Disclaimer: The Simpsons characters, storylines and the town of Springfield are the property of Fox Studios. I hereby swear not to profit from this work of fiction unless at some point in the future I purchase The Simpsons from Fox. Until then this is just for fun.

Chapter 3
Lisa awoke the next day tired and with a slight headache, but truly happy. Not even the skateboard her brother had left outside her door, in an attempt to trip her up, could dampen her spirits. She actually laughed at the predictability of it. Bart was peaking from around his door expecting to hear a crash. He looked visibly disappointed as he approached.

"What's up with you Lise" he asked warily "aren't you mad?"

"No" She asked seemingly oblivious "why would I be?"

She knew this would infuriate Bart, but she didn't give him time to respond, pirouetting on the spot and walking down the stairs bouncing with energy. She was smiling so much her cheeks hurt.

Breakfast consisted of pancakes with syrup, and bacon for Homer and Bart. Bart tried to rub some bacon on hers, but Marge caught him in the act.

"Hurry up kids" said Marge in her usual nagging tone "You'll miss the bus!"

Bart and Lisa shouldered their school bags and headed for the door.

"Bye mom," they said in unison "bye Homer"

On the bus Lisa couldn't stop thinking about Colin. She hadn't even asked where he'd been, or when they would meet again. He was such a mystery, and he knew just what she liked.

Just then Francine walked onto the bus, sniffing the air, and Lisa made the mistake of making eye contact.

"Hey nerd" growled Francine "you looking at me"

"Uh…" Lisa stammered her good mood shattered "n-no"

"Wrong answer brainiac" she yelled

Francine grabbed Lisa's school bag and threw it out the window before stalking off the back seat.

"oooh" Lisa groaned sinking down in her seat, once again depressed at the thought of going to school.

Lisa hated school for three reasons. It was too boring, too easy and too hard. Boring because it took 6 hours out of her day, the class-work was easy because she was too smart and the other students gave her a hard time, because she was too smart. She sighed time to just make it through another day. Her headache was bothering her now, and she wondered if she could use it as an excuse to go home sick. No-one would question her, after all she had a perfect attendance record, but it was a slippery slope. Once she started taking days off her record would be broken and people would become increasingly suspicious.

The bus arrived at school and Lisa was the last off the bus. She was less likely to get jostled that way. The bell rang and she went to class. The class didn't interest her in the slightest, the area of a rectangle – come on, and not only that, Lisa realised she was trying to teach it without algebra, through repetition. To pass the time she drew up sheet of matrices and plotted the shapes in her mind struggling to comprehend their four dimensional nature. Of course the teacher knew she wasn't paying attention, but knew better than to call her out on it. Miss Hoover could still remember that last time, when Lisa quoted her lesson back to her word for word for five minutes.

Eventually her eyelids grew heavy. She rested her head in the crook of her arm silently drifting into the peaceful oblivion of sleep.

She dreamt she was slipping into a pit of darkness. What was the point, she thought, why should I even struggle, but just as she despaired and let go of the side Colin was there to catch her. He pulled her out of the pit of despair, and together they flew over the town. There was no dome this time, only clear blue sky. They flew higher and higher, until Springfield was just a dot. She could see the horizon was curved. Still they flew higher, until above her she could see the blackness of space above her and the blue shrouded sphere of the Earth below. It was cold and she hugged him tight. They accelerated faster and faster – well beyond what Lisa knew was the speed of light. The earth shrank in her view, until it was the size of a grain of sand and then disappeared altogether. The sun was now just one of many stars. Finally she saw the spiral of the Milky way. She could see the Andromeda galaxy on its collision course with the Milky way in the next 10 billion years. Then there was blackness. Nothing in the universe remained but her and Colin.

"Lisa" he said "Liiisa"

Lisa snapped awake.

"Lisa" said Sherry or was it Terry? Lisa couldn't tell

"Who's Colin" teased Terry

"What" asked Lisa

"You were totally" said Sherry

"Calling his name in your sleep" Completed Terry

Lisa blushed red

"Nobody" she said quickly

"Lisa has an imaginary" Began Sherry

"Boyfriend!" they chorused together

"You're weird Lisa" interjected Jamie

Lisa groaned, could this get any worse. Luckily the lunch bell rang and Lisa moved quickly out of the room.