Author's Note:
This is a long one so bear with me. If you just want to read the story, hit "Ctrl+F" and type ~oOo~

Okay, so I know it's been WAY too long since the last time a BR chapter made its way here. Actually, it was supposed to be unpublished, but the site hiccupped at some point, republished it, and I took that as a sign towork on another chapter.

Back in February of this year, Ashly and I started it, and by April it was finished. But I was moving at the time, and then a couple of months later my dad passed away suddenly, and my whole world kind of got turned upside-down for awhile.

But as some of you might know, it was a Christmas Eve that I finally created an account on TopShelf and started blogging. That night changed my life in SO many ways. I honestly wouldn't be here today without the friends I made through this site, so it seemed fitting to finally post the next chapter of BR, my very first novel, on that anniversary :-)

I can't promise the followup chapters will be quick, but I can tell you we have a good bead on where we want the book to go. I also can't promise that the writing style will be what you remember. Ashly and I have both changed, as writers and as people, in the last seven years. But there won't be any sudden shock changes like Nikki getting pregnant, etc. I promise ♥

Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate, and thanks for being the one home I know I can always come back to no matter how dark the world outside my door gets.
~ Zoe

School had been going pretty well all things considered. I decided to go through with switching out Anatomy and Physiology for AP Chemistry after confirming that we would indeed have to operate on an actual specimen - cats. I almost cried, actually.

But I was much happier in Chemistry even though Nikki and I weren’t assigned as lab partners. It wasn’t anything intentional, though, just random luck of the draw from the big fish bowl of names.

I had just stepped out of the locker rooms after changing into my gym shorts: I actually had the presence of mind to wear a tee shirt over my sports bra today since this was tryouts and not a practice. I stopped to tighten my purple shoe laces on my athletic sneakers, when another pair of sneakers stepped into my field of view.

I looked up, and found Rachel grinning down at me. “Hey Spirit,” she said, giggling.

“Rachel!” I squealed and leapt to my feet to hug her. “What are you doing here?”

“Surprise?” Rachel giggled again. “Natalie and I talked it over, and we’re now renting an apartment here in town. Our parents flipped of course,” she laughed, “But once we explained that we wanted to be closer to our friends here they calmed down. Dad’s even paying half rent so long as we go to college.”

“So,” I had to ask, “Are you guys...”

Rachel laughed and shook her head. “Oh God no. I like boys - no offense,” she teased.

“Hey, none taken. So I guess this means you’re trying out? Can I put your name forward for the Co-captain position?”

“No thank you,” Rachel said. “I’m all in on volunteer work, but I’ve got my hands full with a part time job and school. I’m working at this cool dojo, and Natalie got a job waitressing part time at the pizzeria.”

It was at that point that one of the freshmen approached us. “Um, sorry to interrupt but um,” she said nervously as we turned and smiled back at her. “I know this is totally last minute, but can you run through the drills with me one last time?”

“Sure thing Courtney. Hey, Rachel,” I said, turning to her, “Want to help?”

“Sure,” Rachel grinned. “What do you need me to do?”

I laughed a bit. “Just call. We’ve got another twenty minutes before tryouts start so if you can call out a move, I’ll demonstrate it, and Courtney, you try and copy it okay?”

Courtney gave us a nervous smile, but nodded.

“Don’t worry,” I said as we took our positions on the rolled out gym mats. “I was told we won’t be doing aerial stunts as part of the tryouts, to make the playing field more even.”

“Good,” Courtney sighed, “Cause I’m terrified of heights. In junior cheer we’re not allowed to do aerial stunts anyways,” she added, as Rachel began to call out dance moves and cheer maneuvers at random.

“You can always be a base or a spotter,” I said, trying to reassure her, and keep up with Rachel at the same time. As we progressed, more and more girls joined Courtney in front of me, until it started to look like I was teaching an aerobics class by the end.

Sasha came up beside me, handing me a towel. “What did I tell you about overachieving getting you called on?” she teased and giggled.

“I was just trying to help,” I answered honestly, but laughed a little too. “I still think you and Tracy are our best bets for co-captains though. You have the experience.”

“Thanks,” Sasha said. “Part of me really wants the job, but I’ve never led anyone. I can’t even get my dalmatian to sit,” she giggled out, as Tracy made a playful bark noise at her. “If I do get nominated, will you help me?”

“We all will,” Tracy said.

“Yup,” Chelsea added, grinning. “The ‘C’ is a lot of pressure, yeah, but I’ve never once felt like I was going it alone. I had Victoria to turn to for advice, but I had the support of the squad behind me, too.”

“You know,” Coach Greer said, clearing her throat, “For someone who doesn’t want the position...”

“I know, I know,” I laughed. “It wasn’t my fault. Courtney wanted to run through drills one last time.”

“And the rest of us just thought it looked like a good idea,” Jennifer giggled.

Tryouts went pretty well all things considered. There were the expected bunch who had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but Coach Greer gave them a fair chance, and no one hurt themselves - not even me. It was good for the Sunshine girls to get to see how tryouts progressed as well, though they weren’t as strict about technicals since they were largely new to the whole thing.

I was relaxing with a bottle of water, chatting quietly with some of the girls, when Elizabeth, Victoria’s mother and the woman who was now the Sunshine spirit squad’s coach, sat down with us and grinned.

“So, what do you think so far?”

I stifled a small giggle. “Well you can really tell who’s been practicing. They’re pretty rough, but so was I.”

“Yeah, but you’re like Kung Fu girl,” Chelsea elbowed me playfully. “I think they could make it to state easily though, if they put in the work.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Elizabeth said, “I’d like to bring in some professional help, sort of a cheer boot camp, once a month. Would that be something you girls would be interested in doing too? I’ve already talked to Angela about holding combined practices at my house. She loves the idea, and frankly I do too, but it’s up to you, too.”

“Oh hell yeah,” Tracy said. “We’ve been talking about that too. We didn’t want to step on your toes, or make your squad feel like we were trying to show them up or anything, but if they’re cool with it we would love to hold combined practices.”

“I love helping others,” I said before I could stop myself. Jennifer giggled.

“And I get a whole new audience to harass with my proverbs,” she said, grinning.

Julie, who was a freshman last year, let out a playful groan, causing Jenn to giggle a second time.

“Well since you like to help,” Elizabeth said, grabbing my hand. “Come on coconut, you and Tracy are up too. I want to show these girls some aerials.”

“Eep.”

Work on the haunted house had really come along nicely. We even had a couple of robotics experts building special, random jump scares for us courtesy of some connections I had made at girl scout camp. It turned out that Alice had some geeky friends in high places.

We were really going to play up the “haunted asylum” aspect, too. It was funny how much work we put into cleaning up the place, only to make it look old and abandoned again, but it was necessary for both guest safety, and our own. We not only had girl scouts volunteering now, but also the entire drama department, courtesy of Laura and Tracy, and all proceeds were going toward the Disney trip next year.

What I didn’t expect though, was just how massive our little project had gotten. When I arrived at the place, there were two rows several vehicles long of cars, trucks, SUVs, and even a pack of motorcycles parked close together at the far end. A large man, standing at least 6 feet, and dressed in a leather jacket was talking to another man in a polo shirt near the entrance. The more clean cut man had short, graying blonde hair

He turned to me as I approached. “Robin, right?” he asked, extending his hand.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Rob Wilson,” he answered, and it hit me that I was shaking the hand of the mayor of Alpine Springs himself. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

“John Walker,” the biker said cordially as he offered his hand next. “Oh,” he added with a laugh, “I’m Tracy’s uncle.”

“Oh!” I said sheepishly. “Nice to meet you,” I said as Tracy poked her head out and giggled.

“I figured, what’s scarier than a bunch of bikers?” she said as she came outside. “Uncle John’s motorcycle club is going to help us with security and some of them volunteered to actively participate in jump scares throughout the attraction.”

“Oh, that’s amazing!” I laughed now.

“We’ve got a ton of people from all over Alpine Springs volunteering,” Tracy continued. “It’s like once word started getting around, anyone with any kind of building experience wanted to help There’s even a professional contractor from New Haven here. Nobody’s fessing up who hired her though.”

Tracy grabbed my hand at that and pulled me inside. I couldn’t believe how much work had already been done. They had put up new drywall and painted it, not a true, pure black, but dark shades of red and blue in different places that, even with the overhead lights on, felt a little disorienting, and the beginnings of static decorations were laying around here and there.

What truly impressed me though, was it seemed like everything was going according to our original design plan. I had hoped to keep it sort of small and low budget so that we could focus on polishing what little we could afford, and still be able to fund our trip, but it seemed our benefactors wanted to scale it up.

Kris was standing near the dental room, watching a technician wire up some kind of sound system when Tracy and I joined him. He glanced at us, and grinned.

“So I’ve been talking with Mary,” he said. “The asylum really is pretty far off the beaten path for a youth center.”

I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that too. A charter bus is the best I can come up with.”

“Nah,” he said. “We’ve got a better idea actually.” He winked. “You remember how you said converting this place into a haunted attraction would be the ultimate F you to the monsters that ran the place?”

I nodded, and Mary came up behind us. “Well, we decided to leave it as a lasting memorial,” she said, grinning now, too. “It’s going to be one of those year round things. We’re going to hire full time actors and everything, with a portion of proceeds going directly to the Girl Scouts.”

“Of course,” Kris added, “We’re not going to push you out either. We’re only talking hiring full time actors after Halloween. This is your baby. But we figured since we were planning to tear it down before, that you wouldn’t mind too much if we left it up instead.” He winked, and I had to laugh.

“No, that sounds great,” I said. “What about the youth center, though? If you’re not building it here-” Suddenly, a bone chilling howl of pain rang out from the sound system. Tracy and I squealed, and even Mary jumped a little. Kris, who had seen it coming, burst out laughing.

“Sorry,” the technician said, grinning sheepishly. “How does it sound though? I set it up so that the sound should carry in the immediate area, and once Melissa gets the rockwool insulation in place it should be deadened past the first turn.”

“Might be a little shrill,” Kris answered, adding, “Maybe bring it down just a few decibels, but otherwise it’s perfect.” He turned back to me again. “As for the youth center, well, we got an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

Mary spoke up at that. “Ya know that old armory building near Tony’s? Big 3 story brick building, bit of an eyesore really,” she laughed.

“Kind of like this place,” Kris laughed too. “The city’s going to tear it down. There’s going to be a city council meeting to decide what to do with the land, but the mayor and two city council members want to build a youth center there, since it’s close to Tony’s place.”

“Since teens already hang out in the area,” Mary added, “They figure it’ll be more business for Tony rather than competition if we built it way out here, too, so it’s win-win.”

Evin with all the adult volunteers - which made life much easier for us, allowing us time for crazy things like homework and cheer practice - I still did my share of heavy lifting, and I paid for it. My shoulders stung by the time I got back to Margie’s. I still had homework to do, so I headed over to Allison’s to meet up with the girls.

We were sitting at the dining room table rather than taking over the den, and Nikki had just grabbed a bottled water for me, when we seemed to both notice at the same time that Jennifer was staring blankly at a page in her AP Chem textbook. Allison leaned over and poked her. “You okay?”

Jennifer shook her head. “Just trying to figure this out. If there are four laws of thermodynamics, why do they label them zero through three?”

Nikki laughed a little. “Because it sounds smarter,” she answered, grinning. Jenn laughed now too.

“Oh,” she answered. Nikki shrugged.

“That’s probably not far off though. It’s like “new math”. Math hasn’t changed in 3,000 years or whatever, but in the last like ten years they’ve changed how to write it, made it more complicated.”

“Is that to do with the advancement of scientific fields like quantum physics?” Allison asked. ‘I mean I know quantum physics isn’t exactly new.”

“All I know about quantum physics is that Einstein hated it,” I giggled out. “I like the idea though. I mean, according to quantum physics, a particle can exist in two places at once - it can both be, and not be.”

“Schrodinger’s cat makes my head hurt,” Nikki chimed in. “I mean how can a cat be alive and dead?”

Carol surprised us when she spoke up. “It was a thought experiment meant to illustrate the problems with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.” She paused as we stared at her, and then laughed. “It’s supposed to give you a headache. He was trying to show that quantum mechanics’ rules break down when you go above the subatomic scale - or at least that’s my understanding of it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the thing. You can’t apply the rules of quantum mechanics to everything else, but you can’t apply the rules of everything else to things at the subatomic level, either. That’s what makes it so fascinating, to me anyway.”

“She’s been binge watching science documentaries on Netflix,” Nikki teased.

“When do you even find the time?” Carol asked jokingly. I couldn’t help laughing too.

“Before bed usually, I like to unwind listening to something like that while I’m doing my kata. I didn’t know you knew about quantum physics stuff though,” I added, realizing that in fact, I didn’t know much about Allison’s mom at all.

“Oh yes,” she said. “I minored in astrophysics for fun in college, but my major was Psychology. I bet you didn’t know that I write a Psychology blog either?” she asked, grinning.

“Really?” I had to ask. “Why don’t you like have your own practice?”

Carol laughed as she sat down with us now. “I’ve been waiting for one of you to ask me that question for years.”

“Now I’m curious too,” Allison giggled. “I just always took it for granted that you were a stay-at-home mom.”

Carol nodded. “Well, remember your father was a military man. Before he retired, when we still lived on the base, I actually worked as a civilian contractor. They figured that since I was already there, and had passed security clearances, they might as well hire me,” she teased. “But retired life was just too much for him so when he took the job with Bob’s advertising firm, I settled down to raise my two girls. I don’t regret it even for a moment.”

“Just another degree of separation,” Nikki laughed. “Like how Margie and Kelly know each other even though they’re from opposite ends of the country. I mean Margie having family here helps, but it’s still weird.”

Carol laughed. “Kelly just really wanted to get away from New England for awhile. Anyway, if you girls need any help with your homework, now that my little secret’s out, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Yeah, not exactly homework,” Jenn said, “But I got a question. Why are the laws of thermodynamics labeled zeroth through third?”