After finishing up his Halloween costume for the bet with Thomas Logan - a bet that he was going to totally and utterly smash - the remaining three days had seemed to go by quickly, even despite him having to go to school.

And then quite suddenly it was the 30th and the day before his birthday.

School had been as normal with classes and stuff, but even so the day had still seemed to go pretty quickly and before he knew it the last bell was ringing to herald the end of his last class.

He'd headed over to the library after school with the intention of giving back the choose your own adventure book that he'd finally finished up just the night before but then had ended up distracted by some of the books that had recently been returned, particularly as he had found a book that he'd really been wanting read amongst them and then hadn't been able to resist reading a bit of it.

A 'bit' of it had ended up being more like a quarter of the book and the only reason why Briar hadn't ended up staying and reading more was because he had noticed the time on the big clock when he had gotten up to take a restroom break and realised reluctantly that he should probably be heading home if he wanted to get back before his parents got home from work. He had checked the book out before doing so though because he really, really wanted to find out what happened next and wasn't sure that he could wait until he dropped by the library next - especially as there was the danger that if he left it at the library that someone else might decide to check the book out instead.

His Mum had been firm on the fact that if he wanted to go trick-o-treating on Halloween night then - birthday or no birthday - he'd have to finish his homework first and so whilst Briar would have preferred to do other more interesting things - such as reading some more of the book that he'd picked up from the library - he had worked on homework instead.

After all tomorrow was the day of the big bet and there was no way he was going to lose because of not finishing up his homework - not with all those cookies at stake - and not when he had managed to get Scott to agree to work with Thomas' brother to judge which one of them was the best after they finished candy collecting... Although it went without saying that he was going to be the one who they ended up judging as being the best - at least to Briar's way of thinking it did - because he was going to work hard so that he could get loads and loads of candy.

It was with a start that he realised that it had kind of gotten late, although he wasn't really sleepy and so whilst he dutifully went to bed when his Mum suggested he did, Briar didn't really go to bed to bed, instead he sat quietly so that his Mum wouldn't poke her head into his room and pulled out the book that he'd gotten from the library.

Briar wasn't sure at which point he fell asleep and it was still dark out when he finally managed to open sleepy reddish eyes to peer owlishly around the room.

The neon glow of the clock in his room read "06:00" however, which meant that it was definitely tomorrow and that meant that it was officially his birthday, which meant presents and later cake and that he was finally thirteen.

And it meant that it was also bet day, although that was for much, much later.

Later or not however, he was still going to totally ace it.

-- 641 words --