Conroy told Eleanor that he wasn't going to be able to get around to hacking the memory card we hijacked until after homecoming. Since he voluntary took classes like calculus and chemistry II he had too much homework to complete if he wanted to spent all of homecoming weekend having fun.
Once Saturday came, I spent the morning getting ready. Eleanor picked me up bright and early and drove me to her house. She was determined to help me fix my hair. I normally wore it in a slick ballet bun, but today, I wanted to tame my blonde curls without the use of half of a tub of hair geI. I used to wear my hair down everyday, but I got sick of people trying to touch it. My hair holds a special meaning to me that I can't explain, so I'm very picky about who can touch it and when.
Eleanor successfully fixed it into a simple half-up, half-down hairdo. Then she arranged her shiny locs into a ponytail, scattering butterflies and flowers throughout. She looked like a fairy with her hairstyle and 3D butterfly accented dress. She painted her dark orbs with a mix of natural colors and bronze sparkles to compliment her ethereal style.
She gave me a pink and silver eyeshadow look to make my green eyes and cool, pale skin pop. The look matched my floral embroidered gown, which flattered my hourglass figure while still managing to hide my tiny belly pooch. If Eleanor was a fairy, I was the flower she created out of thin air.
Sometimes I envied Eleanor's perfectly flat stomach, but then I'm reminded of the time Eleanor told me she wished she had my boobs. I guess there's something everyone wishes they could change about their body.
Once we were ready. Eleanor's mom, Elizabeth or Momma Beth, drove us to a nearby park to get pictures. Rent decided to meet us there.
"Nice fit, Remy. But I think one of us is going to have to change; we both can't be wearing pink flowers." I said, placing my hand on my hip.
"Glad you like it," Remy winked.
Momma Beth pulled her camera out of her bag. Most people take pictures on their phones, but Momma Beth stuck to her tried and true digital camera since the quality was better.
"Okay, let's get some individual pictures and then we can do the group photos once Kevin makes it here."
Kevin was meeting us here? I guess that makes sense. I just thought he was mad at me because I decided to come with Remy. He must have gotten over it.
Kevin took his sweet time arriving at the park, making it right after we had finished all of our individual pictures and some small group photos.
"Hey guys, sorry I'm late. Me and Harper went out to El Taco before this."
El Taco? The only restaurant in all of the town, El Taco? The place run by a bunch of non-Hispanic individuals who aspire to give everyone who enters food poisoning, El Taco?
"I'm sure you all know who Harper is, but I'll introduce you all to her." Kevin said through a maniacal smile, something about it rubbed me wrong.
Enough about the inauthentic monstracity called El Taco, Kevin came here with Harper? Harper and her clique are one the only individuals at school who could be categorized as more popular than Remy's group.
I don't like to judge people before getting to know them, but Tiffany really hates Harper, and Tiffany loves everyone. I hope there isn't any drama between Harper, Remy, and Tiffany tonight.
I wonder if Kevin came with Harper on purpose because of her beef with Tiffany? No, he might not like their group but he wouldn't do that. He's too kind.
We finished our pictures with Momma Beth, who promised to send them our way once she finished cropping and editing the lighting on them, we all made our way to the dance.
Once inside, we scooted our way through all the crowds of people standing on the sides of the gym talking and the group of individuals doing TickTock dances in the middle. When we finally got to the corner of the gym, Conroy pulled out a pack of shiny new playing cards.
"We have to have semi-formal cards if we are going to a semi-formal event," he said quite confidently earlier this week. He doesn't dance so he wanted something fun to do to kill time. Last year he made us play some sort of battle card game until we ditched him.
Conroy was hoping to play a different card game this year in hopes we would like it better. We may like to poke fun at him, but there really aren't many brothers out there willing to take their little sister to homecoming so she didn't feel alone.
The cards actually look nicer than I expected. Most of his online purchases are a bit odd because he determines whether or not to buy things based solely on one star reviews left for the product.
As Conroy got to work shuffling his brand new metallic cards, Remy's friends found us and asked to join.
"YES! Now we will have enough people to play Mafia!" Conroy practically shouted as he started over on the process of preparing the deck.
Everyone in Remy's group looked magical. Claire paired a royal blue V-neck with gold shoes and a gold belt, and Nolan wore a royal blue shirt with a gold tie; Remy said they came as friends.
Tiffany wore a skin tight red dress, red bottom shoes, and matching lips in tow with a guy named Dean who stood almost half her height. Remy told me that Dean was the same age as his brother Roman, and that they had been dating on and off for half a year.
Justin had black slacks and a yellow top, which made his golden beige skin and black hair glow. He came alone because he is secure enough in himself to do that. Respect.
It also appeared as though Harper's friend's, Football player Winston and his date Emma, would also be joining us.
Once everyone was gathered, Conroy had everyone draw a card and Eleanor started cackling hysterically. She would probably be laughing the rest of the game. Part of it is her personality, but part of it is her strategy because no one can guess if she's in the mafia or not if she acts suspiciously meniacial the entire time.
Claire started Googling the game rules while Tiffany tried to figure out if the game was legal to play. For once, I found Tiffany more endearing than obnoxious. So here we were, a baker's dozen of us—me, Kevin, Eleanor, Conroy, Remy, Tiffany, Justin, Claire, Nolan, Winston, Lance, Emma, and Harper—in the back corner of the gym drawing cards for the game.
The person who draws the Jack gets to be the narrator, while the Joker gets to be the messenger. We voted on our messenger to be Simon Says. The person with the Ace gets to be the detective, while the King and Queen would become members of the secret Mafia. Lastly, anyone who was unlucky enough to draw a number had to be a towns people.
Unfortunately, I was one of those unlucky people. Kevin, however, drew the Jack—meaning this game wouldn't be a total loss. The popular kids are about to find out what happens when the hick anime boy attempts to embodies the energy of a hood DND master.
"Alright everyone, heads down and eyes closed. Mafia members, point to the person you want to take out today. Oof! Noice! Now, detective; who you wanna arrest? Okay, okay. Lastly, Mr. Simon Says himself. Who you wanna order around? HAHAHA! Everyone heads up."
I almost shook with anticipation. I'm not completely sure what prompted Kevin's evil anime laugh, but somebody was about to get destroyed.
"So, Harper was walking down to cheer practice one day when she realized her Stardollar frappe was poisoned. Tragically, paramedics were unable to get to the scene because the cops were too busy busting Conroy for attempting to make an AI girlfriend out of a toaster without a proper building permit. Get Yeeted Boi! Lastly, Simon Says the punch here ain't spiked so Eleanor needs to settle down before she gets told to take a hike!"
Kevin's warning only seemed to further Eleanor's manic fit. I only wish the detective chose someone other than Conroy to arrest. That boy has no poker face so ruling him out would have been a piece of cake. Hopefully we vote on someone good during the town vote.
"Okay everyone, let's take a vote and point to the person we suspect of being part of the Mafia."
Most of the group pointed at Tiffany because of her obvious dislike for Harper.
"I'm not a part of the Mafia guys. I don't know why you all suspect me! I'd never choose Harper as my victim. Talk about PREDICTABLE!"
While anyone being voted out of the game would attest to their innocence, Remy, Justin, Claire, and Nolan were all too quick to change their votes. Their group must be super tight if they can distinguish if she is telling the truth so easily. Or it's some sort of group strategy to go further in the game. Suddenly, all votes went to Winston, but he was innocent so we were back to another round.

Scoreboard:
Innocent:
• Me
• Kevin
• Harper
• Conroy
• Winston
• Tiffany?

"Nolan was taking a nice walk in the woods when suddenly he stopped. If a man dies in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did he really die? Yes. Yes he did. Onto other news, Elora was taken into authorities for eating the entire local gas station out of donuts."
Conroy and Elenor fell over from laughing, but everyone else looked shocked at Kevin's accusation towards me. Honestly, it's something I would probably do if I were to ever become inebriated. I love me a good sugar rush!
"Before we wrap things up though, I just want to Say, Simon says wants poor little Elora to have a good day!"
So Remy must be Joker. No other reason for Kevin to avoid making another jab at me. Kevin doesn't pull punches, unless he wants to expose someone. Despite him being upset at me for making Remy my date, he was still setting me up to win with his narrative hints. I guess that still means I'm his number one; friends before girlfriends!

Scoreboard:
Innocent:
• Me
• Kevin
• Harper
• Conroy
• Winston
• Tiffany?
• Nolan
• Remy

The next town vote was about to go to Emma, but Remy's group all switched over to Dean once she made a statement of innocence. Then they all simultaneously switched their vote again to Eleanor after he declared his innocence too. Eleanor was too busy laughing to make any sort of statement, but it turned out that she did in fact draw the king card.
The situation went from weird to bizarre. Something happens once, maybe it's a fluke. But when something happens three times, it's just a silly coincidence. No, I don't believe in coincidence. Something fishy is going on. They know Tiffany and Dean well enough to trust her word, but not Emma. They know something, and whatever it is I'm going to figure it out. Even if it means I have to go to one of Tiffany's suspicious girls nights or agree to go on a date with Remy.
I was brought back to reality right in time for the next towns vote. Great, I missed whoever got killed and arrested. But let me think back to what I do know...

Scoreboard:
Innocent:
• Me
• Kevin
• Harper
• Conroy
• Winston
• Tiffany?
• Nolan
• Remy
• Emma?
• Dean?
Guilty:
• Eleanor

The other Mafia member had to be Claire or Justin. Claire declared her innocence and the group decided to vote on Justin being the second Mafia member. My gut told me that Claire was innocent, but if Remy's group really had some sort of lie detecting secret I should follow their lead. I would have been willing to defend that Claire was guilty, but after watching their group dynamics I was willing to bank on Justin being the second member.
They seem to know way too much about everything around here, and if I'm right I'm almost willing to bet money that Remy is the type of self sustainable farmer that believes in aliens. Almost. However, I soon realized that I should have stuck to my gut.
Claire was the second Mafia member; poor Justin was just another townsperson wrongfully accused of a life of crime. I wonder if Claire isn't as close to the group as I orignally thought or if she found some sort of work around to their lie detecting secret.
I was right about Remy being Simon Says, and Winston was the detective though. No wonder the investigative work of our game's fake police department was so poor, Winston was nearly failing all of his classes.
Just as the group was trying to determine if we would play another round, a slow dance started to play.
"Hey, Remy! Wanna dance with me?" Harper fluttered.
"A man can't abandon his date on the first slow dance of the night, and a woman shouldn't either."
"Does that mean you can dance with me at the next one?"
"Nope."
"You'd rather dance with that loser than me?"
"The only loser I see around here is you. Why did you even attend with Kevin if you didn't want to spend the evening with him?"
"So I could dance with you, and Kevin could dance with her. That's what we talked about." She turned to Kevin.
"We NEVER spoke about anything like that, Harper! I'm so hurt right now! I can't believe you only came with me to get to Remy."
"Conroy, do you have any snacks in your pocket? This is getting good."
"Yeah, sis. Here ya go."
"Why are you gaslighting me? We had a deal. You're just trying to make me look bad."
"You're the one trying to make me look bad so you have an excuse to ditch me!"
"I told you all she was trash! She always acts like she's better than me because she's cheer captain and flier, and I'm 'just a base'. Well look at who's falling down without a baseline of integrity. BASES ARE VALID!"
"Tiff, it's okay." Dean cooed as he rubbed her back.
"Let's let them work all that mess out themselves." Remy grabbed my hand and pulled me to the dance floor.
"Poor Kev! He got totally used."
"I don't think he's as much of a victim as he's playing up to be."
Without further explanation Remy grabbed my waist and started swaying to the music. After that I let myself enjoy the night. Dancing, smiling, joking. I tried not to think too hard about Kevin either; I didn't want to ruin my night over some silly drama.
Our investigation of my mom, the memory card, and the mysteries of Gnawville could wait until tomorrow. Some moments are best spent in the present.