It all started because of my TweetyBird T-shirt.

I won't lie. I felt a sense of foreboding as I pulled on the newly-ironed yoga pants I'd worn to bed the evening before, and as I laced up my grottiest Chucks, being sure to avoid Tweety pointing at any reflective service, for obvious reasons, considering it read "I'm with stupid".

I'd never gone into school looking anything less than fairly presentable in my entire life. Please, don't think I'm one of those people that truly agonizes over what shade of lip-gloss they're wearing that day, or whether that type of pink brings out their cheekbones, or their eyes or whatever. No. Usually, I was borderline – between upper-crust male tramp and casual smart. Until they'd "implemented" – focus on the quotation marks there – dress code, I'd been rolling in wearing T-shirts and jeans.

Now, of course, I was more known for my shirts and jeans, in a typical, preppy fashion that my mother adored.

As it happened, today, however, I felt crappy. My body was aching, I kept coughing up phlegm that wasn't there and every time I closed my eyes, I opened them to find myself in the exact same position as I had been before I'd blinked; only four hours later.

It didn't help that I'd have random bursts of energy – which always happened to arrive as my mother bustled in, leading her to believe it was all a facade, and therefore hauling my ass out of bed to go and buy mushroom soup, which she believed was more out of my preference for today's lunch, rather than the fact that the mere idea of eating solid food made me want to hurl.

But, the paper couldn't function without me. It was bad enough that somehow, every time we went to print with something halfway decent, some miraculous energy of the universe that was out to get me somehow ruined it between sending it to print and having a hard copy. Maybe Minnie had swapped our cover story with a page of her journal again, or Rex had been dared to let slip of his porn screen-shots edited with Principal Masters' face on and we'd have to cancel the entire issue.

My point was, was that whether I was dying, my job as newly-appointed – and begrudging – Editor in Chief meant that I had to be there.

Even if I had to haul my ass through five hours of Hell, two hours of which would be spent trying not to die because they were being covered by subs.

Not including the paper meeting after school.

So, really, it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did, that my day was going to suck as much as it did. Me being in sweatpants was just... Unheard of. Even if, in this case, they were actually yoga pants.

"Honey, you can't be going out like that. It's smart-wear!" My mother, as usual, gasped. It wouldn't have made a difference if I hadn't been wearing my grottiest sneakers and faded Hard Rock hoodie or not. Unless I was wearing Chanel couture or something like that, my appearance would always be a disappointment to her.

"Smart-wear basically means to just not wear skirts so short, that they just look like belts around your vagina." I told her smartly, rolling my eyes as I snatched a hot croissant and head for the door. "Thanks for the breakfast, Val!" I yelled over my shoulder, plugging in my iPod and checking my News Feed. Yes, my curiosity of the ruling classes of high school dominated my faux-disgust at the horror of Facebook. So sue me.

Yet, the elitist nature of my neighbourhood and parental choice of where I would be subjected to social fuckery under the pretence of academia, also meant we had our own social network on the school site, that integrated all of our social feeds for our entire grade, should we choose to give access.

Needless to say, my wonderful worlds of Twitter and Tumblr were in happy exile from this dark nugget of the cyber-verse.

Luke Chandler Wishing my crew back at MelRay a happy start to the new academic year! ;)

I threw my cell phone into my backpack in disgust. What a pretentious asshole.

Tallulah Melody Raymond High School – known as MelRay for short – the bane of my existence, located at the base of the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California.

The world of stray Botox injections, toxic breast fillers and diet wine.

Of course, the day I was feeling so crappy I was wearing a Tweety shirt and yoga pants to school, was also the day I had double Gym.

And, because it was California and everything was about the show, double Gym meant a forty-minute hike-drive down to Venice Beach to do laps and partake in inappropriate water sports in scanty clothing, in pure teen-scene fashion.

"Oh, you look so happy." Lin blanched, scooting over to make space for me on the morning bus. "... Jesus, are those sweats?"

"Yoga pants." I muttered. "Do you have any idea how much I want to kill Ollie for bailing on the paper today, I am going to kill him on sight tomorrow."

"Daphne, his grandmother almost died. She fell down a flight of concrete stairs near Joey's." Lin muttered, aghast.

I glowered at her as I popped the lid off of my iced latte.

"Well, she's alive, isn't she? I don't see what the problem is!" I took a sip of caffeine. Urgh, only partially helping. Which was a serious problem, because usually, one heavenly sip of Caffe Latte would have me going for the rest of the day. "If he's so hung up about it, why doesn't he write a segment on stairwell safety? I'm not fussy!"

Lin didn't say anything. I guess I didn't leave her very much scope to comment.

I contemplatively stared out of the window. Lin knew I liked the window seat. She didn't argue. She liked sitting by the aisle and "accidentally" tripping people up, and pretending to curse them with fake voodoo when they started calling her names.

"Where's Buttons?" I asked randomly, not seeing a giggling mess of pink anywhere. "I want to call her fat for the sake of it."

"She's getting a ride today." Lin informed me, not bothering to comment on my mood.

"And Christine?"

"Making out with her b-f in the back." Lin replied.

As if on cue, we both turned in our seat, to see Christine sweetly kissing her Chinese boyfriend.

"She's so naive, she still thinks that equality exists." Lin murmured. "Wait until she meets his tiger mom."

"Does she even need to wait?" I snorted, seeing Christine's boyfriend – I hadn't bothered learning his name – hurriedly answer his cell phone, as his mother undoubtedly called, to make sure he wasn't doing exactly what he had been. "So, what's new?"

"My spies got me a hold of this." Lin handed me a piece of paper, colour co-ordinated into subjects and rooms. "Look at today."

"No Gym. Why is this a-" I stopped, seeing what I had instead. "Sweet Jesus, cooking class?" I screamed, jumping up, bashing my head on the ceiling and slumping back down again, much to the joy of my fellow students. I flipped them the finger, cradling the back of my head, as I stared at my new timetable.

There it was. Culinary Skills.

Which was a polite way of saying baking.

My head hurt and it wasn't just because I'd made it collide with the bus roof.

"Rumour has it that she swapped it for your World History class." Lin informed me, as I covered my face in my hands. My mother. Of course. Of course. I could already see her in my head, justifying her craziness once I confronted her, saying how maybe if I learnt to make things pretty, I wouldn't be scared to cake myself in Mac frosting or whatever.

"Hey, Daffodil, watch your head, you don't need to be more crazy!"

Before Lin could even try and stop me, I had whirled round and grabbed that asshole Maxwell's collar, bringing his greasy skater face next to mine.

"Call me Daffodil ever again and see how I don't rip your balls off and feed them to you, pickled in your own shit and with a side-garnish of knuckle sandwhich." I snapped, shoving him back into his seat before he could gape at me like a goldfish anymore. "What?" I snapped, seeing Lin's bitten-back smile.

"You sound like a cook already." Lin grinned.

"Fuck you." I muttered, sliding down my seat and propping my elbows against the seat in front of us. A lovesick couple turned to me, their noses in the ear. "Yeah, what?"

They turned away.

"Don't go off in a sulk." Lin sighed, pulling away my iPod, despite my feeble protests. Honestly, I didn't have the energy to fight her. Even talking to Maxwell was draining, half of the time, you had to wonder whether he could hear you at all. "Come on, it'll be over before you know it! And apparently, you only have to donate some money every week, that comes out of your school fee-"

"They're taking my money?"

"- to pay for your ingredients, so you don't have a giant pack of whatever it is to haul in, for every lesson." Lin finished. I covered my head in my hands. This day was just getting progressively worse, and technically, it hadn't even started yet. "Come on, it won't be that bad. As soon as you make something edible, get your credits and swap it for something next semester!"

"Yeah, a whole semester away. I'm not going to last in a cooking class for that long!" I pressed at where I'd bashed my head on the bus ceiling, bashing my head on the back of our seat as we hit a pot-hole. Ow. As if my head wasn't pounding already. "God! You think you could drive a little better, please?"

"Morning, Daphne!" Hal yelled back cheerily. Urgh.

"Hey, flower girl." I turned with incredulity to whoever was talking. Because clearly, they were suicidal. "You okay?"

I stuck a raised thumb in the air, not bothering to look past the figure sprawled out across two seats. Jesus. Today was not going to be a good day.

... And my day was apparently worsened when I saw Ollie skid next to his locker, beside mine.

"What are you doing here?" I said in a very low, menacing voice – that honestly had more to do with my sore throat than anything else. "Answer me now, or forever be silenced by death."

"I'm here for the paper meeting tonight." Ollie told me obviously, as I glared holes into his head. "What? What is it?"

"You can't be here for the meeting tonight." I muttered, before slamming my locker door shut and slapping his arm angrily. Though I'll admit, even for me, it was a feeble attempt. "I yanked my ass out of bed to be here for the meeting tonight, because your grandmother is a klutz! What, she suddenly decided she's not still sore?"

"Good luck." Lin muttered in Ollie's direction, turning her back to us and talking to Christine.

"I came because I knew you'd kill me if I didn't." Ollie said mildly. Which obviously only pissed me off more. "And apparently not, she's still baking cookies for you tomorrow afternoon."

I had to admit, even my stone-cold heart softened a little at that. Granda Elise's cooking was to die for.

"I'll bring flowers." I muttered sulkily, opening my locker up again. I didn't hold as much contempt for Elise as I was letting on. If anything, she was pretty cool. It was just Ollie I was now pissed off with.

"Remember," Ollie grinned at me. "Her favourites are daffo-"

"I wouldn't if I were you, she almost threw Maxwell out of the window this morning for calling her You Know What." Christine told Ollie quickly, shooting me a wary smile. "So, I heard you're going to learn how to sprinkle cupcakes in fairy dust." Christine grinned wickedly.

"Not in the moody, Christy. Not in the mood." I muttered. "I'm heading to find a good spot to sleep in Homeroom, Ollie, come with me, as your backpack will be my pillow. I'll see the rest of you whenever."

"Have fun..." Lin called out. I ignored her.

"Why don't you head home?" Ollie asked me sympathetically, as I sneezed a snot-rocket the size of my head, into one of those horrible smelly tissues that were meant to be good for your synapses. "You're not going to last the day like this."

"Watch me." I snorted, elbowing him in the ribs.

I didn't listen to Miss Sunderland in Homeroom. There was the usual spiel about being welcomed back, having a good, strong academic year, blah blah blah. We were meant to be having a whole assembly about it later this week, but I left it to Ollie to note down. I wasn't interested. He'd just drag me in the right direction, come the actual day.

"Mother of God!" I screeched, jumping out of my seat as I felt something heavy bang into the left side of my temple. I cradled my poor, battered head and looked up to see – who else? – Jenna Saunders smirking down at me.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Daphne, did I wake you?" She asked sweetly, as I glowered, incapable of words. Oh, I hated her. And there I had been, happily hoping she'd been hit by a bus over the summer. "It was just hard to see you underneath all of that... Well, that vagrancy you're sporting."

She was so dumb, it actually hurt to be near her.

"Do you even know that you just totally took that word out of context?" I muttered. "But it's fine, I mean, you have a lot of pills to keep you running. You have a lot of STDs to keep at bay."

"What a surprise, I hate you just as much as I did before the summer." Jenna sneered.

"How's your dad?" I asked sweetly.

It worked like a treat. Within seconds, she'd scarpered.

One plus point to living in California – your dad being a hotshot producer with his own studio and number of Oscars, meant that you had certain authority over other people's parents.

Like Jenna's Dad, a striving script-writer, or her wannabe model of a mother.

Not that I'd do anything to sabotage Mr Saunders. From what little I heard of him, he was a decent writer, just not above average enough to be picked up as a key member of the team. Not exactly my problem, either, but Jenna didn't need to know that.

"I see she's as charming as ever." Ollie muttered, leaning over once she'd flounced away. "Oh, and you told me to remind you to give Ernest the key back later."

"Then remind me later." I told Ollie grumpily, silently appreciative of his memory. The newspaper staff had been crashing school grounds occasionally through the summer – okay, fine, most of the days when we'd had nothing to do.

Which, even if we'd been trying to fight against the stigma of being nerd-haven – which I'd long ago given up on – would have entirely defeated the object. There was a reason wherever we held our meetings – it changed every so often, we were petitioning for our own office space – it was called The Sanctuary.

I guess I didn't have a leg to stand on, complaining about it all. I'd been desperate to get out of the house. I'm the second-youngest out of a family of five. There was Annie, Betty, Chris, me and then Emma.

Yes, my parents purposefully named us all in alphabetical order.

No, we don't find it as cute as they once did. We never will. And they probably don't find it as adorable any more, either.

Annie was a teacher and newly-engaged (at the ripe young age of twenty-four), Betty was finishing up her college education (twenty-one), Chris was a senior (he didn't start school for another week)... Then there was me, a lowly sophomore, with Emma just starting the eighth grade.

She was more confused than the rest of us and, considering there was me standing between her and Chris... That was saying something.

I'm sure our parents had wanted us to be a load of hotshot lawyers or doctors or whatever, but it really hadn't worked out that way. I know that's what Mom would have wanted. Dad probably wanted us to join the artistic field.

Not that he'd failed terribly. I mean, Annie was an art teacher in Washington, with her own private gallery. And Betty was finishing law school to go into basically bailing out celebrities. Chris was pretty awesome at photography and directing and all of that kind of stuff, even though his original plan had been to be a doctor. Emma was a child-model.

Yeah, to say our family was... Something, would be an understatement.

Oh, and my mother was one of the leading fashion designers in the world.

But then there was me.

The silent one.

I mean, Chris was kind of just known for being Michael Lane's son, too, but his hot son. I was just... There.

According to Lin, I was being too hard on myself. In such a creative, pot-luck-talent sort of family, she said, I was bound to feel lost as to what to do. Everybody in my family had seemed to find their calling. Whereas, in Lin's family, she was the loser because she'd once only gotten a silver medal in classical music performance.

My family was... Different, to say the least.

I didn't pay much attention to the rest of Homeroom, or the rest of the day, for that matter. There was plenty of the polite chit-chat that the return from summer promised us all, but honestly, I was in no mood. And I must have tattooed it across my face or something – either that, or Maxwell and Lin had filled everybody in on my mood this morning -, because aside from the polite hellos, nobody met my eye.

Not that I was complaining.

Buttons caught up with me on her way to her therapy session, just as I was switching notebooks at my locker.

There was lots of "babe", "oh my fucking God" and "bitch" in there. I can't say I paid much attention.

"How you can honestly put up with her at the rate you do, is astounding."

I looked around to see a dark-haired girl I hadn't seen before crouching at one of the bottom lockers.

"Trust me." I muttered, slamming my locker door shut. "It's not without trying."

There isn't much point in telling you about the rest of my classes before the trainwreck that was going to be Culinary Skills, considering as I didn't pay much attention – and therefore, that meant they must have been pretty pointless. Considering it was our first day back, everything was just induction. Hopefully, a double-whammy of Culinary Skills would be no different.

"Remember, poisoning your teacher isn't going to get you an A." Ollie told me solemnly, as I trudged to a stop. Urgh. It was all shiny and silver and vapid blondes in there. The air was going to be practically toxic with Juicy Couture perfume and... Oh dear Jesus, did that girl have Chanel oven gloves? "Or any of your fellow students." Ollie quickly added.

"Easier said than done." I muttered, walking in.

"Ah, our final instalment to the class, Miss Lane!" Oh God, she was one of those teachers. The zany ones, with the colourful, chunky bead necklaces and reindeer sweaters, when it was still summer weather out. "You're over by the window, by Mr Dawson."

"Mr Dawson?" I repeated in confusion. I didn't know anybody by the surname Dawson. Then again, I didn't pay attention to anybody other than me, usually. I'd say it was sad, but true, but it's not that sad. "Who's Mr Daws-"

"Flower girl." I whipped around, to see a guy leaning against the countertop, smirking at me. "Dawson would be me."

I let my backpack fall from my shoulder and dragged it across the floor, making sure to dump it loudly on the worktop once I got there.

As if earlier on the bus hadn't been insightful enough, I could tell this guy was a total douchebag.

Zany Woman introduced herself as Miss Francis, though apparently we were given the privilege of calling her Queenie.

She laughed and told us not to ask. Nobody had planned to, anyway.

What I was more focused on, however, was the fact that we were making brownies for our first lesson.

Brownies.

I kid you not.

"I thought we'd start with something simple for our first lesson!" Queenie told us excitedly, getting a few of the many blondes at the front to start handing out ingredients. It was all so... Dainty. Everything was in little bowls, the scales were all shiny and silver and the ingredients were colour co-ordinated – they even had tints, so low-fat items or whatever were in lighter shades.

Oh, yeah. California could cook. Who said we couldn't? We just did it with an excessive amount of pink and unicorns shitting rainbows.

Any pitiful hopes that I may have had of at least getting a decent food-fight story out of this class, had left the building. Lin had tried to build me up about it, all the way through Algebra – and the sad thing was, I'd even started to believe her. Which sucked ass. Because now I was here, I could see there was no way this was going to happen. There were no tough guys being forced to take the electives, no surly girls that had been expelled from the blonde gang. Just... Robots. Drones.

So, as the newly-named Stepford Wives handed out low-fat, minimum-carb, zelo-calorie butter, I sat there, trying to understand how I was meant to cook something without a recipe sheet.

"Oh, no, honey." Queenie told me happily, when I asked for one. "I want to see where you are as a culinary artist, on your own!"

"There's actually been a huge misunderstanding, Mi- Queenie." I tried to smile through the tingling sensation in my nose, telling me I wanted to sneeze. "There was a, ah, mix-up with my sche-"

"Oh, your mom told me you were a joker!" Um, what? "You'll do fine, honey! Though make sure you clean that countertop before you start, you don't want any germs from the floor to get anywhere!"

"Don't I?" I muttered, as she skipped off, swatting my bag to the floor and cringing as I wetly snorted into a tissue. I muttered in disgust at just how soggy it became, so quickly. This was disgusting. "What the Hell am I meant to do now?" I cursed, seeing that I had no reception on my cell. So no Googling.

"You're not much of a fan of cooking, are you?" Dawson asked, offering me a wet sponge to wipe down the worktop with. Whatever, it wasn't even like I was using the ingredients on the worktop. Or was I...? I ignored the sponge. This was going to be such a mission. "And you don't seem to like me very much."

"Dawson, shut up, or I'll sneeze in your-" I frowned at the beige thing he had going on in his mixer bowl already. "- whatever the Hell that is." I paused. "And anyway, I've never even seen you before, so I care even less than I normally would about you or your existence."

Mucus made me really cranky, okay?

"I'm the new kid, there's still time for you to care." Dawson laughed, mixing the... Stuff. I picked up an egg, choosing to not snort at his optimism. Oh, this wasn't going to be easy. I saw a Stepford tap her egg delicately with her wrist, before gently pouring it into a bowl full of flour. How had everybody gotten started so quickly? Because they all made weed brownies at home? "And you're pouring in baking soda instead of flour, did you know that?"

I cursed, loudly. I yanked my hand away – getting fl- sorry, baking soda – everywhere, and also dropping my egg at the same time.

The Stepfords all stopped to look.

"Everything alright there, Miss Lane?" Queenie called over hesitantly.

"Just peachy." I flashed her a false smile. Which she obviously took to be sincere, laughing at my "funny food pun", because we were in basically a cooking classroom. Though God forbid we'd call it that, when it was "culinary skills" and we were all "culinary artists".

"I can fix that up for you, if you like." Dawson offered. I ignored him, glowering into my mixing bowl as I saw him neatly add stuff to his becoming-brown mixture. After a moment, I realized it was probably cocoa powder or... Something. Asshole. And he was wearing a plain white T-shirt, when he was cooking, so he was just showing off. Why was a guy even in Culinary Skills, anyway? To pick up one of the Stepfords? Judging by the looks they were giving him, he needn't have joined Culinary Skills to get their attention. Between their predatory natures and his T-shirt having apparently shrunken in the wash a little, he seemed to be getting enough attention without a whisk. If that was what it was called. "And my name's not Dawson, it's-"

"I don't care." I interrupted, banging around for a spoon to fish out my egg shell shrapnel with, trying not to sniffle. Urgh.

"... Okay." Dawson said slowly. "Lane. As in, the school Editor in Chief of the paper, right?" Dawson continued, his eyes sparkling much too mischievously for him to have been taking notice of me basically telling him to fuck off. "Actually, I was wondering if you could-"

"No." I replied instantly. I had enough people asking if they could jump on the team, as an extra-curricular, but then didn't show up, which increased my crapload. And judging by the messy dark hair and leather jacket slung at the side, Dawson didn't exactly seem like the kind of guy who would need the constant safety that the Sanctuary provided to the rest of us lower mortals. "Whatever it is, n-" I paused, ready to sneeze. It didn't come. "No." I finished lamely.

Don't you hate that feeling? When you feel the build-up of a sneeze, only for it to not even be polite enough to show up?

I hated being ill.

I mean, Ollie could have at least told me he was coming in today! I could have been in bed. Sleeping. And heavily medicated to get rid of all the runny mucus.

"You don't even know what I'm going to ask yet." Dawson said good-naturedly. "And your brownies aren't going to be edible. Let me help you." I went to protest, but had to sneeze again. "And I really don't think you should try and argue."

"What's the catch? And I'm not going to give you a hand-job or anything, okay? You can take your help and shove it up your ass." I sniffled, fighting the urge to wipe my nose with my sleeve.

"I'll fix your brownies, if you do my dishes." Dawson told me, rolling his eyes. "Simple exchange."

I glared at him, putting my hands on my hips.

"What, you think I should do the dishes, because I'm a g-"

"Before you go on, I feel compelled to tell you that, as the only guy in this coo- culinary skills class, you have no leg to stand on." Dawson smirked, snatching my bowl filled with egg shells and baking soda, offering me a pair of washing gloves instead. "None at all."

In all honesty, it didn't take me too long to decide. Honestly, I'd made my decision before he'd even finished offering.

"Fine, Dawson." I muttered, making sure to not sound too relieved. "But then you're washing the dishes you've used."

"That's a fair deal. Done." Dawson agreed. "And it's Zach."

I paused, halfway over to where he was standing, by his sink.

"I'm sorry?"

"My name's Zach Dawson, not Dawson." Dawson told me, smartly cracking eggs and pouring it into the bowl, no shell fragments anywhere. I needed to learn how to do that. "Do I get to know your name now, Flower Girl? Or is your first name Miss, and your last name Lane?"

"That would be correct." I said icily, swinging my hips to avoid colliding with his as he turned to smirk at me over his shoulder, as I stood by his sink. "Can't you watch where you're going?"

Dawson turned to me and shook his head.

"Are you always like this?" He asked.

"No, usually she's worse." A Stepford breezed by – Mandy, was it? -, one of Buttons' friends. Well. Bitchy acquaintances, more like. She shone Dawson what I'm guessing she thought was a mega-watt smile. Bleh. "Honey, you'll soon learn that Daphne Lane doesn't live up to her Dad's sunny reputation."

I glowered at Mandy. She was usually okay, if not totally judgemental, bitchy and a wannabe to the point of tears, but as soon as a guy entered the scene? She was just downright irritating.

I watched Dawson's face carefully out of the corner of my eye, trying to work out whether he'd made the connection or not. Instead, he just grinned at me.

"So it's Daphne Lane, huh?" He nodded, whisking the new, brown mixture in the glass bowl, expertly. Mandy was watching his wrist flick with wide eyes. What a perv. "Tell me, Daphne, is there a paper meeting tonight?"

I opened my mouth to tell him no, but Mandy got there first.

"Of course, the nerds were asking around about where the Sanctuary was, so they could start their geek tournament." Mandy rolled her eyes as Dawson watched her, with a barely-interested expression. "And anyway, it's after school. I heard Tyler invite you to his party tonight..?"

I let out a small, blocked whistle. Tyler... As in, Tyler Reagan (no relation to the previous President of the same name), Mr It Boy of our new sophomore year. Scoring a party invite from Ty Reagan himself, was like a knighthood for some people. And here Dawson was, rolling in on his (apparent) first day, scoring party invites and making the majority of our Culinary Skills class – including Queenie – swoon, whenever he shot them what was probably meant to be a polite, friendly smile.

Sadly, however, before Mandy could get the answer as to whether Dawson here would be making her swoon with his presence, Queenie yelled at her to get back to her "fun-station".

"So, this sanctuary everyone is talking about... Is it open to everyone or is it just-"

"Listen, Dawson." I sniffled, rinsing a particularly sticky tea-spoon. I flung it in the sink to look at him, trying to get through my blocked nose. My flu had gotten progressively worse throughout the day. "I can see what kind of guy you are-"

"You can?" Dawson raised his eyebrows. Urgh, how hadn't I noticed before? They were too... Perfect, to make Dawson just a regular douchebag.

"- a hotshot, Mr Popular, Mr Charming. So let me tell you something about what you're trying to do here." I sighed. "You and I-"

I was about to explain how he and I weren't from the same universe and I was happy to keep the space, but the problem was, I was waving the chocolate-coated spoon as I spoke. But when I pointed the spoon at him, to emphasize the "you", a gloop of chocolate went flying and hit him on the T-shirt.

The plain white, pristine T-shirt.

Hence me stopping talking.

Dawson looked down at his T-shirt in surprise, the oven open and making it nice and warm – though uncomfortably hot for Dawson, probably – as Dawson stared between the gloop of chocolate on his shirt, and me, in surprise.

Ashamedly, I just gaped.

"Oh, goodness! Is everything alright, Mr Daws-"

"No, don't worry about it, Queenie, it's just a little mark." Dawson told Queenie quickly, as she fussed over, the Stepfords all giving me death glares. Quickly, Dawson slammed the oven door shut, letting my brownies bake. As Mandy giggled at me from across the room, I threw the wooden spoon into the sink, jumping slightly as I splashed cold, soapy water down my front. "Miss Lane here was just telling me about the Sanctuary and got a bit excited, it was an accident."

I stared at him. I couldn't even say anything. Nothing. Nothing at all. Except –

And there it was. That giant sneeze.

I'm pretty sure everybody was staring at me like I was crazy. Which I felt. I mean, I was assaulting some random new kid with soggy chocolate gloop, for God's sake!

"Excuse me, Flower Girl." I mutedly moved out of the way, as Dawson stood at the side, lifting his shirt to try and dab the goop away with a flannel.

And just like that, the Stepfords stopped acknowledging my existence. Instead, everyone – and I mean everyone, right down to Queenie – were all practically falling over themselves silently, to get a look at what was underneath that shirt.

And judging by the small, collective sigh of adoration that I heard as I tried to dab away the wetness from the stomach of TweetyBird, they liked what they saw.

"Get inside of m- my cl- the closet! The ingredients... Closet... To clean... Come with me." Queenie muttered, flushing, before grabbing Dawson's arm and dragging him away. Dawson just about grabbed his jacket, before being yanked away. I can't say I was disappointed. Urgh, what the Hell? That was it. I was never taking Culinary Skills ever again. "Miss Lane, please look after Mr Dawson's brownies!"

I went to protest, but she was already halfway across the room. But, judging from Dawson's smirk – why was he smirking? Shouldn't he be mad at me? Which would be great, considering that would mean we'd never have to talk about brownies again? – we both knew it was a moot point.

"I'll catch you later, Flower Girl." Dawson told me, trying not to stumble as Queenie yanked him away. "Ladies." Dawson nodded to the rest of the room, all of them eagerly calling out their goodbyes.

The door slammed closed behind Queenie and Dawson, and it was just me and the Stepfords.

"So." I coughed awkwardly, as everybody turned to me with accusing glares. Urgh, my headache was back. My head was pounding. "Anybody know how long you're meant to cook brownies for?"

Not surprisingly, nobody answered.

Hey everyone!

So I should disclaim that this is my first piece of fluff and whilst I know a DYTTM update is long overdue, this idea has been batting away in my head for the past few weeks and refuses to be ignored. I've never really written anything like this, so... Well, let me know what you think, I guess!

I AM still writing Dare You To Trust Me, I promise, but I just don't know when. Life's pretty busy right now. But I promise it'll be soon.

To be honest, I don't even know if this chapter makes sense. Well, we'll see...

Love,
theprettyreckless

PS. Oh, before I forget; I might be changing my penname back to henbee. Just thought I'd let you know, in case you can't find my profile or whatnot at a later date. Though I'm not sure, so let me know as to whether you think it's a good idea.

Okay, I'll go now.

- TPR x