Halloween Party Dos and Don'ts

G

Summary: Sonny ends up with one very surprising party guest.

"Fine, don't come! Don't bother! More icing...and sprinkles...and milk for me!" Sonny grumbled, moving around the network's cafeteria kitchen, arranging tubs of icing, sugar cookies and knives.

"Go to your stupid party with your stupid fancy costumes and your red carpet. I will just stay here and have my own Halloween party!"

Sonny Monroe usually enjoyed Halloween. Candy, pumpkins, crisp weather meaning it's almost time to break out her hand-knitted sweaters from her grandmother...and her annual Halloween party, which was the talk of her block, if not her grade back home in Wisconsin. In Hollywood? Turns out Tween Weekly's huge Halloween bash, complete with paparazzi, wins out over the party Sonny's been planning for a week.

"Listen, Sonny, I want to come," Tawni said yesterday in the prop house. No one had responded to her e-vite, but it had been a busy week on-set, so maybe they were just sitting unread in everyone's inbox. Sonny was sure that was the case, and once she told everyone about it, they'd want to come.

"Really? Great! I could use some help baking sugar cookies!" Sonny rushed, excited that the first person she asked said yes!

"No, listen, I want to come, Sonny, but didn't know tomorrow night is the first-ever Tween Weekly Monster Mash Bash?"

"Uh...no? What?"

"Oh, Sonny," Tawni said, clicking around on her phone and then handing it to Sonny. A bright, flashy website told Sonny all she needed to know - a red carpet? Coverage from Just Jared? Tawni was going to be on the other side of the city during Sonny's party, there was no use fighting it. But... Zora and Nico and Grady don't normally care about stupid industry parties. She'd just go find and ask them!

"But, Sonny, we already rented our costumes!" Sonny continued to grumble, mimicking the three of them and their reply when she confronted them. She wasn't sure just how convincing they were going to be as astronauts, no matter how "authentic" the Web site claimed their suits were.

"What-ever!" Sonny said, yanking the industrial oven open as the timer dinged. "That's the last batch. Now I am ready to decorate!" Sonny grinned to herself, clicked on her spooky playlist, and took a seat...alone.

Shaking her head, she pulled a plate of cool cookies from earlier in the day and a tub of icing to her.

"They're going to be so mad when they see these and I'm not going to let them have a single bite!" Sonny said, stabbing a fork into the icing.

"Whoa, Monroe, what'd the icing do to you?" a voice asked from behind her.

"Chad?" Sonny asked, turning to face the boy in one of the most elaborate Dracula costume's she's ever seen. "Aren't you supposed to be making your way down the red carpet right...now?" Sonny asked, checking her watch.

"My publicist said that since I was all over the Web and newsstands last week, I need to take a break from the spotlight. Make people wonder about me, then step out with a bang!" He said, opening his arms with a florish.

"But...the costume?" Sonny asked, grinning at him.

"What's a Halloween party without costumes?" Chad replied, pulling up a chair next to Sonny and nudging her arm so he could stick a knife in her tub of icing.

"Now pass me a cookie."