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The kitchen was filled with a cacophony of metal contacting metal as Elle searched for the proper sized pan to bake brownies, digging through the cabinets. She had her uh... special butter out on the counter, relieved to find that no one had discovered it hidden in the furthest corner of the freezer, and was now allowing it to reach room temperature.

It took balls to make space cakes on school property, but Elle had a special talent for getting herself out of trouble. And she knew there were at least a few kids that would just looove to take some of the finished product off her hands, discreetly, so as long as she kept her cool she could get away scott free with a few extra bucks to play around with.

Elle met with great success, selecting a nice-sized pan from the drain board, and proceeded as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening-- Rule #1 to keeping out of trouble.

The sound of boots against the carpeted hallway announced another was approaching, the sound slow and deliberate and obvious to anything time-oriented. Mackenzie "Micky" O'Connell never did anything in a rush unless she wanted to. She tended to be on the more relaxed side of things, the side that believed that unless it had a due date, she could take as long as she wanted. Which... was what had happened with her dirty dishes. While Ari's room was probably neat and tidy and devoid of dishes, Micky had just now taken the time to pick up the stacks of plates that had accumulated in her room, carrying them down the hall and into the kitchen stacked on top of each other, ready to topple if she happened to run into someone. Which was always a good ploy to use, if you wanted to instantly get a conversation going, but it usually didn't work well with dirty plates.

Stepping into the tiled kitchen, the auburn-haired girl stopped, blinking at it's two occupants in surprise. It was rather late, she hadn't expected anyone to be in the kitchen at this time of night. (She had rather hoped there wouldn't be either -- one more toe out of line, and she was off the student counsel. She had to be an 'upstanding citizen' for a while.) The look of surprise, however, quickly turned to pleased one as she noticed who the two were, setting the stack of plates down by the sink and wiping her hands on a towel.

"Why if it isn't the Hippy Goth and Miss Obstinate. What're you two up to, at this time of night?" She teased suggestively.

"Isn’t it? Baking is just so wonderful, all the sugary sweet possibilities you can create. It’s such a neat process, almost like science," she babbled, clearly ignoring Elle’s lack of interest. Arianna liked to talk, she didn't care if her audience liked to, or even wanted to, listen. Normally, it would be unheard of to find Arianna up so late. She was a firm believer in a good night’s sleep; it was an important ingredient for a good day. For some reason, however, sleep eluded her tonight so she had gotten up to have a snack, and of course, by extension needed to return to the kitchen to do her dishes.

"Are'’t you a science major? I suppose you'd have some skill at cooking then," she reflected, eyeing up Elle as the girl mixed her ingredients. Arianna couldn't help it; she was kind of a bitchy snob. And 'kind of' was more or less an understatement. This little fact of life was further proven when Mackenzie or 'Micky' entered. Arianna sniffed indignantly at her greeting; she didn’t approve of nicknames, and she certainly didn’t approve of being called 'Miss Obstinate'.

Her dark eyes roved over Micky’s figure, the arms laden with dirty dishes. "Oh, hello Mackenzie. Looks like you'll be here for a while, as per usual," she remarked with a cool smirk before turning back to the sink and fiddling with the faucet, waiting until the water was nice and warm to plunge her dishes beneath it.

Elle turned back to mixing and portioning out the brownie mix into the baking pan, not even pretending to listen to Ari's little speech on the matter, shaking her head. She did give her a sidelong glance at length, when she implied that being a science major would indicate skill at cooking. She quirked an eyebrow.

"That logic makes absolutely no sense. But nice try, man."

Smoothing out the surface of the mix and picking up the pan, she gave Micky the sweetest, fakest grin she could manage before she bent to stick it into the preheated oven. "Me, experimenting? I would never do that... on school property," she fluttered her lashes, shutting the door.

Man, she knew Micky wouldn't do s**t. Micky didn't strike her as the narky type. Perhaps she wouldn't trust her not to roll over on her if they got down to it, but hey, Elle wouldn't expect the girl to take a bullet for her or anything. Ari, though? Damn.

She sat down at the small table located off to the side to wait for her brownies to cook, propping up her booted feet, torn black tights in full view. "Easy, girls. Can't we all just get along?" she said as she smoothed her skirt over her legs, yawning. Regular sleep was not something Elle was accustomed to, but somehow she always managed to get by.

"I agree with HippyGoth," Micky replied, giving Ari her most sincere puppy-dog eyes. Pushing a few of her own dishes out of the way, she jumped up onto the counter, grinning good-naturedly at the two of them, waiting for her dishes to soak. "Hey MacGyver, where's my black flower? I'm like the police, you're not living up to the stereotype. And get your feet off the counter -- we eat off that, you know." Shoving Elle's feet off the counter, she peered at Ari for a few minutes, she leaned over to watch her, scooping up some of the suds to play with.

"I'm sorry, you're right, that was really rude of me," She replied after a minute, slapping her hands together so the suds flew everywhere, "But you know, if you change your mind, Elle and I could help~" Micky scooted along the counter quickly after that one, expecting some sort of fist or foot to come in her direction. Damn, why couldn't people realize these were compliments -- she was calling them attractive!

"So... I hear some of the other kids are going crazy," She tried to change the subject, although she stayed at the other end of the kitchen, just to be safe, "Like, really crazy. I heard one boy thought he saw some dead monster thing in the bushes. The math teacher looked, all they saw was a little dead sparrow. Wonder if it's the stress. Personally, sounds like too many monster movies to me."

Arianna blushed at Micky's comment, and then started as the girl clapped suds in her direction. "Hey, watch it!" she yelped, grabbing her clean dishes and moving away from the sinks. Then the realization of other student’s words hit her and she blushed, quickly turning to put her dishes away to hide it. She wouldn’t respond to it, no, it would be best to firmly ignore that particular matter.

She quietly listened as Micky changed the subject, nothing she hadn’t heard already. She finished putting away her cup, closed the cupboard and turned around, leaning against the counter. She gave Elle a hard stare as the black haired girl spoke; could it be the two actually were on the same page for once?

"I don't believe any of that nonsense either. It's probably just some lowlife pulling pranks on the student body… How immature," she scoffed.

Elle winked at Micky, semi accustomed to her neighbor's antics, and was careful not to meet her eyes when she inevitably noticed the scent, not saying a word and silently thanking her for not being an asshat about it. Instead she levelled her gaze at Ari, snickering to herself at how uptight she was. Could the stick be any further wedged up there? It certainly seemed to have made a permanent home. Still she managed a grave nod of agreement.

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye," she said somewhat facetiously.

Elle rolled her eyes as Micky started to tease them, mostly Ari, and folded her arms across her chest, smirking at the pair of them.

"So let's say there really is something going on around here. Not much we can do about it, right? All I know is, I hear some weird noise and I'm peacing out," she waved a hand. "Didn't make it this far by chasing after 'ghosts' or whatever."

Micky giggled a little, lifting her arm defensively off of Ari's shoulders, hands up defensively. "Sorry hun, I didn't think you'd actually get scared... It was suppose to be one of those times you give me a dark look and go 'haha,'" she replied sheepishly, trying to keep back the giggles and failing miserably. Poor girl, not use to Mackenzie's antics -- she would learn soon enough. If her reputation didn't catch up to her, and the black-haired student student started avoiding her.

Inching a little ways away again, the auburn-haired girl smirked a little at Elle, amused that Ari had pointed out the brownies. "Yes Ms Hammel, are you sure those aren't burning?" She teased a little, making towards them as if she was going to open the oven and expose her.