Stoneybrook Ayr

The students arrived at the Lodge mid-morning, and just like every other year, hot chocolate and cookies were waiting for them.

Marty was so sure his mother was going to leave on Christmas that he didn't know why he was surprised when he got the note less than a week after New Years. It was on the table. Written in her swirly cursive and scented of lavender. Even as he picked the piece of notebook paper up, he was thinking how cliche it was that it smelled like lavender. He knew his dad hadn't seen the note yet, so he put it back on the table and rooted around in his pocket for his phone.

Instinctively, he started to text Sheila, but changed his mind quickly.

clarissa is gone, he texted Robert. the b!tch left

She hadn't specified if she took Rachel with her, but Marty suspected Rachel would have told him, and he saw her pink sneakers still standing by the kitchen door. That cheered him up, but not enough to refrain from digging around in the fridge looking for a beer.

When he couldn't find any, he texted Robert again, even though he hadn't responded to his previous text yet.

heading to o'tooles

The only seedy bar in town had the blindest bartender. He believed every single fake I.D. he ever looked at. It was the perfect place.

After leaving Ty, Brock was heading towards his car when he spotted Miranda. Giving her a wave, he gestured for her to meet at his car. He didn't want to be spotted, bhe just wanted to go home and sleep.

"You leaving too?" he asked her, assuming she was ditching also.

Amelia had texted Miranda to meet her in the usual spot as soon as the bell rang for lunch. She saw her friend coming, and gave her a grin.

"Every winter I swear I'm gonna give up smoking," she said to Miranda, in reference to the cold weather outside. She pulled her hand out of her pocket where she was keeping it warm, bringing out a carton of smokes.

"I need to ask you something."

Mariah had just about gotten over the fact that she hadn't been getting any good parts in any shows when an actual speaking role fell into her lap. She was just so excited that she had to tell someone, and the only one around was Miranda.

She sighed. It wasn't that she didn't love her twin -- she did -- it was more that her twin didn't exactly care for soap operas. Or really Mariah acting in them.

"Guess what," she said, expectantly.

Miranda grabbed a Coke from a vending machine and headed outside as soon as the lunch bell rang. She snuck out through the gym door and leaned down to check her boot. Sliding her hand in her boot, she felt around, but could only feel her ankle.

"Sh!t," she cursed as she straightened up. She was deciding whether she wanted to go all the way back to her locker or just have a Coke for lunch when she spotted Ty turning a corner.

"Yo, Ty!" she yelled just loud enough for him to hear. "Wait up!"

Miranda couldn't stop thinking about the news Mariah dropped on her the other day. She still didn't know whether to believe her or not, but that wasn't the point.

She couldn't be outdone by her sister.

She decided to go to Brock's house. She rang his doorbell and waited impatiently for someone to answer.

After spending most of the evening watching TV in her room, Miranda went down to the kitchen for a soda.  She was considering going out for awhile, since being home was boring her to death.  She had just went into the kitchen when she saw Mariah by the refrigerator.

"Grab me a Dr. Pepper?" she asked Mariah as she sat at the table and leaned her chair all the way back.  She put her feet up on the table top and kicked her slippers off.

Great Barrier Reef
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_barrier_reef

The flight from LA to Melbourne was long, but most of the travellers slept through the night. A full day was planned, which is an important step towards beating jetlag.

*

Mariah was officially bored. The gap between New York and the trip to Australia had been longer -- and duller -- than she'd anticipated -- and she was fed up with Stoneybrook, Connecticut, and the fact that there was nothing to do there.

So she carried Patches downstairs and found Miranda in the living room with the television on. She sighed, loudly, and dramatically.

"Miranda, I'm bored," Mariah said, whining loudly. "There's like nothing to do here."

Miranda needed to get out of her house.  Her parents were home, which meant it sucked there.  Deciding to go shopping for the Australia trip, she headed downtown.  But shopping to Miranda = Dull City, so she was taking her time...and decided to take a little detour past a certain butcher shop.

She opened the door and smirked when she saw Brock behind the counter wearing a bloody apron.

"Meet you out back?" she asked him, leaning against the doorjamb and folding her arms over her chest.

After the encounter she'd had with Diana, Mariah had come home, thoroughly annoyed. She'd just been trying to be nice and Diana had been so mean and Mariah hadn't really understood what she'd been saying half the time and basically Mariah was really confused. This was typical for her, to be honest.

She arrived home to find that she'd received two new scripts -- one for The Bold and the Beautiful and one for The Young and the Restless -- and that Miranda was sitting at the table opposite them. She sighed. But she sat anyways because Miranda was her twin and she wasn't the one she was annoyed with anyways.

"Hi," she said, softly. "What have you been up to?"