A/N: I'm not getting as many reviews as I hoped - in fact I'm not getting any at all. I'm adding this chapter a bit early and hopfully (hinthint nudgenudge) I'll get some reviews.

Chapter 2: Lesson of History

A shrill melody woke both girls that were in the room in the morning. Mary shot up and banged her head on the wooden bookcase just over her head. With much difficulty she tried to get out of her bed and fish a plaid skirt out from her small wardrobe. Her uniform wasn't in there, however. Slowly turning to her roommate, Mary scowled as the girl stretched leisurely, and yawned.

" What did you do with my uniform?" Mary demanded, striding over to the innocent looking girl's bed.

"Whatever do you mean, Mary dearest?" she said, her blue curls spilling over her shoulders. She had dyed her hair recently. " I did not touch your possessions."

I wish she had never woken up, Mary thought advancing on the girl, she looks so peaceful when she sleeps. Instead of trying to talk the girl into giving Mary back her clothes, Mary headed strait for the other girl's wardrobe; flung it open and tossed out all the things that were carefully stacked in it; despite the girl's protests. Finding her skirt clumped up at the very bottom; Mary threw the girl a dirty look and lounged over to her bed. Pushing aside her very plump ginger cat, she sat down on the bed and tugged on her shoes; not showing the slightest hint that she was listening to her neighbor.

" You foul little person!" sputtered the girl in anger. "Look what you've done!"

" What? Something your palm pilot can't do for you?" Mary spat back at her. " Bug off Kayla! If you try hard enough you'll make it to your first lesson." She added racing out of the room with her bag hung over her shoulder. Moments later, Mary rushed into her history classroom, unpacked her books, and settled down in her seat, second row in the left column. She was prepared to enjoy her favorite class, history. The bell rang somewhere in the distance as their professor walked in, carrying three unusually large textbook, which made everyone groan.

" Why good morning to you too!" he said brightly, placing the book on his table. " I am glad to see everyone is well and that you all have such eager looks on your faces. Now if you would, please open up your books to page one-hundred-and-nineteen."

The shuffling of many bags droned out the rest of his words, so the professor had to wait for the silence to resume. Mary, who had already taken out her beige history book, started to fiddle with her hoop earrings lazily as a sharp movement from the window caught her attention. To her relief, the only thing that could be seen outside of it was the slightly swaying and yellowing, weeping willow. Mary relaxed.

"Now, we will start to talk about the history of London," the professor's loud voice snapped her back to reality. "I hope I just explained why I have so many books with me. You see, I wasn't originally expected to cover this subject with you. But we have gone ahead of all my other classes so I was left with no choice but to cover something extra with you. I picked our history, because I realized that it might be fun researching not just the famous leaders of our country but writers, popes, poets, stories, legends, and so on and so forth. Now I want to actually begin. Now I know we dread working in groups, but we have to unless someone wants to work alone. No one, excellent!" he ranted on, failing to notice Mary's hand as she volunteered to work alone.

No such luck. Mary was stuck in a group. Along with Kayla, a boy named David, and Cal who was just another of the popular girls at Stillwater. After spending three minutes of introducing herself, Cal huffed and took out a nail filer; apparently she caught on the fact that the small group wasn't interested about who she dated the past year.

" We are all settled then?" Professor Vinkory asked as chatter broke out amongst several people and the room was soon buzzing. "Alright then. Before we begin our research, I would like to emphasize a bit more on what we are doing. We aren't just researching this, we are presenting. Presentations will begin in… six weeks time. Now as an example I want to show you what can be researched. Miss Melanin, would you please give me a famous story about London?"

Cal leaned back in her chair and thought for a minute. Her blue eyes studied the door, Professor Vinkory and finally landed on Mary.

What do you think of this on Bloody?" she whispered to Mary, and out loud she almost yelled. "Is Peter Pan considered one?"

"Humm... Yes I believe it is."