Hi, and sorry for the wait! Back again! Thanks to Opal for reviewing. You're awesome, gallie.

For the partially illustrated version, search 'THSOND' on Deviantart.

The High School of Notre Dame
Chapter Four
Hey, Señorita

Esmeralda was frog-marched to the front offices, Frollo's vicelike grip cold on her upper arm. She didn't like the idea of him touching her. Once they were in his office, he released her arm and moved to his desk, opening a drawer to retrieve a pale pink form. Even from the wrong way, Esmeralda could see the word 'expulsion' in bold font at the head of the form.

"This is completely unjust," she said, "You can't just expel me."

"Actually," Frollo snarled, "I can."

"Mr. Frollo!" said a new voice, behind them, and Esmeralda twisted in her seat to look. It was the principal of the school, Mr. Saint-Paul. He was a fat, white-haired old man, amiable and pleasant, and Esmeralda often wondered why someone so decent employed someone like Frollo. "What seems to be the problem?" Mr. Saint-Paul asked, his voice stern.

"I am expelling this student," said Frollo, suddenly calm, "for an outburst of rudeness and gross defiance towards a teacher, violence, and foul language."

"I had to do something!" Esmeralda turned to the Principal, her one lifeline. "Mr. Saint-Paul, you know that new boy who's deformed? They were throwing things at him and mocking him and he-" She pointed at Frollo. "He just stood there and let them do it!"

Mr. Saint-Paul looked shocked. "But he's your son!"

Esmeralda reeled. That… that didn't make any sense! "He's your son?" she demanded.

"He is not my son," hissed Frollo, "I am his caretaker. Not his father!"

"Mr. Frollo," said the Principal, looking at Frollo with a very real dislike, "Esmeralda has never caused any trouble before this. I will not allow you to expel her. And I believe," he added, pointedly, "that the more extreme punishment should be reserved for those who initiated all of this." He looked at Frollo, his normally kind eyes cold. "See to it," he said, and then he left, leaving the door open behind him.

Frollo waited until Mr. Saint-Paul was back in his own office. Then he closed the door, and rounded on Esmeralda, grabbing her arm. His face was a mask of cold rage. She started to cry out, but he clamped a hand over her open mouth, his palm pressing against her lips and teeth.

"Now," he said, "You listen to me. You might think you're some kind of heroine. But I know what you are. You're an impudent gypsy slut and you're going to pay for it."

Esmeralda had never hated anyone in her life the way she hated Frollo right now. On impulse, she pulled her lips back and bit the palm of his hand. It didn't give her teeth much purchase, and he pulled his hand away before she could draw blood.

He looked at his palm for a moment, shocked, before wiping it carefully on her hair. "You ought to put that beautiful mouth of yours to better use," he said.

"You perverted creep," said Esmeralda.

"Very clever of you," said Frollo, "You really can pull an innuendo out of anything. I may not have the power to expel you over this, you little trollop, but believe me, if you put one toe out of line I will have you out of this school within minutes. And more than that- I have quite a lot of influence with the police." He tugged on her arm, which he still had not let go of, and spoke into her ear, in a low, whispering hiss. "Breathe one word against me, to anyone, and you'll find yourself prosecuted for drug trafficking. Don't think I can't do that."

Esmeralda felt a chill run through her, and knew that he was telling the truth.

He let her go, roughly, and went to his desk, putting away the expulsion form. From the same drawer, he retrieved another form, this one blue. "I am suspending you for four days. Count yourself lucky. What is your full name?"

Esmeralda stared at the floor and did not respond.

"Your name," said Frollo, "now."

He must really be mad, thought Esmeralda. "Esmeralda Rigó," said Esmeralda, dully, "Accent over the O." She was shaking slightly, and was not sure whether it was from anger or fear.

Frollo penned something into the form. "What grade are you in?"

"Eleven," she replied. Blackmail, that was what this was. Blackmail of the worst kind. He was an evil man.

Frollo filled in a few more spaces on the form, and then handed it to her. "You have half an hour to gather your belongings and get off the premises. If I catch you within the school after that, there will be serious trouble."

Esmeralda stared at the form with unseeing eyes. "What about my classes?"

"You'll have to catch up when you return on Monday," he said, disinterested. "Now get out. I have work to do."

Esmeralda left, feeling cold and shaky. When she was outside the office, she tore up the form into a garbage can, without reading it. Then, resigned, she went to her locker in the arts wing, and gathered up the things she would need to take home.

She swung her backpack over one shoulder and closed the locker door. As she did so, a door opened down the hall, and Quasimodo emerged from the boy's bathroom, looking hesitantly around him. His orange hair was damp, as was his shirt collar, but all traces of thrown fruit were gone. He spotted Esmeralda, looking surprised but pleased, and covered the distance between them in a matter of seconds. His pronounced limp did not seem to slow him down much. "Esmeralda," he breathed, eyes down, wringing his massive hands. "I-"

She didn't want thanks, and interrupted him. "Quasi- Are you alright?"

He looked up at her, slightly surprised. "Er- Majorly embarrassed, I guess, but otherwise fine."

Esmeralda smiled, but she could tell he wasn't being entirely truthful. There was a red mark on his cheek, and a slight strained look in his eyes that hinted at something much worse. "I'm so sorry. Clopin's a friend- I never would have dreamed he'd be stupid enough to put you in that position. And as for those two idiot jocks who started the whole thing…"

Quasimodo held up a hand. "It's- it's alright. Things like this happen." There was something she found heartbreaking in how easily he said it. "Besides, you-" He stopped, seeming to remember something, and drew in a tense breath. "What happened? In the office? Frollo didn't-" He seemed to have noticed her backpack, and his face twisted with concern. Esmeralda knew that some people were frightened by his looks; right now, finding him scary seemed completely ridiculous. "Oh, no," he said, "you actually got into trouble for helping me, didn't you?"

Esmeralda made a face. "I've been suspended." The words felt sour in her mouth. She wondered if she could tell him about the threats, but Frollo's cold whisper crept back into her mind and she decided against going into detail. "Frollo blew a gasket."

Quasimodo winced. "He does that, doesn't he." Then his face brightened. "What about the Principal? They hate eachother- He could probably help you."

"He already did help me," said Esmeralda, "I would have been expelled if he wasn't there."

"Oh," said Quasimodo, looking shocked. "That's completely unfair."

"Life's not."

"Don't I know it." He smiled briefly. "For how long? The suspension, I mean."

Esmeralda sighed. "Until the end of the week. What I'm really worried about is my classes… I didn't do so great last year and everything's just harder this year. Math's the worst. I can barely get through it without having to catch up four missed days." She wondered if he would understand that; the stress and shame of almost failing- He'd struck her as bright in history, and she knew he was doing a grade eleven course even though he was only a grade ten.

He put a hand to his chin, thinking. There was something almost cute, she noticed, in his facial expressions; the thick, furrowed red eyebrows and the wide, uneven blue-green eyes. It would have been easy to miss, under all the ugliness, but it was there. "I might be able to help you with that," he said.

She would have understood had they been talking about History, but he wasn't in her Math class. "How?" she asked.

He spoke in a low voice, smiling impishly and looking like a benign demon. "Frollo's home computer is connected to the school board system. That system has every teacher's coursework plans for the term. They should say what unit you're working on and what homework's been assigned."

"Wouldn't you need to know Frollo's password?" asked Esmeralda.

"I've known it for years," he said, slyly, "it's 'Jehan'."

She was surprised. True, she'd only just met him, but mischief and rebellion did not seem Quasimodo's style. "What if Frollo caught you? He'd kill you."

Quasimodo shrugged. "You took a bullet for me. Besides, he's almost never home."

Esmeralda hated the idea of forcing him to do something like that. But it would make things so much easier… Hating herself for it, she smiled. "Thank you."

Quasimodo returned the smile, blushing slightly. "Um… you probably don't need it and all, but if you want any help with the actual work I'd be happy to…"

"I'll need heaps of help," said Esmeralda. "I get all confused and none of it makes any sense. I'd really appreciate your help."

He looked as if he'd never been so happy. "Any other subjects you want your coursework for?"

She paused to think, and then shrugged. "History maybe, but you can just tell me what happened in class. French, I'm actually alright at… and vocal's hardly even a class. Just math, really."

He looked interested. "You're taking vocal?"

"Yeah," said Esmeralda, a touch sadly, "it's my favourite class and I got suspended just in time to miss it."

Now he was positively excited. "I'm in that class!"

Esmeralda remembered, with surprise, that he was. Mr. Cummings had told them all yesterday, but he'd done so very briefly, and in her mind, it had blended with the longer, more awkward explanation given by her history teacher the other day. "I forgot about that- I mean, I thought it was just the History class!" Now she was even sorrier to have to miss it, mostly for his sake. She knew he'd be shy after what had happened in the caf. "You'll like Mr. Cummings. He's like a British cyclone."

Quasimodo looked momentarily puzzled, and then shrugged. "We'll miss you," he said, "I'll tell you what we did-"

Esmeralda waved a hand. "Oh, it's not that kind of class; all we do is…" she paused, an idea creeping into her head. The arts teachers didn't like Frollo, and almost all of them seemed to love Esmeralda. They were good people. "Y'know," she said, "I think I'll come to the class anyway. They probably wouldn't mind me staying in the arts wing, and I don't think I've ever seen Frollo down there."

"That's true," said Quasimodo, "He's not very artistic. Good idea."

They ended up walking together to Quasimodo's locker, so that he could get his books. People seemed to almost make a point of not looking at him, and she knew it was because of what had happened at lunch. News travels fast in a high school. Some of them probably felt sorry and embarrassed for him, but mostly, she could tell, people were frightened of what she might do to them. It gave Esmeralda a certain feeling of power, but she wondered when people would stop being inclined to stare and get used to him. She, to her own surprise, found she already had- his warped, disorderly features seemed less alien to her, and she had no trouble discerning his facial expressions. The only thing she found herself staring at, as they walked down the halls, was the thick forearm that held his books- more than twice the width of her own, steely muscle tone visible beneath his skin, it looked immensely strong. He wasn't a cripple, she realized. If anything, he was an athlete.

"I had no idea Frollo was your father," she said, as he held open the stairwell door for her. "Thank you."

Quasimodo trotted down the steps after her, his loping gait causing him no discernable difficulty. "I sort of assumed everyone would know that."

"I didn't 'till the principal mentioned it," said Esmeralda, frowning. "It's strange. He's- " She paused, wondering how frank she should be. "I have to say, I hate him. He can't have been the greatest dad. But you seem really nice."

"You know," said Quasimodo, wincing very slightly, "It may not be all his fault." He looked up at her, shrugging his shoulders. "He's not really my father."

"Yeah, he said that..." Now she hated him even more. "Seemed like he wouldn't want anyone to think you were related to him."

He smiled, wryly. "Yes, that sounds like him. I think he's still angry about the whole thing."

"What thing?" asked Esmeralda. Much as she didn't want anything to do with Frollo, she was curious.

"Getting stuck with me," said Quasimodo, "See, his wife, my mother, had an affair." He winced again, looking uncomfortable and fumbling with the edge of his binder as they walked. "Then she died in, you know, childbirth, and he sort of had to take care of me."

"That's terrible," said Esmeralda. "For you, I mean."

He shrugged again. "Could have been a lot worse. He hired a nanny-slash-cleaning-lady who still lives with us and is for all intents and purposes my grandmother, so I barely have to even see him." He smiled, clearly trying to tell her she didn't have to feel sorry for him. "You can understand him being a little, uh, annoyed, though," he added, with a chuckle. "Bad enough looking after a kid you didn't want without having that kid be someone else's deformed bastard."

She wasn't particularly swayed by that. Sure, in Frollo's position, she would have been upset about it, but blaming the child was completely wrong. Especially after fifteen years. No, Frollo was still an evil man, though she was reassured to know that Quasimodo's life wasn't pure suffering.

They were a few minutes early for music class, so she told him to go in and meet the teacher while she went back to her own locker and put her bag away. He seemed to want to wait for her, but went in anyway, and she opened her combination lock and stuffed her full backpack into the narrow coffin of storage space, grunting with effort and venting anger. It felt good to take out the fury she'd had to swallow earlier on a polyester backpack that didn't try to threaten her.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Esmeralda turned, alarmed, half-expecting the lined and grinning mask of Claude Frollo. But it was the boy from the street the other day, the one who had gotten rid of their two harassers in an effort to show off. Those two guys he'd disposed of, Esmeralda remembered, with a spark of new fury, had been the ones who'd thrown the fruit in the cafeteria.

"Hi there," said the blond boy, looking perfectly calm. It seemed like a sick contrast to her own anger. "Esmenarda, right?"

"Esmeralda," she corrected, an angry set to her jaw.
He smiled, and she knew he was trying to be charming. "Forgive me. Really, I'm terrible with names. I'm Phoebus, by the way."
She rolled her eyes, and started to turn away. She'd never seen herself as a stunner, but this seemed to happen a lot- guys trying to impress her. She disliked this blockhead already.

"You were suspended earlier, right?"

Esmeralda turned back, expression cold. He might have been beau comme un dieu, but he had a cockiness about him that irritated her. He had two extracurricular pins stuck to his vest, one of them for general athletics and one indicating that he was the captain of the football team. She tried to direct her anger at it, crossing her arms and scowling. "Yes, as it happens, I was. Does that interest you?" she asked, coolly. "Maybe you want to go report me to Frollo."

He tilted his head, smiling an infuriating smug smile. "Now why would I do that?"

"I don't know," parried Esmeralda, her attention still on the little football pin. "You might be angry at me, for threatening your football buddies." The two, the fruit-throwers, had both worn football pins proclaiming them members of the team.

Phoebus looked actually taken aback at this. "Them? No, no- they were way out of line."

He might have been sincere; she couldn't tell, but it only made her angrier. She reared up, wishing she were taller than him. "Yes, and you're the captain of the team. If somebody on your team is out of line, you're supposed to do something about it!" she snapped.

Phoebus clearly hadn't been expecting her to be quite so angry. "...Like what?" he asked, brow furrowing.

"I don't know," sputtered Esmeralda, "kick them off! Get them banned from the team; do something!"

"They're some of our best players," he said, looking confused, "I can't just- I mean- Look, I'm really sorry about what happened to your friend but I'm not a teacher!"
"No," said Esmeralda, cold again, "but you are in charge of who gets onto the team and who doesn't, right?"

"Basically," said Phoebus, "but Mr. Kurtz has some say and-"

"Well then," she interrupted, "I'm sure you can get them off the team. Frollo's pretty much made sure the teachers aren't going to punish them, but maybe there's still some justice left in the world."

Phoebus blinked, speechless.

Esmeralda decided she'd had enough of him, and turned on her heel.

--

Mr. Cummings was much as Esmeralda had described him. He was a very tall, skinny Englishman, and he taught and conducted as if he were halfway through a sugar rush. He told jokes, some corny and some genuinely funny, and seemed to like everyone.

The rest of the class all seemed to have heard about the little incident at lunch, although he had a vague idea that most of the students present were sort of on his side. There was a distinct awkwardness in the classroom at first, which Mr. Cummings valiantly tried to ignore, but once Esmeralda came in, missing her binder and muttering furiously under her breath about football-players, it seemed to clear like a fog. She cheered up as soon as she realized where she was, and to his own surprise, by the time the attendance was through the whole class seemed comfortable. People were still looking at him, but they would always do that, and now it was more curious than cruel. Esmeralda had tipped the scales. He could tell by the atmosphere of the colourful, disorderly music room; that everyone here wanted what had happened to him at lunch to never happen again.

He enjoyed the class hugely. The first thing they did was listen to a recording and try to identify aspects of the music, which was both easy and entertaining. Then they sorted themselves into groups by voice range and stood in choir formation. He knew he was a tenor, and he ended up standing at the front end of the tenor section, next to Esmeralda, who was an alto. They were given sheet music, and taught an arrangement of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" that was really quite fun. The piece was still rough by the time the class ended, but it was improving fast, even though Quasimodo was surprised by how many of the other guys were off-key. At the end of the class, as he dismissed them, Mr. Cummings told them they'd be auditioning the solos in a few days. Then he looked at Quasimodo, and it was clear that he wanted him to audition.

His final class was Religion, and he was grateful he'd been attending church all his life. While in other high schools, he'd heard that religion was one of those easy, touchy-feely your-opinion-is-right-too kind of courses, at Notre Dame it was not. Frollo was responsible for most of it. He'd taken the preexisting religion syllabus and added to it a whole lot of theology, biblical history and scripture knowledge. It ended up being considerably harder, and Quasimodo didn't enjoy it nearly as much as vocal class. For one thing, people were staring again, although he was beginning to be able to cope with that.

After class ended, he looked in on Esmeralda again. She was in the drama room, helping clean up after the grade nine class.

"Hey," he said, hoping she wasn't getting sick of talking to him, "I never got to ask you. What were you so mad about when you came into music class?"

Esmeralda brushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear, looking preoccupied and beautiful. "Oh. There's this football jock who was being an ass about something."

Quasimodo felt unexpectedly angry. People shouldn't be allowed to bother Esmeralda, he thought. "Who's that?"

"Oh, nobody. Some cheesehead called Phoebus. I don't know whether he's trying to impress me or get me expelled."

Either way, Quasimodo decided, this guy had better not bother her again.

Nobody's claimed the scepial magical invisible prise yet. Sad. Please R&R.

Thanks as always to Attaloi and my Ma.

-Mostly Harmless