Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years. Daria Jumps A Grade
DISCLAIMER: Daria and its characters are the creations of Glen Eichler and are the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, and Wizarding World. I own neither franchise. Also, I neither expect nor deserve financial compensation for this work of fiction. I am writing for my own amusement and ego gratification.
Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years*Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years* Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years
School started the third week of August, a week after the last day of day camp. Despite Daria's general dislike for exercise and the great outdoors, she found that she missed day camp, at least a little. Not that she missed most of the outdoor activities: she'd given most of them a pass, although swimming was OK. The great exception had been archery: unlike most sports, she'd found that she had a talent for it. In fact, she'd been good enough to be given an award ribbon on Awards Night.
She wasn't sure if it counted as a sport or not, but she'd enjoyed the folk-dancing classes. Folk dancing wasn't the same as ballet, but it helped fill the void she'd tried to ignore ever since she'd hurt her knee. She'd found that she'd liked the music and movement of folk dancing even if her male partners had usually been awkward, geeky boys.
-(((O-O)))-
Daria awoke uncharacteristically early, remembered that it was the first day of school, and decided that if she wanted a shot at the bathroom, she'd better get going now. She got out of bed and made a beeline for the bathroom. She'd taken several steps when she remembered that the new house was laid out differently from the old one, and reversed direction. She quickly showered, dressed, brushed her hair, then walked over for breakfast.
Quinn joined her ten minutes later, followed by Veronia. Dad was there to greet them, but had left early for work when Mom came into the breakfast area. She poured herself some coffee that Jake had brewed earlier, then sat down for her own meal.
"So, girls, are you looking forward to school?" asked Helen.
"Except for the homework," said Quinn.
"Hmm," said Daria, giving a non-committal answer.
"How about you, Veronica?" said Helen.
"I like day care, but sometimes Mrs. Bellows gets bossy," said Veronica. "Sometimes she had stupid rules."
Daria's ears pricked up. Did this mean that she had a fellow seditionist? Cool.
Helen smiled and shook her head. She looked at the clock then looked at her daughters' plates. They'd finished eating.
"OK, girls, let's wash our plates and then let's go," said Helen. "Veronica, I'll take you to day care after I drop Daria and Quinn off at school."
"I want to go to school, too!" said Ronnie.
"I'm sorry, Sweetie," said Helen, "but you'll have to wait. One more year and then you'll be old enough for pre-school."
"You'll get there, kiddo," said Daria.
This being the first days of class, getting there wasn't quite as easy as it was later on. Many parents chose to drop their children off in person rather than let them walk or ride their bicycles to class. The slowdown started about two blocks from the main entrance and Helen had to wait to drop her children off at the main entrance just like everybody else.
Helen's sedan pulled into the driveway by the entrance and Daria and Quinn got out. "Bye, Mom," said Daria as she got out of the car. "Bye, Ronnie!"
"Bye, Daria!" said Ronnie. She'd be starting school herself in a couple of years. She'd turned three over the summer.
"Bye, Mom, Ronnie," said Quinn.
"Stay safe, girls!" said Helen. She sighed. Her babies were getting older. Still, this was elementary school. They ought to be safe there.
Daria entered the front door, her younger sister following. Another year, thought Daria. Another year but different. This year she was going to be in Fifth Grade, not Fourth like her previous classmates. She was proud of her achievement and a little bit apprehensive about jumping a grade. She was a little worried that a couple of her peers would be bothered; they had all been in the same grade level since kindergarten. She didn't think that her older friends would mind; girls like Farrah, Gail, and Betsy wouldn't mind if Daria narrowed the social gap.
She entered the classroom. The front desk was empty: the teacher had stepped out for a moment but had written her name in chalk on the blackboard: Aurelia Schade. Daria had been at James Ferguson Elementary School since kindergarten and knew or recognized most of her classmates and most of the teachers. She remembered Mrs. Schade a little from last year, although she didn't take any of her classes. She didn't know all that many fifth-graders: most of them had been in different circles. She wondered if that might cause trouble: most of them probably knew each other from last year and the year before, just like she'd known most of the kids in third grade.
An older woman came in the classroom and then closed the door. "Good morning, class," she said.
"Good morning Mrs. Schade," the students replied.
Mrs. Schade began roll call.
Mrs. Schade paused when she got to Daria's name.
"Morgendorffer," said Mrs. Schade. "Are you new here? I don't remember hearing about you from any of the fourth-grade teachers."
"No, ma'am," said Daria. "I was here last year. I jumped a grade. I was in Third Grade last year."
"I see," said Mrs. Schade. "Well, we'll see if you can keep up with the curriculum or if I'll have to send you back to your proper age group."
Daria dismissed the threat. She was pretty sure she could handle the work and besides, teachers at James Ferguson Elementary School didn't throw their most challenging stuff at kids just back from summer vacation and not yet back in step with the school calendar.
Daria's few fourth-grade friends already knew about the change in her status before the first day of classes. Others only found out when class started and she wasn't there.
Linda Herd walked over to Daria at the playground during PE. "Hey, Daria," she said.
Daria's eyebrows went up. She and Linda were still on the outs, and they hadn't spoken all summer despite an attempt by Mrs. Herd to have them reconcile. Linda's whole attitude had changed since Jessie Markham had moved away. These days she was putting most of her efforts into trying to be popular.
"Hi, Linda," said Daria. "How was your summer?"
"Why weren't you in class?" asked Linda. "Did you cut school or something?"
"I was in class," Daria said irritably. "I jumped a grade over the summer. I'm now in fifth grade."
"You're WHAT?" said Linda.
"I'm in fifth grade," said Daria. "I moved up another grade."
"BS, Morgendorffer," said Linda.
Linda calling her Morgendorffer stung. She and Linda used to be on a first-name basis.
"Nope," said Daria. "It's for real. My parents and I talked to Mr. Lamphier and Mrs. Javert and they said that I ought to move up another grade. Of course my parents are all for it."
Linda didn't say anything. Why would anyone, even Daria, do something like that? The idea of jumping a grade frightened her. It would be like starting school all over again, having to make friends and get in with the right people. Linda had learned in the last couple of years that being in with the right crowd and being popular was more important than artsy-fartsy crap. Jumping a grade was not something you did if you wanted to be with the right people.
Linda looked at her former friend and made a decision. Daria was a geek. Jumping a grade was something only a geek would do. But Daria had gone ahead and done it.
Linda was a girl with ambitions: she wanted to be cool, popular, and hang around with the popular kids. One of the things she'd learned last year was that you'd have to make choices. Sometimes you had to hang with the winners and drop the losers.
Linda had put her time with Daria, Jesse, and Cindy behind her. If she thought about her time with her former friends, she regretted that she spent so long spinning her wheels with those losers. Now she had ambitions and she wanted to hang with the popular kids.
Daria, on the other hand, liked to read. When she wasn't talking or doing things with Farrah and Gail, Daria seemed to spend her time reading.
She turned her back and walked away, missing the scowl Daria threw at her.
-(((O-O)))—
Daria found a place at a table with Gail at lunch. Farrah was sitting with her. Daria had dawdled a little too long before taking a sitting down and discovered that the seats closest to her friend had been taken. Gail was popular. Since Daria was not, Gail made introductions.
Gail had been talking to a fellow sixth-grader about clothes before Daria sat down. "So I've heard that you're a fifth-grader," said Gail. "How do you like it?"
"I'm still finding out," said Daria. "There are advantages: I don't have to be in the same classes as the two idiots."
"Which ones, the crazy twins or the two boys?" said Farrah.
"The crazy twins are tolerable," said Daria. "But I don't miss having class time with the two boys."
"Not that it would have been so bad even if I'd been stuck in Fourth Grade. If it wasn't for Special Ed, they'd be driving people crazy."
"Just imagine someplace where there wasn't," said Gail. "Could you imagine going through the entire school day with them?"
"Eeuuuh!" chorused the girls at the table.
"I bet you miss your boyfriend," said Gail, mischief twinkling in her eyes.
"My what?" said Daria. "I don't have a boyfriend."
Gail and Farrah both chuckled.
"Cuthbert," said Farrah.
"Cuthbert's not my boyfriend," Daria said indignantly, causing both girls to start chuckling again.
"But you like him," teased Farrah.
"That's not the same thing," Daria replied. "I mean I like Cuthbert. I kind of like Cuthbert, but…" She trailed off and started blushing.
"Gotcha, Daria!" said Gail.
-(((O-O)))—
To her surprise, Daria found herself thinking about Cuthbert that afternoon. She realized that she missed sharing classes with him. Cuthbert Fink-Nottle was aggravating, his enthusiasm irritated her, but he was a good guy. Class was a little quieter without Cuthbert's constant questions and interruptions, but she now realized that Cuthbert's interruptions had made third grade a little fun.
If Mrs. Schade's class lacked a Cuthbert, it did have three new boys, all three of them bigger, taller, and behaving like they might prove to be a problem. An alarm bell went off in the back of Daria's mind: something told her that these guys would be trouble.
-((O-O)))—
At the end of class, Daria opened her locker and started sorting out what she needed to take home and what she could leave here. Except for her conversation with Linda, this had been a pretty good day. She'd met her new classmates, she thought she could get along with them, and she thought she'd be able to keep up with her schoolwork.
If Daria didn't live in a college town with thoughtful, intelligent kids who'd treat her like a peer, she knew that things could be worse. Times were tough in Highland. If her family wasn't rich, they were better off than many of her schoolmates'. She did know that the Oil Bust was still on and that times were rough for the people who lived in the oil patch. The Morgendorffers had been spared the worst of it: there was always law, especially when retrenchments, bankruptcies, and angry creditors were bedeviling Highland and Midland-area businessmen, and her dad's business was still afloat. The only effect on the Morgendorffer family fortunes thus far is that the real estate market had been so poor that they couldn't sell off their old house; it was now a rental and a boy and a girl that Daria didn't know were living in their old room on Whirlwind Drive. Dad had said that the renters were late with their rent check.
-(((O-O)))—
Her Mom was home. Not only was her mother home early, but she had a surprise.
"Girls," she said, "I want you to come home earlier tomorrow and then freshen up. We've been asked to go out to dinner."
Daria wondered who it was. Had Mom finally gotten that promotion she wanted? She'd be glad for Mom, but she'd be happier if Mom and Dad could move to someplace nicer than Highland.
"Is it with the firm?" she asked.
"Actually, it's one of the firm's clients," said Helen. "Joe Holman is the head of the Bamps Oil Company out of Vickery, Texas."
"Where's Vickery?" asked Quinn. Good question, thought Daria. She wasn't sure where Vickery was either and was happy that Quinn had asked first.
"Vickery is a suburb of Dallas," said Helen. "Mr. Holman is working with us for some oil leases and offered to take us all to dinner."
-(((O-O)))—
Daria wondered about the mysterious Mr. Holman that evening and the next day at school. Not that she minded the idea of going out to a restaurant. Her Mom rarely cooked these days and Dad's creations were all too problematic. She'd sat with him a couple of times while he cooked and thought that a couple of the ruined dishes might not have been so bad if her Dad could only suppress his tendency to improvise.
The following afternoon Daria made it a point join up with Quinn and be ready for Mom or Dad to pick them up from school. Quinn worried that Mr. Holman would take them to a burger joint or make another expedition to Chuck's Steak House. She was tired of Chuck's Steak House and wouldn't mind someplace classier. Finch's was supposed to be very good, but she'd never eaten there. Her Mom picked them up and told them that she'd recommended a restaurant in town and that Mr. Holman would meet them there
Her Dad had come home from his job by the time that Daria had come out of the bathroom, so it looked like they really would be having an evening out. "So where are we going, Mom?" asked Daria.
"Mr. Holman wanted Mexican food so we're going to Los Girasoles," said Helen. Daria had heard of Las Girasoles; the Crazy Twins had been after her to dine there for years and the food was supposed to be quite good, if fattening. It also had a reputation for attracting some of Highland's more eccentric residents, not that that bothered Daria all that much. Eccentric didn't bother her: instead, it made the place more appealing.
The Morgendorffers left for Los Girasoles around 6:15PM. Highland being relatively small, it didn't take them long to get there. The restaurant was situated near, but not in Highland's small downtown. Daria had no idea if it had been built as a restaurant or something else; all she knew was that Los Girasoles had been there for a while.
Helen quickly spotted Mr. Holman, who rose to his feet from a large booth in the front of the restaurant where he'd been keeping a solitary vigil. Joe Holman was a fair skinned-man with a square face and a receding hairline. Daria saw that he was considerably older than her parents. She guessed that he was near the Mad Dog's age, maybe a little younger. Introductions were made and Daria decided that while she wasn't sure if she like the guy, he passed her tests for reasonably civilized grown-ups. He was friendly and outgoing, and acted like he was charmed by all three Morgendorffer sisters.
Mr. Holman was in Highland by himself; his wife and daughters were either back in Dallas or out on their own. He started by asking Daria's Mom and Dad how they met and what they were doing. After they shared that they'd met at Middleton College and had married when they decided to settle down, he started sharing a little about himself. He'd been born in the Philippines and was the son of a career Army officer. After graduating from West Point, he'd first been posted to Europe and then had taken paratroopers' training and had been sent to Korea. He had been wounded and sent home. He then married his wife, left the Army, and went into the oil business.
Daria worried that talking about the military might set off her dad, but somehow Mr. Holman avoided it. He was surprisingly sympathetic to her father's decision not to enlist like the Mad Dog had wanted him to.
"The military's not for everybody," he said. "At least you found that out before you went in."
Daria had been expected to be bored to tears by Mr. Holman talking about his sons' athletic exploits but learned that he and his wife had four girls and had adopted a fifth, one of his wife's cousins. Mr. Holman's daughters were all considerably older than Daria, the oldest three years younger than her Mom, the youngest five years younger than her Aunt Amy. They'd all gone to college. Three had already married and a fourth daughter had gotten engaged.
Mr. Holman did have a few interesting tics. He sometimes mumbled, which could make him hard to understand. He also liked to click his teeth when he told a good joke, which made Ronnie giggle. He did it several times, Ronnie responded by giggling, and teeth-clicking became a Morgendorffer in-family joke. There was something about him that she liked; it took her a while to realize what it was. Despite the fact that they were very different people, Mr. Holman was authentic. She didn't agree with him, they already had very different interests, but he was real, not someone pretending to be someone else.
The conversation then turned to sports, which lessened Daria's interest. Mr. Holman and Jake both learned that they both liked to play golf, and that Jake was willing to partner him if he was forced to spend a weekend in Howard County. The conversation then turned to football: Mr. Holman said that while he still liked Coach Landry, he worried that he was not going to be able to guide the Dallas Cowboys out of another losing season. Jake admitted that he still occasionally rooted for the Pittsburg Steelers and hoped that maybe this year they could go to the Superbowl, although the first game hadn't gone that well for them.
Despite her reflexive boredom whenever the subject of football came up, Daria found Mr. Holman sufficiently interesting that she was momentarily distracted from any thought of schoolyard gossip concerning Los Girasoles. She looked over to the back of the restaurant and was surprised to see Connie Aldrete emerge from a back dining room and head for the restrooms. Connie saw Daria and waved; Daria waved back.
The evening ended not long afterwards. Daria decided that Mr. Holman wasn't that bad a guy, a judgment she rarely handed out to most adult Texans over the age of forty.
