A/N: Ooooh, that mean Karen! I really need to include more Fred. . .

Chapter Five

There was payback for Natalie. She opened her locker the next morning to find the whole thing full of expanding foam, sprayed in through the edges. After scraping foam off of the folders she'd left in there the previous day, and shaking the sheets of paper so foam dripped all over the hall floor as other students watched from afar, pointing and laughing. Natalie tried to make a joke out of it, after all, she could see how it was funny, and if she laughed at it, Karen wouldn't have won, right? So she did laugh, shaking the foam over everyone who dared go past her and making a joke.

"She's a bitch," says Fred, appearing beside her as she closed the locker door, foam on his nose and in his hair, holding it back like gel. "Although, foam's fun!" He rolls about on the floor in the foam for a minute, while people walk past him, and over him. He makes a face whenever anyone steps on him. Then, he's up by Natalie's side.

"What the fuck has happened Natalie?" asks Mik, walking up to her best friend. Natalie gives her a little laugh.

"Karen's filled my locker with foam," Natalie says as she spies Karen walking up the hall. She makes her voice a little louder and puts a bit of foam on the end of her and Mik's noses. "Yeah, sure it peed me off for a minute because my stuff's ruined, but now, I can completely see the funny side of it. Haven't laughed so much in ages, so Karen's really achieved nothing." She gives a giggle for effect as Karen walks past, smirking and then sulking again at Natalie's happy face. Mik laughs with her, rubbing foam into Natalie's hair. Fred, stands up by the closed door of the locker.

"So everyone likes foam?" he asks.

"Psychology," Mik reminds Natalie, Mr. Preston had given Natalie another sheet, and told her to do the homework herself or be given detention, so she'd taken the homework. She opens the locker again, smashing it in Fred's face as he stands in the way.

"Poo Shoes!" he complains. "Right," he begins, as Natalie and Mik walk towards the classroom. "Now, I know you laughed and everything, but really, I know you're pissed off with her, so, what can we do in revenge?" Fred ponders.

"How do you know?" Natalie asks in response to Mik's question.

"Well, foam on your stuff isn't good, and as good as foam is, it was a mean thing to do. I can also read your mind," says Fred, leaning in close to Natalie and talking right into her ear, stretching out the word 'mind.' Natalie swats him away like a fly.

"She's sure peed off her little trick didn't work," says Mik at lunch, after Natalie had cleared out her locker and washed it down they were sitting back on the grass. Fred, bored, was sitting a little distance off and pelting Karen with peanuts. Each time she looked round, and each time she couldn't see who was throwing them.

"Yeah, but, it doesn't bother me," says Natalie, watching Fred with an eyebrow arched. "Well, actually it does, and I'm planning revenge at this very minute." Fred looks up, just as Karen picks up a peanut by her feet and throws it back in the direction of who's throwing them, hitting Fred squarely between the eyes. He staggers for a minute, and then carries on walking towards Natalie.

"Revenge? That's what I'm talking about!" says Fred, rubbing his hands together and hopping around like a three year old.

"Revenge? What are you gonna do?" asks Mik, interested.

"We're gonna stamp on her!" Fred exclaims. "We're going to take off all her clothes and dress up the stone guy in the fountain with them." Natalie smiles, thinking of the statue in the fountain dressed in Karen's clothes.

"What?" asks Mik.

"I dunno, the blue lips won't work again," says Natalie, looking over at Karen. Mik opens her mouth, then shuts it again.

"That was you!" she says, giving Natalie a hug.

"Fred's right though, with the clothes and paint and stuff like that," Natalie muses.

"Who is this Fred?" asks Mik.

"He's my imaginary friend," says Natalie, as if were the most obvious thing in the world. Fred struts up to Mik.

"I'm her real friend, really really real," he says, stepping a few steps behind her and throwing a peanut at her head, Mik turns around to see who is was.

"That was Fred," says Natalie.

"Don't be stupid, if he's an imaginary friend then he couldn't pick peanuts up. And Nat, aren't you a little bit old for imaginary friends? You've got real friends," says Mik.

"I am real!" protests Fred, blowing as raspberry at Mik. "I'm Drop Dead Fred!"