“Ruby red or fierce orange?” Kate asked her cat, Judy. Judy looked at Kate for a moment and then hopped onto the red skirt, knocking it over and leaving Kate holding the brown hanger. Judy was a long ginger cat, always either tearing stuff up or hiding.

“I still don’t know whether that means you hate it or want me to wear it.” Kate looked at Judy and chuckled for a bit. Kate flopped onto her black bed with a sigh, relieved after the long day at school.

School was a bit annoying that day, due to everyone talking about the dance and classes constantly stopped for the teachers to make sure people had the money for the raffle (so it was worth the teachers to do it).

“I can’t wait for the raffle, oh, Glacier National Park would be beautiful!” Kate sputtered out, talking to herself while looking at Judy 

Kate decided to go with the ruby red skirt and red top sparkled with glitter. She decided after a bit of searching through her hairstyles in her sketch journal, she went with a tight bun. As she walked out of the house in her sharp red heels, she decided to take a quick stroll to visit Charlie before the dance. Kate walked for about 10 minutes, from suburban houses winding down to Charlie’s farmhouse.

Kate clenched her fists as she knocked on the wooden door. Charlie swung the door open immediately, nearly scaring Kate to a scream by how fast he opened it.

“Gosh, that was quick.” Kate popped out of her mouth. “What were you even doing right outside of the door anyways?”

“Doesn’t matter, let’s just go.” Charlie quickly replied, confusing Kate but she just dismissed it. Charlie was wearing a baby blue shirt and some jeans.

“Your fashion sense still scares me.” Kate moaned toward Charlie as he stepped out of the doorway to go to the long road.

“What else do you want me to wear, my old soccer jersey?” Charlie replied with a semi-serious tone.

“Let’s just go.” Kate motioned toward Charlie.

Kate and Charlie walked down the long gravel road and took a stroll for 10 minutes, wandering more than going in an exact direction.

“Are you sure where we’re going?” Charlie asked Kate, beginning to be a bit worried.

“Yep,” Kate replied, “Just taking a shortcut”. Eventually, the houses slowly morphed from small farmhouses to medium-sized suburban houses. When they hit the sidewalk, they were headed for a trait path to the dance. 

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“Hey, y’all!” Ian exclaimed as Kate and Charlie entered the auditorium of the school. Mateo and Mary turned their heads to see them enter and they waved “hi” to them. 

Ian was wearing the same shirt with a clown that he did during school today, still with his messy jeans and crazy look. Mary was wearing a long, lilac dress with her hair into a braid. Mateo was wearing The auditorium was packed with students. The room was illuminated with party lights of so many colors you couldn’t tell what the color of the walls and floor were. There was a table filled with a small selection of food, punch, fruits and vegetables, crackers, water, cupcakes, and cookies. 

“Where’s Mrs. Doubtfire?” Kate asked Ian, searching the room.

“Guess…” Ian pointed to the stage, where Mrs. Doubtfire, a small teacher running the raffle, was gathering cash from students and putting slips of paper in a small sequined tophat. Mrs. Doubtfire was in her outfit she wore to school this morning, a small green shirt with some capris. Despite being 53 years old, she still tried to be the “cool” teacher. 

“I still need to put my money in…” Mateo mentioned in a quiet voice, motioning towards the stage.

“Same,” Kate quickly added to Mateo.

“I should probably come too. I also haven't entered yet.” Charlie continued to add on, starting to stroll over to the stage. “Y’all can come with me if you want,” Charlie added onto his own sentence, sort of talking to himself.

Mateo and Kate followed Charlie quickly, squeezing in between several students. After a full minute of sneaking through the crowd, the trio had finally made its way to Mrs. Doubtfire. 

“Ahhh, hello! What are your names?” Mrs. Doubtfire asked Charlie, Kate, and Mateo.

“Y-you, just saw us during social studies today…” Charlie replied to Mrs. Doubtfire, starting to question her a bit.

“Sorry dears, well, would you like to enter the raffle?” Mrs. Doubtfire sputtered out to the trio.

“Yes please,” Kate replied to Mrs. Doubtfire. 

“Well, it’s only $10 to enter the raffle. If you win, you get to go see Glacier National Park, right before the glaciers melt away.” Mrs. Doubtfire piped to the trio.

“Yeah, we heard that at least ten times today.” Mateo directed towards Mrs. Doubtfire, starting to reason with her.

“Well, you like to enter, Charlie?” Mrs. Doubtfire piped to Charlie with a smile, as if trying to sell it to Charlie.

“Er, no thanks. I think I need to go… grab something from my locker.” Charlie made up as he went along. Charlie squeezed away from the stage while Mateo and Mary looked at him, worried.

What am I doing? Charlie asked himself. Why did I leave? Like, it was all normal, except for Mrs. Doubtfire begging me to enter the raffle. Well, that is normal, she wants people to enter the raffle. But yet again, what would she get out of it? It’s not like she gets paid to volunteer at the school dance. Charlie reasoned with himself.

Charlie left the auditorium only to hear Mrs. Doubtfire shouting that the results for the raffle will be drawn in a few minutes. Dang it, Charlie thought in his head. 

Charlie swung the doors of the auditorium with excessive force against the walls.

“We can’t let the students know.” Charlie heard a tentative voice whisper around the corner of the dark hallway. “They’re too close to figuring it out.”

“Keep your head in the game!” a deep, booming voice erupted through the hallway. 

Charlie peeked his head into the hallway to see Mr. Collymore, one of the many teachers that works at the school. Mr. Collymore was wearing nothing special, just a small navy blue shirt and some sweatpants. He had dark brown hair with brown eyes, fiercely looking at Ms. Belmont as he held her against the wall. Ms. Belmont was a tall teacher, with long black capris, a small t-shirt, and long brown hair in a ponytail. She was trying to hit Mr. Collymore but he just punched back.

“What are you doing?” Charlie popped out to confront the teachers.

Mr. Collymore ran up to Charlie, leaving Ms. Belmont falling to the ground, gasping for breath. She quickly got up and ran down the hallway, screaming as loud as humanly possible. Charlie started to sprint back towards the auditorium but Mr. Collymore sped up with incredible speed and lifted Charlie off the ground.

“What the hell?!” Charlie screamed as Mr. Collymore flung him up to the ceiling. Charlie slammed into the ceiling, leaving a small dent as he fell back down to the floor. His nose started to bleed as he crawled over to the auditorium, gasping for breath. Mr. Collymore grunted and stepped on Charlie, crushing his back as he screamed in pain. Mr. Collymore added more pressure to Charlie’s back, forcing Charlie to stay on the floor. Suddenly, Charlie managed to wiggle out and shoved Mr. Collymore to the ground as Charlie ran back into the auditorium, hoping to be able to warn everybody and blend into the large crowd of people.

People stopped and stared at what Charlie looked like, with beaten clothes and a tad bit of blood still dripping from his nose. Charlie searched through the crowd, searching for anyone that he thought could help him. Charlie wandered for a bit to find Kate and Ian, talking by the snack table. 

“Well, what happ-” Kate started to say as Charlie cut her out.

“We need to get out of here, now!” Charlie demanded, dragging Kate and Ian to the fire exit.

“Wait, I see what’s going on here…” Ian stated. “You just wanna get away with a prank to win class clown from me,” Ian exclaimed to Charlie, shaking his head.

“No, look, Mr. Collymore just beat me up, and we need to go,” Charlie shouted towards Ian.

“Wait, are you serious?” Kate shouted towards Charlie, her eyes widening in fear.

“Yes, of course, I’m-” Charlie started, but Mrs. Doubtfire cut him off.

“Hello, I'm here to tell you the winner of the raffle. We’ve received 297 entries so even though you do have about a 0.3% chance of winning, I hope you enjoyed the fun.” Mrs. Doubtfire piped along. “And the winner is…” she started as she grabbed a slip of paper from the sequin hat. “Kate Ramirez!” Mrs. Doubtfire exclaimed.

“I have to go. Email it to me!” Kate shouted as she shuffled to the fire exit, shifting her look from Mrs. Doubtfire to the door.

“Hold on a second…” a loud voice erupted from the crowd. “Where is Charlie Roberts?” the voice continued. That voice scared Charlie to death, it was none other than Mr. Collymore. 

` Charlie sprinted to the exit, losing Ian and Kate in the crowd. Charlie reached the door and swung it open. A loud, high-pitched siren went off, the fire sound. He forgot that that would play and everyone would try to escape. Charlie sprinted out of the auditorium while students piled outside.

“There he is!” a high-pitched voice shrieked from the crowd. Someone had recognized Charlie sprinting down to the sidewalk, his feet pounding as he tried to avoid everyone. Charlie started to turn the corner of the sidewalk to go back down to the park where he could hide for a while before emerging to go back home. He tripped briefly and stumbled back up again, this time running to one of the trails in the park, remember that one of the trails, “Town Road”, went to the end of town and ended right in Mrs. Luso’s house, the neighbor across from Charlie. 

Charlie ran along “Town Road” and ended up behind Mrs. Luso’s house. Charlie quickly ran by the side of her house and across the street to his house. He opened the door and slammed it close. Charlie sprinted upstairs to his bedroom as he pounded on the stairs.

Charlie swung open the door to his bedroom and jumped onto his small bed covered by darkness. He lifted up the blankets that he had piled onto it previously and hid under the blankets. As he hopped into his bed, he noticed a small piece of paper tingling his feet. He reached into his bed and retrieved the piece of paper, noticing a small amount of writing on it. He began to read it out loud.

“The Empire State Building, this card recalls, go to the place where the water falls,” Charlie said out loud, confusing himself. He flung the slip of paper to the floor.

“Wow, what a waste of paper. That’s just another one of Sadie’s so-called pranks.” Charlie mumbled as he snuggled into his bed. He slowly closed his eyes as the day went to a close.