"Brittany invited me to her party." Daria, still looking at Jane's sketchbook, glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye to see how she'd react. She wasn't disappointed.
"No kidding?" Jane asked, amusement and surprise battling for supremacy. Then, eagerly, "Are you going?"
Daria almost snorted. "Sure," she replied drily. "And after that, I think I'll swallow glass." Noting the overly-enthusiastic look on Jane's face, she continued, "Why? Do you want to go?"
Jane's voice was even drier. "Oh, no, I'd much rather stay home and listen to my brother practice the opening to 'Come as You Are.'" Her tone turned wistful. "I bet I could get some great sketches there..."
Refusing to take the bait, Daria replied, "Well, I'm sure there'll be plenty of people posing. If you want to go, just make believe you're me." She raised an eyebrow. "When you're popular, all unpopular people look alike anyway."
Jane reached out and plucked the glasses from Daria's face and settled them on her own. "Hi, I'm Daria. Go to hell." She removed the glasses and stared thoughtfully at them. "It's actually not a bad idea."
"Are you kidding?" Daria tried to snatch the glasses back, but Jane pulled them out of her reach. "It's a stupid idea!"
"It's your idea," Jane reminded her. "And how often will I get the chance to go to a party thrown by Brittany Taylor?"
"None, if you're lucky," Daria grumbled. "Now, would you please give me back my glasses? I do enjoy being able to see."
"You can have them back...for now," Jane said ominously, but passed them back. "Just how blind are you without these?"
"Not so blind that I can't kick your scrawny little a-" Daria slid them back onto her face just in time to see Trent walk past Jane's room. She froze, and Trent continued down the hall with just the hint of a smirk.
"By all means, protect my brother's virgin ears," Jane laughed. "Now, about that party..."
o O o
"I'm here for Brittany Taylor's party," Jane said, keeping her voice deadpan more for fun than because she thought she needed to hide her identity. She'd traded her red jacket for one of Daria's green ones, and found that if she perched Daria's glasses on the end of her nose she could easily see over the rims.
The bored guard picked up a clipboard. "Name?"
"Daria Morgendorffer."
"Okay, go ahead."
Jane trotted up to Brittany's house and rang the doorbell. Moments later, Brittany opened the door and looked at Jane with confusion. "Who are-" Then she looked at the jacket and the glasses. "Oh! Daria!" She tilted her head. "Did you do something different to your hair?"
"Yeah." Jane gestured at herself. "And my height. Can I come in?"
"Sure!" Brittany waved her in, and Jane entered to find the party already in full swing. The music was loud, the teenagers were tipsy, and the hormones were raging.
Jane smiled. This is going to be fun.
o O o
Daria, meanwhile, was slumped on the sofa at home and trying to watch TV. Her spare glasses had been misplaced in the move-or so Helen had claimed, while a-little-too-casually mentioning the idea of contact lenses-so she was stuck half-blind for the rest of the evening.
She squinted at the screen, trying to figure out which blob was the Sick, Sad World reporter and which blob was the interviewee.
"So you say you've had precognitive dreams that tell you exactly what's going to happen twenty-three years in the future?" one of the blobs asked the other.
"Yes!" the other blob said in a terrified voice. "And it's worse than you could ever imagine! Plagues and murder hornets and toilet paper shortages!"
"We'll hear more from the man with 2020 visions after this!" the first blob cheerfully announced as the show went to commercial.
Daria had gradually leaned closer and closer to the TV, until her face was just inches away. "Daria!" Jake yelped as he came in. "You're too close to the TV! You could...uh..."
"Ruin my eyesight?" Daria suggested, but sat back down on the couch.
Helen emerged from behind Jake. "Daria, where are your glasses?" Then she gasped excitedly. "Are you thinking of getting contacts? That could really help you socialize more!"
"No need," Daria replied with a smirk. "I've started outsourcing that."
o O o
Since Daria was relatively new to Lawndale High and Jane had always been largely invisible, hardly any of the partygoers had any reason to suspect Jane was anyone but who she claimed to be. Still, Jane felt a little thrill at pretending to be someone else. No consequences, a little voice murmured in her head.
Practically before the door had shut behind her, Jane was bumping and grinding with a young man whose name she didn't even know. His head was big, and at least a dozen dirty jokes were running through Jane's head. She didn't notice right away when a trio of boys joined them on the dance floor, all vying for her approval. She hadn't caught any of their names, either, but one was blond, one was black-haired, and one had reddish-brown hair.
Frankly, Jane didn't care about any of their names. She wasn't there to talk; she was there to dance.
o O o
Sick, Sad World was over, and Daria had found the book with the largest print she could find on her bookshelf. She sat on her bed, pages almost touching her nose, as she slowly made her way through one word after another.
"The...Then the other-no, older-ch...chi...child..." She slammed the book shut and dropped it into her lap. "At this rate I might finish the page by tomorrow morning. Is this what it's like to be Kevin?"
o O o
Jane had discovered the now-spiked punchbowl and found it was good. In fact, it was so good she had to re-discover it a few times during the course of the evening. It was around her sixth trip there that she got sidetracked by a bunch of guys standing at the bottom of the stairs, chanting one boy's name while he waved a skateboard over his head. As the chants grew louder, he climbed up the stairs and then turned around, dropping the skateboard and stepping on. The chants turned to whoops and cheers, and Jane swayed slightly as she watched him mount the skateboard and ride it bumpily down the stairs.
He landed in a crumpled heap at Jane's feet, dazed but miraculously still in one piece.
"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" one of the cheering boys shouted, pumping his fist in the air.
Jane picked up the skateboard. "Yet," she said, then began climbing the stairs. It took a little extra effort, because the stairs kept shifting under her feet and multiplying. At last, she was at the top, looking down at a cheering crowd of admirers.
"Daria! Daria! Daria! Daria! Daria!"
She put the skateboard down, stepped on it, and dimly realized that she had never ridden a skateboard in her entire life. But then she pushed off and the rest was a wild blur of crashes and shouting.
She found herself sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor. The skateboard was broken but her bones, incredibly, were not.
"That was awesome!" was the unanimous verdict of her fellow partygoers.
Jane shakily got up. "I think...I need...another drink," she gasped out.
o O o
Daria went downstairs to the kitchen, feeling her way to the fridge and opening it. All this squinting is making me thirsty. She reached in for a soda and opened it, then took an enormous swig.
She then spat the contents all over the kitchen counter, discovering too late that she'd grabbed one of her father's beers by mistake.
Well, that was about the worst thing ever, she thought, holding back her gag reflex.
"DARIA!"
Daria turned to see a Helen-shaped blur. She didn't need clear vision to tell that her mother was pissed. She looked fuzzily at the can still in her hand, then back at her mother. "Um...I'm trying to come out of my shell?"
o O o
"WOOOOOO!" Jane screamed, back on the dance floor and riding the Soul Train full speed. The song was a slow love ballad, but Jane was dancing like she was at a rave. She jumped in the air and tried to perform a classy spin, but it came off more like a hippo trying to lurch out of the way of a poacher. Given the safari decor, this was not entirely out of place. However, she failed to nail the landing and ended up crashing into one of the many ceramic tigers adorning the house.
The tiger wobbled, then wobbled harder, and finally fell over with a crash, scattering fragments of ceramic all over the floor.
"Yeeeeeeaahhhhh!" one of the kids cheered and shoved over another tiger. Others followed his lead, and soon the tiger massacre was underway.
As soon as she noticed what was happening, Brittany tried to squeal out a protest. Unfortunately, her words were overshadowed by Kevin taking a running leap at the tiger right next to her and taking it down with a triumphant battle cry. The fact that the battle cry was "Wazzuuuuuuup!" took nothing away from his glory.
Brittany sighed and began trying to work out whether or not she could somehow blame all of this on her brother, in spite of his spending the night at a friend's house.
o O o
Melody Powers drove at full speed away from the communist hideout, quietly counting down the seconds until-
BOOM!
She ran a hand through her hair as she glanced at the billowing smoke visible in her rearview mirror. "Now they're red and dead," she remarked before turning her eyes back to the road ahead.
Daria put down her pen and leaned in close to squint at her notebook. Gibberish. Every single word was completely illegible. She groaned, but tried to look on the bright side. "It's still better than anything Quinn's ever written."
o O o
No one knew exactly what started the fight. Most people claimed that Upchuck had tried to cop a feel, but he loudly proclaimed his innocence and, really, everyone knew he was a coward at heart. A few said that no one had started it, and that it had spontaneously begun out of nowhere. The one thing everyone agreed on was that "Daria" had throw one hell of a punch for such a skinny chick.
Once the fight was really underway, though, they learned quickly that her fists were nothing compared to her boots. They were steel-toed and attached to some extremely strong legs, and rumors went around school later that an Asian girl got kicked in the head so hard she never spoke normally again.
In the end, "Daria" stood victorious, bloody and bruised but grinning a mile wide. "Who wants to go another round?" she asked. Everyone else quickly found they were needed in other corners of the house.
o O o
Daria had given up on any form of visual entertainment and decided to lie on her bed and listen to music. It wasn't too bad, except that she kept trying to count the cracks in her ceiling out of habit. Unfortunately, there was no way to bring the ceiling and herself closer together so that she could make out even the larger cracks. Indeed, she was taking for granted that the ceiling was still even there.
I'm so bored, she thought. So bored I almost wish I'd gone to Brittany's party after all.
She reflected, then changed her mind.
Nah. It's probably just as boring there.
o O o
"This is the most awesome party I have ever been to!" Jane screamed, echoed by dozens of her peers in an adoring roar. She didn't mention that it was also the first party she'd been to since her own fourth birthday party, but the sentiment was still true.
She swayed slightly on her feet, hiccupped quietly, and smiled down on her beloved subjects. She couldn't remember her own name (it started with a "D," didn't it?), but she knew that she was being worshipped as a goddess by the entire partygoing population of Lawndale High School.
Honestly, she would have counted it as the best night of her life if only it wasn't so freaking hot. Didn't the Taylors have air conditioning? She began looking around for a fan or a window or something, but her vision was blocked by something wavy and orange. She tilted her head and looked closer. The orange-y blob was moving and vaguely fire-shaped. Then she solved the mystery: the house was on fire!
"Huh," she commented, watching the orange-y blob get bigger. "I hope this room has a fireplace in it."
The next thing she knew, she was being hauled out of the house by some of her slightly-more-survival-oriented subjects, and she figured out that the party was over.
"Too bad," she muttered. "It was just starting to get really good."
Then she threw up and everything went black.
o O o
It was Monday and Daria had to use Quinn as a reluctant seeing eye dog to get to school safely because she still didn't have her glasses back. She'd been unable to reach Jane by any means, and she was getting a little worried. About Jane, of course, but also her glasses. Those things were expensive.
"Stop following me, Daria," Quinn complained. She stopped, or so Daria assumed because the pink blob in front of her stopped moving. "You're following me!"
Daria sighed, annoyed at having to depend on her sister. "Didn't we already have this conversation before?"
Quinn didn't the chance to reply, because at that moment three blobs came running over.
"Hey, Daria," one of the blobs said, "can I carry your books?"
"Hey, Daria," another of the blobs said, "can I carry your...pencil?"
"Hey, Daria," the third blob said, "can I carry your, uh, um...got anything else?"
Daria wondered if her hearing was now as poor as her vision. "Are you talking to me?" she asked one of the blobs.
"Yeah! Do you need help getting to school?"
Blinking, Daria shrugged and nodded. Beats arguing with Quinn. Maybe on the way they can tell me which alien race has taken over their brains. "Sure. Make sure I don't get hit by a car, okay?"
"We're on it!" all three blobs assured her. There was a blur of movement ahead and Daria heard tires squealing. "It's safe to cross!"
Deciding not to ask too many questions, Daria crossed the street and continued to school, protected by her three-blob escort. Quinn trailed behind, making random disappointed noises.
"Look, it's Daria!" Kevin announced as soon as Daria entered the school. "Woooooooooooo!" The whole corridor burst into wild applause and cheers, and now Daria was starting to feel very frightened.
"Daria. How could you?!" For once someone didn't sound pleased to see her, and judging by the squeaky voice it had to be Brittany. "My dad is furious! He says it's going to cost a fortune to fix the house after all the damage and he's threatening to take it out of my brother's allowance! The tigers alone are going to keep Brian in debt until he's thirty!"
"The house?" Daria echoed, confused. "The...tigers?"
"I just want to know how you managed to set the entire bowl of ridgy chips on fire without any matches!"
"Yeah, how'd you do that?" Kevin asked, sounding less angry and more like he was taking mental notes. "Oh, is that why you aren't supposed to mix them with the flat ones?"
"Ugh!" Brittany grabbed Kevin by the shirt and dragged him away.
"I can't believe you!" Quinn whined, stomping over to her sister.
"Yes," Daria said, still in a daze. "I'm definitely the unbelievable part of today."
"How could you outshine me at Brittany's party? You've completely ruined my life!"
"I wasn't even at Brittany's party," Daria informed her.
"Yeah, right. Like I don't know my own sister?"
Daria was less surprised by Quinn's inability to recognize someone she'd known her entire life than by her sudden willingness to claim her as a blood relation. Given Daria's inexplicable new popularity, though, it made a certain amount of sense.
"Hey, amiga," croaked a voice at her elbow. Daria whirled to see a red-jacketed blur holding out a small black object. She grabbed at it, managed to make contact on the third try, and jammed the glasses onto her face with a sigh of relief. The world was back in focus again, even if it didn't make any sense.
"Where the hell have you been?" Daria demanded.
Jane winced at her harsh tone. "Hung over," she rasped, and she did look much the worse for wear.
"Brittany's party was on Saturday night," Daria pointed out. "It's now Monday."
"What can I say?" Jane asked, pained but smiling anyway. "It was a hell of a party. You should have been there."
Daria glanced around at the students now staring at her in open admiration. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I was there."
Jane noticed the crowd at last and chuckled nervously. "I guess I had a lot of fun on your behalf." She looked thoughtfully at her friend. "Listen, Trent and his band have this gig on Saturday. Do you think I could borrow your glasses for-"
"No."
