too hot for words

May 2081 - (2080/81 school year update)

The Lakeside Heights school district is bursting at the seams this year, as it usually is. But with the Lake City Building nearing completion and scheduled to open on time for the 81/82 school year, that should help thin things out a bit. Not so much for these families, but for the incoming crowd, a large group of young families in Lake City who have chosen not to send their children to Lakeside Heights schools. But this is a good thing, because there isn't really room for many more here.

Our tenth graders are one of the brightest classes in Lake County right now. They're all scoring top grades, even if their choice of essay topics isn't always appropriate.

But it's spring, the last week of May, and romance is on all of their minds no matter how well they do on their essays. The older students are all buzzing about prom right now, which happens this weekend. Beau and Tyler are juniors this year and are invited to attend, which of course means Summer will be going too. So it doesn't matter that they've both just had their applications to LCU accepted, or that Tyler is just a few training sessions away from earning his soccer scholarship - they're going to prom this weekend!

Melissa is far too young for prom, far too young in fact to even be sitting at this lunch table with the older kids. She only gets to sit here because Lucy is dating Dallas, but she doesn't care how or why she's sitting here, but just that her leg is actually touching Beau Jackson's leg right now! Nobody else knows that. She doesn't even think he realizes it.

She's so blissed out right now that she doesn't even realize what he's saying, complaining about his breakup with Yvette, and that who on earth is he going to take to prom on such short notice?

So, blissed out as she is, she's quite stunned when he turns to her and says, "Hey, Mel, you want to go to prom?"

She can't even move. Is he serious? This a joke. This has to be a gag, right? Seriously, Beau Jackson can't really be asking her to prom!!! Even more astounding was that he actually called her Mel, rather than "Lucy's cousin." Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, he knows her name!

But then Lucy chips in, "Hey Beau, there's Vicky. She's single."

And everyone looks at Vicky and starts to laugh.

Dallas is trying to work on his karma though, and says, "That's not nice, guys. You shouldn't tease her." But how can they not tease her? Look at how she circles the table like a vulture, seething and glaring at Lucy, ready to pick her head off! Lucy is actually kind of scared of her. Why do you think she keeps so many friends around?

But the fact of it is that Melissa doesn't need to disappear, because it seems nobody else at the table noticed that Beau Jackson did, actually, truly, and maybe not seriously, asked her to go to prom with him.

It wasn't that asking Melissa was a joke - it wasn't that. But it wasn't serious either. It was supposed to be funny, maybe? What would you call that? Seriously, though, she's thirteen!

Beau has only been aware of her existence on this planet for five months now, and he has to say she's quite intriguing. She does this thing sometimes, where she just closes her eyes, like maybe she might actually become invisible.

By the time she opens her eyes, lunch is over, and someone has even cleared her plate for her. Beau is chasing Tyler out the door. Dallas is following after Lucy. It's okay though. She can't really be mad. It's not like Lucy knew. It's not like anybody knows.

Except for Summer? She says, "Aww, you like him! That's sweet."

Melissa fumbles her words, "I, uh, I just..."

"I know when people are thinking about it," Summer says. "I can tell, flushed cheeks, lost in your head. I think about it all the time too."

"Who, Beau?"

"No!" Summer says. "Sex."

"Oh, no, I wasn't thinking about, um..." Melissa doesn't know if she can even say the word SEX out loud. "I haven't done that before, you know, sex."

And just as the word, SEX, leaves her lips, Melissa's FATHER comes into the cafeteria from teaching his 4th period gym class, and sits down at precisely the WRONG moment. Melissa thinks, Oh my GOD! She closes her eyes. She closes her eyes like she's never closed them before.

Is she invisible yet?

Hazel Monif and Natalia Deppiesse will start junior high next year, and they get a little talk about growing up, but the girls aren't very eager for it. You know the horror stories kids tell the fifth-graders about junior high. Meadow says, "Oh, come on, girls, it's not going to be that bad! Nobody really gets stuffed in their lockers, or their heads swirled down the toilet. Well, almost nobody anyway."

Melissa would like to point out, at least their parents aren't teachers.

Oh, Lucy and Dallas, please never grow up! Don't they just make your heart smile? :)

And as Friday evening winds to a close, bringing the weekend and the much-awaited prom, Beau passes by Melissa and her dad in the hallway. "See 'ya, Mel," he says. "Hey, Mr. Fortney."

Melissa is thinking, He really does know my name!!!

Sheldon is thinking, She's not even fourteen yet! Why is she even talking about sex? Sheldon doesn't like the look of that boy! He can't seen any reason why his little girl needs to be friends with high school boys, and she shouldn't be hanging out with those older kids anyway.

It doesn't matter though, this school year is over now, and Sheldon feels quite pleased with his decision to move Melissa to Lake City Junior High next year.

***

Beau finally decided to ask April Hutchins to prom, April who he dated back in the seventh grade. She never got much taller, though she did lose that weird mohawk. Though she's still definitely weird! And she likes to talk about knitting apparently.

Though Summer Phoenix is anything but weird. She's perfect! And Tyler lacks the words to even describe how beautiful she is tonight.

Apparently she's made an impact on everyone!

And even though they've only just arrived at Riley Hall where their prom is being held, Beau decides to sit out the dance with this other poor dateless sap.

It's all going wrong! Not only does he have quite the inappropriate infatuation with his brother's girlfriend, but it appears his date also has a crush on Summer. And even worse, is that there's Yvette, in a white dress which matches her hideous date with the long nose and boy-band hair! And Beau thinks he might have loved Yvette after all. How do you even know if it's love or not? And is he in love with Summer too?

He just feels kind of crappy about it all.

"Oh, lighten up, so what if she's hot!" April says. "Like you would kick her out of bed."

"I would!" Beau says.

"How about if she wasn't dating your brother?"

Beau says, "I don't have to answer that!"

So Beau tries to lighten up a little. Maybe he did love Yvette. Maybe Summer is too beautiful for words. It doesn't have to ruin an otherwise perfectly good night, and maybe April isn't exactly the kind of girl he wants to end up with (if he even knew what kind of girl that was), but she tells the raunchiest jokes, and she's kind of fun. Actually, he knew that back in junior high. She's always been a lot of fun.

She says, "Chill out, dude. I think you're pretty hot too, I wouldn't kick you out of bed either. In fact, I'd probably take you both."

Man, does that make his head spin in a thousand directions!

Tyler and Summer are also having a lot of fun tonight, lost in their own little world for two. Summer feels kind of like Cinderella right now.

And Tyler has never been one to find the right words, and thus cannot even describe how lucky he feels to be with the undisputed prettiest girl in the room.

Of course, it just wouldn't be prom without a good fight - don't worry, none of our kids had anything to do with this.

And in the end, we suppose they're all pretty darn hot. It's a hot night in general, beautiful clear sky and a light breeze.

They're all a little sweaty from dancing. So they cut prom, with one hour left before Summer's curfew, they walk down the hill to Lakeside Beach.

And they strip down, leaving their gowns and suits hanging over a fence to swim in the lake. They do it because they can, because school is out for summer, and because they'll mostly all be eighteen in three months, and there's no freer feeling in the world.

Beau would like to say that he kept his eyes on his own date. He would like to say that. And he did, for the most part. But then consider, is it worth the trauma of maybe seeing his brother's bare ass in the scant moonlight, to catch a glimpse of the most beautiful girl alive?

Well, he refuses to answer that question. But he will say that if it's entirely cliched to lose "it" on prom night, he isn't going to complain, and that strange, fun, wild April Hutchins makes a man out of him in that lake.

And at least they get their bathing suits back on before Summer's grandfather, Captain of Police, Micah Phoenix shows up. He's not on official duty or anything, but you know, they missed her curfew by three hours.

*** outtakes ***

While deciding to have a crush on each other, April and Beau both fawn over Summer.

Vicky is still not over Dallas and Lucy! Ugh, daggers through the heart, man! And she'll glare at them because they're friends with Lucy, and anyone who knows Lucy or ever talked to Lucy! She'll glare until the day she dies!!! ;)

Seriously, I had to pick her up and move her because she was glaring in all of my pictures!

notes: We haven't had prom in a little while because we had a bit of a gap in our teenagers, but there's going to be a pretty steady stream of high school students for a while, so you'll get a prom update every May, as long as there are students eligible to attend, and I don't get bored of doing proms, lol! Maybe some of them won't want to go, or will do something alternative, like when Mariah and Luke cut prom to go to the beach.

I'll also throw in an end-of-year update for all Meadow's school kiddies. I'm playing the school-kids each May, and having Meadow do the LCU lots on her own turn, because it's just too much to do all at once. So I'll tack on the schools update here at the end. You don't need to see every boring minute of kids sitting around and skilling, but I'll just share the highlights.

*** schools update ***

The Lake City Schools building, currently in developement.

Just testing out some of the objects on the lot, and I thought this was funny. Little four-year-old Devon Shaw getting a kick-boxing lesson, and not only that, but Meadow gives the lesson in heels, lol! :)

Some of the classrooms are already functional, like this science room. And Jim gets put to work on teaching his first fourth grade science class. Doesn't Angelo look enthralled??? :)

The Bluewater students are also doing well. Fiona was the only one of them who went straight to work on her reading assignment without prompting. Maybe it helps that her mom is a teacher here.

But it's a full day's work trying to pry these two apart! Robbie and Liza can often be found goofing off by the vending machines. Ah, well. They're good kids once you point them in the right direction.

That's it for Lake County kiddies! School's out for summer! Stay out of trouble and don't forget the summer reading! :)