sing your heart out [Cat]

[kris]

The bell indicating the end of school for the day had just rung, and everyone was already heading home. Except for Beck. He had nothing to do at home, and he couldn’t find Jade anywhere. Either she went home early, or was just somewhere around the school. While the other students were walking to the parking lot, he went in the opposite direction as them, making his way to the room of what was known to the rest of the school as the “Ping Pong Club.”

It wasn’t, though. It was just some club he and the gang made up just to be able to go to a restaurant Cat had told them about. In Beck’s opinion, it was worth it. He opened the door quietly and slipped inside, immediately heading for his favorite couch. He reached for a guitar that was on the nearest stand and started playing random songs from memory. Beck wasn’t sure if a lot of people knew that he could play guitar, especially since he had made it clear that his interests lay more on the acting part of this school.

He was too engrossed in playing that he didn’t hear the door open.

[Cat Valentine]

It hadn't been a very busy school day and there wasn't much to do after school, either. Cat didn't really want to go home, because her brother had been having certain, well... "episodes" lately and it was kinda starting to freak her out. So instead, when the bell rang, she went to the first place she could think of. The room that she and her friends would 'practice' for their Ping-Pong Team in.

She had expected to be alone, which was a rather depressing prospect, so she was glad to see that Beck was in there, too. He was playing his guitar. Like Jade and probably Andre and maybe even Robbie, Cat knew that Beck could play the guitar. After all, they had all known each other for a while. So to Cat, it was perfectly ordinary that he would sit and play the guitar after school, or almost ordinary.

"Hey, Beck. Where's Jade?" the red-velvet-haired girl asked as she entered the room. She had a cheerful, upbeat tone to her voice as usual that today happened to mask her hiding from her brother's strangeness. But knowing Cat, she would end up saying something about it anyway, because she had a hard time keeping things in her head. Thoughts, rather. She didn't keep things in her head, that'd be odd! Like when Robbie got that car stuck in his intestine or wherever it was... Cat couldn't help but give a small giggle when she remembered it. They had gotten rid of it though, she was pretty sure. So it was okay, now.

[kris]

Being alone had its perks, too. You had the place all to yourself, you could make as much noise as you wanted and no one was going to complain, and you had the privacy in case you were hiding from anyone. But after a few minutes of that, it bored Beck a little. Even though he knew everyone was headed home, there was a part of him that hoped that one of his friends had stayed behind and just coincidentally passed by the room he was currently in.

He wasn’t disappointed, though. And if he’d pick which of his friends – excluding Jade – to hang out with after school, Cat was definitely in the top two. He had a smile on his face when he looked up to see the familiar red-velvet hair that defined the perky little girl. “Oh, hey Cat,” he said, placing the guitar down. “I honestly don’t know, I was kinda hoping I could ask you if you knew where she was.” Beck would’ve texted or called her, but his phone’s battery died halfway through the day, so that was out of the question.

“So, any reason why you’re still not on your way home by now?” he asked her. He wasn’t complaining; having company after school was rare and Beck was thankful that he was lucky enough not to spend after-school hours by himself in an empty classroom. Although if all she needed was a ride, Beck could easily give her one..

[Cat Valentine]

Beck was one of Cat's closest friends, so she always enjoyed his company. It was rare she didn't want to see him- those rare amounts of times usually added up to the days when she'd gotten all those Sky Store catalogs and he tried to take them away from her because of 'impulse shopping', or something. Other than that, though, Cat couldn't think of a time that she didn't want to be around Beck, or any of her friends, really. She loved all her friends. They were so nice... well, except for maybe Jade sometimes. But Jade was nice to Cat, sometimes. And that was good enough.

Beck had replied that he didn't know where Jade was, and Cat frowned a little bit, hopping to the couch and flopping onto it next to him. She turned her head and looked up at him very seriously, saying, "She won't like that. Jade seems really mean sometimes you know, but don't worry, she is." Cat tended to say these kinds of things a lot, mixing up her words and whatnot, but it was all right, because she couldn't be bothered by something she never noticed. "It's okay though because she had to go to the grocery store for her mom!" Cat tried to reassure him by petting his soft hair. Cat wondered if maybe his hair was even softer than a girl's hair; it was possible, she decided, quite possible.

Cat let out a tiny little sigh, that really sounded more like a squeak, when Beck asked her why she wasn't on her way home. "This morning my brother tried to eat his backpack and then he couldn't, but he had to stay home from school." Cat explained, not realizing that she hadn't intended on saying anything, because that's just how things always happened with Cat- she'd think she wouldn't say something and then forget about it a few minutes later and end up saying it anyway. "But he's been kinda scary so I'm staying here instead." she affirmed with a light nod. "Why are you still here, and not helping Jade grocery shop for her mom?" she asked bluntly, giving Beck a light poke to the stomach. Cat loved to poke people's stomachs, it was slightly amusing, she thought.

[kris]

They were pretty close friends, anyone could say that. Cat was the only girl that Beck was friends with that Jade was okay with. Cat and Jade were good friends as well, and it would be kind of confusing for some to figure out how the two of them ever became friends… given that they were as opposite as anyone can get. He and Cat have gone through a lot of stuff over the past couple of years.. being in plays and short movies together, her jamming along with him when he decided to do some guitar-playing after school. Beck would say that Cat would be his girl best friend, but he didn’t really want to go around admitting that to Jade. She’d think it was something more. For Beck, Cat was also an advertisement for smart online shopping.

“Uh-huh, she can be mean sometimes,” Beck chuckled. “Oh, grocery shopping?” He couldn’t imagine Jade doing groceries with her mom, but there was a first time for everything, right? He made a mental note to text and ask her about it later when he got home. “He tried to eat his backpack?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Um, how big was his backpack, exactly?” Beck had heard quite a few odd stories about Cat’s brother, and up to this day, he still hadn’t met him. It would be fun to, in his opinion, although a bit weird too.

“Yeah, I can just give you a ride once you feel like going home, kay?” he said, laughing when she poked his stomach. He was used to Cat doing that; she was just the little fun-ball Beck needed when he was in need of a laugh. “I didn’t see Jade when class ended, so I figured she left already. I couldn’t text her cause my phone ran out of battery..”

[Cat Valentine]

Cat nodded sympathetically when Beck mentioned that Jade was indeed mean at times, and then thought for a moment at what Jade had told her when Beck sounded confused at the prospect of his girlfriend grocery shopping. Finally she said, "Yeah, her mom said that if she didn't go and help her carry all the groceries that she wouldn't try to convince her dad to let her produce another play, or something. I don't remember, but Jade was kind of angry. Bribery is so upsetting! Like this one time, my brother met a hobo and..." Cat stopped talking long enough to recount the strange story in her mind, looking as if she was quite into it, but also looking very confused as well. Finally, she broke out of her little daze and fixed her brown eyes on Beck once more.

"Hmm," she thought when Beck asked her of the size of her brother's backpack. She tried to remember, she did know it was a lot bigger than hers. She moved her hands around in a circle that was supposed to represent the large backpack and said, "This big?" hoping that her representation was good enough for him to understand. It was hard to show the size of something that wasn't in the room. She frowned a little bit, trying to think of a good way to explain it, but was quickly distracted when Beck offered her a ride home. "Kay kay!" she said cheerfully, with a grin on her face- she loved the smell of Beck's car. It was like... Beck-y. She wasn't sure exactly how it smelled, or how to describe it, but she did like the smell quite a bit. It smelled much better than Robbie's car. Rex had told her strange stories about Robbie's car once, and it kind of scared Cat into not wanting to ride in it any more for a while.

"Oh. Do you want to use my phone?" Cat offered perkily, taking out her pear phone when Beck said that his own was dead. She had almost handed it to Beck when it rang. Confused at the number that was on it, for it wasn't familiar, she answered, "Hello?"

"Hi, I'd like to order a large pepperoni pizza, extra mushrooms, and..." someone started to say, but Cat was distracted by the fact that someone wanted mushrooms on their pizza and exclaimed, "Ew!" In response, the person on the phone scoffed and said angrily, "Did you just make fun of my choice of pizza?" Cat gulped, and the person continued, "I'm never going to buy pizza from you again!" and hung up. Cat put her phone down sadly and wiped a very small tear from one of her eyes.

"Beck, they said they'll never buy pizza from me again!" she said tearily, genuinely upset from the apparent loss of a customer that she'd never had in the first place. She was so upset that she forgot to hand the pear phone to Beck, so it lay on the couch instead.

Mahhh, when in doubt, bring in a random phone call! XD

[kris]

Beck sometimes wondered how Cat could be around Jade when their personalities were nothing but opposites. Cat was all energy while Jade was always serious. It was surprising how those two could get along so easily as him and Andre. But maybe that’s what he and Cat had in common; they could see the Jade that no one could. Like how nice she could be sometimes, how she cared for her close friends like Cat. Then again, no one could exactly blame Jade for being mean to other people, they deserved it sometimes.

“She’s producing another play?” Beck asked, honestly having no clue about it. He chose not to think more into it; maybe Jade hadn’t really planned it yet so he didn’t know about it. “How many hobos has your brother met?” he said suddenly, Cat’s story interrupting his train of thought about Jade’s play. It was a good thing, though. He didn’t want to get upset that Jade didn’t tell him something that he wasn’t sure existed yet.

“When can I meet your brother?” he asked, interested. He’d heard countless stories about him, which made him partly hesitant about meeting him, and partly looking forward to whenever that time would come. He seemed interesting, despite the problems that Cat’s stories’ claim he has.

As Cat took the phone call, Beck’s expression went from calm to frowning and to worried when she hung up. He stood up quickly and grabbed a box of tissues on the table, went back to Cat’s side and handed her the box. He wasn’t surprised that she reacted this way, Beck was just curious who the person on the other line was. “Who’s buying pizza from you?”

[Cat Valentine]

Cat sniffled and took a tissue gratefully before dabbing at her eyes with it, answering, "I don't know, people just keep calling me and ordering pizza!" It was rather upsetting. Cat had just got a new phone number again since the last one had had people calling her for life support or emergencies or something, so finally she had taken her friends' advice and gotten a number change. But it didn't seem to do much to help the random phone calls, because apparently her phone number was the old number for a pizza place, so people kept calling and trying to order pizza. Cat wondered if the pizza place had been losing business lately (sometimes she wouldn't want to make the person angry or upset, so she'd just say okay and that their pizza would be there soon).

Cat took a couple minutes to compose herself before answering Beck's other questions. She nodded when he mentioned Jade's play. She didn't know much about it, but Jade had texted her about a role or something or other. She wasn't sure. Maybe she'd dreamt it... she didn't even exactly know if Jade was doing a play per se, but she did know that Jade's mom had threatened her with something like that, because she was tired of Jade not helping with the grocery shopping.

When Beck asked about the number of hobos Cat's brother had met, she set the tissue box down lightly and gained a very thoughtful expression. "Hmm...." she said slowly, beginning to count on her fingers. After using up all her fingers, she merely replied vaguely, "I'm not sure, a lot." She then proceeded to answer his final question, about meeting her brother. "You don't want to!" she said hastily, and then added seriously, "He's very weird."

The truth was, none of Cat's friends had ever been to her house before, and she preferred it that way. She liked going to other people's houses rather than having friends over to her own house. For one she just preferred other places in general, but she also didn't want them to see her parents fight and argue and yell at each other, or actually witness her brother being abnormal. Stories were one thing, but to see him with your own eyes was a bit more disturbing, or at least Cat thought so.

[kris]

Beck looked at her, confused. Although he knew that he shouldn’t be, he was used to Cat being like this.. it was the reasons that were always different. “Where do you get the numbers you change to?” he asked her, chuckling slightly. “First it was an emergency number, now it’s a pizza place? Maybe you should get another number, a new one that no one’s used before.” Beck remembered the emergency number she once had; it was nice that she wanted to help people by saying that help was on the way, but those people were expecting emergency responses like ambulances to come to their aid at that moment. He couldn’t deny that Cat’s intentions were always kind of sweet.

He half-regretted his question about her brothers and the hobos when she started counting on her fingers. He completely wished that he didn’t ask about it when she counted way past ten. This made a part of him even more curious about the identity of Cat’s brother. Did he go to Hollywood Arts years ago, too? If he did, he must have been at least four years older than them, because Beck never recalled meeting any Valentines before Cat.

“Has Jade met your brother?” he asked, frowning a bit in confusion. “I mean, some of your friends must have met him before.” From all her stories, Beck couldn’t say no to Cat’s statement when she said that he was very weird. “Yeah, I’ve heard,” he grinned.

ooc|| I'll format this tomorrow. I'm just soo sleepy right now. Sorry it took so long!