Ethan Adams

Chapter 4

After Tuesday, the week pretty much flies by. Before I know it, it's late Friday afternoon and I'm walking over to Janet's house after drama club. Ethan did show up again on Wednesday but not today. Mrs Apendale has us preparing to choose our autumn performance already so I'm pretty upbeat.

Speaking of Ethan, he's been around. He insists on walking with me to school instead of taking his damn car but I've been practising patience around him. I think he's sensed that I'm trying not to let him annoy me so he's stopped hanging out as much.

When I get to Janet's house, I'm not surprised to see Ella's already there. She's been a little moody the past week but nobody blames her – it was a bad (and very public) breakup so I don't expect her to be in the happiest of moods for a while. She'll come around when she's ready.

"Hey, Alisa!" Janet gives me a hug. I say hello to her mom and go to the living room, pulling a bottle of mountain dew out of my bag and sitting on one of the couches.

When we weren't working together at McDonald's this summer, I spent a lot of time over here just relaxing and playing Super Mario and Ocarina of Time on Janet's old Nintendo 64. We unveiled it at the beginning of May and pretty much wasted our days off on it. It was fun and reminded me that I could just be a kid again, especially after such a stressful school year.

"Ella and I were just talking about this weekend!" She says to me as I sit back.

"Cool. Have you got your schedule yet?" I ask her.

"Betty said I can work eight hours on a Sunday and show up twice a week for two four hour shifts. Thinking of Thursday and Wednesday?"

I grin. "I got the Sunday and Wednesday shift too." The two of us high five and I catch sight of Ella's expression. "So how are you doing?"

She shrugs. "Today I saw Josh and Jessica sitting together at lunch,"

Oh dear. "Yeah? Well, they were probably having a terrible time and playing it up," I attempt to reassure her.

It doesn't have the desired effect because her face gets a lot sourer. "That's stupid. They were having a great time, anyone could see that."

"Well, they could've just been acting?" I try again. She glares at me.

"Oh yeah? Know anyone who's good at it? Because I don't. " She snaps and I feel physically winded. "I know what I saw."

My face heats up and I open my mouth to tell her off but remember that she's just saying things because he put her in a horrible mood. So instead, I release some breath through my nose and smile like her comment didn't bother me... or take a huge hit on my self-esteem.

Who's the bad actress now?

"So!" I turn to Janet who is looking between the both of us from behind a pillow. "What were you talking about again?"

She straightens out. "Well... the weekend. I made plans tomorrow, I was wondering if you guys would like to come!"

I grin and sit back. "Pray tell me, who were the plans with, Janet?"

Her cheeks go pink. "With a friend... who is bringing his friends?"

"Does this friend's name begin with an A and end with –Nthony?"

She throws her pillow at me but I just catch it and laugh. The two of them have been hanging out a lot – she even showed up to school early to 'share notes' about English class with him.

"Shut up, Alisa." She says, her cheeks going pink. "Do you guys wanna tag along anyway? He said he'll bring E- two friends so I thought I'd bring two friends and who better than my closest two friends?"