A/N: Hi, Y'all!

First off:

Thank you to True Thinker for reviewing.

Thank you to Snugglesthefluffykitten and strange-summer-melancholy for favoriting.

Thank you to Wilhelm Wigworthy for following.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

So, it's been like two weeks since I've posted. I didn't get anyone to vote in the poll. I. have. put. it. off. long. enough. So I figured out Aang's and Toph's schedules without any of your help. It was hard.

Disclaimer: I own: Tess, Oliver, Gwen, O Where O Where Has My Piggy Gone?, Mrs. White, Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Kutchel, Miss Princeton, Mr. Chase, Mr. Sandler, Mr. Pearson, Mark, Derek, Julia, Katherine J. (Gwen's mom) Jerry A. (Tess's dad) Callie A. (Tess's mom) Andrew R. (Oliver's dad) Valerie R. (Oliver's mom) Amber, Lucy, and Alexis, and anyone/thing I have forgotten. Like, the plot. Oh, I also own Brian.

I do not own: Avatar the Last Airbender or any of it's characters, and also groucho glasses. I hope doing this once is good enough for you!


Chapter 3

The next week flew by in a flash! Aang, it turns out, is in three of my classes: HomeroomMath, Science and Band. (He plays the recorder, and is so awesome!) Toph is in absolutely none of my classes, which sucks. She's really cool.

After school, Toph begged me to get Gwen to help her with the part of Beth in the play O Where O Where Has My Piggy Gone? Mrs. Xavier, the drama teacher, wrote it herself. Apparently, Gwen's understudy (Gwen was the female lead.) had other plans the night the play was going to be performed, so Toph got the part.

I tried to explain to Toph that Gwen couldn't talk, and there was no way her mother was going to let her outside for another month. Toph, mistakenly assuming that because Gwen was a thespian I must have been too, (Hah, no.) made me help her out by playing all the other parts. Even the pig: Bacon. (Mrs. Xavier has a big imagination, probably larger than Mrs. Kutchel.)

"Oink," I muttered, wishing that Derek would take the camera out of my face.

"You just want to be free, don't you." Toph asked in a monotone.

"Oink," I said, scratching at an imaginary fence.

"You just want to root for truffles, don't you." Toph asked, again in the annoying monotone.

"Oink," I answered.

"CUT!" Oliver said. "Tess, Tess, Tess. That was—" Oliver bit back a snort. "—interesting. Toph, I wish I could say the same for you. Instead of saying 'You just want to be free don't you.'" monotone, of course, "say, 'You just want to free! don't you?!' See the difference?"

We all laughed. Oliver said free! so high pitched that his voice had cracked, and he was attempting an awful female Southern accent.

"No offense, but don't bother trying out for the school play again next semester," I said.

That made Oliver a little upset. "You're just jealous because you're playing a pig and all you get to say is 'oink.'"

"Let's do another scene, shall we?" I asked.

This time, I was playing the mayor.

Toph walked briskly up to me. She was supposed to be running. "Oh no. My pig has escaped. Can you help me."

"Why, sure," I wiggled my imaginary mustache. What? It's in the script! "Can you describe the pig for me?"

"He has a, uh," Toph paused to read the script. (Braille version for her.) "A cutie-wootie wittul nose and a brown spot on his back and a curly-wurly tail and…" Blah, blah, blah, etc, etc. I swear, the only time Toph ever wavered from her monotone voice was when she said, "cutie-wootie wittul nose." I had no idea Toph could do that!

I almost fell asleep in place. I was awoken by Derek, slapping me with some of my sheet music.

"Hey!" I complained. I realized everyone was looking at me expectantly. I searched through all twelve lines of description about this one stupid little pig. "Uhhh, was the…latch gate—I mean, gate latch unlocked when you last saw your pig?" I read.

Toph was starting to get the hang of this as I was getting worse. "Why, no! I remember quite distinctly locking it."

"Did you now." I replied, reading right off the script, so I sounded like a robot. "When…you…locked…him…in…was…he…on…the…inside…or…the…outside?"

"Uh, outside I believe," Toph said, getting the hang of acting.

"Now, which gate was it? The one facing the woods or the road?" I asked.

"The woods—no, the road," Toph replied.

"No time to be wasted!" I did what the script asked and ran. Only I ran into Zuko.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Zuko yelled.

"Sorry," I muttered. "It could have been worse, you could have been in a car."

Zuko ignored me and shoved past to talk to Toph, Aang, Katara, and Sokka. "I have bad news," he said.

"What?" Sokka asked, getting in a defensive position.

"My dad found out where we are," Zuko answered.

"Your dad?" Katara echoed.

"This isn't good!" Aang said. "If he tries to steal you again! He can't!"

"I know, I know. He wants to talk to me though. Alone," Zuko said.

"You should do it in a public place, so if he tries anything, we can stop him," Toph said.

"You're not going to actually talk to him, are you? I mean, we'd have to move again if you did!" Sokka complained.

"I'm going to. I heard my mom's voice over the phone," Zuko said.

"Your mom?" Katara echoed.

"Do you want to believe it?" Aang asked. "Your dad really wants custody over you."

"Public place!" Toph sang.

Zuko nodded. There was an awkward silence, in which I chose to ask, "What's going on?"

"Oh! We-ell, Zuko's dad and mom got divorced—"

"It was all his fault," Zuko interrupted.

"—and then Zuko stepped out of line a little, and then his dad burned his face and disowned him. Zuko moved around with his, well nomadic uncle. They were living near us. You see, Katara and I are brother and sister; we adopted Aang after he had run away from home, same for Toph. So, while Zuko and his uncle were living near us, his uncle died, and since the only other option for Zuko was to go home or in an orphanage, dad adopted him as well!" Sokka recapped.

"Yup, that's pretty much it. About a year ago, Ozai, that's Zuko's dad, came back around and demanded we give Zuko back. Well, obviously we weren't going to, since he killed my mom, threatened to do the same to Gran-Gran, whom we were living with, and also threatened to burn the house down. We have been moving around trying to get away from him ever since," Katara said.

I frowned. "So, this means you're going to move again?" I asked.

"I'm sick of moving and my family's nomadic!" Aang complained.

"Stop complaining, Twinkle Toes."

The next day at school, I asked Aang and Toph about Zuko. "He's going to talk to his dad on Sunday," was the answer.

So, of course, on Monday, I asked how it went. Sadly, we were in homeroom, and Mrs. White asked us to stop talking. I had to wait until lunch to ask them. But, Mrs. Kutchel needed me to come at lunch to discuss the essay I had failed. Derek is so going to tease me for this.

I could hear his voice in my head: "Not so much of a band nerd, are you?"

"You wanted me, Mrs. Kutchel?" I asked.

"Tess, I think you could do better on this essay," she said. I looked at the D paper.

"Yeah?" Truth is, I had forgotten all about the essay and finished it all at the last second.

"I want you to rewrite this, prove to me what you're capable of," Mrs. Kutchel said. I sighed down at the essay. I took it and left.

Finally, I found out the situation on Zuko, with him holding his carpetbag. "My dad is sincerely interested in healing the family, he even found my mom and is inserting Azula into public school," Zuko said.

"Azula? Why does her name remind me of the color blue?" I asked.

Zuko shrugged. "She's mean and in the eight grade; that's all I know of it," Zuko said.

I had to go rewrite that stupid essay, so I didn't see Zuko get into his car and leave.

Let me just tell you, I am so glad that Azula is in the eight grade, and I wasn't the unlucky sucker that had to lead her around.

Sorry Brian!


A/N: Whoo! It's almost 11 o'clock while I'm posting this and I am ready to go to bed! Not that I spent any of today actually writing this. Hah. Actually, wrote the last six and a quarter paragraphs today. He-he, sorry.

Happy Easter! Even though none of you will be reading this on Easter!

Oh, also, sorry if I make Tess seem Mary-Sue-ish. I don't mean it. If you don't know what a Mary-Sue is, forget I mentioned it...

Gosh now it's after 11 o'clock! Where has all the time gone? Oh yeah, into this Author's note. Author's notes are fun, haven't any of you noticed I always like to write a somewhat long after Author's note?