TOAST-Math Team Style, take OWEN

I've done this before, but here's the next installment. Sorry for the horrible delay.


NOTE: People represented in here do not closely resemble what they are like in real life. Just saying.

OTHER NOTE: Not edited. Yet. If you find any mistakes, report them to me, and I'll fix them.

Step UN: Choose your character—>

1.) Tea
2.) Owen (which is here)
3.) Argon
4.) Summer
5.) Tybalt

Step DEUX: Read the RULES—>

I. Find the number where your chosen character starts.
II. Read the first part.
III. When prompted, make a choice between either 1 or 2.
IV. After choosing, use ctrl-F to find where the next part goes. (this part may not work as well as thought to be because there are way too many repeating tags. so, uh, just go ctrl-F until something matches. sorry, it's the best I can do in one post.)
V. Have fun!

Step TROIS: Choose your fate—>


2.) Owen

It's Tuesday, and you're making your way to math team, along with Irving. Seriously. You spend so much time with Irving, you wonder what you'll do when you go off to college.

Well, that's still far, far away. And there's still plenty of months to enjoy your almost-extreme case of senioritis.

Down the hall, you see Mario looking distracted, but he has not noticed you or Irving yet.

1. Grab Mario's attention. (AAA.)
2. Ignore him. He'll captivate Irving's attention anyway, and you'll be left out. (AAB.)


AAA.

"Hey," you call out. "Mario!"

Mario looks over at you with a glazed look, as if he had just consumed a dozen sugar-glazed donuts. Actually, from the Starbucks bag he's carrying in one hand, you think your guess may not be that far off from the truth. Of course, you highly doubt Mario eats donuts.

But he's remotely better than Bryant in terms of width, so perhaps he indulges himself at times.

(And you think to yourself that Bryant should be glad intelligence and width are not directly related, but the authoress digress.)

"Hey Owen," Mario replies, still dazed. "Irving."

1. Ask Mario what's wrong. (AAC.)
2. Wait for Irving to ask Mario what's wrong. (AAD.)

AAB.

You ignore Mario. Irving will say something. He always does. If you didn't know any better (and if you hadn't known about the secret relationship Irving has with—wait, why are you even thinking this?), you would have sworn the two of them were infatuated with each other.

Instead, you watch in awe as Mario disintegrates.

Huh?

Then, you watch in more awe as Bryant comes from out of nowhere and says, "I knew this would happen! I told him so, and did he listen? No! Serves him right."

You stare at the thing in Bryant's hand that looks suspiciously like a ray-gun, and you can feel your feet inching backwards. Suddenly, you brush against something furry.

A purple bunny? What?

This is officially weird. (Because the authoress is officially tired of writing this.)

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)

AAC.

"What's wrong, Mario?"

You manage to choke out a sentence before Irving does, and you pride yourself for this achievement. After all, he's an expert at saying things really, really fast.

"Oh," Mario says. "It's nothing."

"What do you mean it's nothing?" Irving asks. "It's always something. Come on, tell us."

"Well... but you promise you won't tell anyone?"

You stare at Mario, who looks rather uneasy. That's strange. You debate whether it's worth it to commit yourself to a lifelong sentence of sworn secrecy, just to indulge your curio--concern.

1. Promise Mario you won't tell anymore. Really. (AAE.)
2. Tell Mario you have to meet with Dino, so you'll be going now. (AAF.)

AAD.

You wait for Irving to ask Mario what's wrong, because you're sure that's what Irving would ask in this situation, but instead Irving smacks Mario on the head and asks, "How many?"

How many what? You want to ask. Of course, Mario knows what, because he replies, "Twenty."

"I told you to cut back, didn't I?" Irving shouts. "Look at you. Look at you!"

"Hey, don't look at me. Bryant had forty, and he's passed out in my car."

"Are you guys, uh," you try to say, "talking about—alcohol?"

It's the only logical solution you can think of, if Bryant has passed out. Or maybe it's drugs. Either way, it's not good.

Irving and Mario stare at you, then both start laughing. Probably at you. Ouch.

1. Ask them what they're laughing at, and hope it's not you. (AAM.)
2. Ignore them. They're not worth your time, anyway. (AAN.)

AAE.

Your curiosity wins. Big surprise. You look Mario in the eye, hold up your hand, and say, "I solemnly swear that whatever happens between us stays between us, and us only."

"Me too," Irving says. Although that's sort of cheating, because he hasn't technically sworn himself to anything.

Mario breaks a weak smile, looks behind his shoulder to make sure no one can overhear him, and then turn to the two of you with a very serious face.

"I'm experimenting on my purple bunnies along with Bryant, but lately, Bryant seems to be too fondly attached towards the smallest one, and I'm afraid he won't let me carry out my experiments anymore."

Uh, what?

1. Try to say something intelligent. Even if you have no idea what Mario just said. (AAG.)
2. Just keep on staring. When in doubt, stare. (AAH.)

AAF.

"I'm sorry, Mario," you say, "but I have to go. Dino's waiting for me."

Mario doesn't even look at you, but Irving drags you back and says, "Come on. This is probably good. You don't want to miss it. Dino can wait a while."

You try to protest. "I really don't think—"

"I love you, Irving," Mario suddenly says. Irving drops your arm. You drop your jaw (hey, you can't drop your own arm). What? Did you just hear that right?

"I was going to give you this bag of donuts," Mario continues, "as a present, you know. But I ate it on my way here."

"I—uh—you—" Irving sputters.

1. Ask Mario, "Are you serious?" (AAK.)
2. Tell Mario, "So are you going to get Irving any other gift now that you've eaten his?" (AAL.)

AAG.

You decide anything is better than plain silence, so you begin to form some words in your throat. Or, more like, you begin to gurgle and babble.

"Uh—well, what—I mean—that—"

Luckily for you, Irving is much more level-headed. "What kind of experiments are you carrying out on these bunnies?"

You think there are much more pressing questions, such as why are you experimenting on bunnies? or why are these bunnies purple? or even why and how is Bryant involved in this craziness? But since Irving is the one with the words, you keep quiet. Perhaps you should reconsider the friends you make, but it doesn't matter now, since you're going off to college soon anyway.

Weren't you just thinking that you're glad college is so far away? You think you might have had a change of heart, because you can't imagine anything more wonderful than college "happening" right now, taking you away from Mario and his purple bunnies.

No offense to him, or Bryant, in any way.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)

AAH.

You can't vocalize your thoughts, so you just stare at Mario. As does Irving. Both of you stare at him, then at each other, then at anywhere but each other.

"Ahem," Mario says. "Anyway, I thought I should bribe Bryant with some donuts (you were right about the contents of the bag) so he'll forget about the bunny, but I accidentally ate all twenty donuts."

Well, twelve, twenty. Big difference. Besides, it's not as if anyone can win their way with Bryant through his stomach.

"What are you going to do now?" Irving asks.

"I don't know," Mario says. "I've been stressed out over it, but I think I'm going to get #4 to steal it while I talk to Bryant so he thinks I'm innocent."

That doesn't work, you want to tell Mario, because you're 95% confident (plus or minus 3%) that Bryant can read minds. But you're more concerned about who this #4 is, and you don't think you really want to know.

1. Ask Mario who #4 is. It can't be that bad, can it? (AAI.)
2. Whatever. It's not like you want to know, anyway. Right? (AAJ.)

(AAI.)

Once again, curiosity gets the better of you, and you decide to ask.

"Mario, who's #4?"

Mario stares at you as if you had just suddenly morphed into Dino. Ew. Bad thoughts. Really bad.

After a long, long silence, in which Irving just stares at the two of you as if you two were really fascinating, which, you would like to take a moment to say, you really are fascinating, Mario suddenly says, "Oh."

Huh?

"You should know #4. He occasionally goes to stat, if #1 can't go for some reason."

You're really confused right now. "Who's #1? Who are these people?"
"Wait, you mean you don't know #1? Oh no, what have I done?!"

Mario runs down the hall, wailing, and leaving both you and Irving possibly forever traumatized. And you still don't know who #4 is. Actually, you're not sure if you really even know Mario by now, and everything seems this huge mix of thoughts and memories.

1. Give up. This is just way too weird. (QQUIT.)
2. I don't have any other options, so if you don't want to quit, then, uh, the end? (THEEND.)

(AAJ.)

Before you can do anything, Irving speaks up. Nervously.

"Oh, hi, Bryant—"

You look over Mario's head. Bryant is there, glaring at the three of you. Or maybe he's just glaring at the back of Mario's head. Mario spins around, stares at Bryant's evil eyes, and stammers, "Uh, hi, Bryant, funny seeing you here."

"You were thinking about killing Cuddles!" Bryant screams.

"Cuddles?" Irving asks. "You named your bunny 'Cuddles'?"

Bryant turns to glare at Irving instead. Which is rather fortunate, because now he is not glaring at you. You slip behind Mario and co. just as Dino pokes his head out of the math team room and asks, "What are you screaming about, Bryant?"

You know you're Dino's brother and all, and you should save him from his fate (or what's left of it, anyway), but your life is at stake as well. You pray that Dino is good enough friends with Bryant, or Tybalt will come out and calm Bryant down, or—

Really. Why think? Just get out of here while you still can. Now.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)

(AAK.)

"Are you serious?" You ask, afraid to hear the answer. It does stop you from looking like a gaping idiot, though, so at least something is good.

"Of course not," Mario says. "I was just going to say that to Bryant, so I can distract him from more important things."

"Like what?" Irving asks, having caught his breath.

"Like how I'm going to be having #4 steal his baby purple bunny away for my experiments."

That is very, very strange. Too strange. You have lots of questions to ask, but perhaps this would also be a good time to get away and find Dino and tell him of this craziness.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Stay for a bit longer. Maybe Mario will spout more nonsense? (AAJ.)

(AAL.)

"Hey, uh, Mario," you say. "Are you going to get Irving any other gifts then? I mean, since you've already—"

Mario looks at you suspiciously. "Maybe," he says. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing. It's just, well—oh, nevermind."

"Are you jealous of me?" Mario asks.

You can still hear Irving sputtering. Maybe he's choking. You hope it's not serious, but you don't dare look at him what with the (deathly) looks Mario is giving you right now.

"No, I'm not!" You defend yourself, silently promising never, ever to get in Mario's way, ever. "I don't even like Irving. I like, uh—I like Melissa!"

Which is a lie, but she was the first person to pop into your head. Probably because she's standing a hundred feet away, looking at you.

Life just doesn't get any better, does it?
1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)


(AAM.)
You decide to get to the bottom of this. "What are you guys laughing at?"

"Ha, alcohol—" Mario laughs, tears forming in his beady eyes (maybe it just looks beady because of the tears). "You thought we were drinking!"

Irving howls. "Come on, Owen! You can do better than that. Think about it. It's Mario. And Bryant. What could they be doing?"

This isn't really funny, and you don't see why they're laughing like this, when—

You can't seem to stop laughing yourself. Everything's hazy, and you're not sure what you're saying anymore, but it makes Mario laugh, which makes Irving laugh, which makes you laugh, which makes Mario laugh even harder, which—

As you start to fall unconscious from lack of oxygen, you think you see Bryant's outline, along with... a purple bunny? You must be dreaming, you think, as everything turns dark.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. you can't breathe). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)


(AAN.)

You ignore the two of them and go into the math team room, where Dino, Tybalt, Argon, Tea, Gretchen, Ginny, and Micro are doing math problems. Not surprisingly, Bryant isn't there.

"What's going on outside?" Dino asks you.

"Nothing," you say. "Just Irving and Mario being—"

You want to say "jerks," but suddenly the laughter stops, and then someone screams. You rush outside, with everyone following you, and you see something purple and a skinny backside that sort of resembles—who was it again?—you can't remember. Mario and Irving are gone, and the skinny back disappears before you can call it to stop.

"Hey, Owen," Tybalt suddenly says, "have you seen Bryant anywhere? He went out with Mario, but he hasn't come back yet."

Bryant—skinny back—yeah right. They can't be related.

1. Whoop-de-doo! You've arrived at an end (i.e. the authoress got bored of this plotline). Try again? (THEEND).
2. Even though you're at the end, you decide you want to quit anyway. ("What?") (QQUIT.)





THEEND.

Yay! You've reached the end of the story, or whatever is left of this story. If you wish, you can: a) leave a comment below; b) go back to the beginning and try again; or c) leave a comment below.


QQUIT.

Oh dear, what happened? Did you fall into a wormhole and lose consciousness while aliens invaded the planet and ate your favorite Hershey's bar? Whatever the reason, it's too late now. Go back to the top and try again, and maybe you'll have better luck this time.

Things Aren't Always What They Seem

So, why does everyone seem to think that I am dating Vincent? (And yes, I am applying the "two people equates everyone" rule here.) I mean, yes, we're together a lot, and perhaps we have an over-propensity for hugging each other, but it's not any more than he hugs Amanda, and unless we have a polygamy relationship going on that I am not aware of, I really don't think I give off "dating" vibes.

Not that I would know what those are.

Anyway, in English class today, our desks were arranged weirdly due to tests, so we chose our own seats. Dora came over, sat in the desk next to mine, and turned to whisper to me,

"Are you and Vincent dating?"

Almost as awkward as when Argon asked me, "Are you in love with me?" Which was a huge miscommunication, probably on my part, as I drew a picture of a caged heart (because I really like to draw hearts and I got tired of drawing them with wings), and gave it to him after class one day.

Bryant was behind us at the time (hopefully a safe distance away). He didn't say anything, and I do hope he did not hear anything. I wasn't particularly articulate at the time.

Regardless, in an attempt to rebuff the whole I'm-dating-Vincent rumors, because they are utterly not true, I told her, "I like someone else anyway."

Okay, perhaps that was the wrong way to end this discussion, as it had an adverse effect.

"Really? Who is it?"

After seeing that I would not tell her straight out (because, really, I never do), she tried at guessing by asking questions.

"Is he in our grade? How tall is he? Is he skinny?"

Not that it matters anyway, since he'll probably never like me back well, it just won't matter. I like keeping my secrets at times. Although, keeping them for too long does get quite tiring and troublesome, as I've decided lately.

So I indulged a little. He's in our grade, he's taller than me (as most guys are, it seems, big shock there), and he's not skinny, I don't think. I think that cuts down 85% of the guys at our school.

He is also smart, as Dora figured out. Why this automatically makes Bryant the first choice, I do not know. Okay, okay, I do know. Still.

But he's eliminated in the "he's not skinny" round anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter either.

(I drew a picture of Bryant in physics yesterday, and showed it to Nyx and Camel, and they said that he was still not skinny enough, despite the near stick-like arms I drew on him. But he's on track, not wrestling, so he should fare fine in life.)

Luckily (for me), the bell rang at that time, so I did not have to divulge too much information. I stammered my way through the last question ("what color is his hair?"), and went to get my stat and calc book for Moody's on Sunday. I saw Tea in the hallway, talking with Angela, I think, about something.

"--they really ate it?" Tea was saying.

"Yeah, why? Should they not have?"

After much confusion and lots of explaining from Tea, I finally managed to piece together a coherent sentence. Treeburg actually ate my pudding!

And they actually said it tasted decent. I feel like I should flaunt this in Owen's face, as he was so unsupportive of my pudding. Although, I'm not sure if this will become a "Treeburg has weird tastes" evidence. Because, uh, it was butterscotch. A huge plate full of wobbling, brownish butterscotch pudding.

I wouldn't eat it unless my life depended upon it.

As Tea and I walked out, I saw Vincent again. We talked for a bit, and then as we approached his bus, we hugged again. Now that I think of it, he is a) in our grade, b) taller than me, and c) relatively not skinny, as compared to the likes of Bryant and such. But he's ruled out in the hair color round.

Life's coincidental like that, I suppose. My story of how Dino's apparently attached to fuzzy, grey baby bunnies pales in comparison.

Overdue-Part I

I have not posted anything in... more than I week, I believe. Probably two. Who knows?

Anyway, the good news is, I'm back from my sort-of-hiatus.

Bad news?

If you count my jittery, hysterical nerves as bad news, then I guess that's it.

As probably 99.5% of people who actually read my blog knows, I was at a school-wide challenge thing yesterday. As for the 0.5%, I'm too worn-out to explain in too much detail. Maybe some day later. Maybe...

Anyway, as Mogley said, "What happened in room 108 stays in room 108."

Yeah right. What happened in room 108 goes directly here, of course.

It all started early yesterday morning, at around eight in the morning, to be exact. My mom had driven me to school, because I still do not have my permit yet (a sad fact that is prone to change). We arrived really, really early. Way too early. In fact, there was only one other car there, and the door was locked.

So my mom suggested we circle the school, which I agreed to, because it was way too cold to wait outside, and there wasn't anything else to do. When we made a circle and came back, the doors were thankfully open, and I departed from my car just as the person in the car in front of me opened the door as well.

Guess who it was?

Reese, of course. Who else would be here this early? (Ignore the fact that I'm early as well.)

We made our way upstairs to the supposed meeting room, and I told him how my mom predicted that no one was going to show up, because, well, I had completely forgotten about the existence of the challenge until late last night myself.

"Oh," Reese said. "I have Joss's (when I named Joss as such I was not thinking of possessive problems) phone number."

But as it turned out, Joss was the last person we had to worry about, because he showed up (despite Argon's remarks of how unreliable he could be) early as well. Something about "I get to miss rowing for this, and I don't want to go to rowing."

Whatever the reason it was.

We were assigned a room (room 108 here, for identity's sake), and we headed over right away to set up. Which included Reese connecting his laptop ("it's way better than Camel's" even though the brand is the same) to the Smartboard. Of course. After moments of flickering screens, plug-in problems, and various other mini-disasters, he gave up synchronizing his laptop to the Smartboard and settled for the projector instead.

By this time, we were set to begin anyway, and Mogley and Ben showed up as well.

We were all here, and excited. We each took a copy of the problem, and half-ran towards our room, closing the door behind us. We were going to begin. Totally.

Right.

Half an hour in, Joss said, "I'm hungry. When's lunch?"

We all stared at him.

"Lunch will probably begin at... noon?" I said.

"Oh, good, because I'm starting to run low on energy."

The minor food episode aside, we returned to focus on the problem at hand. Reducing carbon emissions and water and energy usage? Converting to renewable energy sources? How hard can that be?

"There's this really cool thing," Mogley suggested, "that's a wind turbine, but it's in the shape of a balloon and floats high in the sky."

"Turbiiiine," Reese said.

"What?" Mogley asked.

"'Turbiiine.' Not 'turban.' You said 'turban.'"

"No," Mogley said. "It's 'turbin.'"

"'Turbiiiine!'"

"'Turbin!'"

"Turbans are the thing you wear. On your head. If I searched up 'wind turbans," there wouldn't be anything."

And Reese proceeded to do exactly that. We stared at the Smartboard intently. Right after he pressed enter, a picture of a guy wearing a turban with turbines popping on top showed up.

We all laughed as Reese tried to resume on his argument.

"Well, if I searched it in Merriam-Webster, it would say 'turbiiiine.'"

"Go ahead," Mogley said.

So we waited as Reese went on Merriam-Webster, searched up the word 'turbine,' and pressed the audio button.

"Turbin, or turbiiiiine."

"Ha!" Mogley said. "It said 'turbin!'"

"No," Reese said. "It said 'turbin,' or 'turbiiiine.'"

"But it said 'turbin' first."

"But it also said 'turbiiiiine.'"

"Enough!" I shouted. "We're going to compromise. We're going to call them 'turbies.'"

We quieted down (slightly) after that. Ben declared that he would be responsible for the "food unit," whatever that meant. I sat down on the ground (because I hate the school's chairs, and Reese wouldn't share his squishy chair), and Joss sat down beside me to let me use his shoulder as a pillow. Mogley resumed his wind turban searchings. Reese dedicated one of the cows to be a "music cow," opting to play piano music.

"Can we play something else?" Ben asked. "The piano's good and all, but it's putting me to sleep. We need something to energize us."

"Okay," Reese said. He fiddled with the cow, and soon heavy metal music filtered out.

"Come on, seriously?" Joss said. "Anything's better than this music!"

"It's not my fault," Reese said. "It's an online radio station." But soon he changed it to Kesha's "Tik Tok."

". . . brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack," Mogley sang. I stared at him.

"What?" He said. "I've heard that song all night at Counties."

"That's so disgusting," I said. "Why would you brush your teeth with Jack?"

"It kills all the bacteria," Mogley said, matter-of-factly.

"So do you spit it out, or do you swallow it?"

"You swallow it, of course."

I wanted to ask, And you would know this because?

But all I said was, "That's still disgusting."

"Yeah," Mogley said. "It is. But at least you get rid of all the bacteria."

We went back to work afterwards. Ben tried to find the energy budget our town had, but failed. Reese tried next, but failed as well. So I tried next, obviously. And failed as well. In frustration, I wrote on one of the blackboards, in huge letters, "Life sucks. Why can't our town's budget papers be clearer?"

"Nice handwriting," Joss said. "It looks like graffiti, but more legible."

And he promptly added "SPARTA!!!" under my words.

"Hey guys," Reese said. "I've plotted water usage by year into a chart. It's steadily rising."

"Good," Mogley said. "How about you plot it as a function to population? Because obviously water usage is going to increase with more people."

"Okay," Reese said. "A ponction--function--a ponction to fopulation."

After a while, Reese said again, "Hey guys, I don't think this is working."

"Why not?" Mogley asked, but then he looked up and realized. The "ponction" for water usage per person was actually... decreasing.

"Well, it needs to decrease MORE then!"

I started cracking up, and we all started laughing, and I started laughing more because everyone else was laughing more, and soon I couldn't catch my breath.

"I--I need to go outside--to calm myself down."

Joss agreed and followed me outside. We went down the hallway, while I tried to talk about unrelated things to stop laughing.

"Pink, fluffy bunnies," I said. "Pink fluffy bunnies under purple clouds, with green rain and..."

"Somehow I doubt that's your solution," Dino said as he walked past us.

We ignored him and kept on walking while talking about pink bunnies and purple clouds. As we reached the end of the hallway, we turned around, and that was when we saw a picture of our cafeteria tables on the school's TV.

What?

Joss and I started laughing even harder. I don't even know why we started laughing. I guess the enormity of the situation was just too funny, or that was what I thought. Joss took out his phone and videotaped the cafeteria tables "as proof," but to what purpose, I have no clue.

We laughed all the way back, and when we passed by the math office, we went in to grab some more water.

"They're in the corner," Mrs. MacDonald said, pointing. "Would you like some snacks as well? We've got lots of cookies and brownies and other treats."

We each took some treats, and then walked to the corner to grab our water, when I discovered that there was tea as well.

"Hey, organic tea!"

"Oooh," Joss said. "Let's get some tea as well."

So we each took a can and walked--or more like ran--back to our room. I had a piece of brownie half in my mouth when I opened the door, and Mogley spotted me.

"Where did you get the food?" He asked.

"Mhmm-mmphm," I said.

"The math office," Joss added.

"They have food?"

"Yeah," I said, having swallowed the brownie. "They've also got tea as well."

Mogley, Reese, and Ben immediately ran out.

(I was going to write everything in here, but I'm running out of time, so I shall have to compromise, and write more tomorrow. I'll get to the Team Darkness part tomorrow, as well as all the other parts that eventually turned me into a laughing mess by the time everything ended.)