A/N: Okay, ignore the last chapter that was here, I introduced the Preps too early. I guess I just got excited at the idea of Tad Spencer and his webbed toes XD (only one foot, I know) but that will come... so basically I've revealed a future storyline there, oh well lol. But there's still more Jock action to be had and the nerds need adressing, so we'll get there eventually :P

Chapter XI:

"Out Of The Kettle And Into The Frying Pan"

Christy had been quick to do a disappearing act when Elliott had appeared outside the Girl's Dorm. She probably could have caught her quickly if it weren't for the swarms of students blocking her path. Various people kept offering her flyers, which were unsurprisingly copies of the photographs, but she slapped them out of their hands viciously. She was furious. How dare that little cow just raid her desk like that? It was robbery! Fair enough she robbed something Elliott shouldn't have even had in the first place but… still.

Elliott shoved past a little kid angrily and stormed along the walkway, still just in her socks. It was beginning to rain lightly, and thunder rolled somewhere in the distance but she didn't even notice, she was just too angry. She paused at the junction in the path, looking around for any signs of the scheming little redhead, but only saw a pair of Prefects running towards the Girl's Dorm, supposedly to try and disperse everyone there. She jogged towards the main building, scanning the area carefully.

'Look, don't be mad.'

Elliott whirled around, teeth already bared, to see Christy leaning against the wall with an armful of flyers and looking quite nervous. 'Don't be mad?' she cried. 'Oh I'm not mad. I'm furious!'

She stormed towards her, ignoring the other girl's pathetic squeal. 'Wait! Please! Look, I knew you wouldn't go through with it so I had to take matters into my own hands!'

Elliott grabbed her by her collar, causing the remaining photograph copies to flutter to the ground. 'Well how about you take this into your own hands?' She lifted a fist.

'No! No!' Christy squealed. 'I'm sorry! I just thought it would be fun!'

Elliott breathed heavily out of her nostrils and lowered her fist. She moved away, massaging her forehead with her temples. 'I don't believe this…' she muttered, and then closed her yes and chanted, 'This is not happening, this is not happening…'

'Oh man!' a voice floated over from the Girl's Dorm. 'I think Algie has a boner!'

Elliott pushed her fists into her eyes and cried out in frustration. 'How could you do this to me?' she yelled at Christy, advancing on her again.

The girl flinched, raising her hands in front of her. 'Please don't hit me!' she begged. 'It was just a joke! Ted will understand that it's just a joke… And anyway, he doesn't know that it has anything to do with you!'

'Well Mandy does!' Elliott snarled. 'And she was all ready to leave me alone! You know what this means now, don't you? You've made it a million times worse for me than it was in the first place! Now all the jocks are going to be after me! And most probably the nerds as well because Beatrice knows this is my fault too! Do you…' She shuddered and released another involuntary cry of frustration. 'Do you have any idea what you've done?'

'What I've done?' Christy shot back, still a little nervous. 'You were the one who took those photos! You were the one who made a deal with that psycho! I only used your situation to my advantage! If you didn't want anything like this to happen then you should never have taken the photographs in the first place, should you?'

Elliott opened her mouth to respond, but realised she had nothing to say. Instead she let out a third frustrated cry and shoved Christy against the wall.

'Murder!' Christy yelled shrilly in a panic.

'Oh screw you…' Elliott muttered, stalking back towards the Girl's Dorm. 'Thanks for ruining my life.'

She continued around to the Girl's Dorm, socks beginning to get soggy with the rain that was getting steadily heavier. She stopped at the walkway and glumly watched the Prefects and a couple of teachers frantically trying to gather up the flyers. Another two Prefects were trying to pull down the huge banner that spanned the front of the building, but had only achieved in pulling down half of it, still leaving the image of Ted and Algie's underpants and the word 'scores' beneath.

Maybe Mandy wouldn't see it. It was wishful thinking, and probably incredibly unlikely, but at least a soothing thought. She basked in the possibility that everything might still work out okay. Maybe in the morning…

'You little bitch!' a shrill voice wailed from behind. 'You evil, scheming, vicious little tramp!'

Elliott turned around just a little too late and received quite a nasty slap to the right side of her face. It took her completely by surprise and she lost her balance, landing hard on her side on the cold, wet ground. She blinked, and then pushed herself up to see who had attacked her. Well, she already knew who it was.

'I can't believe you!' Mandy yelled. 'After what we said this morning! You had this planned all along, didn't you? Well good job, you sly little troll! You've made us look like morons! But it won't last long, you got me? We're going to make you pay. No one makes a fool out of me and Ted and gets away with it.' She leaned close, pointing one slender finger in Elliott's face. 'This is war, Post-Op.'

With that she turned and strode away, head held high, towards the Girl's Dorm. Elliott shifted around so she was kneeling on the floor and watched after her glumly. The rain began to come down heavily, but she remained where she was even when the other students ran off for cover.

The bell had rung about fifteen minutes ago, but Elliott still hid beneath her covers, eyes closed tight and hoping that Mrs Peabody wouldn't bother checking her room that morning. Hopefully she could just stay here forever. Okay, so there would be the eventual problem of dehydration or starvation, but it couldn't be any worse than what was waiting for her outside.

Anyway, despite her wishes, Mrs Peabody stormed into the room, marched to her bed and whipped off the blanket. Still fully dressed from yesterday, Elliott groaned and curled up into the foetal position.

'Get up, girl!' Mrs Peabody snarled. 'You're supposed to be in class!'

'I'm not going.' Elliott groaned. 'You can't make me.'

'Oh I can,' Mrs Peabody shot back. 'I'm not going to tolerate laziness on my watch. Get up and get dressed, or I'll dress you myself.'

Elliott grabbed blindly for the blanket, eyes still screwed up shut. 'Just leave me alone you crazy old bat.'

The next thing she knew she was being dragged up and out of bed. Mrs Peabody was stronger than she looked. She only had the chance to look completely bewildered as Mrs Peabody grabbed her jumper and began to pull it over her head.

'Hey!' she yelled, struggling with the teacher. 'Get off me! You can't just pull my clothes off!'

'I'll pull you into that washroom and scrub you myself if you don't get a move on!' Mrs Peabody warned. 'Now get dressed! I want you in class in ten minutes!'

'Right, okay…' Elliott muttered, pulling her shirt off herself and glaring bitterly at the old teacher. 'Just get out, will you? Give me some privacy.'

'Privacy…' Mrs Peabody muttered as she left. 'As if kids like you ever heard of privacy…'

Elliott glared at the door after Mrs Peabody had closed it and then sat heavily on the bed. Great, so her only real sanctuary was no good, unless she wanted to be forcibly stripped by Mrs Peabody every morning. Looked like she was going to have to go out there and face the music today. Hopefully she could avoid the Jocks. The Nerds she could deal with, after all they were weak and puny. The only damage that the Nerds could do was to her pride; after all no one likes being mocked by the most unpopular kids in school.

Elliott got dressed quickly and lazily, not bothering with her school shirt and just pulling on her sweater. She was still wearing her green pleated skirt, so she just pulled on her black boots and headed out into the corridor. Mrs Peabody glared at her as she passed and commented that she must dress like an ape, but didn't force her to get changed again.

The flyers had been cleaned up and the huge banner was gone, but the students would not have forgotten what they had seen last night. Thankfully there was no one in the immediate area; students or Prefects, so Elliott took the opportunity and headed into town.

'Hey, did you hear about that screwed up school?'

'What have they done now?'

'Apparently the quarterback got it on with some fat little pee stained kid.'

Elliott ignored the passing gossiping adults and tried to enjoy the rare peacefulness as she sat on the fence that separated the beach from the town, facing the water. She sucked absently on the straw in the milkshake she had bought from Yum-Yums, ignoring the fact that she should have been in Art about now. If she played truant often enough perhaps she could just get herself expelled or something.

Thankfully, or at least so far she had avoided any Jocks. There had been two of them hanging around outside of the bike shop earlier but they either didn't notice her or they didn't realise she was who she was because they left her alone. She didn't want to go back to that awful place because she just knew that it was going to be one hell of a shit storm. Maybe life on the lam would be good for her, keep her out of trouble. How hard could it be to avoid the police and school authorities for a year? Maybe if she shaved her head and wore huge sunglasses…

'Oh. It's you.'

Elliott glanced around, mid-sip, and peered over her shoulder at Beatrice. She removed the straw from her mouth and offered her a small smile. 'In all my glory.' She replied, hoping for a smile.

Instead, Beatrice turned and began to head away. Elliott quickly lifted her legs over the fence and hopped off onto the sidewalk. 'Wait, Beatrice! Come on!'

Beatrice stopped and turned around with a heavy sigh. She crossed her arms and looked at her impatiently. 'I told you, I've got no time for you.'

'Look, I'm sorry,' Elliott told her. 'I am, I'm really really sorry. I never intended for all of this to go the way it has, and you've got to understand that I was going to get rid of those pictures. I wasn't going to use them, honest. It was Christy who got hold of them and stuck them up everywhere.'

Beatrice was still frowning, just not as much. 'Christy?' she asked after a moment. 'Really?'

Elliott nodded keenly. 'She took them out of my drawer. I wouldn't have done anything like that, no matter how much of a bitch Mandy was to me. I'd just been talking to her that morning and we made a deal to leave each other alone, so why the hell would I go and make all this trouble for myself?'

Beatrice considered this. 'Well… you do have a point…'

'So do you forgive me?'

'For the pictures, perhaps.' Beatrice replied thoughtfully. 'But you still went against all my advice and got Gary Smith involved. I still blame you for that.'

'Okay,' Elliott rubbed her head. 'Look, Beatrice, I think you're the only halfway sane girl at this school and I don't want to make enemies with you. I'm sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?'

'It's not me you need to make it up to.' Beatrice told her. 'It's Algie.'

Elliott winced. 'Algie?'

'Yes.' She considered something, and then narrowed one eye. 'You should go and see him at the library and apologise. You make it up to him and we'll be okay.'

Elliott winced again and shifted uncomfortably. 'Well… I was just considering my options on going on the lam, and that kind of involves never going to Bullworth Academy ever again…'

Beatrice shrugged her skinny shoulders. 'Okay then. Bye.' She turned to leave, but Elliott grabbed her arm.

'Okay, okay. Fine I'm coming. Just… tell me if you see any Jocks heading our way, okay?'

Beatrice eyed her. 'I'll try.'

Elliott slumped at the response. Beatrice turned and jerked her head to signal her to follow and the two girls walked in silence through the town back to the school, with Elliott dragging her feet the whole way.