Again, sorry for the obscenely long wait for another chapter... I just got out of band camp (alright, get over your giggle fit... we're here to win state! Yeah!), and we just started school today... Soo... um... yeah. Anywho... um................ TA DA!

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Outlaw Star, characters, blah blah blah blah... Mr. King owns himself, however, just like how Mrs. Palumbo herself...**

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Jim hurried to his next class, still attempting to recover from the embarassment he was subjected to in his previous class. He ran all the way to his Social Studies covering his eyes-- so much so, in fact, he ran head-first into the open door. The teacher, who appeared to be exiting the classroom for a quick cigarette break, looked at him with alarm, and immediately helped him up.

"You alright, kid?" he said, once Jim was back on his feet.

"Yeah..." replied Jim groggily, grabbing his bag off the floor. He then gazed blearily at the teacher. "Are you Mr. King?" He didn't want to get his hopes up, but he was certainly praying to every deity he knew of (and some that he didn't know of) that this was him.

"Yeah, I am," he replied, reluctantly replacing his cigarette pack back in his shirt pocket. "Hey, are you that new kid... Jimmy?"

"Jim," he corrected blandly. Stupid counselor...

"Oh, alright... Well, I'm Mr. King... Umm.. Just go in and choose a seat, I guess..." Mr. King gestured towards the interior of the classroom, which consisted of six long tables put together to form three sides of a square, the open side facing towards the whiteboard. A few students had already arrived early, and were studying their notes while eating select healthfoods-- one, for instance, was distractedly chewing an apple, staring intently at one particular line in his notes, while another across the room from the first struggled with a banana peel. Jim took a seat in the center of a table facing the whiteboard directly.

Not long after Jim had seated himself, a few other students (none of them from Mrs. Palumbo's Physical Science class, to his relief )quietly entered and began reviewing their notes as well. The first warning bell rang, and the remainder of Jim's classmates filed in, chatting quietly amongst themselves. After a few more moments, the tardy bell rang, and Mr. King immediately began class. Jim crossed his fingers underneath the table. Several of the students were now eating snacks.

"Okay, first thing, everyone, here's our new student, Jim Hawking," Mr. King gestured towards Jim. Immediately, a few whispers and giggles erupted around the edges of the three-sided square; a few times, Jim was sure, he heard Mrs. Palumbo's name mentioned, and he blushed. Mr. King grinned, seemingly aware of last period's embarassment. Jim assumed his classmates had been talking to people from Mrs. Palumbo's class.

"Alright," Mr. King called back the class's attention back to himself. "Pop quiz. Take out a sheet of notebook paper, number one through three today--" He stopped, and seemed to have noticed Jim's increased discomfort at the mention of a quiz. "Don't worry about it today, Jim-- just write down the questions and the answers, and be sure to take good notes in case if we have one next class."

The quiz, Jim deduced, was over the beginnings of U.S. history, nearly ANCIENT history now. He took careful notes as the quiz answers were discussed.

Not long after the quiz, the class was in a heated discussion (a bit of a way off the subject) about ancient Northern California being forced to provide water to Southern California due to population differences in voting.

"Because the population's higher in Southern California," Mr. King explained, "they overthrew the votes from Northern California, who didn't want to share their water with them."

"The bastards!" one student (meant) to mutter under his breath, but had apparently spoken too loudly. He quickly clapped his hands over his face.

"Damn straight!" Mr. King concurred vehemently. Jim was throroughly impressed. Not only could this teacher remember his name, indentify the fact that he was a male, and teach his subject competently, but he also gave a considerable amount of leeway for valid, however vulgar, opinions. Mr. King also seemed able to connect with his students well. More often than not, they called him "Stinky" due to his admittedly nasty odor, likely from his smoking habit. In turned, he referred to the class as a whole as "those little snot-nosed brats".

Just as soon as the class seemed to be getting started, to Jim's disappointment, the bell rang. The class spilled out from the room in an orderly fashion, Mr. King waiting only moments before he left as well. Jim noticed that he had neglected to bring his cigarettes, however...

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Not as long as it could have been, considering how long it's been since I've written a chapter... ^_^;;; sorry!!! Bad, busy Nekofujin... No promises on the next chapter, I'm afraid, although this time I have a *slight* idea of what it's going to be about.