Ship Wars V: The Party Girl Strikes Back

Half of Marco’s brain protested while the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of his alarm clock filled his ears. “Nah” his brain said “You were up until the wee hours, you deserve a lie in mate”. Unfortunately, the other half didn’t agree.
“Marco~” it yelled “Get up so you can tell me what you did last night!”
Oh no, never mind. It was all of Marco’s brain trying to get him to roll over and a certain Star Butterfly hammering on his bedroom door trying to wake him up. He began to roll over, and grumbled indecipherably.
“I know I just heard you move!” she giggled
“Come on Marco, you’ve got school today”
Oh, this was just fantastic. His mom had heard that he’d been out super-late, but luckily she didn’t seem to mind too much. Maybe he’d survive. Groaning again, he fought valiantly to open his eyes like the band Guavro Apes sang about, but for a few seconds it was not to be. He managed to unstick his eyelids and spin himself so that his legs stuck out his duvet, and his feet were hit by the early cold of a November morning. He flipped into a seated position and sunk said feet into a pair of unbelievably comfortable slippers, then smacked his alarm clock to shut it up.
He yawned, stretched, yawned again and almost curled up on his bed again before he found the strength to stand and walk to his bedroom door. Opening it, he pressed Star’s head to try and shut her up.
She didn’t work like that, no matter how hard he wished she did.
“Aww Marco, you’re so cute when you’re tired” she mused, watching his face become confused as to why alarm clock #2 hadn’t stopped.
“Dang it Star, not so loud please” he whined, and began to pad downstairs.
He walked slowly, stomping lightly, his face plastered with the signs of a decent kip cut short – purple bags under his eyes, his hair looking like a cow had licked it. If it had been a cow from the movie Twister, that is. He caught himself smiling at the memory of CG cows spinning wildly around a tornado, mooing. The memory of a scene he’d found pretty funny in a film Star didn’t like for some reason was hard-pressed to find focus in his mind however, as his ears were being bombarded by early-morning hyper Star.
Most of the time when Star was woken to go to school in the mornings, she’d moan and groan until at least she’d had some breakfast but when she was told she had something to look forward to she’d explode out of bed like a barn in a movie Marco found himself rapidly losing prominence of memory over. After this difficult trek from Mount Upstairs to the depths of the Downstairs Trench, Marco found refuge in a chair and a bowl of cereal. The glass of orange juice helped, too.
He finally responded to Star, who hadn’t made a coherent sentence since just before her host had opened his eyes that morning.
“What promise?” he said, now much more awake after a few spoonfulls of whatever cereal this was Star had picked out from the store. It said something about Europe on it.
Star moaned.
“You know, the one we made last night, where you said you’d tell me why I should go on ahead?”
Memories of the previous night rushed Marco. He thought of Hope, her tear-filled eyes and her story of two parents that hated each other’s guts. He thought of the smile she’d given him, and the . . . the kiss. . .
“Earth to Marco?”
Star snapped him out of it.
“Oh, uh, um” he stammered “It was nothing, I was just paranoid”
“You promised, Marco!”
“Star, nothing happened, really!”
He felt awful about lying to his best friend, but Hope – for her own reasons – had asked him not to tell anyone about what they talked about. He wished he hadn’t been so rash in agreeing to Star’s own promise last night, but he was tired. Was it really his fault?
“Just tell me Marco, I know you’re lying because you’re not making eye contact or anything you taught me to look out for”
“I’m sorry Star, I can’t talk about it. I should have said that at the time, but-“
Star stood with a loud “harrumph!” turned, and stormed out of the house. Marco watched her leave, his heart sinking.
‘Great, I’ve just pissed Star off’ he cursed himself ‘But I can’t make it better how she wants me too…”
Checking the time, he noticed he was late. Something he’d expected, sure, but was still a relatively new thing to him since he hadn’t been late to school since his very first day, unless he was beyond sick. Star had introduced him to something she called ‘bunking’ and it’d been pretty fun, running away from Ms Skullnick physically for a day instead of just her grades and comments.
He threw his clothes on and ran to the door. He stopped and smoothed them out, then ran out again, hoping to get to school at an at least acceptable time.
“Marco Diaz!” Mrs Skullnick screamed “Missing half of first period is NOT an acceptable amount of late!”
He winced, feeling the whole class watching him as he stood at her desk and apologised. One gaze was particularly piercing – that of Star Butterfly, who seemed to have decided she hated him for today.
‘Oh well, she usually forgets about these things pretty quickly’ he thought, wondering if he could do anything to speed it up. Later he’d ask if she wanted to buy ice cream on the way home, she’d forget about everything but choosing a flavour if he did that.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Skullnick” he repeated
“Since you’re such a good student, I’ll allow it” she conceded, gesturing for him to sit “The rest of you ‘orrible lot though!” she shouted “Do NOT get a free pass!”
There was a collective groan.
“Anyway, back to the history of pottery. . .”
Ignoring the lecture about George Lucas’ plans for the prequel trilogy, Marco leaned over to Star and began a hissing conversation with the very cold seeming magical princess next to him.
“Psst, hey, Star” he began
“I’m not talking to you” she replied, turning away
“Look, I’m sorry about this morning, I’ll make it up to you-“
“Diaz!” Skullnick shouted “You are on thin ice, my pedigree student, and I shall be under it when it breaks”
The familiar-sounding threat shut him up for the rest of the period, until the bell went to mark the end. He scooped up his things and glanced over to Star to attempt to retry their conversation, but she met his eyes then quickly looked away.
‘Ah, whatever, let her be mad for a while – it’s not MY fault’ he reasoned, and stepped out into the hallway.
As he manoeuvred his way through the hordes of nameless one-shot people who filled the hallway, he felt a push on his back and his momentum carried him into a conveniently placed janitor’s closet. He hit his head on a shelf with several cans of paint on it, and jumped to stop them from falling in a blind panic. Then, with the paint no longer rattling around threateningly, his worry turned to anger as he turned to leave the closet and find whoever had pushed them and, depending on who it was, either confront them or glare at them angrily from across the lunch room.
The exit, however, was blocked by a familiar form.
“Diaz” it drawled, sounding like a certain girl in a hat that liked to torment Marco like this. It was worse though, as he watched her step out of the silhouette and into a spot where light would hit her properly.
“B-B-B-Brittany Wong?!” he panicked
“Not so loud dork, I can’t let anyone see me fraternising with you unless it’s all very carefully calculated”
“So you come with me into a closet?”
“It’s not like that, pervert”
“I didn’t say it was, just that if-“
“It appears you and your girlfriend are having a fight. That’s too bad, it must really suck for your relationship”
“Star’s not my-“
“So that means we both want revenge on her, right? Me for my party, you for . . . whatever happened. I heard a rumour it was something with another girl”
“I don’t want revenge, and you’re only half right. I did-“
“Yes you do, Diaz. And I’m your girl”
“W-what?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
Marco gulped, now almost as red as his hoodie and trying desperately to figure out what the implications of what Brittany was saying actually were. He nodded quickly, hoping that any kind of exposition could help him and anyone else who hasn’t figured it out yet out of the dark.
She groaned in the way only Valley Girls can, with the ‘ugh’ and the flick of the hair, and then divulged into her short and mostly unhelpful explanation.
“It’s simple, really. You just have to pretend to be my boyfriend in front of her and the crushing of seeing her guy with another girl – no, not just another girl – her sworn mortal enemy, will break her! I get to see her suffer, and so do you. Really it’s a win-win”
She shrugged, and then spoke indecipherably quickly
“Oh,andmaybeI’llgetyoutobelieveIactuallycareaboutyouandthendumpyousothatIcanseeyousuffertoo”
Then she threw her head back and laughed evilly. Marco was still confused, but got the feeling that Brittany was already getting her way somehow. He felt her grab his hand and lead him out of the closet, into the now empty hallways.
“My master plan begins at break” she told him “You know where to find me”
And with that, Brittany Wong sauntered away, laughing. Marco simply stood and watched her walk away, his confusion being replaced with a sense of dread.
What had he gotten himself into?

For an hour or so, it looked like nothing. He’d sat and got all the answers right on the worksheet their Geography teacher handed around. Ferguson tried to ask him what Star was mad about, and he sighed, explaining that he knew but at the same time he didn’t know – did that make sense? He got the feeling it didn’t make sense, but with Star ‘sense’ really didn’t ever come into the equation.
Finally break came around, and Marco had decided he’d had enough. He would force Star to get over it, he couldn’t handle the silent treatment from her anymore, despite knowing he’d just have to hang on a few more hours for her to get over it herself. Trying to figure out how to explain how to say ‘it’s just one little secret between me and someone else Star, it’s nothing important to you’ without hurting her feelings somehow but making sure that it was obvious the topic wasn’t up for discussion, he  caught up with the girl before he had intended to.
Not speaking, she turned to glare at him.
“Look, Star” he began “I’m sorry, please let me-“
It was when Marco had begun to explain that his secret was important to keep, and asking her to please understand his situation that Brittany made her move. She sauntered up to the pair and leaned herself into Marco’s side. With arms reminiscent of vines, she wrapped them around the boy’s chest and smirked at Star. The blonde’s face began to contort, and Brittany knew it was working. Of course, she’d figured that even if the pair hadn’t consciously noticed there’d be something underneath. She knew a thing or two about relationships. Marco continued trying to talk, but was stammering uselessly and besides – Star’s focus was on her know. She mouthed the words ‘I’m your replacement’ and nuzzled her head into Marco’s arm.
With how red Marco went, it’d be easy to think that he was into it and that was exactly what Star thought. Her face contorted into a bitter mixture of all sorts of emotions she didn’t fully understand and she stormed off.
Not even saying a word, he looked down at the girl leaning on him in disgust.
“Ah, ah, ah!” she wagged a finger “You’re mine now, boy”
“How so?” Marco managed through gritted teeth, wanting to gut the girl like Bearicorn had tried on him many times before
“Because I said so” she whispered into his ear “You don’t want to make me angry, do you?”
Marco thought of the football team, under Brittany’s tyrannical influence.
“No” he conceded, and went silent.
“See you later then” she laughed, and walked away
Marco just collapsed onto his knees, and put his head in his hands.