"Hath anyone ever told ya that ya hair is like... Dat chocolate water fountain. Yeah. The one from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I can thotally see that. I could just eat it up."

Then Alex started gnawing at my hair.

I think you could say that she was sufficiently drunk, thank you very much.

It only took one distinctively familiar "WHOO" from her to make me realise that maybe she was having a little too much fun and that I'd need to abandon my tour of Charlie's house to rescue her.

She wasn't puking yet though, which was a good sign.

"You know," she started. "If we were characters in a movie. I'd totally be the main character. You'd be the sensible sidekick that keeps. Me. In. Check."

I smiled in vague acknowledgement and looked worriedly for Charlie. She needed to sleep right at that moment, and he was our ride home.

I also didn't know how much longer I could stand personal-space-invading, very drunk Alex.

"Hello, Mrs Girl-who-can-argue-for-America! Fancy seeing you here!"

I smiled at an incoming Kendall, who was already smiling at me.

Once he reached me, I let myself laugh and reply, "that's a pretty long last name. Especially since my real one only has 4 letters."

He raised his hands in surrender, "that's fair enough. But you should really try to make a witty greeting with the music as a distraction. It's very hard."

"You're HOT!" Alex interjected. It was funny, because she wasn't even looking at him. Her eyes were closed.

"Thank... You." Kendall replied with a chuckle. "How drunk is she right now?"

I looked at her forlornly. "On a scale of one to ten? I'd say, a solid seven. But she's not very aware of personal space. She was chewing my hair less than a minute ago."

"Ah," Kendall said with his signature chuckle. "It means you probably want some company."

I nodded and he sat beside me. We were sitting on a couch and watching the party progress right in front of us. The lights, the dancing, the music, the people. It was all very overwhelming if you weren't really in the party mood.

"So," Kendall began. "What brings you to this bomb party?"

"The food," I immediately replied, nodding my head in assurance. I didn't want to tell him that I was only here because Alex forced me to, and that the only enjoyment I'd found was snooping in Charlie's house and finding a Perry the Platypus poster.

"I, too, came for the beverages. I dunno, parties aren't really my scene most of the time. I had to do it for Alan, though. You have no idea how long he's been waiting for control freak Mandy to break up with him."

I sat back on the couch, intrigued by the story. "Why didn't this Alan guy just break up with her and avoid all the grief?"

Kendall chuckled, "yeah that's the thing. Breaking up with Mandy Williams is just something you don't do. She will bring hellfire on us all, condemning Alan to a sad, lonely life because girls would be too scared to date him for fear of her wrath. He realised all this when he got to know that Mandy's last boyfriend was the most unpopular guy in school. People hated him, and they didn't even know the reason. Only Mandy did, and she felt no remorse. So, you see, one simply does not break up with Mandy Williams. You have to get her to break up with you. Make her think it was her idea this whole time."

I was dumfounded. How could one girl cause so much... Havoc? In my experience, if you were so problematic that people needed complex strategy to avoid you (and threw a large party when they finally got rid of you) then something needed to change somewhere in your personality.

"So how did Alan manage to let her think it was her idea?"

"Well," Ken (I'm calling him Ken because, well, I don't know. The name suits his chubby little cheeks.) began. "Alan's kind of stinky rich. He was convinced that she only went out with him because of his money, not that she would admit it. So - and this is actually kind of genius-"

He leant forward and I automatically did the same. Alex, by this time, was sound asleep and snoring a little.

" - he subtly and slowly got it into her head that his family was going broke. He did all this stuff like pretend to have no money in his wallet once in a while and be mortified when he asked her to pay for dinner. When she went round to his house, he hid the most expensive stuff that he knew she would notice. Stuff she'd admired. She was too polite to ask where they had gone."

I smiled as he whispered. It was kind of a genius idea. It didn't make me much of a fan of this Mandy girl, however.

"The best thing about his plan was when he got his mom involved. He got her to complain very loudly in the next room to him that they were running out of money, and they'd have to sell his phone. Then he went back into the room with her - a little teary - and brushed it off. It was perfectly realistic.

The next day she broke up with him - something about them being two different people going in two different paths. He could hardly contain himself when he told us."

I smiled triumphantly, happy for the guy even though I didn't even know him. "And it was the perfect plan because she didn't want to admit that it was because of the money, so she wouldn't blame him because she was the one that made the decision. Therefore he's free and she thinks she's let herself out of a broke relationship easily. Win-win."

Ken beamed and leant back on the couch smugly. "Like I said. Genius."

I let the impressed expression remain prominent on my face. I wanted to meet the mastermind myself.

The song changed to a louder song with a faster beat, and everyone screamed in unanimous approval. Alex's eyes shot open, and she looked around like she didn't know where she was. She ran her hands through her hair sleepily.

"Sierra?" She asked, unsure.

"In the flesh," I replied. "You okay?"

She looked from me, to Kendall beside me, then back to me.

"Well, I gotta go puke. But you're telling me about this hottie later." She patted me good-naturedly on the shoulder.

And with that, she sauntered off with an air of grace and stability. It was classic Alex - she looked like she was going for a job interview, not going to vomit the alcohol her body didn't want.

"Well she's a character," said Ken, taking a sip of his drink.

"Yes. She's my best friend," I agreed without argument.

I scanned the room for Charlie - Alex needed to go home, and frankly, so did I. Ken and Alex were the only things making it bearable.

"So, tell me about yourself. Coming all the way from England, you've gotta have some sort of story."

I shook my head in denial. "No story. Just lived my life. My dad got a job here. Moved here. Started - again - to live my life in a different location."

"C'mon, there has to be a story! No cheating boyfriends with charming Geordie accents? No embarrassing afternoon tea session with The Queen? No time when a crumpet fell from the sky and hit you on the head?" He was laughing at this point.

I pretended to be angry. "It's stereotypes like that that decrease the nobility of our great nation. Apologise at once!"

He leant on my shoulder and pouted. "I didn't mean it."

I slapped him on the shoulder and started laughing. It was the kind of laugh where you throw your head back and your shoulders shake at a peculiar rhythm. I was laughing so hard I didn't see Charlie approaching.

"I've been looking all over for you, Corgy. Where did you go?" His eyes drifted (a/n HAHA) from me to the boy next to me, whose head was on my shoulder. His eyebrows shot up in recognition. "Kendall, my man! Glad you could make it," he said, fist bumping him.

I guess everybody knew everybody in this school.

"Well you know I had to support Alan. His plan took like, what, the whole summer to execute."

"Yeah, by the start of the year I was just about ready to break up with her for him." Charlie agreed, chuckling.

Their conversation carried on, moving on to the start of the football season. They then started to argue about something football-related, but I lost interest. My thoughts drifted (a/n IM ON A ROLL) back to Alex, who surely had to be done by now.

"Yeah, sorry to interrupt and all,"
I interjected bluntly. "But there is a puking Alex that needs to be taken home, like now. Not while she's still puking, of course. Just, like, soon."

Charlie nodded, checking his pocket for what I hoped were car keys. "I'm just gonna take them home, I won't be long. Kendall, can you and the other guys make sure everything's okay while I'm gone? And by okay, I mean nothing breaks and no-one dies. Because if something breaks I will die. My mother will personally kill me herself."

Kendall chuckled and nodded. He rose
from the couch and went on his quest to find the rest of the guys.

"Let's hope the rest are as sober as he is." Charlie said, nervously glancing back the way Ken had gone.

I smiled gratefully, "Thanks for this. Really."

"Anything for a Corgy," He replied and ruffled my chocolate fountain hair.

I sighed. "Now we just have to look for Alex."

*

15 minutes later - after looking in both of Charlie's bathrooms and back at the bar (because it's only Alex that would want alcohol back in her system within the same 10 minutes of  her body rejecting it) - we found her at Charlie's car, sassily tapping her foot and looking at a watch that wasn't on her wrist when she saw us approaching.

"It's about time you love-birds came to join me. You know what? Even though I feel pretty groggy and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna feel worse tomorrow (and then I'm gonna have to strategically hide the affects of it from my mother) and I gave 3 guys my number but I'm pretty sure they're not going to text me, I regret nothing. Thanks for hosting, bud." She hit Charlie on the arm enthusiastically and bounded into the car after Charlie unlocked it. We exchanged a look of pure disbelief.

"Well are you coming in or not?" Alex yelled impatiently.

"Uh, yeah," Charlie replied cautiously.

That is the night that we both had the same realisation that Alex was superhuman.

***

The drive back was calm and pleasant. Charlie focused on the road, Alex took up all of the back seat and drifted (a/n OKAY IM DONE IM SORRY) in and out of sleep.

5 minutes into it, Charlie began to speak. "So, how do you know Kendall?"

I leant my head on the back of the seat and watched the twinkling lights of the dark road ahead. "Oh, we go way back. I met him today in fifth period. He's in AP English Lit with me. He's a pre-tty cool guy."

"Indeed," he agreed.

An idea suddenly popped into my head. "Do you know anything about the G+T programme?"

Charlie glanced at me curiously, then turned his head back to the road. "I may do," he said. "Why?"

"My teacher told me to consider it."

"You should, it looks great on college applications."

I sighed. Nowadays everything was about what looks good on an application. "What actually is it? All I know is that you go on a cruise during spring break."

"It's basically a competition within the school. You enter in the subject you choose and compete in challenges. Whoever wins overall becomes the school's representative for that subject. You go on the cruise as a reward, but from there the school can summon you to go to national competitions or do important things that are oriented around your subject. Only the best of the best win, and you're basically a school ambassador. Only seniors can do it. I really recommend it, it'll give you some good skills."

I nodded, impressed. I didn't believe that Mr Small actually thought I could potentially be the best in the whole school!

"I can think of one more reason why you should think about it." Charlie said, not taking his eyes off the road.

"What?" I asked. What else could be better about the programme?

"I'm running for sports, so it means we'd be seeing a lot more of each other." He glanced at me and winked.

I chuckled.

The silence that came after didn't last too long, as Alex broke it after momentarily waking up.

"Are you guys gonna kiss already or am I gonna have to push your heads together?" She slurred, then collapsed back into her seat and resumed her soft snoring.

She would remember nothing of this night tomorrow, and I knew she partially wasn't in the right state of mind.

So I forgave her for making the rest of the journey awkward as hell.