We're All Bored Here,
also
I Dreamt I Was a Moron...
Summary: A new student begins attending Lawndale High not long after Daria and Quinn. She is not witty, she is not intelligent, she is not particularly pretty, she has no special gifts, and no tragic past. In fact, there is absolutely nothing worth mentioning about her. So...uh...read on, okay? :o)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in here except for Shani. And let's face it, who wants her?
Notes: Okay, I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is. I think I just wanted to write an Anti-Sue 'fic, but it's kind of turned anime-ish. If there's any interest in this, I'll continue it to make an altered version of the first season. If not, well, I apologize to any of you who wasted your time reading it. :o)
One more thing: I have used the actual transcript of the episode to a point, but I didn't especially want to confine myself to it throughout the entire story. Anyway, that is why I have completely made up new dialogue for everything after Daria's first self-esteem class.
Um...anyway, please leave a review to tell me what you thought of this. Oh, and as I am very Stacy-esque about criticism, please try not to leave unnecessarily harsh flames. Tell me on no uncertain terms what you didn't like about the writing, sure, but don't extend that and tell me that I am of no value as a person because my story 'fukin sux.' That will be utterly disregarded...after I've run from the room with my head buried in my hands, sobbing, of course. :o)
And now, oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon with the show!
There was once a girl unlike any other. That's because, if you think about it, no two people are completely alike. Thus, of course the girl was unlike any other. But, that isn't quite what I meant.
This girl was truly an extraordinary creature, with a beauty unmatched by anything seen or heard of before. Her figure was the picture of grace and loveliness, her eyes shone like the brightest stars of the heavens, her complexion smooth and flawless as Devonshire cream. It was a beauty that any man would long to possess. Perhaps a certain laid-back, spiky-haired guitarist with whom some of us may be acquainted. Beauty, however, was not the girl's only asset (and a nice asset it was!). In addition, she was enormously clever, but not quite as clever as whatever man she happened to be with at the time. For, in her infinite wisdom, she knew that men like this in a woman. Her amazingly overblown intellect helped her greatly in her mastery of every form of artistic endeavour that existed as well. Her skill in painting, sculpting, music, writing, and even drama surpassed all, making her easily the most interesting and enlightened being in existence. Not only this, but she had early mastered all the secrets of ballet, and her propensity for wrapping her legs around her head also had the potential to win her the affection of any male she desired. Her name was Mary Sue, and all in all, she was quite a dish.
One lovely afternoon late in September, this stunningly lovely, immensely artistic girl wandered into a perfectly typical high school, in the perfectly typical town of Lawndale, on a perfectly typical day. Pausing in the doorway for a moment to give every male being drifting about the hallway the proper chance to gasp in amazement over her beauty, she heard a faint rumbling sound behind her. 'Oh, my,' she thought, 'this is rather unusual.' She turned, just in time to be squished beyond recognition as a human being behind the double doors of the school. 'This shouldn't be,' were her last thoughts before she was obliterated.
"I get to hold the door for Quinn today!" Jeffy announced, glaring darkly at the blond boy and the dark-haired boy as he slammed the door open. As set as he was on his task of guarding said door from his two rivals, he utterly missed the rather disgusting noise of one young woman being compressed into a puddle.
"No way!" Joey hastened to cut in. "You held it last week."
"Uh-uh!" Jamie declared articulately. "YOU held it last week. That means it's my turn this week!"
"Guys!" the lovely young redheaded woman protested, a small smile indicating that her protests weren't QUITE as whole-hearted as they might have been. "Don't fight! You can ALL hold the door for me! And anyway, I didn't even LIVE here last week!"
A collective cheer rose up from the three young men, who apparently hadn't even heard the second part of this statement, or who had all already blocked from their memories a time when the Goddess Quinn did not live in Lawndale, as they each scrambled for a free section of door to lean against until their goddess was safely through.
As all this was happening, another girl of lesser grace and beauty and perfection than our dear departed Mary Sue (for, of course, the best Mary Sues are the dead ones), or even than the Goddess Quinn, made her way up the front sidewalk of the school. Upon seeing the door standing open, held by a young man, she sped up slightly, thinking that the gesture was for her benefit.
"Aw, thank-" she began to gush, but was cut off as the door slammed directly in her face, sending her keeling backward onto the pavement.
Then, her eyes filling with tears, she picked up her duck-shaped backpack, cuddled it close, and whimpered,
"Ow... I don't think they like us, Mr. Perkins."
"Hey, hey, don't get so down on yourself!" the duck pleaded in her mind. "Yer a great kid, Shani! I'm sure you'll make tons of friends in no time! Or maybe just two really, really special, creative, deep, super-smart friends with a firm grip on reality, who are, in fact, the only two people in the school worth associating with anyway!"
Thus reassured by her backpack, Shani bounced to her feet with a cheer of "Yaay!" that, to the other students who hadn't heard her exchange with Mr. Perkins, seemed remarkably oddly timed.
But Shani, being...an interesting lass, paid no mind to the odd glances she was receiving, and bolted enthusiastically into the school in a series of extremely badly-executed ballet leaps.
However, just as she cleared the doorway, the door slammed shut, effectively pinning her in place by catching the mass of long red curls streaming out behind her.
"ACK!" she shrieked as a sensation of thousands of fiery needles jabbing ruthlessly into her scalp filled her eyes once again with tears. She came to a dead halt, giving her head an experimental pull. No good. It still hurt. Hmm...would it work now? No, she decided after another quick tug, it wouldn't work now.
And so there Shani stood in the lobby of Lawndale High, her hair caught in the door, and with no idea how to remedy this. Had this been a completely different story, it is likely that someone, most likely a good-looking male someone, coincidentally the author's favourite good-looking male someone, overwhelmed by Shani's beauty and differentness, would have stopped to free her from her trap, and proceeded to fall irrevocably in love with her.
However, this is not that sort of story, as we have already killed off the only character that could instantly win any male's heart with her beauty and her propensity for body contortionism. She is, if you will recall, a puddle of goo behind the door. Yaay! Continuity!
As such, there was little else for young Shani to do, aside from stay where she was and watch the pageant of high school life pass her by from her vantage point.
It is likely that Shani should have remained there from morn 'till night, and likely through the morn and night again, had a kindly middle-aged lady known as Mrs. Manson not happened past and noticed her plight. Or noticed something else about her.
"Oh, goodness!" she exclaimed breathlessly, rushing over to the young redhead. "You're a new student, aren't you?"
"Y-yeah," Shani sniffled, wiping her eyes with Mr. Perkins.
"Well, come quickly!"
"Um..."
Mrs. Manson rushed on, unheeding.
"We have a lot to do!"
"Er..."
"We'll start with a short psychological exam. Now, dear, please follow me."
"Um...Miss Nice Lady, I can't move. I'm stuck in the door."
"Oh! Well, why didn't you say so?"
Without another moment's hesitation, Mrs. Manson freed Shani from the door, and together they set off to the office of the school counsellor.
"Alright, Shani, I'm going to hold up a card, and you are going to tell me what you see," Mrs. Manson explained breezily, reaching for a large cue card from the surface of the desk, with the outlines of a boy and a girl facing one another as though involved in lively conversation.
Shani frowned very hard at the picture, leaned closer, and peered more searchingly. For five minutes, she repeated this process, and the silence in the small office began to grow uncomfortable. Finally, Shani sat back in her chair and stared at Mrs. Manson, eyes impossibly wide.
"Bats," she whispered.
"...Excuse me?"
"I see bats..."
"Shani, there are no bats in the picture."
"Really?" She peered at the picture again, then laughed self-deprecatingly. "Oh! Yeah, you're right. It's two people TALKING about bats!"
"I...see," Mrs. Manson said slowly, snatching up a small spiral notepad and jotting some notes down rapidly on it. "Dear, tell me about your family."
"All of them?"
"Well...your immediate family."
"ALL of them?"
"How many people are there in your immediate family?"
"Forty-two."
"I...think you must be mistaken, dear. Count again."
Shani sat silent for a time, brow wrinkled, pondering this. Then she looked up.
"Yeah, you're right. There are forty-five of us."
"Forty-five! What kind of family are you from?"
"Is...that unusual?"
"Of course it's unusual! Forty-five of you, all living in the same house?!"
"What?! No, we don't all live in the same house! Do you know how crowded that would be?"
"Well, who do you live in a house with?"
"I live with my older sister, my younger sister, and two of my cousins who are my age."
Mrs. Manson blinked, a red light beginning to flash in her mind already.
"No parents?"
"Oh, our parents live just a house over with the children."
"Well...why don't you live with them?"
"Because they want to know that we can cope on our own. My older sister is only a year away from being given in marriage. When we turn fifteen, we start being trained to be good wives and warriors."
"You're trained to be given away in marriage? Just what sort of family are you from?!"
"That's how all our people act," Shani informed the woman, her tone and expression somewhat wounded.
"And what people are these?"
"Yadrians."
"...Pardon me?"
"The Yadrians of the nation of Yadri."
"Ah. So...why are you coming to school here, if your people all live in Yadri?"
"I was sent away from my homeland because I annoyed all the other cat- faeries. Someone had to come with me, because they don't trust me not to accidentally impale myself on a pencil while I'm here. So, my mother and father and little brother were sent along, too, so we could properly masquerade as a normal family...but I don't think I was supposed to tell you that," she concluded with a giggle.
"Cat...faeries..."
"Yeah! So, basically, I'm here on a doomed reconnaissance mission because I am the most expendable of the young females of my kind. They need the rest to mate with the men and produce strong warriors, but...none of them wanted me."
"I...see," Mrs. Manson replied hesitantly, pencil furiously scratching. 'Low self-esteem; feels unloved even by her delusions. Remedial class necessary. Possible in-depth psychiatric help needed.' With a forced smile, the forced quality of which was completely lost on Shani who returned it radiantly, she spoke gently. "Now, Shani, I've gone over your responses to the psychological exam, and there's a certain extra class we'd like you to take."
"A special class?!" Shani's eyes widened, the beginnings of a grin spreading over her face.
"Y-yes, a...special class."
"Hooray!"
Mrs. Manson sighed. 'Definite in-depth psychiatric help needed,' she scrawled on the notepad.
'Why do I get all the strange ones?' she demanded petulantly of the world in general.
Timothy O'Neill flipped desperately through his book. Darnit, where had that marker gone?! He froze for a moment, appalled at the harsh language of his thoughts. He would have to make sure to do an extra fifteen minutes of meditations today to calm his mind and drive all these bad words out of it. At the moment, though, there were seven rather confused young people watching him, no doubt wondering why he wasn't going on with the lesson.
"Esteem, a teen. They don't really rhyme, do they? The sounds don't quite...mesh. And that in fact is often the case when it comes to a teen, and esteem. The two just don't seem to go together. But we are here today to begin realizing your actuality."
Immediately, a hand in the first row shot up.
'Oh, no...maybe if I pretend I don't see her, she'll give up,' he thought, praying desperately that it might be true.
He continued speaking, but alas, the hand didn't go away. It waved more emphatically. Stumbling slightly over his words, Mr. O'Neill continued doggedly on.
The owner of the hand, however, was having none of this.
"Excuse me," she called. Mr. O'Neill looked up at a girl of about sixteen garbed in a heavy green jacket, a mass of red-brown hair resting against her shoulders, peering at him through eyes covered by thickly rimmed glasses. "I want to know what 'realizing your actuality' means."
"It means... look, just let me get through the part okay? And then there will be a video!" the rattled teacher promised enthusiastically.
"Whatever it means, it sounds really pretty!" another voice chirped to his left.
All eyes shifted to land on the curly-haired redheaded girl garbed in the traditional stereotypical outfit of a 'school-girl' with a duck-shaped backpack perched on one corner of her desk.
"Why, thank-you," Mr. O'Neill said, voice nearly shaking with emotion at this sudden and unexpected confirmation, eyes growing slightly shiny. "Yes, the realization of one's actuality is a lovely, beautiful thing, um...what was your name?"
"Shani," she replied with a typically huge grin.
Daria rolled her eyes slightly. Great. Well, the teacher and this bubblehead deserved each other.
"But, what does it mean?" she pressed.
"Who cares what it means, if it sounds pretty?" a voice demanded sarcastically from behind her.
Daria turned, one eyebrow raised. The source of the voice seemed to be a girl of her own age, though taller, with short black hair that Daria would have guessed she had cut herself. With no mirror. Something within Daria nodded her approval.
"If I'm gonna be stuck here listening to it, I care," she informed the young woman.
"He doesn't know what it means," the dark-haired girl muttered, gesturing to Mr. O'Neill, who had, confidence bolstered by the praise of the speech in the book, continued. "He's got the speech memorized. Just enjoy the nice man's soothing voice."
"How am I supposed to follow him if I don't know what he's talking about?" Daria protested.
"I can fill you in later. I've taken this class six times," the girl informed her with an ironic smirk.
With a barely perceptible smile and a slightly more perceptible nod, Daria turned back to the front, wondering exactly what had just happened. A peer had just...reached out to her? How very strange. Ulterior motive, perhaps? Ah, well, that would remain to be seen...
"So, tell me, Jane," Daria began as the two girls trudged over the sun- warmed pavement towards Jane's home. "How does the teaching staff think that a class like that is going to improve a person's self-esteem?"
"The ways of The Faculty are not known to me," Jane replied dryly. "I guess Mr. O'Neill's stunningly high self-esteem is supposed to rub off on us."
"And I'm from another planet," Daria smirked.
"You, too?!" a rather insanely enthusiastic voice gasped from behind them.
Exchanging a pained glance, Daria and Jane slowly turned to behold Shani bounding down the sidewalk toward them, her duck backpack carefully cradled in one arm, the other waving to them frantically.
"I'm sorry," she began, grinning sheepishly. "I couldn't help but overhear. You said you're from another planet? That's a really crazy coincidence, because I am, too! Where are you from?"
"Highland," Daria replied slowly, somewhat at a loss.
Shani frowned.
"Is that near the Crab Nebula?"
"No, it's about a hundred and fifty miles from here," Jane cut in as she and Daria simultaneously turned away and started down the sidewalk again.
To their great confusion and annoyance, Shani stayed right with them.
"Y'know, if we're in the same special class, we should be friends!" the duck-bearing redhead suggested seriously.
"What a great idea," Daria said. "Why don't you go home, and we'll call you later."
"Really?! Really and truly?!"
"Really," Daria replied.
"And truly," Jane added.
"Yaay!" Shani chirped, leaping into the air and flashing a two-fingered victory sign to the world at large.
Unfortunately, young Shani had never learned the secret to landing this sort of a move properly, and as such, crashed painfully down onto the pavement.
"...Ow..." she whimpered, then bounced to her feet and took off, heedless of the bleeding scrapes on her knees, calling over her shoulder, "so, talk to you both later, then!"
"That...was too easy," Jane noted, frowning. "There's gotta be a catch."
"Don't fight it, Lane," Daria shrugged.
The dark-haired girl nodded, and they continued on.
Meanwhile, some hundred yards down the sidewalk, Shani stopped abruptly.
"How are they going to call me, if they don't have my phone number?"
"Hey, whaddaya know?" Jane drawled the next afternoon, raising an eyebrow at the grinning mass of red curls decked out in a traditional 'school-girl' outfit. "They've thrown another poor soul into our personal hell. Wait a second. That's the crazy girl from the self-esteem class."
"Hmm...so it is," Daria agreed with a quick glance at the girl. "So, pizza after this?"
"Sick Sad World, and THEN pizza," Jane corrected as they both took their seats in the front and centre of the class.
"Wow..." Shani breathed, absently petting Mr. Perkins. "They're so...not- shallow! Mr. Perkins! Do you really think these are the two girls that I'm going to make friends with?!"
"They might be," Mr. Perkins replied in her mind, with a roguish wink that also existed only in her mind. "Go on; talk to 'em. Ya have to apologize for not givin' 'em your number anyway, right?"
"O-kay!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, bouncing from her seat.
"Um..." Daria was meanwhile muttering to Jane, "is that girl talking to her backpack?"
"Wonderful," Jane sighed. "Another Brittany."
"Is Brittany in the habit of talking to inanimate objects?"
"You met Kevin, didn't you?"
"Oh, God, not again. She's coming over here."
With a quick glance over her shoulder, Jane confirmed that this was so.
"Act like you aren't paying attention," she advised ironically.
Daria smirked.
"Act, you say?"
"Hi!" the little curly-headed duck-toting lass chirped as she slid into the seat directly behind them.
"Is this going to involve staying awake?" Daria asked, not turning from her notebook.
"Well...I could talk to you through a dream, but that might be weird if we just met yesterday," Shani replied with a frown.
Jane turned.
"Uh...right. Look, kid, it's not that we don't like you, but..."
"Yeah, it is," Daria cut in.
Jane pondered this for a moment. Then...
"Yeah, you're right, it is."
Shani frowned.
"Are you trying to...tell me something?"
"Yes, and it is only this: go away."
"No, no, I meant on a mind-link level," Shani said absently, chewing the corner of her lip in deep concentration. Then she gasped. "You are deeply troubled. The afflictions given to you by your heritage may one day rise up to destroy you. You must change your destructive habits, much like those of your ancestors before you, or horrible things will happen to you and all those you know."
"That's very good," Daria congratulated her tonelessly. "Now let me try. A horrible fate is going to befall you if you don't go away within the next ten seconds."
Shani's eyes widened, and she gasped again.
"Really?! Thank-you, Miss Glasses-Girl! You may have just saved my life!"
With that, she slid from the desk in front of Daria's and bounced back to her own.
Seconds later, a redheaded boy, his face sprinkled with freckles and wreathed in a cheesy grin that seemed wider than his cheeks should have been able to contain strode through the door. Immediately catching sight of Daria, he made his way to the two desks in the front and centre of the room.
"Hello there, my pet. You're...new in Lawndale, aren't you?"
"Daria, you didn't tell me you were psychic," Jane said mock-reproachfully.
"Ooh...psychic," the redhead drawled, his eyebrows lifting. "Then of course you see that your future holds and evening of dinner and dancing with the one and only Charles Ruttheimer III? Tell me, doll, what happens after that?"
"A satellite sent up by the Russians lands on you and crushes you to death," Daria replied immediately.
"Feisty!" Charles, as Daria knew him by this point, exclaimed, eyebrows waggling lecherously.
"Hey, Upchuck," Jane began thoughtfully. "I think I'm having a psychic flash, too."
"Oh, do tell, kitten," Upchuck implored.
"It involves that girl over there," Jane informed him, pointing to Shani, who was gazing at the scene in confusion.
"Rrrrrrrreally," he drawled, eyeing the fairly decent amount of leg exposed by the little pleated plaid skirt Shani wore. "I do love a schoolgirl..."
"Or anything else that moves," Jane added.
But Upchuck didn't hear this, as he had already started over to the desk in the corner.
"I've gotta hand it to you, Lane," Daria began with a small smile as Upchuck flashed Shani a ridiculously cheesy lecherous grin, and she returned it with a ridiculously cheesy completely non-lecherous one, "you're a master time efficiency expert."
"How do you mean?"
"To get rid of two excruciatingly annoying problems at once?"
"Thanks. I learned it from Sesame Street."
At this, Daria looked nearly surprised.
"What?"
"Well, when I was four, this kid decided that I was his best friend. He'd come over everyday, whether I invited him or not. But the only thing he ever wanted to do was watch Sesame Street, which wouldn't have been so bad, but he wanted me to watch it with him. So one day, I put my foot through the TV. Mom was a little annoyed, and Penny was furious, but I didn't have to watch Sesame Street, and the kid went home."
"What a touching childhood memory."
"Now it's your turn."
Daria thought carefully.
"One time, when I was four, I shut Quinn up with a roll of duct tape."
"I feel choked up. Does anyone have a tissue?"
"Shut up."
End Notes: Well, that was fun! For me, at any rate. :o)
Oh, and I have been completely cheap and allowed Upchuck to share a class with Daria and Jane, as well as letting him meet Daria before the second episode, simply for the sake of the cheap joke. I'm good at those! :o) Anyway, I hope no one minds this slight tweaking of 'Daria' reality.
Anyway, thanks for reading thus far! The feedback's been really great.
[Rhianwen waves cheerily, then bounces away]
also
I Dreamt I Was a Moron...
Summary: A new student begins attending Lawndale High not long after Daria and Quinn. She is not witty, she is not intelligent, she is not particularly pretty, she has no special gifts, and no tragic past. In fact, there is absolutely nothing worth mentioning about her. So...uh...read on, okay? :o)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in here except for Shani. And let's face it, who wants her?
Notes: Okay, I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is. I think I just wanted to write an Anti-Sue 'fic, but it's kind of turned anime-ish. If there's any interest in this, I'll continue it to make an altered version of the first season. If not, well, I apologize to any of you who wasted your time reading it. :o)
One more thing: I have used the actual transcript of the episode to a point, but I didn't especially want to confine myself to it throughout the entire story. Anyway, that is why I have completely made up new dialogue for everything after Daria's first self-esteem class.
Um...anyway, please leave a review to tell me what you thought of this. Oh, and as I am very Stacy-esque about criticism, please try not to leave unnecessarily harsh flames. Tell me on no uncertain terms what you didn't like about the writing, sure, but don't extend that and tell me that I am of no value as a person because my story 'fukin sux.' That will be utterly disregarded...after I've run from the room with my head buried in my hands, sobbing, of course. :o)
And now, oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon with the show!
There was once a girl unlike any other. That's because, if you think about it, no two people are completely alike. Thus, of course the girl was unlike any other. But, that isn't quite what I meant.
This girl was truly an extraordinary creature, with a beauty unmatched by anything seen or heard of before. Her figure was the picture of grace and loveliness, her eyes shone like the brightest stars of the heavens, her complexion smooth and flawless as Devonshire cream. It was a beauty that any man would long to possess. Perhaps a certain laid-back, spiky-haired guitarist with whom some of us may be acquainted. Beauty, however, was not the girl's only asset (and a nice asset it was!). In addition, she was enormously clever, but not quite as clever as whatever man she happened to be with at the time. For, in her infinite wisdom, she knew that men like this in a woman. Her amazingly overblown intellect helped her greatly in her mastery of every form of artistic endeavour that existed as well. Her skill in painting, sculpting, music, writing, and even drama surpassed all, making her easily the most interesting and enlightened being in existence. Not only this, but she had early mastered all the secrets of ballet, and her propensity for wrapping her legs around her head also had the potential to win her the affection of any male she desired. Her name was Mary Sue, and all in all, she was quite a dish.
One lovely afternoon late in September, this stunningly lovely, immensely artistic girl wandered into a perfectly typical high school, in the perfectly typical town of Lawndale, on a perfectly typical day. Pausing in the doorway for a moment to give every male being drifting about the hallway the proper chance to gasp in amazement over her beauty, she heard a faint rumbling sound behind her. 'Oh, my,' she thought, 'this is rather unusual.' She turned, just in time to be squished beyond recognition as a human being behind the double doors of the school. 'This shouldn't be,' were her last thoughts before she was obliterated.
"I get to hold the door for Quinn today!" Jeffy announced, glaring darkly at the blond boy and the dark-haired boy as he slammed the door open. As set as he was on his task of guarding said door from his two rivals, he utterly missed the rather disgusting noise of one young woman being compressed into a puddle.
"No way!" Joey hastened to cut in. "You held it last week."
"Uh-uh!" Jamie declared articulately. "YOU held it last week. That means it's my turn this week!"
"Guys!" the lovely young redheaded woman protested, a small smile indicating that her protests weren't QUITE as whole-hearted as they might have been. "Don't fight! You can ALL hold the door for me! And anyway, I didn't even LIVE here last week!"
A collective cheer rose up from the three young men, who apparently hadn't even heard the second part of this statement, or who had all already blocked from their memories a time when the Goddess Quinn did not live in Lawndale, as they each scrambled for a free section of door to lean against until their goddess was safely through.
As all this was happening, another girl of lesser grace and beauty and perfection than our dear departed Mary Sue (for, of course, the best Mary Sues are the dead ones), or even than the Goddess Quinn, made her way up the front sidewalk of the school. Upon seeing the door standing open, held by a young man, she sped up slightly, thinking that the gesture was for her benefit.
"Aw, thank-" she began to gush, but was cut off as the door slammed directly in her face, sending her keeling backward onto the pavement.
Then, her eyes filling with tears, she picked up her duck-shaped backpack, cuddled it close, and whimpered,
"Ow... I don't think they like us, Mr. Perkins."
"Hey, hey, don't get so down on yourself!" the duck pleaded in her mind. "Yer a great kid, Shani! I'm sure you'll make tons of friends in no time! Or maybe just two really, really special, creative, deep, super-smart friends with a firm grip on reality, who are, in fact, the only two people in the school worth associating with anyway!"
Thus reassured by her backpack, Shani bounced to her feet with a cheer of "Yaay!" that, to the other students who hadn't heard her exchange with Mr. Perkins, seemed remarkably oddly timed.
But Shani, being...an interesting lass, paid no mind to the odd glances she was receiving, and bolted enthusiastically into the school in a series of extremely badly-executed ballet leaps.
However, just as she cleared the doorway, the door slammed shut, effectively pinning her in place by catching the mass of long red curls streaming out behind her.
"ACK!" she shrieked as a sensation of thousands of fiery needles jabbing ruthlessly into her scalp filled her eyes once again with tears. She came to a dead halt, giving her head an experimental pull. No good. It still hurt. Hmm...would it work now? No, she decided after another quick tug, it wouldn't work now.
And so there Shani stood in the lobby of Lawndale High, her hair caught in the door, and with no idea how to remedy this. Had this been a completely different story, it is likely that someone, most likely a good-looking male someone, coincidentally the author's favourite good-looking male someone, overwhelmed by Shani's beauty and differentness, would have stopped to free her from her trap, and proceeded to fall irrevocably in love with her.
However, this is not that sort of story, as we have already killed off the only character that could instantly win any male's heart with her beauty and her propensity for body contortionism. She is, if you will recall, a puddle of goo behind the door. Yaay! Continuity!
As such, there was little else for young Shani to do, aside from stay where she was and watch the pageant of high school life pass her by from her vantage point.
It is likely that Shani should have remained there from morn 'till night, and likely through the morn and night again, had a kindly middle-aged lady known as Mrs. Manson not happened past and noticed her plight. Or noticed something else about her.
"Oh, goodness!" she exclaimed breathlessly, rushing over to the young redhead. "You're a new student, aren't you?"
"Y-yeah," Shani sniffled, wiping her eyes with Mr. Perkins.
"Well, come quickly!"
"Um..."
Mrs. Manson rushed on, unheeding.
"We have a lot to do!"
"Er..."
"We'll start with a short psychological exam. Now, dear, please follow me."
"Um...Miss Nice Lady, I can't move. I'm stuck in the door."
"Oh! Well, why didn't you say so?"
Without another moment's hesitation, Mrs. Manson freed Shani from the door, and together they set off to the office of the school counsellor.
"Alright, Shani, I'm going to hold up a card, and you are going to tell me what you see," Mrs. Manson explained breezily, reaching for a large cue card from the surface of the desk, with the outlines of a boy and a girl facing one another as though involved in lively conversation.
Shani frowned very hard at the picture, leaned closer, and peered more searchingly. For five minutes, she repeated this process, and the silence in the small office began to grow uncomfortable. Finally, Shani sat back in her chair and stared at Mrs. Manson, eyes impossibly wide.
"Bats," she whispered.
"...Excuse me?"
"I see bats..."
"Shani, there are no bats in the picture."
"Really?" She peered at the picture again, then laughed self-deprecatingly. "Oh! Yeah, you're right. It's two people TALKING about bats!"
"I...see," Mrs. Manson said slowly, snatching up a small spiral notepad and jotting some notes down rapidly on it. "Dear, tell me about your family."
"All of them?"
"Well...your immediate family."
"ALL of them?"
"How many people are there in your immediate family?"
"Forty-two."
"I...think you must be mistaken, dear. Count again."
Shani sat silent for a time, brow wrinkled, pondering this. Then she looked up.
"Yeah, you're right. There are forty-five of us."
"Forty-five! What kind of family are you from?"
"Is...that unusual?"
"Of course it's unusual! Forty-five of you, all living in the same house?!"
"What?! No, we don't all live in the same house! Do you know how crowded that would be?"
"Well, who do you live in a house with?"
"I live with my older sister, my younger sister, and two of my cousins who are my age."
Mrs. Manson blinked, a red light beginning to flash in her mind already.
"No parents?"
"Oh, our parents live just a house over with the children."
"Well...why don't you live with them?"
"Because they want to know that we can cope on our own. My older sister is only a year away from being given in marriage. When we turn fifteen, we start being trained to be good wives and warriors."
"You're trained to be given away in marriage? Just what sort of family are you from?!"
"That's how all our people act," Shani informed the woman, her tone and expression somewhat wounded.
"And what people are these?"
"Yadrians."
"...Pardon me?"
"The Yadrians of the nation of Yadri."
"Ah. So...why are you coming to school here, if your people all live in Yadri?"
"I was sent away from my homeland because I annoyed all the other cat- faeries. Someone had to come with me, because they don't trust me not to accidentally impale myself on a pencil while I'm here. So, my mother and father and little brother were sent along, too, so we could properly masquerade as a normal family...but I don't think I was supposed to tell you that," she concluded with a giggle.
"Cat...faeries..."
"Yeah! So, basically, I'm here on a doomed reconnaissance mission because I am the most expendable of the young females of my kind. They need the rest to mate with the men and produce strong warriors, but...none of them wanted me."
"I...see," Mrs. Manson replied hesitantly, pencil furiously scratching. 'Low self-esteem; feels unloved even by her delusions. Remedial class necessary. Possible in-depth psychiatric help needed.' With a forced smile, the forced quality of which was completely lost on Shani who returned it radiantly, she spoke gently. "Now, Shani, I've gone over your responses to the psychological exam, and there's a certain extra class we'd like you to take."
"A special class?!" Shani's eyes widened, the beginnings of a grin spreading over her face.
"Y-yes, a...special class."
"Hooray!"
Mrs. Manson sighed. 'Definite in-depth psychiatric help needed,' she scrawled on the notepad.
'Why do I get all the strange ones?' she demanded petulantly of the world in general.
Timothy O'Neill flipped desperately through his book. Darnit, where had that marker gone?! He froze for a moment, appalled at the harsh language of his thoughts. He would have to make sure to do an extra fifteen minutes of meditations today to calm his mind and drive all these bad words out of it. At the moment, though, there were seven rather confused young people watching him, no doubt wondering why he wasn't going on with the lesson.
"Esteem, a teen. They don't really rhyme, do they? The sounds don't quite...mesh. And that in fact is often the case when it comes to a teen, and esteem. The two just don't seem to go together. But we are here today to begin realizing your actuality."
Immediately, a hand in the first row shot up.
'Oh, no...maybe if I pretend I don't see her, she'll give up,' he thought, praying desperately that it might be true.
He continued speaking, but alas, the hand didn't go away. It waved more emphatically. Stumbling slightly over his words, Mr. O'Neill continued doggedly on.
The owner of the hand, however, was having none of this.
"Excuse me," she called. Mr. O'Neill looked up at a girl of about sixteen garbed in a heavy green jacket, a mass of red-brown hair resting against her shoulders, peering at him through eyes covered by thickly rimmed glasses. "I want to know what 'realizing your actuality' means."
"It means... look, just let me get through the part okay? And then there will be a video!" the rattled teacher promised enthusiastically.
"Whatever it means, it sounds really pretty!" another voice chirped to his left.
All eyes shifted to land on the curly-haired redheaded girl garbed in the traditional stereotypical outfit of a 'school-girl' with a duck-shaped backpack perched on one corner of her desk.
"Why, thank-you," Mr. O'Neill said, voice nearly shaking with emotion at this sudden and unexpected confirmation, eyes growing slightly shiny. "Yes, the realization of one's actuality is a lovely, beautiful thing, um...what was your name?"
"Shani," she replied with a typically huge grin.
Daria rolled her eyes slightly. Great. Well, the teacher and this bubblehead deserved each other.
"But, what does it mean?" she pressed.
"Who cares what it means, if it sounds pretty?" a voice demanded sarcastically from behind her.
Daria turned, one eyebrow raised. The source of the voice seemed to be a girl of her own age, though taller, with short black hair that Daria would have guessed she had cut herself. With no mirror. Something within Daria nodded her approval.
"If I'm gonna be stuck here listening to it, I care," she informed the young woman.
"He doesn't know what it means," the dark-haired girl muttered, gesturing to Mr. O'Neill, who had, confidence bolstered by the praise of the speech in the book, continued. "He's got the speech memorized. Just enjoy the nice man's soothing voice."
"How am I supposed to follow him if I don't know what he's talking about?" Daria protested.
"I can fill you in later. I've taken this class six times," the girl informed her with an ironic smirk.
With a barely perceptible smile and a slightly more perceptible nod, Daria turned back to the front, wondering exactly what had just happened. A peer had just...reached out to her? How very strange. Ulterior motive, perhaps? Ah, well, that would remain to be seen...
"So, tell me, Jane," Daria began as the two girls trudged over the sun- warmed pavement towards Jane's home. "How does the teaching staff think that a class like that is going to improve a person's self-esteem?"
"The ways of The Faculty are not known to me," Jane replied dryly. "I guess Mr. O'Neill's stunningly high self-esteem is supposed to rub off on us."
"And I'm from another planet," Daria smirked.
"You, too?!" a rather insanely enthusiastic voice gasped from behind them.
Exchanging a pained glance, Daria and Jane slowly turned to behold Shani bounding down the sidewalk toward them, her duck backpack carefully cradled in one arm, the other waving to them frantically.
"I'm sorry," she began, grinning sheepishly. "I couldn't help but overhear. You said you're from another planet? That's a really crazy coincidence, because I am, too! Where are you from?"
"Highland," Daria replied slowly, somewhat at a loss.
Shani frowned.
"Is that near the Crab Nebula?"
"No, it's about a hundred and fifty miles from here," Jane cut in as she and Daria simultaneously turned away and started down the sidewalk again.
To their great confusion and annoyance, Shani stayed right with them.
"Y'know, if we're in the same special class, we should be friends!" the duck-bearing redhead suggested seriously.
"What a great idea," Daria said. "Why don't you go home, and we'll call you later."
"Really?! Really and truly?!"
"Really," Daria replied.
"And truly," Jane added.
"Yaay!" Shani chirped, leaping into the air and flashing a two-fingered victory sign to the world at large.
Unfortunately, young Shani had never learned the secret to landing this sort of a move properly, and as such, crashed painfully down onto the pavement.
"...Ow..." she whimpered, then bounced to her feet and took off, heedless of the bleeding scrapes on her knees, calling over her shoulder, "so, talk to you both later, then!"
"That...was too easy," Jane noted, frowning. "There's gotta be a catch."
"Don't fight it, Lane," Daria shrugged.
The dark-haired girl nodded, and they continued on.
Meanwhile, some hundred yards down the sidewalk, Shani stopped abruptly.
"How are they going to call me, if they don't have my phone number?"
"Hey, whaddaya know?" Jane drawled the next afternoon, raising an eyebrow at the grinning mass of red curls decked out in a traditional 'school-girl' outfit. "They've thrown another poor soul into our personal hell. Wait a second. That's the crazy girl from the self-esteem class."
"Hmm...so it is," Daria agreed with a quick glance at the girl. "So, pizza after this?"
"Sick Sad World, and THEN pizza," Jane corrected as they both took their seats in the front and centre of the class.
"Wow..." Shani breathed, absently petting Mr. Perkins. "They're so...not- shallow! Mr. Perkins! Do you really think these are the two girls that I'm going to make friends with?!"
"They might be," Mr. Perkins replied in her mind, with a roguish wink that also existed only in her mind. "Go on; talk to 'em. Ya have to apologize for not givin' 'em your number anyway, right?"
"O-kay!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, bouncing from her seat.
"Um..." Daria was meanwhile muttering to Jane, "is that girl talking to her backpack?"
"Wonderful," Jane sighed. "Another Brittany."
"Is Brittany in the habit of talking to inanimate objects?"
"You met Kevin, didn't you?"
"Oh, God, not again. She's coming over here."
With a quick glance over her shoulder, Jane confirmed that this was so.
"Act like you aren't paying attention," she advised ironically.
Daria smirked.
"Act, you say?"
"Hi!" the little curly-headed duck-toting lass chirped as she slid into the seat directly behind them.
"Is this going to involve staying awake?" Daria asked, not turning from her notebook.
"Well...I could talk to you through a dream, but that might be weird if we just met yesterday," Shani replied with a frown.
Jane turned.
"Uh...right. Look, kid, it's not that we don't like you, but..."
"Yeah, it is," Daria cut in.
Jane pondered this for a moment. Then...
"Yeah, you're right, it is."
Shani frowned.
"Are you trying to...tell me something?"
"Yes, and it is only this: go away."
"No, no, I meant on a mind-link level," Shani said absently, chewing the corner of her lip in deep concentration. Then she gasped. "You are deeply troubled. The afflictions given to you by your heritage may one day rise up to destroy you. You must change your destructive habits, much like those of your ancestors before you, or horrible things will happen to you and all those you know."
"That's very good," Daria congratulated her tonelessly. "Now let me try. A horrible fate is going to befall you if you don't go away within the next ten seconds."
Shani's eyes widened, and she gasped again.
"Really?! Thank-you, Miss Glasses-Girl! You may have just saved my life!"
With that, she slid from the desk in front of Daria's and bounced back to her own.
Seconds later, a redheaded boy, his face sprinkled with freckles and wreathed in a cheesy grin that seemed wider than his cheeks should have been able to contain strode through the door. Immediately catching sight of Daria, he made his way to the two desks in the front and centre of the room.
"Hello there, my pet. You're...new in Lawndale, aren't you?"
"Daria, you didn't tell me you were psychic," Jane said mock-reproachfully.
"Ooh...psychic," the redhead drawled, his eyebrows lifting. "Then of course you see that your future holds and evening of dinner and dancing with the one and only Charles Ruttheimer III? Tell me, doll, what happens after that?"
"A satellite sent up by the Russians lands on you and crushes you to death," Daria replied immediately.
"Feisty!" Charles, as Daria knew him by this point, exclaimed, eyebrows waggling lecherously.
"Hey, Upchuck," Jane began thoughtfully. "I think I'm having a psychic flash, too."
"Oh, do tell, kitten," Upchuck implored.
"It involves that girl over there," Jane informed him, pointing to Shani, who was gazing at the scene in confusion.
"Rrrrrrrreally," he drawled, eyeing the fairly decent amount of leg exposed by the little pleated plaid skirt Shani wore. "I do love a schoolgirl..."
"Or anything else that moves," Jane added.
But Upchuck didn't hear this, as he had already started over to the desk in the corner.
"I've gotta hand it to you, Lane," Daria began with a small smile as Upchuck flashed Shani a ridiculously cheesy lecherous grin, and she returned it with a ridiculously cheesy completely non-lecherous one, "you're a master time efficiency expert."
"How do you mean?"
"To get rid of two excruciatingly annoying problems at once?"
"Thanks. I learned it from Sesame Street."
At this, Daria looked nearly surprised.
"What?"
"Well, when I was four, this kid decided that I was his best friend. He'd come over everyday, whether I invited him or not. But the only thing he ever wanted to do was watch Sesame Street, which wouldn't have been so bad, but he wanted me to watch it with him. So one day, I put my foot through the TV. Mom was a little annoyed, and Penny was furious, but I didn't have to watch Sesame Street, and the kid went home."
"What a touching childhood memory."
"Now it's your turn."
Daria thought carefully.
"One time, when I was four, I shut Quinn up with a roll of duct tape."
"I feel choked up. Does anyone have a tissue?"
"Shut up."
End Notes: Well, that was fun! For me, at any rate. :o)
Oh, and I have been completely cheap and allowed Upchuck to share a class with Daria and Jane, as well as letting him meet Daria before the second episode, simply for the sake of the cheap joke. I'm good at those! :o) Anyway, I hope no one minds this slight tweaking of 'Daria' reality.
Anyway, thanks for reading thus far! The feedback's been really great.
[Rhianwen waves cheerily, then bounces away]