"And that is why I am late."

Agatha nodded along with all Sophie's dramatics as she pretended she had been listening.

"You're not listening, are you?"

"Uh. No." Agatha replied. Sophie shook her head. "Aggie, can't you listen to anything I say?"

"What?" Agatha asked. Sophie smirked and nudged her playfully. Agatha punched her lightly back.

"Ouch!" Sophie exclaimed. Now it was Agatha's turn to smirk. The girls continued to talk as they walked into town. Sophie spotted Belle. She shot her a quiet glare and then returned to her conversation with Agatha.

"You really don't like her." Agatha said.

"What?" Sophie said, surprised.

"You shoot a glare at her pretty much every time you see her."

"Um..."

"Why?"

"Because she's an idiot!" Sophie exclaimed. Agatha looked her up and down.

"She's the idiot?"

"GOD DAMN YOU!" Sophie screamed. Something about being called an idiot made a fire burn inside of her. Agatha smirked.

"You can't even call me a name?" Agatha leered. Sophie glared. Then sighed.

"Aggie. We're doing it again." Sophie sighed. Agatha's clouded face that had been reddened with anger unclenched. "Oh."

Suddenly, Agatha noticed that all the villagers were staring at her. "Um... Let's go, Sophie." she said, hair covering her face and already walking away.

"Where?" Sophie said, daintily picking up her dress to follow her friend.

"Away from people."

"I wonder why only the Receded or Advanced get to go into Uptown." a sweet voice said with a small hint of a sneer. It was Sophie.

"Pfft. There's probably some big problem up there so they want the people to clean it up but don't want 'ordinary' people seeing what's up there." said a shy, cracking voice that could be melodic if the person who the voice it belonged to tried. It was Agatha. Sophie playfully rolled her eyes as Agatha flicked some grass into the lake they were sitting by. Sophie was on a log.

"Or it's an absolutely fantabulous place where there's-"

"Rainbows and cotton candy clouds? Don't think so." Agatha cut in. Sophie glared.

"As I was saying. Where there's fabulous jobs, clean malls (not like the mall we have that's infested with cockroaches), night clubs, and other cool stuff!"

"Stuff." Agatha repeated. "Great."

"Well, I'll be there to show you around, so that's good." Sophie said.

"Show me around where? There's nothing I don't know about this stinkhole." Agatha said, referring to Gavaldon. Sophie giggled.

"I mean Uptown, silly." Sophie smiled. It dropped into a frown when she realized that Agatha looked like she'd just told her she was about to dye her hair orange... again.

"What? But... I won't... it's not... I'm not... I'm not going to that school!" Agatha shouted, motioning to the white and black boarding school behind the trees.

"Yes you are. Haven't you heard? Everyone thinks so. Anyways, after we graduate, we'll have SO much to talk about, and I'll show you my friends too. I can't imagine you'd make any more friends than me because... well, I'm me! Agatha stop staring. Anyways, you can tell me all about how the School for Receded was, and then we'll make a petition to make it better because I heard all the baths and toilets are broken and have been spitting out goo for the last sixteen years. And-"

"WAIT ONE SECOND!" Agatha shouted, holding up her hands. "I'm not going to any school!"

"Yes you are. Everyone knows I'll be going to the fantabulous School for Advanced (and NOT that... that... Belle!) and you'll be-"k

"Who says that?" Agatha squawked.

"Pretty much everyone."

"Well... I'm not going to the School for Receded. I'm not going to any school except the School of the Ordinary!" Agatha exclaimed. The School of the Ordinary was the Gavaldon school.

"Stop being so stubborn!" Sophie sighed, exasperated.

"Why are you being so stubborn?" Agatha asked.

"How am I being stubborn?"

"You keep saying which school I'm going to and which school you're going to!"

"How is that stubborn?"

"You keep saying I'M going to the School for Receded!"

"What? I'm not going to the School for Receded!"

"Well neither am I!"

"Why not?"

"BECAUSE I'M NOT."

"I don't suppose you're in the Honors classes in the pothole school in Gavaldone!"

"It's STINKHOLE! And I know for a fact you aren't!" Agatha shouted.

"And how do you know that!?" Sophie screamed.

"Because I'M in the Honors Classes!" Agatha screamed. Sophie gaped.

"What's 19.65 times 79.57?"

"This isn't math class, Sophie."

"Just answer."

"1563.5505." Agatha answered, automatically. Sophie gaped again.

"Close your mouth, you look like a dying fish."

"Why does everything revolve around death with you?"

"It doesn't."

"Then how come all your poems and songs have to do with death, graveyards and loneliness?" Sophie asked, innocently. Next thing she knew, she was face down in the dirt.

"What?" Sophie asked, her voice muffled.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THOSE?"

"Oh. I went in your house and you weren't there so I looked around in your room, I was cleaning it."

"I thought that was mom. EVER HEARD OF PRIVACY?"

"Yup."

"Then give me some! How about I go into your closet and fling out all your bras and thongs onto the road with your name on it!"

"I don't have thongs! And I don't put my name on my undergarments! And your writing looks like chicken scratch whereas mine looks like a princess."

"Really? No thongs? You look like the kind of girl that would! And it's called forgery!" Agatha shouted.

"SHUT UP!" came Sophie's voice, this was a different kind of voice. It was the "don't mess with me" voice, so scary that grown ups would run and hide. Agatha wasn't a grown up. She glared at Sophie. Sophie glared back and pushed Agatha off of her.

"Let's get going."