"Okay, so, you want to be moved?" The lady at the desk asked them, looking over her glasses.
Ricki and Zac looked at each other.
"I'm cool with it." He said. "I mean, only if you are." He said.
She thought a moment. "Uh, yeah."
"Well then what's the problem?" The woman asked.
"I guess nothing." Zac said.
"What I want to know is how this happened." Ricki said.
"How what happened?" The woman asked her.
"I want to know why I was paired with a guy." She said.
"We try to match you up with someone we think you would be compatible with, and sometimes your match just happens to by a guy."
"Oh."
"Now if that's alright with you, I need to get busy, i've got a lot of kids to see." She said.
"Ricki, just come on, you'll be fine." Mary Anne said, grabbing her friend by the arm and dragging her away.
"Yeah, you'll be fine." Zac said, smiling at her.
Ricki stopped. "Okay, look. I'm here to learn, and to learn only. If this is going to be a problem, maybe I should just go now." She said.
"No, I completely agree." Zac said.
Ricki sighed and threw up her hands, then started back to their room.
Zac looked quizzically at Mary Anne, then they continuted up to their room.
"So what are you studying?" Zac asked, propping his feet up against a wall. He took a bite out of an apple, crunching it loudly.
"I'm studying to be a teacher." She replied, throwing a box on the floor in front of her closet. The room was medium sized with two small closets, an alcove for a desk, and a tiny bathroom.
"Cool." He said. "What grade?"
"High school." She said.
They were silent for a moment, and the only sound that could be heard was Zac crunching his apple. "Well...?"
"Well what?" She asked, lining her shoes up in her closet.
"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm studying?" He asked.
She rolled her eyes. "Okay, what are you studying?" She asked.
"Glad you asked." He said, smiling at her from his upsidedown position on the bed. He rolled over and sat up.
"I'm studying music." He said.
"Oh?"
"Yeah." He paused a moment. "We are going to have so much fun!" He exclaimed.
"We?" She asked with raised eyebrows.
"Well, yeah. I mean, college is supposed to be the best time of your life; you know, the friends, the parties.......just lots of fun." He finished.
She sighed. "Zac, like I told you before. I want to do as well as I did here as I did in high school." She said.
"Let me guess; you were in the top ten of your class." He said, giving her an expectant look.
"Top three." She said.
"Good god."
"What?"
"You."
"So I studied. It was actually considered cool to be smart back home." She said.
"Okaaaaaaaay......." He said.
Ricki rolled her eyes again and contintued folding t-shirts and carefully putting them in her closet.
She finished unpacking her clothes and shoes, then she carefully set up her computer on her desk. Next she opened a package of paper and carefully loaded it into the printer, then proceeded to open a new box of pencils and begin to sharpen them in her electric sharpener, one by one.
Zac watched, his eyebrows raised. He couldn't belive this. She was organized. He sighed, leaning down on his elbows. This was going to be strange. All this cleanness and organization.
She looked over at him. "What?" She asked.
"Nothing, you've just soooo..."
"Organized?"
"Obsessive." he replied with a grin.
She sighed and then dumped out a plastic bag and dumped it out on the floor, spilling out tons of socks. She then proceeded to carefully fold them.
"Oh my gosh." he said.
"What?" She asked.
"Nothing." he said, moving over onto her bed to get a better look.
She looked at him strangely for a moment, then continued until she was finished, carefully arranging them in a drawer.
"Aren't you going to unpack?" She asked.
"Oh yeah." he said. He got up off the bed and walked over to where he had a suitcase and trashbag. He opened the suitcase and dumped it out on his bed, then emptied the trashbag beside his bed. He dumped out a few boxes of junk and CDs, then flopped back on his bed.
She just looked at the pile. He took a big bite out of his apple, crunching loudly.
"That is going to annoy the hell out of you, isn't it?" He asked her with a grin.
"No." She said quietly, avoiding to look at it.
"This is going to drive you insane." he said.
"No it isn't." She said.
Ten minutes later, she was still folding clothes to put neatly in her closet. Zac was watching her carefully. She kept thowing small glances over to the pile, then she would clear her throat and continue cleaning.
"It's bugging you, isn't it?" He asked.
"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHH!!!!" SHe exclaimed, walking quickly over to the pile. She began folding immediately.
"I knew it!" He yelled, jumping up on his bed.
"You knew what?" She asked, giving him an annoyed look as she began on his socks.
"I knew you were like, all obsessively clean." He said.
"I am not." She argued.
"Yes you are."
"No, I am not."
"Then why are you doing that?"
She let out a frusterated sigh.
"Because.....because...it's a mess, and we can't start off the year with a mess room." She said.
"Oh." He said sarcastically, finishing his apple.
"Besides, I need to do the laundry, and I was looking for dirty clothes to wash." She said, thowing a few t-shirts in a basket by the door.
"Sure." He said, flopping back down on his bed.
"Be quiet." She said.
"Ricki, relax, school doesn't start for three days." He said.
"I know." She said.
"I'm going to be bored out of my mind." He said.
"No you won't." She argued under her breath.
"What?" He asked. "What did you say?"
"You can't tell me that the minute somone asks you to rush that you won't"?" She said. "You'll have the guys, the chicks, the booze, the drugs, the parties, you know, all the stuff you rock stars are used to." SHe said.
"Whoa, wait a sec." He said, sitting up on his bed.
"What?"
"First of all, I can't rush. I wouldn't have the time, and my parents are so against it. Secondly, I'm not allowed to go to a lot of parties on the weekend, because we're making a new album this fall, and besides, I'm not a big partier anyway." He added.
"Oh." She said quietly. Maybe Zac Hanson was a completely different person that she thought he was. She pulled out another box, then opened it, pulling out a strand of blue Christmas lights.
"What are you doing?" he asked, sitting up on his knees.
"Decorating." She said, opening a box of tacks.
"Oh." He said, giving her a strange look.
"Don't you have anything you want to put up?" She asked, beggining to tac them to the ceiling around the edge of the room.
"Uh, yeah." He said. He went over to his pile of junk, and rumaged for a moment before pulling out a poster.
"Oh, you do decorate." She said, watching him.
"Yup." He said, walking over to her. "Could I borrow a few tacs?" He asked.
"Sure, go ahead." She said.
He grabbed three or four, then walked over to his bed and stood on it. What is he doing? Ricki asked herself. He tacked one side of the poster up behind his bed, then unrolled it, carefully tacking the other side.
"There." He said, stepping back onto the floor to admire his handywork. Ricki looked over to see a big Hanson poster hanging behind his bed.
"Like it?" He asked.
"Uh, yeah." She said, going back to putting up her lights.
"Thought you would." He said.