“I…ehm…”

Alice glanced at her friends for some back-up, but she could tell by the unshed tears of laughter in their eyes and the way they were clenching their yaws that her troops were already down.

Bette enjoyed watching Alice squirm for a little while longer. Even Alice couldn’t talk her way out of this one. Naturally, that didn’t stop her from trying.

“You know, that wasn’t actually me. Nope, it…eh…it was my cousin from out of town. Yeah, my cousin Vinnie…I mean Valerie. You see, she was pretending to be me, ‘cause…eh…well, because I got abducted by aliens and she didn’t want anyone to know…”

Alice didn’t really dare to look Bette in the eye.

“And why wouldn’t your cousin Valerie want anyone to know you got abducted by aliens last night, Alice?”

“Well, duh…because she is dating one and she doesn’t want the government to find out about him and take him away. Don’t be upset with her, we all would have done the same thing had we been in her position. I mean, remember what they did to E.T.?”

Bette crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“You done?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Alice replied and avoided Bette’s stare, mentally prepared herself for another lecture.

That’s when Shane decided to help the poor woman out.

“So Bette, how was your date?”

Bette turned her attention to Shane and smiled. Alice mouthed “thanks” to her friend and mock wiped her brow.

“Oh, it was great. Especially when it turned out that the flowers I brought that weren’t actually meant for Tina because some retar-”

“Yes, yes, I believe we are all familiar with the details of that unfortunate accident. No need to go over it again,” Alice hurried to interrupt.

“Accident? You mean your mouth accidentally fell on my flowers and then you inhaled them?”

Alice’s second very uncomfortable look of the day.

“Anyway…those flowers? They came with a card…”

Bette’s three friends were silent for a moment, mouths hanging slightly open.

“Ai…” Dana sympathized.

“Oh, it gets better,” Bette continued. “See, the card basically said she was a whore and I expected us to have sex last night on our first date.”

Alice couldn’t suppress her giggles, but quickly brought up a hand to cover her mouth.

“Do you have a death wish or something?” hissed Shane, nervously glancing at Bette, who just stood there, arms crossed over her chest and her face unreadable.

Dana was concentrating on her breathing and Alice was trying desperately to think upsetting thoughts.

‘Okay Alice, you can do it. Think of fuzzy wuzzy bunny rabbit falling off a cliff. Think of people wearing socks with sandals. Think of George W. Bush… naked.’

But it was no use. Soon she was snickering again and this time Shane and Dana joined in. They couldn’t help it.

A big pillow hit Alice square on the head.

“You better be incredibly grateful that Tina found it rather amusing as well, ‘cause otherwise you’d have been in BIG trouble now,” Bette laughed and suddenly she found herself in the middle of the hugest pillow fight.

TBC