Merged

Scene Two

"Clara, could you get us some more chips?" I asked Clara while poking my head indoors.

"Of course, Ms. Aubrey," Clara yelled from the kitchen. Along with cleaning up around the house and making sure it always looks good, Clara sometimes cooked for me when my parents weren't around. This would be her fifth year working for us, and she's lasted much longer than any other maids we've had.

"Aubrey, can you turn on the bubbles in the hot tub?"

I turned around and saw that Kellie and Tiffany had finally gotten in my hot tub and were now relaxing and drinking lemonade. You would have never thought that ten minutes ago they were debating whether to get in or not for fear of their hair getting wet.

"I'm coming in too," Brett said, whipping off his shirt. The girls giggled; I can never tell which one of them Brett really likes, I think he just likes the attention from both of them. I went over to the hot tub and flipped a switch, activating the bubbles and Tiffany let out a high pitched yip. The bubbles made the water splash around, and I knew she was probably just scared of getting her hair wet.

"Aubrey, are you coming in?" Kellie asked me as Brett slid in, sitting in between the girls.

"Yeah, I'll be right there!" I answered. First I wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly and that everyone was having a good time.

Every year I hold a back-to-school pool party about a week before school starts and invite most of my class. It's always been one of my favorite parties I throw; I just love how everyone reconnects after not seeing each other over the summer. Also it's a good time to see who's coming back to the school this year, and what new couples have formed. Right then, I had a ton of kids from my school in my backyard, mostly in the pool, on my basketball court, or trying to play a game of "keep it up" with a volleyball. It didn't seem like anyone was drowning in the pool, or seriously getting hurt, so I figured it would be a good time to relax myself and go in the hot tub.

I took off my white cover-up and dipped my toes in the hot tub. It was a little colder than usual, mostly due to the crisp weather we've been having lately. I turned up the temperature and slid into the hot tub, and let out a nice, "Ahhh..."

"Aubrey, Brett was just telling us how over the summer, one of the Willard kids TP'ed Hilton, and spray painted, 'We'll never go to Hilton'," Kellie said, turning to me. Brett now had his arms around both of them.

"Seriously?" I asked in disbelief, "That's crazy. Don't the teachers see this as a warning that maybe we shouldn't merge?"

Brett snorted, "Apparently not. I also heard that they're doing away with some of Hilton's traditions too. Like freshman hat day. And crazy sock day..."

"Aw, I LOVE crazy sock day!" Tiffany exclaimed, "I even bought special ones to wear this year!"

"Oh, those purple striped ones that you bought when I was with you?" Kellie leaned over and asked.

"Yup!" Tiffany said, "I'm patching them so they look extra crazy."

"That's cool Tiff," I nodded. Then I turned to Brett, "Well, my mother's on the merging committee and she didn't hear about any of this stuff. They said they were going to try to preserve the schools and their traditions as much as possible."

"Yeah, well that's before someone's daddy with big bucks from Willard stepped in. Now it looks like we're gonna be the 'New Willard Academy'." Brett retorted.

I let out a sigh of exasperation, "But it's our senior year. Doesn't that mean anything to anyone?"

Brett shrugged, and someone put their hands on my neck and started massaging. I leaned forward and whipped my head around, "Oh, Adam," I said laughing a little bit. "You scared me."