Rachel settled into her seat for the evening’s banquet, happiness radiating off of her after such a great day. The best part about the day, though, was that it wasn’t over yet and there were still so many great things to come. Food now that she’d recovered from the pie-eating contest, speeches, karaoke... She loved this part, especially because the Hoods were always so predictable. “Ooooh, wanna play a game during this?” she asked the person next to her, a twinkle in her eyes. “I got the idea from Mary Kate at the wedding when she was playing some loony toony drinking game she made up, and I thought maybe we’d turn her into a game too! Me and Hailey -- okay, mostly me -- made this list of like, MK’s favorite words to say about her parents in her speeches every year, and every time she says them we should like, eat an ice cube or take a bite of cake or something! Or um, drink, if you want to sneak me a drink, I don’t have one right now!” 

“Okay, this isn’t funny,” Nova pouted as someone put a pillow down in a chair for her to sit on. One second, she’d been trying to bob on the back of a canoe and win a race just by bouncing the boat back to shore, the next she’d lost her balance as she’d hit the shore and had fallen flat on her butt, slamming it onto the wooden plank where her feet had been just a second ago. “And this pillow isn’t even helping! Can you like... go get me ice for my butt? I bet no one’s ever asked you for butt-ice before, right?” Nova asked hopefully, trying not to wince in pain as she attempted to get comfortable for watching the rest of the races. 

For a day that was supposed to be one of the most fun of the year for her, Mary Kate certainly had spent a lot more time stressing than she had enjoying up until now. It wasn’t until she finally stepped off the stage after singing with Cassie and hugged her parents that she finally felt like she could relax and have as much fun as everyone else seemed to be having. It was like a weight was finally off her shoulders -- she’d given her parents their song and their speech, she’d made up with her sister, she’d won the archery contest... Things were close to perfect, but Mary Kate still couldn’t help but feel like somehow it would still all get ruined. She tried to shake it off, though, and as Mary Kate grabbed a glass of wine off of a tray, she raised it up to the first person she saw in a toast. “To a great day,” she cheered, although the stress was harder to shake than she thought, and doubt crept into her voice as she asked, “You’re having fun, right? If you’re not having fun, can you like... pretend you’re having fun at least?”

Scarlett’s day hadn't been going super well. She’d been called a ‘wench’ by several Alpha Alpha Alpha frat bros while waiting in line to get a turkey leg at lunch time, a toddler had almost thrown up on her during the archery tournament and it felt like the smell was lingering on her clothes, and then she’d decided to enter the Egg and Spoon race to cheer herself up. Well, some kid behind her had fallen over into her, his egg cracking on her new red suede with the fringe. She was so startled she’d dropped her own egg and gotten disqualified. And now she was trying to scrub it out with some soda water a bartender had given her to no avail. “What gets egg stains out of suede?” She asked in frustration as someone sat down across from her.

Beast, asking people for help was embarrassing. But it had become painfully obvious since the wedding that Abby was lacking in non-Junior friends, and today, when everyone was desperately clamoring for teammates for dumb field day games, seemed like as good of a day as any for Abby to try and branch out and change that. She’d swiped a piece of rope from one of the game booths earlier and had it hanging over her shoulder, swinging it idly as she looked around for people to do tug-of-war with that maybe weren’t Dizzy and her string-bean-armed friends. “Hey! You!” Abby said as her swinging rope accidentally grazed against someone walking by. “Want to help me tug this thing later? I’m going to be a great teammate, you won’t regret it.”

As her phone battery continued to flicker from twenty percent to fifteen, then fifteen to ten, and finally an dreadful five percent, Clover felt close to tears. She was quickly losing hope, glaring at the photo of the tiny hedgehog displayed on her lockscreen. You are so grounded when I find you, she thought angrily. She continued to frantically question anyone she could flag down in the endless sea of strangers, simply pointing at her photo of Theodore and his prickly quills and holding up her notepad with the words “Lost, have you seen him?” scrawled across the page in neat letters. Meanwhile amidst her panic, Harold was peacefully dozing in her shirt pocket like usual; interested in nothing else but napping. 

“You know, it’s good the sun is so up high in the sky, otherwise I’d try to fist fight it right now,” Using the back of her hand to wipe the bead of sweat from her forehead, Madeleine turned to her friend. “Sooooo, seeing as no one at Kings Day managed to win me anything, wanna be my knight in shining armor today? I think I saw a really cute plush penguin back there, we should loop back around.”

Ivy decided to try her luck with karaoke, which is something that she had never done before. Sure she sang in the shower, but that was different. She scanned the area as she pursed her lips and let out a breath. She wished that her sister was with her, but she understood. “I can do this.” She whispered to herself and placed her hands on her hips. “I can definitely do this.” She grabbed someone’s shot, downed it and slam the glass back onto the table. “Im so sorry.” She looked at the stranger before she noticed someone behind her. “How about you and I sing a song together?”