CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The teacher came in and the whole room fell silent. He was a short muscular man in a suit that seemed to pull at the arms and a tie that looked like it was choking him. "Morning class. Welcome back."

"Good morning Mr. Dubin," an assortment of kids replied haphazardly.

"I see we have a new student this semester." Mr. Dubin fumbled through a pile of papers he was carrying in his arms. "Ah, yes, Elizabeth House." He looked around the room like he couldn't see the one new student among all the familiar faces. Lizzie just stared at him.

Finally Dubin gave up. "You must be Elizabeth."

"Lizzie if you don't mind." Lizzie replied politely.

"I don't. It seems you're a very smart girl. Lizzie comes to us from Princeton Day School. And she was bumped up from third grade." Dubin sounded impressed; the other kids couldn't have been less impressed. "What is your favorite subject Lizzie?"

Lizzie looked around the room. No one was paying attention. "History."

"Ah, and what is your favorite time in history?"

"The Korean War."

"Really?" Dubin sounded even more impressed.

"Yes, specifically the actions of the Medical Army Surgical Hospital, the 4077, as seen through the eyes of those surgeons and enlisted men serving there." Lizzie smiled. Dubin was speechless. A couple kids laughed.

"I see." Dubin was unsure how to respond. "That's great." He put on a false smile. "Well, we'll get to history later today, but first, it's time for our essays. Who would like to go first?" He called on one of Jeremy's Cerberus girls. "Paige, why don't you start us out?"

Paige, a mousy haired, mousy looking girl stood up and walked to the front of the class. She gave her essay about the birth of Christ.

She was followed one by one by the rest of the class. "What's with these essays?" Lizzie leaned over and asked Jeremy.

"We had to write three pages about what Christmas means to us."

"Oh." Lizzie raised her hand.

"Yes, Lizzie?"

"I would like to give a speech too."

"Well," Dubin laughed nervously. "These aren't speeches, they're essays. It wouldn't be fair to you, since you've had no time to prepare."

"Jeremy told me what it's supposed to be about. I can wing it." She smiled so sweetly that Dubin figured there could be no harm in it.

Lizzie got up in front of the class and straightened her skirt. She turned to the teacher. "If I am correct, the essay was supposed to be about what Christmas means to me?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Okay. Well, Christmas means nothing to me. It is a day off, mostly because most of our country still believes there is a god and, well, honestly they probably just don't want to give up all the perks of believing in..."

"No!" Dubin nearly jumped out of his seat. "I think you've misunderstood the assignment. Why don't you go sit down and I'll give you a pass on this one, since it was assigned before you got here."

"But I don't want to..."

"No, please Miss House, go sit down." He sort of shoved her toward her chair.

When she sat down, Jeremy and his friends all gave her silent props for her little speech.

Mr. Dubin quickly moved on to math. Lizzie was great with math. She raised her hand high when he asked for volunteers to work out a problem on the board. She was not called on. Instead, a pretty little blonde named Keeley went up to the board.

"She's the main head of the monster," Jeremy whispered to Lizzie.

"Oh."

Keeley struggled at the board. When Lizzie felt she'd taken too long, she raised her hand again.

"Uh, yes Lizzie?"

"She's not going to get it. You should let someone else have a turn."

The class laughed until their teacher shot them a dirty look.

"She will get it. Just give her a minute." Dubin walked past Keeley and coughed the answer into her ear.

"I heard that," Lizzie called out from her chair.

"Shut up!" Jeremy whispered through gritted teeth.

"What'd I do?" Lizzie was the picture of innocence.

Keeley scribbled the answer on the door and ran to her seat.

Math continued for another hour without any more volunteers. Instead they had to work out problems at their desks.

After math was lunch. Jeremy grabbed Lizzie and rushed her out the door. The rest of the gang followed. They got their food and sat down at a table toward the back. "You can't say stuff like that in class."

"Like what?"

"Where you really this bad at your old school?" Erik looked at her with admiration.

"I was kicked out of my old school. Well, technically my mother pulled me out before they could kick me out, but they wanted to."

"Why?" Micah was scribbling something on a piece of paper.

"Cause I hit a girl."

"Ooh, I'll pay you to go hit Keeley Winchester in the face." Persia was practically bursting.

"Winchester?" Lizzie looked at Jeremy quizzically.

"Yeah, she's my sister," Jeremy said reluctantly.

"They're twins," added Ben behind a bite of mac and cheese.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lizzie hit Jeremy in the arm.

"I'd rather no one knew. And so would she." Jeremy glared at his sister as she walked past with her posse.

"I don't blame you, but still, if we're going to be friends I need to know this kind of thing."

"Sorry." Jeremy glanced over at Keeley again. "But come on, can you blame me for not wanting to claim her as family?"

"No." Lizzie laughed.