"No," Courtney moaned as she dug through the cabinet drawer. "Are you sure it's in here?"

"I think so. Hurry up. My arms hurt," Dave called from the step ladder.

It was three weeks later and two days before the Fourth of July and most of the students were gathered in the upstairs lounge. It was a tradition that every Fourth of July the group would watch a movie in the afternoon and then head down to the beach for a cookout and swim party. And, of course, everything had to be festive. Therefore, Dave was standing on a step ladder, holding up red, white, and blue streamers. He was waiting for Courtney to get the tape so he could put his arms down.

Over by the stereo, Christian, Gabe, Max, and Trey were making mixes for the barbecue (to listen to, not to cook). At that moment, "Whatever" was blasting. Colleen, Sarah, Vinnie, and Rob were all sitting on the sofa, blowing up balloons, while Alison and Beth sat on the floor, tying the balloons together with string. Courtney was still rooting around in the cabinet. Lindsey and Aaron were tango-ing around the room for some reason, and Alyson and Erin were sitting at the table, making up a grocery list.

"You'd better put Jimmy Buffett on that mix!" called out Erin to Christian.

Christian rolled his eyes. "Eri, I'm not listening to 'Fruitcakes' all night."

"I didn't say it had to be 'Fruitcakes'. How about . . . . . .'Everybody's Got a Cousin in Miami'?"

"NO!" said Gabe. "I'm not sticking Jimmy Buffett on these mixes!"

Erin glared at him. "So then what are you putting on them, huh?"

Gabe grinned. "White Zombie and the Offspring."

"Gee, Gabe, that's so much better," retorted Erin. She turned back to Alyson. "Write down Doritos."

"Doritos . . ." Alyson said as she wrote it out. Then she checked the list. "Okay, I think we now have enough food to choke a horse."

"And yet that still won't be enough to feed Christian," commented Courtney as exited the caverns of the cabinet and handed Dave the tape. Then she headed over to the stereo to check out the CDs.

"Very funny," said Christian, flipping through his CD book.

"You know, she's right," said Erin, grabbing the list and pen from Alyson. "I think we need to double all our quantities. So that's . . . 8 packs of hamburgers, 6 packs of hot dogs, a few more pieces of chicken, another 5 cases of soda . . ."

"Gee, you guys crack me up," interrupted Christian. "Hey, Al? Do you have the Oasis CD by any chance?"

Alyson nodded. "Which one?"

"What's the Story."

"Why?" asked Alyson.

"Cause Max wants 'Wonderwall' on this mix. Can you go get it?"

Alyson sighed and stood up. "Sure, make me strain myself," she said sarcastically, then headed out of the room and down the hall to grab the CD.

"Uh, Rob? I think you should stop blowing up balloons," said Colleen. "Your face is turning red."

Rob took a balloon out of his mouth and leaned back. "Sounds good to me. I was getting sick of that balloon taste."

Vinnie grinned. "Aw, you mean you don't find that appetizing?" He took a breath and blew into a blue balloon.

"Yeah, about as appetizing as eating a beach ball."

Alison glanced up from the floor. "You guys have the weirdest conversations."

"Hey, we're not weird!" said Rob. "We're just exploring our creative sides."

"More like your psycho sides," commented Colleen. "Who on earth eats beach balls?"

"Somebody must," said Gabe over "Machinehead". "People eat trees."

"Ew, gross!" shouted Lindsey. Aaron and she were in the middle of a dip so her head was upside down.

"It's true!" said Gabe. "I saw it on TV! Some guy did it!"

"Why would anyone want to eat a tree?" asked Sarah. "Did their local 7-11 close?"

"He wanted to get in the Guiness Book of World Records," said Gabe. "He said so."

"He ate a tree just to get in the Book of World Records?" asked Beth. "That's sick."

"Hey, people'll do anything for money," said Max.

"We should try it," called out Dave. "We should all eat something weird and get in the book."

"Um, okay, Dave," said Erin. "You go eat a tree and we'll stick with real food, thanks."

"Dave's eating a tree?" asked Alyson, coming back in the room. "I leave the room for a minute and Dave's eating a tree? What, did we run out of pretzels or something?"

Dave glared at her. "Does the word 'joke' mean anything to you?"

Alyson smiled. "Yeah, I make 'em all the time. But that still doesn't tell me why you want to eat a tree."

"He wants to get in the Guiness Book of World Records," explained Colleen.

"No, I don't!" shouted Dave. "Geez, people! It was sarcasm! I didn't really mean it! Alley's sarcastic all the time and no one thinks she's weird!"

"Well . . ." started every single person in the room.

"Hey!" yelled Alyson. "I am not weird! I'm just creative."

Aaron looked up at the ceiling. "Here we go again."

"What?" Alyson asked defensively.

"We already had this conversation," explained Sarah.

Alyson looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "You mean you guys went from talking about being creative to talking about eating trees?"

"Actually," said Lindsey, "they went from talking about eating beach balls to talking about being creative, back to talking about eating beach balls, and then to talking about eating trees."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense then," said Alyson, looking at Erin as if to say these people are nuts!

"Come on, Alley, we gotta go shopping!" said Erin, jumping up.

"Where's the CD?" asked Christian. Alyson tossed the CD to him and headed out the door after Erin. "Thanks!" called Christian behind them.

"Somebody wanna help me here?" asked Dave. Everyone looked up to see him completely wrapped with streamers. He looked like a mummy from 1776, so everybody cracked up.

"It's not funny!" shouted Dave, sorta laughing himself.

Sarah got up and helped Dave unwind himself from the streamers. "Dave, you're pathetic," she laughed.

"I got confused," said Dave defensively. "I thought they were twisting the wrong way, so I stepped under them and . . . I guess it didn't work."

"Guess not," smiled Christian. He was scanning the Oasis CD. "Trey, you spend 99% of your time listening to music with Alley. Are there any good songs on this CD?"

Trey nodded. "Um, 'Roll With It', 'Some Might Say', and 'Morning Glory' are good."

Christian scanned to "Morning Glory." He grimaced. "Oh yeah, Trey, this is real cool."

"It is!" said Trey. "It just has to grow on you. You can even ask Alley. Well, if she was here, you could."

"Are you two okay?" called Courtney from her seat beneath Dave. She was watching him tape up the streamers.

Trey studied the CD player. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you guys haven't been talking to each other much and you're supposed to be best friends." Courtney looked at everyone. "Don't tell me I'm the only one who's noticed this."

"You're not the only one," Vinnie assured her. "You two mad at each other?" he asked Trey.

"No," said Trey. "I don't know what you guys are talking about." What he didn't want to tell them was that talking to Alyson would be awkward ever since he'd found out that she liked him and that every time he tried to talk to Alyson, she went the other way.

"She used to spend every night in your room, watching TV with you," said Lindsey. "Now she's in her room every night. How come?"

Trey shrugged. "I don't know." Changing the subject not too subtly, he headed toward the door. "I'm gonna get that Violent Femmes CD you wanted, Max," he said, then left the room.

"Something's going on with them, and I wanna know what it is!" said Courtney.

"Knowing them, they probably got into a fight about something stupid," said Christian. "Don't worry about it. They'll figure it out." He put another CD into the player and hit play. "Cheeseburger In Paradise" came blasting out of the speakers.

"Too bad Eri's not here," he smiled.

Gabe jumped up and hit stop as fast as he could. There was NO way that he was gonna listen to Jimmy Buffett.