Paige groggily wiggled around in her sleeping bag and then reluctantly opened her eyes. She always hated waking up during a sleepover. She had the overwhelming urge to leave Leandra laying on the floor in the family room and go hop in her own bed. The only things stopping her was how cold it was outside of her sleeping bag and the fear of what Carr would do to Leandra if he woke up before Paige did. Last year there was an incident involving a fire extinguisher and a frantic call to poison control center that Paige didn't care to repeat.

Yet, the floor was annoyingly uncomfortable. Paige had been rolling around on it for hours. She never stayed in one spot when she slept. Grunting, she reached down to inspect the lump that had been bothering her. It was part of Goink. He apparently had fallen apart again in the middle of the night. Grumpily, she tossed it to the other side of the room.

A few seconds later she found herself feeling rather bad so she picked up her sleeping bag around her and slithered over to the lump formerly known as Goink. Then she gathered up all his pieces and put them in a pile. She figured he'd like that. She wasn't the kind of girl that stopped to think that it might be strange to cater to a stuffed animal.

Suddenly, she realized she had the overwhelming urge to pee.

"Gee I gotta pee," she announced to the still house. Some things were just more amusing at four o'clock in the morning. Leandra opened one eye wearily, murmured something about super duper squid monster chasing her, and fell back to sleep. Paige stared for a second, shook her head, and continued on her quest to go pee.

Still unwilling to remove the sleeping bag, Paige stood up and wrapped it around her as she hopped over to the bathroom. Not wanting to distress her eyes by turning on the light, she stumbled through the grey shadows. Luckily, it wasn't very dark in the house. Light from the streetlamps outside filtered through the windows. She peed quickly. It was too cold to dawdle. Then she went over to the sink to wash her hands.

One look into the mirror revealed everything she tried to avoid, especially on mornings after sleepovers. Her long brown hair cascaded in a freakish frenzy every which way all around her face. Dried drool ran the length of her cheek. Her half-shut eyes were still the same dull green shade they always were. The rest of her was still covered by the sleeping bag, which completed her slug-like appearance. She admired her new look. The sleeping bag was an improvement over having to look at her usual bulging, ugly form.

With a grimace she turned from the mirror. She never wondered why boys never looked twice at her. Her plain ugliness made her virtually invisible. That was okay though, she told herself. Boys were not exactly her priority anyway. She'd given up those silly romantic little girl dreams a long time ago. Besides, if Poink didn't need a boyfriend, neither did she.

Paige Lieston would find her fun elsewhere, thank you very much. She didn't have an undercover part in a famous rock band like Poink but she was always up for a good time! She determinedly picked her head up and stared straight into the eyes of the girl in the mirror. Then she shook her head. She decided that she should at least wipe the drool off her face before pretending to be something she was not. With a fake grin into the mirror she patted her face dry.

Groping the wall for support, she made her way back to the living room floor. Unfortunately, she didn't notice that Carr had left his video games in the middle of the hallway. She landed hard in a tangled (and disgruntled) mass on the floor. Well, this is where she was going to sleep tonight, then. She decided it must be an omen. She still was within screaming distance to save Leandra should Carr wake up first.

The quiet snores coming from different rooms in the house offered comfort. She wrapped herself in the peaceful grayness that surrounded her and smiled. Finally, Paige was ready to enjoy a few more hours of sleep. She just hoped they didn't fly by too quickly. The longer it took to pass the night the better. Tomorrow she had to work on her dreaded science project. She was not looking forward to this. Everyone in her family was good at science except her. She was just mediocre at everything. For her project she was going to visit her Aunt Sue and they were going to make a real-life replica of what she thought the earth was going to look like in the future. At least she could be somewhat creative with this project, but she was still anxious. Mr. Gladys was a tough grader and hands on science activities seemed to always end up a disaster when Paige was around. She was anal about keeping her grades as high as possible and didn't want to study for days in hopes of a perfect score on the test to make up for a bad grade on a project like she had done the last time. Paige shook the thought from her head and stuck out her tongue for effect. She didn't want to go to sleep thinking about grades. She'd probably have that nightmare about Mr. Gladys teaming up with Carr in an attempt to flunk her out of school again.

Closing her eyes tight she tried to plant some sort of seed for a dream in her head. She knew it was silly but she liked to imagine she was a beloved rock star like Poink. Her outfit would be made of flowing electric blue silk with lots of sequins. She could almost hear the crowd roar. She sighed happily and drifted off to sleep.