The Hijinks War

4. I Ate Glitter

Perfect. I twirled the last bit of hair around the curling wand, before flipping my head upside down and shaking all the curls loose. Standing back up, I examined my reflection. Jess sat on the other side of our room, perched on the bench we'd set in front of our window. She'd been ready for some time now, her flawless hair shortening her prep-time significantly.

"Nic, you're fine!" She laughed as she got up..

"No," I corrected her, swiping a coat of lip gloss over my lips. "I'm perfect."

"I don't know about perfect..." Mark teased, holding the door open for me to exit after him.

"So funny, Mark." I drawled and glared at Jess, daring her to join his teasing. But she hadn't heard him at all, already preoccupied with gushing over the hair and outfit of the mousy blonde she'd been flirting with the morning before. Mark and I watched the exchange with grins; Ashley was about to exit our larger group of friends and enter the inner circle.

"Let's go!" I pulled Mark into the mob of Thunderbirds heading down to the quad to be photographed for hijINKs. Unlike the faculty chaperoned newspaper, students actually read the blog and app that chronicled all activity from our battle. I'd wasted time fixing my hair and making sure my makeup was perfect today for the most important yearbook club photo of the year; the Thunderbirds family.

In the quad, curious freshmen watched; I could see the boys Mark and I recruited, explaining what was going on to a small group of girls. Few Hellhounds still lingered, having finished with their picture already. The hired photographer demanded that all Thunderbirds file onto the residence stairs. He prodded and directed us into places he was satisfied with and then snapped a picture. Examining the display on his camera, he frowned, made a couple more adjustments, and snapped another.

"I'll do a couple more for posterity," he said.

As if his words were a trigger, suddenly all the Thunderbirds were screaming and throwing our arms up into the air as the skies opened up with an unexpected torrential downpour. At least that's what we'd all thought when the water had come down, until it was immediately followed by an impressively large cloud of glitter coming down from the balconies above us. With the sound of the Hellhounds laughter ringing in our ears, every last one of the Thunderbirds had run, shrieking in random directions.

-.-

"I. Hate. Glitter!"

I agreed with Kellen wholeheartedly, silently fuming at the fact that I too, was covered in layers of glitter. Jackson sat beside him on their lounge floor, looking like a miserable, drowned rat. Only he wasn't wet. None of us were anymore. Not all the liquid that had come splashing down onto us was water. Some of us had unfortunately been hit with adhesive, likely regular white glue given it's consistency.

When it happened, I was yanked from the melee and only caught my bearings as I was being pulled up the stairs, realizing it was Jackson who had a firm grip on my hand and Jess's. It surprised me that he'd bothered with us at all, and that he dragged us all the way to his room in the boy's wing. Despite the possible trouble we faced for being there, we collapsed onto their floor, as Kellen ground out a warning to not get glitter on his things. Good luck with that, Bucko!