyway, you guys want to come?"
"Yup," Everyone nodded, and dispersed to tell the others. Audrey frowned. "That's a lot of people to take, do you have enough tickets?" Damien nodded. "Yup, I've got heaps, the tickets were originally for a company employee reward thingee- so I've got about thirty."

~~~

"It's so cold! Do you think they have heaters in there?" Daniel asked, prancing around.
"Uh.." The others stared at him weirdly.
"Uh, Danny, there aren't heaters inside a circus tent."
"Oh, yeah- what about an open fire?" As the others groaned and shook their heads, Damien and Mels headed towards the queue.
"This is going to take forever!" Mel complained, fidgeting. Damien took her hand and hid a smile.

"Aaww, they're so cute," Liz said to Dimuthu, (who was snuggling up to Ryan's girly frame as best she could.) Justin T glowered at the happy couple of Melanie and Damien.

Meanwhile, James was trying to get Philippa's attention away from Justin who was giving James a 'whatchyou doin' you weird yankee?' look. Dion took off his scarf and wrapped it around Audrey as well, so that they were joined. Nola grinned at the cute sight, but everyone was distracted by the kerfuffle that was coming up behind them. As they all turned, they saw Liz stalking unhappily towards them, a bruised Jeff and scuffed looking Michael following behind her, giving each other evil looks.
"Been a bit busy with the boys dear?" Dion said mockingly, ignoring the daggers shot at him from Michael and Jeff's eyes. Liz rolled her eyes.
"Look at him, she's obviously feeling uncomfortable." Everyone turned to stare at Justin T. oddly, as he glared at the figures of Mel and Damien. Damien was at that moment, pulling Mel into a big bear hug, while Mel happily obliged. Mel let out a laugh as Damien mumbled something in her ear.
"Yup, she sure looks uncomfortable.." Michael said, with a look of disbelief on his face. The others stifled their laughter. Justin T. huffed, and stalked towards them.
"Whoah, hey, whe-, oh my gosh," Audrey stuttered, and lurched after Justin T, but ended up choking, as she pulled on the scarf and nearly killed both her and Dion.
"Yeesh, we better go after him," Nola said, and quickly ushered the others forward.
"I wish this line would- hey whoah!" Damien's musings were cut short as Justin T. broke between their embrace.
"Oops, sorry," Justin T. said, (not really sorry at all.) "So, how far from getting in are we?" he asked.
"Uummm, quite close.." Damien said, giving Justin T a suspicious look. Mel glared at Justin T, but he ignored her looks, concentrating on staying between Damien and her.
"Whoah there lover boy," Ryan said, pulling back Justin T by the jacket.
"What? Hey, can't a guy just try to get in?"
"OH MY GOSH IT'S REALLY THEM!!! AAAAGGGHHH!" Their short exchange was suddenly cut short by a throng of screaming teeny boppers who barged their way through the crowd.
"IT'S RYAN PHILIPPE! OH MY GOSH!"
"AND JUSTIN T!! AAAGGHH!"
"CAN YOU SIGN MY-,"
"NO ME FIRST-,"
"I TOUCHED HIS ARM!
"AAAGHH!"
"Oh crap," Justin T cursed and grabbed Mel's hand and ran with her into the tent, with the others close behind.
"Damn, I lost my glove!" Ryan said, looking mournfully at his bare hand.
"Aaww!" Dimuthu protectively fussed over him, while Ryan lapped it up.
"I got scratched," Justin T said hopefully to Mel, who just wrenched her hand out of his.
"I think Nola's got a plaster," Daniel said. "What?" he said to the look Justin T gave him, and the bemused faces of the others.
"Wow it's big," Philippa said.
"Let's find some seats," Nola said sensibly. They found some empty ones.
"I have something to say," announced Justin T.
"Great, here we go," Damien rolled his eyes. Justin T glared at him.
"I'm…" he paused, for the dramatic effect, but everyone groaned. "…I'm going back to America."
"YES!!!!" Mel grinned. She saw his face and tried to be sincere. "Oh. Stink."
"Yeah, poor America," Dion whispered to Audrey.
"I have something to say as well." Andrew looked at Nola before continuing.
"I feel I need to make something clear. I know that certain people here think that I like someone…" he stopped and looked nervously at everyone's interested faces.
"But I can't keep lying. Some of you think I like Audrey. The truth is…" Everyone went silent. A girl sitting in the row in front of them started yelling to someone she knew a couple of rows down. Mel told her to shut up.
"The truth is, I am madly in love with Nola." He turned to her. "I know I told you I like Audrey, but I don't. I liked the attention I was getting from you. I can't stop my feelings. I think about you all the time and I can't stop. I have wanted to be with you since I first met you. I love you." Everyone 'awwed' really loudly and the girl Mel had told to shut up turned and said
"Shut up," mockingly. She then stopped and did a double take. Then she screamed.
"That's…that's…Justin Timberlake!"
"Ain't he a freak?" Mel said. She turned to see Nola's reaction to Andrew's very heartfelt confession.
"I know you don't have the same feelings, I just felt you had a right to know." Andrew slumped back down into his seat, looking miserable. Nola's face was laughable if it hadn't been such a serious situation. She was shell-shocked.
"Andrew I…I…I think I can give you a chance," she slowly said. Andrew sat up suddenly, a happy boyish grin spreading over his face.
"Really?!" He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek as she nodded.
"I guess Nola is affecting everyone," Christian said softly. He looked at his hands as he tried to ignore the happy Andrew and still shocked Nola.
"Not everyone," Damien grinned as he put his arms around Mel. "No offense."
"She chose Andrew over us!" Bryan looked startled. "This bites."
"Woah," Audrey turned to Dimuthu. "I'm glad that was sorted out. Don't they make such a cute couple?" The two of them 'awwed' again.
"Shut up everyone," Liz hissed. "The show's starting."

~~~

"That was an awesome show." Liz grinned. "It was eh?! I loved the part with the…" Audrey was cut off by Andrew.
"I wasn't really watching the show. I was watching something else." He smiled at Nola who flushed.
"Okay, before it was cute, now you're just soppy," Mel told Andrew.
"Yeah, you just sound stupid now. And you wasted a ticket," Dimuthu pointed out.
"Oh yeah! It's not like you were watching!" Audrey looked at her. "You and Ryan seemed a little busy when the clowns were on."
"They were boring," Ryan said sheepishly.
"Clowns are freaky. Did you guys see that Buffy when Xander was…speaking of Buffy, when's Seth getting back?"
"Soon I think. He mailed a few days ago."
"What should we do now? I feel like doing something," Mel announced.
"Okay, let's go ice skating, that new rink opened up a few days ago, didn't it?"

Agreeing, they all drove over to the rink. They paid and collected their skates before teetering carefully into the ice. Nola grabbed on to Andrew and hung on for dear life. He gleefully held her steady and escorted her around the ice.
"Aww, don't Andrew and Nola look so cute!!" mused Liz. Christian and Bryan looked slightly put out, and followed the pair at a respectable distance, muttering to themselves.

"C'mon Damien." Mel pulled him out onto the ice. "Coming?" she called to everyone else over her shoulder. Audrey looked at Dion, who was still putting on his skates.
"Hurry up."
"I can't figure out what's wrong with them, maybe I've got the wrong size." Dion looked at his skates. So did Audrey, then she cracked up.
"What? What?" Dion was completely oblivious.
"You've got them on the wrong feet!" she grinned, helping pull them off. Dion blushed. He looked over at Daniel, who had just stepped onto the ice. He grasped the rail tightly, then let go. Daniel lost his balance and wobbled back and forth, his feet moving like rockets back and forth. He regained his balance, and stepped forward, only slip. He grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be Jeff, and pulled him down into a heap. Dion cracked up.

Ryan and Dim skated slowly around, looking like star-crossed lovers. Behind them Phill and Justin were skating incredibly close, James trying to catch up to them, and succeeding only in looking like a frog in a blender.

'C'mon guys." Liz waited impatiently for Dion and Audrey, while helping up Jeff. Daniel, having realised he couldn't skate, clung to Michael, who was trying desperately to get him off. Dion and Audrey entered the rink, only to have Melanie and Damien whiz past them in attempt to out-race each other.

They skated around the rink, and almost bumped into Christian and Bryan.
"Hey guys, what's up?" asked Dion. He noticed their astounded looks, and Audrey nudged him.
"Look." In the center of the rink, Nola and Andrew were making out.
"Guyz! Don't watch!" Liz came past with Jeff. Audrey pushed everyone into motion.
"Okay, pretty sure they'll need to breath sometime soon." Whispered Audrey to Liz with a grin. Christian and Bryan both looked incredibly bummed, and realised that Nola was totally serious about Andrew, and there wasn't a chance for them anymore. (See that Nols, NOT A CHANCE!! :).

At home, later that night, the girls sat around at Liz's with hot chocolates.
"You know, I never noticed how sweet Andrew is." Gushed Nola.
"With his thoughts, or his lips?" teased Dim. Nola laughed and hit her gently.
"Well, he is incredibly good with his lips . . ." she grinned as everyone else groaned.
"But seriously, I actually really like him." She smiled and everyone else 'aww'ed.
"What about you?" Audrey asked, looking at Liz.
"What's happening with the whole Jeff and Michael thing?"
"Yeah, what's up with that? I was talking to Michael at before we went skating today, and he said that you were his, you just didn't know it yet." Added Mel.
"I don't know." Moaned Liz. "I'm with Jeff, but I don't know how to get Michael to understand that."
"Males." Phill shook her head.
"James?" asked Dim with a grin. The door bell rang, and Liz went to answer it.
"Mel." She called. "It's for you. Its Justin"

Melanie wandered outside to find Justin T waiting for her with bags at his feet. Melanie silently cheered. He was leaving!!
"Here, this is for you . . . " He pulled out a single red rose and handed it to her.
"Uhm thanks." She gestured at the bags. "I didn't know you were leaving so soon."
"Yeah, well, neither did I. Look, I just came around to, uhm, well . . . "
"Well?"
"Will you come with me?" Melanie looked at his hopeful face.
"Uhm, I don't think I can, with work and everything."
"Oh, uhm, okay." Justin tried to remember exactly where it was she worked, while Melanie was hoping he didn't ask.
"So, yeah, what times your flight?" asked Mel.
"Uhm, at 8.30." He looked at his watch. "I had better be going if I'm gonna make that flight."
"How are you-"
"Ryan's dropping me off."
"Oh." Melanie tried to think of something nice to say.
"Melanie, I'm sorry." Mel smiled, knowing exactly what he was talking about.
"Forgiven. Have fun in America." Ryan's car pulled up.
"Well, see ya." He threw his stuff in the backseat and jumped in. Melanie waved goodbye and went back inside.

The girls were standing just inside the door.
"Well?" They all looked incredibly anxious. Mel grinned.
"He's gone!" She said with a sigh of relief, giving the rose to Phill.
"Here, you have it." They all went back to the sitting/dining/living room. Nola handed Phill her hot chocolate.
"So, what about you and James? He seems incredibly keen . .. " Phill groaned.
"Mr 'I-have-eyebrows-like-caterpillars-stuck-to-my-forehead'? "
"I say that all males are pathetic, stupid, and annoying. That sez everything." said Audrey.
"So I'm pathetic, stupid and annoying?" Dion came up behind Audrey and hugged her.
"Yes." Replied Audrey simply. He pulled up a chair and accepted a cup of hot chocolate from Liz.
"So, what are we talking about?"
"Oh, just typically girly stuph, nothing you'd understand, being a smelly male and all." Said Dimuthu sweetly.
"Thanks." He replied dryly. "I can do girly." He looked at Nola, and in a squeaky voice, (which was a pathetic attempt at trying to sound like a girl).
"I know what you and Andrew got up to last night, after skating." He crossed his legs, gave Nola a knowing look and took a sip of milo. Nola went red.
"What? What happened?" Phill looked surprised, (just like everyone else).
"Aww guyz!" Nola looked bummed at everyone looking at her quizzically. Dion grinned.
"A little bit of hanky panky, dear?"
"Nola!" Audrey looked shocked.
"But I really like him!" protested Nola going redder and redder.
"Hey! What about you and Dion? I heard about you two late last night!" protested Nola, Dion almost dropped his cup. Phill and Dim cracked up.
"And you two!!" Nola looked at them with a big grin. "Well, we all know what you two were up to last night!!" Melanie looked at Liz.
"Did you and Jeff get up to anything last night?" she whispered.
"No, did you?" Melanie grinned.
"Nah, were safe from Nola's taunting." Audrey looked at them.
"No your not. Remember a couple of nights back . . .. " Melanie shut up almost immediately.
"Yeah Liz." Started Dim. "You told me about you and Jeff swimming expeditions . . ." Everyone cracked up.
"Anything else I should be knowing?" asked Dion, thoroughly interested in what he had no idea was going around him.

Early the next morning, Andrew knocked on Nola's (and Audrey's and Mine's : ) front door. Melanie opened it and glared at him.
"You don't come knocking this early unless you brought chocolate for breakfast." Andrew grinned, expecting this, and retrieved a block of chocolate for her. She squealed and frolicked off. He followed her inside and wandered into Nola's room, where she was still sleeping. He smiled, thinking how peaceful she looked.
"Hey Nola - Aaaarrrgghhh!!!!" Audrey grabbed the nearest thing to her and threw at what she thought was an intruder. Nola's lamp exploded on Andrew.
"Aarrgh!" (In a deep man voice)
"Aarrgh!"(In a surprised Audrey voice)
"Aarrgh!"(In a squeaky high mocking male voice)
"Aarrgh?" Nola looked at Audrey and Andrew in surprise.
"Good morning." Andrew stooped to hug her.
"Evil evil evil!" Audrey swiped in Andrews direction. "Your not supposed to wander in uninvited!"
"Andrews here." Mel called down the passage (only a little too late :), "He bought chocolate."
"Oooo!" Audrey disappeared from the room.
"You shouldn't give them chocolate for breakfast." Scolded Nola with a grin. Andrew kissed her affectionately sat down next to him, wrapping his arms around her.
"What are you doing today?"
"Well, nothing, me and Dim were gonna bake some -"
"Cancel, come with me."
"Come where with you." Andrew smiled mischievously.
"Nowhere special, I just want to take you somewhere, you'll love it, I promise." Nola smiled at the attempt at suspense and pushed him of the bed and out into the passage.
"Lemme get dressed first, then we'll decide." She said firmly, and closed the door.
"But, your gorgeous in those bunny pjs . . . " he said through the door, and smiled at Nola's shocked gasp.

"Lets do something of interest today - just us." Suggested Dim. "We haven't done an us thing for awhile now." Dim looked at Liz.
"Alright, what do you want to do?" Dimuthu grinned.
"Lets so do that *insert something that requires a bus here* we haven't done that in a while." Liz smiled.
"Yeah! Lemme call Audrey . . . ."

Andrew and Nola left shortly after ten, and headed for a secluded spot high away from where they were. (*grins* I have yet to discover exactly where you people are going :) Audrey called Liz.
"Hey Liz, can I borrow your shower? Mels in ours and the bus leaves in half an hour!!" only to find that Phill was in theirs.
"Call Bryan, they just got their bathroom renovated, remember?"

Three minutes later Audrey rushed over to Bryan's.
"Thanks man - I can't believe how long Mel's been in there for!!" Bryan smiled.
"No problem."

"Aww Andrew, this is so sweet!" Andrew had escorted Nola to a farm, in which they had ridden in a horse buggy to an awaiting balloon. Nola smiled at the gorgeous view.
"Not as sweet as you." Andrew mused. Nola sighed, incredibly contented.

Audrey was in the process of getting changed when Ryan walked into the bathroom.
"Ohmigosh - I'm sorry, I didn't mean -" babbled Ryan, backing out again, closing the behind him leaving a tomato-coloured Audrey.

Melanie aimed a piece of grass at Phill. She threw and the wind picked it up and it headed towards Liz.
"Hey!"
"Dimuthu did it." Melanie answered automatically.
"Did not!" Phill cracked up at Dim's facial.
"Where's Audrey?" wondered Liz.
"Elsewhere, I suppose." Replied Mel, aiming another piece of grass at Phill.
"Dim, go find her." Suggested Liz.
"Alright." Dimuthu dragged herself up and toddled over to Bryan's

Andrew set the basket down expertly next to a beautifully laid out meal. After the gist of it was over and they were coming to the end of an extremely deep (and wonderful) conversation, Andrew floundered round for a bit.
"Andrew dear, what are you doing?" Andrew looked a little panicked for a moment, before he found what he was looking for.
"Nola, I know we haven't been going out for that long, but I've come to realise that you're an amazingly sweet and beautiful person, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He rose from his place, got down on one knee next to Nola and took her hand.
"Nola, would you me the honour and marry me?" Nola got all teary-eyed and smiled happily.
"Of course I will!" Andrew grinned, and pulled out a gorgeous ring and placed it on her finger before kissing her.

"I mean, it was like, full frontal." Ryan looked a little out of it with a hazy grin on his face.
"Your kidding?!" Bryan was a little taken back.
"No way, I saw it all." The grin was still there.
"Was it?"
"In mint condition. Nothing like the usual" He confirmed.
"In mint condition?! You look at my friends naked? And then compare it to me?!" Ryan and Bryan turned to find Dimuthu fuming in their doorway.
"I, I didn't, not to you." Ryan attempted to fix what he had said.
"Don't, just don't." Dimuthu rushed from the room.

Dimuthu ran past Mel crying and collapsed on the grass.
"Dim!" Melanie cried as she rushed over to comfort Dimuthu. "What's that stupid male done now?'
"How did you know it was something to do with Ryan?" questioned Dim.
"Hello……..this is Ryan we're talking about" Dimuthu began to explain.

Meanwhile Nola and Andrew had happily frolicked back to where everyone was standing.
"Look guys - notice anything different about me?" squealed Nola. Everyone looked hard until Andrew finally shouted
"WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!" Audrey choked on her hot-dog.

By now Dimuthu had quietened down and was ready to beat the crap out of Ryan. As he walked towards her she slowly reached behind her back and pulled out a machine gun. By the time Ryan had turned to run, he had over 100 bullet holes in his torso. Dimuthu screamed. Liz came running through the hallway and into Dimuthu's bedroom.
"Dim - what's wrong?"
"I just dreamt I killed Ryan"
"Oh" Everyone ran out from their rooms (k - I can't remember whose in whose house so at the mo they're known as everyone k?) and comforted Dimuthu. Just as Liz got up to leave, Jeff arrived at the door in red boxer shorts and with a red rose in his mouth. Audrey, Melanie, Nola, Dimuthu and Philippa promptly burst out into hysterical laughter. Jeff realising Liz wasn't alone as he thought yelped and disappeared immediately. Liz closed her mouth which she realised had dropped open.
"Oh no!" she said, but still repressing laughter. "I think I'd better go see how he is."
"Did..you..see…his face?" Audrey gasped.
"He went so red!" Philippa said, and they collapsed in fits again. As they calmed down, Nola mused-
"Gosh was anyone else scarred for life?"
"So yes!" Dimuthu said, still giggling. "But at least I feel better. Or is that worse?"

~~~

The wedding was beautiful. There was white lace everywhere, rose petals gently swirled in the light breeze. The couple stood at the archway, surrounded by flowers and the people they loved. The soft light of the sun set glowed on the bride and groom's radiant faces.
"Do you Andrew Philip Mehrtens take Nola Veda Ng to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, for richer or poorer, to love and cherish for the rest of your life?"
"I-," the groom paused, his mouth left gaping wide open, flapping like a fish. "I-," The faces started to whirl around him and his heart sunk as he suddenly felt like running, running faster than he had ever before-
"Huuhh!" Andrew bolted up out of his bed, his sheets tangled around him, his forehead bathed in sweat. Oh no, he thought. What was he doing? Marrying Nola was the worst mistake he could ever make in his life. She was so wrong for him, and he didn't even love her… he gazed out of the window, to the next house, where he knew Nola was asleep. He couldn't string her on any longer. He had never loved her, just thought he did, and he had thought by proposing he could make himself believe…but he couldn't. There was still Susan back in Canterbury, who he thought he could run from, but he couldn't. He sighed heavily. He'd have to tell Nola tomorrow. As if on cue, Nola's light switch came on. Well, no better time than the present, he said, and swung his feet over the edge of the bed.
"OWWW!" he yelped as he stood on something. He quickly put on some clothes in the dark, hoping that he would catch Nola before she went back to bed. Stumbling out of the house, he tiptoed over the lawn to Nola's window. He knocked gently on it.

~~~

Melanie bolted awake as she realised someone was knocking on the window.
"Nola!" she hissed, clutching her blanket.
"goiwhiewhie" Nola mumbled, burying deeper into her covers. Melanie inched out of her bed as the person knocked again.
"Nola!!" she whispered furiously as she shook Nola's block of a body.
"What? What's wrong Mels?" Nola said, her voice still full of sleep.
"There's someone at the window!!!"
"What?!" Nola whispered back, suddenly leaping out of her bed.
"Ow!" Audrey mumbled, as Nola accidentally stood on her foot. "Melanie get off my hand," she said in a muffled voice.
"Sorry- Audrey there's someone at the window!"
"Shoot them then, or hit them with something." She replied groggily, and turned over.
"Audrey!!" Melanie said. Audrey reluctantly sat up. The person continued to knock.
"Okay okay, look, we can deal with this." Nola whispered. "Mels, run and get one of the guys, me and Audrey will try and I dunno, keep him out."
"Wait, what if it's someone we know?" Audrey mumbled.
"Right," Nola said. "Check?" Melanie however had beaten them both to it, and cautiously peered out the curtain.
"Eeik!" Mels yelped and leapt away from the window as if burnt. "It's a strange scary guy it's a strange scary guy!"
"How do you know?" Nola hissed.
"He's got big boofy hair and I don't recognise him from any of the guys here!"
"Okay, don't panic, go go get one of the guys." Mels scooted off, while Audrey pulled herself to her feet. Nola and Audrey started as they realised whoever it was started inching open the window, scratching at the frame.

As Nola started jumping up and down, Audrey grabbed her arm, and gave her a 'be quiet look' while shoving a cricket bat in her hand. Nola took it, and held it steadily. Audrey picked up a wicket stump for herself, and held it like a baseball bat. The mysterious attacker put one foot in, and scrambled to put in his head.
"Aarrgghh!!" Nola and Audrey started hitting him with their weapons.
"AAAAGGGhh!! OW OW OW OW OW OW!" The window frame crashed down on the assailant's back.
"OOWWWW!!!"
"Serves you right you-,"
"No wait!" Nola said to Audrey as she raised her wicket stump again. Nola inched forward to the now stuck attacker.
"Andrew?!"
"Are you guys okay?" Dion, Damien, Christian, Jeff and Tana came screeching into the room.
"Whoah, looks like you got yourself a dirty-,"
"-Andrew?!" They all said incredulously. The astonishment was quickly followed by uproarious laughter.
"Andrew! What are you doing?" Nola said, dropping her bat.
"Oww oww oww, I need to tell you something." Andrew painfully said, still wedged in the window.
"It couldn't wait until later today?" Audrey said, one eyebrow raised.
"Uh, well-,"
"GROSS! Is that my jacket?" Melanie asked frowning.
"HEY! You stola! Take it off! No wait," Melanie wrinkled her nose. "Keep it on."
"Nice footwear Mehrtens," scoffed Dion, indicating the fluffy bunny rabbit slippers Andrew had carelessly put on.
"And what happened to your hair? Did we get too close to the microwa-,"
"OKAY OKAY! Enough about my appearance. I didn't know that I was going to be on show," Andrew said sarcastically.
"Ooo, touchy," Tana teased. Andrew gave him an evil look.
"Whoah, watch out, otherwise he'll attack you with his furry footwear," As the others cracked up, Audrey assessed Andrew's situation.
"Planning to stay there all night?" Andrew shot her a pained look. "No, but I'm stuck." As the others snickered, Liz took pity on his pathetic figure and stepped forward. The others gathered around.
"Yes, it does seem to be rather uh.."
"Firmly wedged?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Don't just stand there! Get me out! I hurt. A lot."
"Hold your pants on." Just then there was hysterical laughter from outside. As the others looked at each other puzzled, Dimuthu and Philippa came clutching their sides in pain, while tears of laughter ran down their cheeks.
"He's…he's…he's got-," Dimuthu was unable to finish her sentence as she and Phil collapsed on the floor, red from laughter, tears streaming down their faces.
"What? What?!!" Damien demanded, and everyone looked down anxious at the two, who were paralysed with laughter.
"Andrew, what's wrong with them?" Dion asked. Andrew grew red.
"Nothing. Nothing. What would be funny?" he said defensively. Dimuthu and Philippa burst into even more laughter as they heard Andrew deny everything. They heard a hoot of male laughter from the outside.
"Hey Andrew, what a nice way to show that ass!" Ryan shouted. The others looked confused at each other, and Ryan soon came in, with a piece of material in his hands, that looked strangely familiar to the material on Andrew's boxer shorts.
"He's mooning the whole street!" Dimuthu managed to gasp out, and they all cracked up as they realised Andrew was flashing his bare pasty butt to the world.
"A bit chilly there?" Audrey teased, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. Andrew, now crimson, grumpily mumbled.
"Okay okay," he growled. "Just get me out okay?" Christian and Jeff stepped forward, and took him by the hand and waist to pull him in. They pulled and-
"Uh oh."
"What?! What 'uh oh'- no! No 'uh oh', 'uh oh' bad!" Andrew said, throwing a mini tantrum.
"Um, you're kind of stuck."
"Wow, I think I know that. Just pull me out!"
"We are-," Christian grunted as he and Jeff tried pulling him out again. But your ass is firmly wedged."
"Well get him out! He can't stay here!" Melanie said.
"AND he's got my jacket- you jerk," Mel added.
"So what do we do?"

Two hours, one fire truck, three snickering firemen and an extremely embarrassed Andrew later, they sat around in Melanie, Audrey and Nola's place, cracking up.
"I have NEVER seen anyone go as red as you Andrew," Liz said. Andrew, sulking, glowered and (amazingly) refused to talk. The phone rang.
"Hullo?" Tana said. "No he's not here. No that story may not be confirmed. He what?! He was not arrested for indecent public exposure- where'd you hear that from? Well your sources are wrong. No." Tana abruptly hung up.
"Another reporter?" Dimuthu asked.
"Yup, everyone wants the 'bare all' story," Ryan punned, and received many groans and laughter from the others. Andrew suddenly stood up.
"I'm going back to bed." He took the ice pack off his ass ("keep it," Audrey said, her nose wrinkled), and his expression became serious.
"Nola, can I please talk to you before I go?"
"Yup, sure," Nola said, and followed him outside.

"…And, yeah. I'm really sorry, but that's just how it is." Andrew finally got the courage to look up at Nola, and expected to see her crying and disbelieving, but instead she was smiling.
"That's okay. In fact," she laughed, "I was going to tell you the same thing later today!"

~~~

"So it's over?" Audrey asked.
"Yup," Nola said happily, and grinned. "It's so cute!! He's finally going down to meet his ex girlfriend and ask her to marry him." She sighed contentedly.
"It's about time too. Those two were made for each other."
"So when's he going?" Phil asked, picking the nuts off the top of her muffin.
"Tomorrow. He's going to try and catch her before she leaves to her next conference in America." Just then, Ryan raced in.
"Can you guys help me?" he asked, breathless.

~~~

Dimuthu heard some commotion outside. She could hear giggling, laughing, and some whispering. She decided to go outside and investigate…
"Ohmigosh!" she screamed. The whole driveway outside was covered with bouquets, balloons, and huge soft toys. Everyone was standing outside Ryan's house. Ryan himself stood in the middle of everything.
"Dimuthu," he began, "I'm sorry for what I said before. I wasn't comparing Audrey to you. In fact, I didn't even see anything. I was just telling Bryan those things because I wanted to take his mind off Nola."
"I forgive you," Dimuthu ran towards him and they did the whole kissy make up thing.
"Okay, everyone inside," Nola shooed them all into Ryan's house.
"Who wants a drink?" Bryan strolled into the kitchen.
"I'll help you," Nola followed him.
"I would help you but I don't want to." Melanie flopped down on the couch and switched on the TV. Andrew's face flashed onto the screen.
"In other news, Andrew Mehrtens was seen yesterday in a very unfortunate situation." The screen changed to show one of last night's firemen talking.
"Yeah we got this call and when we went to investigate, there he was, stuck in the window. Unfortunately, his pants had…" Andrew let out a shriek of horror before lunging at the remote and switching off the TV. He glared at everyone who was trying not to laugh, just to save his pride a bit. Then suddenly from the kitchen…
"You're what?!!!" came the yell. Nola walked out of the kitchen, cups in one hand, a bottle of coke in the other.
"What's wrong?" asked Liz. Bryan came out looking rather sheepish while also carrying cups and a bottle of juice.
"He," Nola pointed accusingly at Bryan, "is leaving for America tomorrow without telling us!"
"How long for?" Christian said, doing his best to not start cheering.
"Um…about 1, 2 weeks, maybe longer. Depends on how long filming goes. James is going to." Phil sighed out loud.

~~~

The next day there were a few tears and cheers and Bryan and Andrew left (tears were courtesy of Nola - don't kill me). Everyone watched the cabs leave.

{HOLD UP…let's recap on whose in what house. If I've missed anyone, that means they're not there, I've forgotten them, let's just leave them out okay? Unless you guys really want them in… House 1: Jeff, Justin and Andrew just left. House 2: Christian and Tana House 3: Mel, Nols and Audrey House 4: Dim, Phil, and Liz House 5: Damien, Ryan, Michael and currently Seth and Bryan are not here and James and Justin T are never gonna come back okay? House 6: Dion, Daniel and Adam is a guest for a bit and Stephen and Chris have gone. Is that everyone? Doesn't matter, that's all we can handle at the moment methinks. Okay, back to the story…}

They all turned to go back up the driveway. Everyone stopped as the mailman arrived. He began putting letters in the mailboxes.
"Morning," he said.
"Hi," everyone said in unison. Shoving the last of the mail in, he gave them all a weird look before cycling off.
"I think we scared him," Audrey commented. Everyone grabbed their mail and started off up the driveway.
"What are those?" Mel leaned over and snatched a silver and black envelope out of Tana's hands. "You guys all have one," she observed, referring to Jeff, Justin, Christian, Dion, Daniel, Adam, Liz and of course Tana.
"Must be some sort of NZ sports person privilege thing," Damien said.
"Do you mind if I open it?" Mel looked at Tana.
"Actually I'd kinda like…"
"Thank you!" Mel opened it up and pulled out a letter.
"Dear Mr. Tana Umaga," she began to read, "Thank you for the contribution you have made to NZ sport…blah, blah, blah…you are a fine sports personality…blah, blah, blah, um, the NZ Sports Foundation and the Hillary Commission have set up a Health Resort. This is a great place for keeping fit and healthy, some rest and relaxation, and to have some fun. We have comfortable rooms with excellent room service, health spas, healthy and delicious food, gyms, courts, pools, fields, saunas, steam rooms, masseurs and masseuses, and many many other health and fitness facilities. Best of all, this Resort is set up next to a beach. For one week after the Resort is opened, we are offering you and a friend use of all facilities and a room for FREE! You and a friend have the opportunity to stay in our resort for a week, free of charge. Please RSVP to the date given below. If you enjoy your stay, which we are sure you will, you can join up and become a member by….blah, blah, blah." Mel grinned and turned to Tana. "Take me. I'm your friend right?" Everyone else had all read their identical letters too.
"Look, there's a brochure," Liz said. "Wow, it's really flash."
"I have an idea," suggested Jeff. "There are eight of us that were given a letter and there are eight that weren't. So why don't we take all of you guys?" Jeff grinned proudly. He looked at everyone's face.
"What?"
"State the obvious man!" Justin laughed. 15 minutes later they were all piled into Jeff and Justin's place. Justin hung up the phone.
"There, it's settled. We each have a room. But, there's one slight problem. Each of us that were invited have to stay in that room with our friend. That means we can't switch rooms like you guys wanted to."
"Then we better sort out who is in whose room."
"How? There are some people I'd rather not sleep in a room with."
"How about draw people's names out of a hat?" Everyone agreed. Liz went first. She pulled out Michael's name, much to Jeff's annoyance. Jeff pulled out Nola's name. Dion pulled out Damien's name and Justin got Phil. Christian was stuck with Ryan, Adam picked Dimuthu's name and Daniel pulled out Audrey's name. Tana got the last name, which was Mel's.

~~~

The following week they all arrived at the flash resort quite late at night.
"Let's get unpacked and then sleep." They trooped to their rooms.
"Nice," Audrey commented to Daniel as they looked at the room. 2 single beds were spread out complete with flash little chockies on the pillows. Ear-piercing screams were suddenly heard. They were coming from Mel, Nola and Dim.
"What's wrong?" Everyone crashed into the hallway to see what the commotion was all about.
"It's a DOUBLE bed in our room!" Nola yelled at the same time as Mel and Dim.
"That's not so bad," said Tana and was rewarded by a filthy look from Damien.
"We have a double bed too," Liz mumbled. Michael actually looked pleased.
"Calm down," Audrey said. "Why don't one of you sleep on the floor?" After that reasoning everyone left to pack. Nola and Jeff were still grumbling.
"I don't wanna sleep on the floor," whined Jeff.
"Fine! I will! Stupid male. Wait…I'll just sleep on the couch." Nola grabbed some of the blankets and a pillow and made herself comfortable on the couch beside the bed. Michael and Liz had made a deal: Liz would sleep under the covers and Michael would sleep on top of the covers. Andrew and Tana were sleeping on the couches much to the relief of Dim and Mel.

~~~

The next morning proved to be very interesting. During the night, Mel had fallen off the bed and Tana had rolled off the couch and landed on top of her. Mel woke to find herself pinned to the floor by a dead-to-the-world Tana that she couldn't move. Jeff had gone for a bit of a sleepwalk in the night and in that state, he had wandered over to Nola, carried her to the bed and fell asleep with her in his arms.
"GET OFF ME!!!!!" muttered Nola, she wriggled around a bit to try and dislodge Jeff, but, to her dismay, Jeff (still half asleep) moved an arm around her and pulled her closer to him.
"Lets stay in bed today, kay Hun?" Nola looked horrified,
"Get of me!! GET OFF!!" Jeff awoke with a start and let out a girly squeal.
"Liz! Your not Liz! Bed, mine, what are you doing in the bed?!" Jeff scrambled out of bed in his boxers.
"Ugh." Nola shielded her eyes, "Get back in to bed! I don't want your see your saggy men's breasts!" Jeff charmingly lunged back towards to bed, but tripped on the carelessly scattered on the floor and fell on Nola.

A piercing scream caused Damien (and everyone else) into Mels and Tanas room.
"What? What is it?" Damien rushed in to find Melanie whacking a pathetically half asleep Tana.
"I'm NOT sleeping in here tonight!" Melanie gave Tana a withering look.

Home
Me, Myself and I I Have a Secret Words of Wisdom The Ex Bf Series I'm Sorry Linx Tanks Man! Storie Ball Pix Ramblings of the Deluded