Wahoo! My third chapter is up! I want to thank everybody for reading and replying, and for all the wondrous complaints you gave me! And here is the reply's to your reviews!

Ryuu Soba: I know (Sniff) isn't Joey's father terrible! I want to jump in there and pound him to death myself, but that would ruin the story and we can't have that can we? Thanks for reviewing!

Ilikeyaoi: You see the reason why Joey is Joey and not Jounichi (Is that how you spell it?) is because I'm an American girl. Japanese confuses me. I have no clue how to spell it and I don't know everybody's Japanese name. Joey's is Jounichi (And I'm pretty sure I'm spelling it wrong) Tea's is Anzu, Tristan's is Honda, and isn't Serenity's Suzuki or something like that? And of course, there's the –san and –Chan business, and I don't know when to properly use it! If I tried to do it all correctly it would give me brain damage, and I really can't afford to hurt my brain any more than it already is! (Sigh) So that, my friend is why I stick to American names! Oh, and I'm sorry for that very long response, warning: do not give me chocolate when I am replying! And thank you for reviewing (grin) it made me all bubbly!

Onto the story! (Wahoo)

The Life of a Blonde

Chapter 3: Troubles with School

By yllom21

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh (If I did, the American version would not be edited)

The school was huge, much bigger than the one back in Domino city. Joey felt apprehensive about entering the school; it seemed too big to navigate it correctly, and too large to get to a class in less than four minutes. Hopefully the lunchroom would be bigger as well, not as though it would matter. He was going to save today's lunch money so he could call his friends and his sister, Serenity.

He decided to go in, realizing that people were going to start looking at him weird if he just stood there, like a large gaping fish. Just getting to the door was difficult, there was a large plateau of stairs, and by the time the blonde made it to the top of the staircase, he was craving painkillers.

"Stupid ankle," Joey muttered as he reached a fork in the hallway… which way should he go, right or left? It would be amusing if he got lost at the first turn in the too-large-for-its-own-good building, well amusing that is, if it wasn't him. At the moment all Joey wanted to do was sit down on something soft and swallow a handful of painkillers, and some Advil to get rid of his rising headache, perhaps a Tylenol or two just to be safe

After flipping a coin, closing his eyes and pointing, and playing 'rock, paper, scissors' (a very difficult game to play by himself) Joey decided to go left and hopefully make it to the main office before he ran out of painkillers.

This high school looked better inside than his old high school. The paint on the walls was actually the same color and the lockers were all perfectly hinged. Joey felt like he was disturbing the peace. Walking hurt terribly, and it hurt even more than usual because the teen was making sure that his limp was hidden. Joey was just about to collapse when he noticed a bench and decided to rest there and dish out a painkiller. In the past he had twisted his ankle, and after pretending he didn't have one, and running around in circles in gym with one, Joey had ended up living off coffee for weeks because he had wasted all his money on painkillers. It looked like he wasn't going to be eating much this week; especially since he had to use some of his money to call his friends and his sister.

After swallowing the pills (and eating a second and a third before he could stop himself) Joey decided to head back to the main hall and go right, thinking that he should have reached the main office by now. The main office was always near the foyer, or at least it was in his old school, shouldn't it be the same here?

Deciding that going back to the foyer would be the best choice and hopefully less painful than climbing up to the second floor, Joey turned back. This school was very proud, or so it seemed. Besides the perfectly painted walls (his own schools changed from white, to brown, and then to orange) and the nicely hinged lockers (His own was so badly hinged, he felt like he was moving a rhino every time he opened it) there where trophies scattered on shelves and pictures adorned the walls.

Joey made it back to the foyer in one piece, one severely aching piece that is. He continued forward, noting that he had wasted fifteen minutes going down the seemingly wrong hall. Well, at least he wouldn't be sitting down watching the second hand move very slowly, even though it would have been less painful. But hey, the best way to cope with a twisted ankle was to get used to the pain. It was starting to irritate him, even though he had had it for less than a day.

A few doors down was the main office. After cursing softly so the secretaries wouldn't hear, and punish him before he had even started school, the blonde pushed the door opened and headed to the main desk, or at least, the one covered in so many papers it seemed like a mailman had come in and dumped his yearly load onto the table.

The secretary herself was not what Joey expected in this massive, beautifully furnished school. She was large, and for once Joey was not exaggerating. The makeup on her face was more than Tea ever used at her dance recitals (she had to put a lot on, or she would seem like a ghost on stage) and her hair was longer than Mai's and looked a horrible orange color, almost like her original hair color was black, and she had tried to dye it blonde.

"Hey sonny," the woman said a few seconds (although it seemed like minutes) later. She didn't seem to notice the blonde at all, and instead she turned her gaze onto her nail file, which she began to use against her very long nails. The teen's gaze went to her nails as he noted, quite precisely that they where longer than Tea's cat's claws, and she had never been de-clawed.

"I'm new here," Joey said as he coughed slightly in apprehension. He was starting to wonder if he had mistaken the head secretary for the head clown at a circus. In fact, now that he thought about it, a circus was traveling around Japan.

"Really?" she said as she finally took her gaze off of her nails and turned it to the teen duelist, her gaze only held for a second, just long enough for Joey to notice that one eye had blue eye shadow and the other had green, "I'll keep that it mind," and she turned her gaze back onto her nails, which didn't seem to get shorter at all, no matter how much she filed them.

Joey coughed again, flicked his hair out of his eyes and decided that no matter how fancy this high school was, there head secretary (if she was the head secretary, and not there to be in one of those gag shows that they showed on T.V.) was a joke. She would probably be better of in Antarctica, where there was nobody to bother her except the penguins, and Joey highly doubted that she would bother them.

Joey gazed around the office and then went back out into the hall to make sure that the door still said 'Head Office'. Joey was about to sit down and dish out his c.d. player, when another lady came into the office and sat down at a much smaller desk. It was a lot neater, and there wasn't one single jar of makeup on it.

After debating whether he should ignore this new secretary entirely and snap on his headphones, he decided to go over and tell her about the new student dilemma and pray to the almighty lord that she was not going to do something stupid.

"I'm new here," Joey said after he had gotten the secretary's full attention. She was a skinny lady, perhaps in her early forties with thinning auburn hair and a neat business-like dress. She wore glasses, and she seemed much more in place than the other lady, who still seemed to be giving her nails her full attention.

"Joey Wheeler right?" she asked as she dished out a folder, "Your from Domino City, correct?"

"That's right," Joey nodded as she opened the folder and stared to pile things neatly onto her desk, all which seemed to have his name typed correctly on it.

"Here's your schedule," she said as she paused slightly, pointing to one in particular, "We have a six day system; each day is a letter of the alphabet. A-F, understand?"

Joey nodded adding in, "Domino had a five day system, and it was numbers, not letters,"

"It's the same sort of thing," the lady said, who had introduced herself as Mrs. Dawn, "Gym classes are separated, boys together, and girls together," Joey nodded as Mrs. Dawn began to recite the rules, all of them from memory. His old school had separate gender gym classes. He could remember laughing with Tristan as they watched the girls, mainly Tea (there only friend who was a girl) do there sports on the opposite side of the field.

After she finished (and Joey thanked the lucky stars that Mrs. Dawn had let him sit down so he could rest his twisted leg) Joey headed off on a mission to find his locker, one that was not going to end well.

"2606, 2606, 2606," Joey muttered to himself as he repeated his locker number and noted sadly that he was still in the thousands. He was never going to make it to any of his classes on time, and his leg was really starting to bother him. Thankfully, he had noticed that he did not have a gym class on C days, which Mrs. Dawn has said was today's letter. But of course, he did have it on D days, which was tomorrow's letter.

He noticed in apprehension that there were only 5 minutes to go before the other students came in. He decided to stop and have another painkiller, knowing that the pain was going to go up when the students began to jostle him, and his twisted ankle wasn't the only thing that was going to hurt, he had other injuries as well.

Cursing his father (although not nearly as badly as his father cursed him) Joey noticed in defeat as he turned around a corner, that all the lockers in the one thousands seemed to be on the first floor, so that meant the two thousands were on the second floor. After sighing pitifully, looking around to see if anyone was there, and looking at the locker numbers just to be sure, Joey headed to the very large staircase as his leg started to ache, almost as though it knew he was going to pain it.

After sighing bitterly, Joey began his long assent, holding onto the rail hard, and praying to the gods that he would make it to the top before the bell rang and the students jumbled in, headphones blearing and voices screaming. He had had experience with kids knocking into him, sometimes hurting the body part that hurt the most, sometimes they didn't. But most of the time, his entire body hurt, although some parts hurt more than others.

After making it to the top and turning around the bend, the bell rang, and the screaming voices became suddenly louder. "It's going to be a long day," Joey said as he finally came to his locker, number 2606.

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After storing his very small amount of schools supplies into his locker, Joey decided to find his homeroom and hopefully find it before the first period bell rang. The halls where thinning out, and to Joey that meant one thing; the bell to start homeroom was going to ring soon, and the small amount of people still trotting down the halls where either going to make it just in time, or be late.

All of them seemed to be in a hurry, which confirmed Joey's suspicions. A girl in particular was almost running, she was walking at such a furious pace, she seemed to be muttering to herself and when the blonde passed her, he found out that she was cursing her boyfriend for picking her up so late; very typical.

The bell rang, and a loud clamor erupted as everyone stopped walking at a luxurious pace and began to run towards there homerooms. A boy with black spiked hair laughed at an unfortunate girl who was running towards a room, her long blonde braid billowing behind her as he waved a yellow pass in her face. She turned an unhealthy color of scarlet, matching her red shirt perfectly. "Shut up Shawn," she hissed as she opened the door and walked into it. She wasn't worried about getting into trouble, or so it seemed to Joey, but she seemed rather mad at this Shawn kid.

"Hey kid," the brunette called out, and Joey noticed that his green eyes were pinpointed at him, "You new here? I've never seen you before,"

"What's it to you?" Joey called out as he scanned the doors to the rooms; he was getting awfully close to his number, unless for some reason they decided to skip him, which wouldn't surprise the teen with his unfortunate run of luck.

"Just asking," he said with a shrug, "What's your homeroom number?"

Joey wasn't about to tell this Shawn kid what his homeroom number was. There was something he didn't like about him. It wasn't the way he felt about his archenemy, Seto Kaiba. He hated that kid! He was a stuck up rich pompous jerk. In fact, Joey could spend an entire day spitting out curses at the C.E.O., and never run out of things to say. No, he didn't hate this kid, he just felt uneasy about him. Perhaps it was because of the scene he just saw, or the sneering tone the boy had, but Joey decided to stay away from him, especially because of his twisted ankle and his other various pains.

"What's it to you?" Joey said repeating his earlier comment.

"I could point you in the right direction you know," he said as he leafed through his spikes, making them even spikier than they where before, "This is an awfully big high school,"

"I can find it myself," Joey said as he leafed through his own hair. He was a number off, and then he turned around trying to spot the room number Shawn was hiding.

"This is room number 213," he said with a smirk as he shifted his hair, noticing where Joey's attention was.

Joey didn't believe him… 213? That was his room number! After gazing at his schedule just to make sure that it was his homeroom and not his Math classroom, Joey turned his gaze back onto Shawn.

Shawn had an awful smirk on his face, but now that Joey thought about it, he couldn't remember Shawn without it. He turned around and pointed at the room number, proving to the blonde that he wasn't lying.

"You with me?" he asked with an even bigger smirk on his face, "That's my homeroom. Mrs. Brandon is an old fruit,"

After frowning at the brunette and beginning to wonder why the boy would insult the teacher right in front of her classroom, Joey decided the best thing to do was to walk into his new homeroom, ignore Shawn and hide his limp. Heck, he didn't want Shawn to now that he had a twisted ankle… there wasn't something right about that kid.

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"So, you're the new student," Mrs. Brandon said smiling brightly as her thick spectacles slipped down her nose. She seemed to be eyeing him, almost as though she was weighing the chances of him being a good student or a bad one.

"That's right madam," Joey agreed with her, shifting his weight off of his twisted ankle, "I am in the right place… right?" It would be real embarrassing if he walked into the wrong room, not the best impression on the first day.

"Yes you are..." she said as she drifted off, she was searching through her paperwork, obviously looking for his name, or anything else about him.

"Joey Wheeler," the blonde said as he flicked a strand of hair out of his face, giving her his infamous smile. She grinned back as she found the slip of paper she was looking for; his grin could melt anybody, except for Seto Kaiba.

"You can sit anywhere you want. However if you disturb anybody, I will have to give you an assigned seat," she said as she pointed towards the desks, where the students were staring at him and whispering about the new student. All of them were staring at his face, and slightly embarrassed, Joey stared at his shoe so his long hair would cover his face.

"Thank you Mrs. Brandon," Joey said as he flashed her a smile ignoring the surprised look on her face because he had somehow knew her name, and headed to the back.

The room had about twenty desks and about a third of them where full; the walls where almost invisible behind the many maps and posters. Joey correctly assumed that the room was used for Social Studies; a Math room wasn't going to have posters about wars and poverty and pictures of places all over the world.

All of the students were staring at him, whispering frantically to there friends as they peered at him, trying to see past his long blonde hair. Joey's brown eyes stared back under his thick hair, wondering why they where making such a fuss. When new students came to his old school, nobody acted like this, or at least; his friends didn't.

After sitting down in a window seat so he could look outside and ignore the obvious looks of wonderment he was receiving, Joey set his binder down carefully and began to wonder when somebody was going to speak.

"Um, excuse me?" a girl said apologetically. She was a bit on the short side, and her short red hair was spiked; for a second, Joey though she was a guy, but after looking at her for a second, Joey realized that the speaker was indeed female.

"Yeah," he said flicking a strand of hair out of his eyes as he gave her a bright warm smile; she smiled back, revealing her boyish spunkiness.

"I'm Alexandra," she said with a wink, "Alexandra O'Neil,"

"I'm Joey Wheeler," he said winking back. "Nice to meet you Alexandra,"

"Please call me Alex," she said, as she grinned sheepishly. "Look, I know this might sound stupid, not that I really care… but are you Joey Wheeler, the Joey Wheeler the famous duel monster pro?"

He blinked at her for a moment, so that was why they were acting so weird! He hadn't even thought that being a duel monster champion was the cause of there stares. He was famous, and even though he was used to it by now, it still surprised him a little when they looked at him with awe. It made him feel funny inside. The blonde couldn't help but wonder... would they treat him any differently because he was a celebrity?

"Yeah," he said as he grinned sheepishly, "You've hear of me?" seeing her surprised expression (which made him chuckle) he pulled his deck out of his pocket and showed her his Red Eyes.

"Rule number one," he said with a grin, "Never go anywhere without your deck,"

"So you really are…" she drifted off for a second before she turned back into her regular spunky self, "It's nice to meet you Mr. Wheeler!" and with a grin she grabbed his hand and began to shake it.

"Nice to meet you to Alex," he said grinning back, "Do you have a deck?"

"I do," she admitted, "But I'm only a beginner,"

"Can I see it?" he asked as he watched her search throughout her many pockets on her kaki shorts. "Thank you," he said when she finally found it.

She had a good deck, nothing too expensive but her cards worked well together. Joey knew a few people who just bought powerful cards, but they were all different types. One of the many rules to building a deck was having cards that supported each other, and hers did.

"Nice deck," he said with a grin, "You seem to favor aerial monsters," and she truly did. All of her monsters had some type of wings attached to them.

"I do," she said as she fingered her red bangs, "Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Joey said with a grin, "One of the rules to building a strong deck is making sure that your cards support each other. Having a few water monsters and some fire monsters isn't a bright idea. For instance, my friend Yugi specializes in magic,"

"That's good," she said with a large grin, "It makes me feel good that you complemented me since you're a regional champion, even if you are just being nice,"

"I'm being truthful," he said. "No really I am," he added when he saw her doubtful glance.

"So," he said as he scratched his chin, "Do you have a favorite card?"

"Aerial Princess," Alex said with a grin. "Toby says that she reminds him of me," and with that said she showed him her top card on her deck. (1)

Aerial Princess did remind Joey of Alex. The air monster had red hair like Alexandra's; the only difference was that Alex's was spiked. Her face was similar as well, both of them had spicy green eyes and they both looked spunky and boyish. Besides the wings, Joey would have thought that the monster on the card was Alex.

"She does look a lot like you," he admitted. "Who's Toby?"

"One of my friends," Alex said as she scratched her chin. "I can introduce you… in fact, I could show you around school if you want. I know it can be over whelming. I remember my thoughts when I entered this school for the first time last year, I was like, do they actually expect me to go to class to class without getting lost once? But eventually, I managed to get around without being too horribly late,"

"I highly doubt that will happen to me, I'm doomed to be walking these halls until I die," Joey said as he earned a laugh from the redhead, "I'd appreciate it if you showed me around, but don't make yourself late,"

"Na," Alex said with a smirk, "If I don't think I'll make it, I'll abandon you, 'Kay?"

"Ok," Joey said with a grin as the bell sounded throughout the building.

"Come on Joey!" Alex said as she abruptly stood up, grabbing her green binder and blue note book, "What class do you have first, and which teacher,"

"Um," Joey said as he struggled to remember, "Math, Mr. Riley,"

"Goodie!" she said as she stared off, walking fast as she dodged around people, something she was good at because of her lack of height, "I have Riley first too, come on I'll show you!"

And with that said, Joey trampled off after her, trying to ignore the pain in his ankle. He grinned, it seemed like there was somebody perfectly normal in this town!

Aerial Princess is not a real card. She's just a monster I made up while I was typing this. So please, don't complain to me after you spend your money trying to buy it when it doesn't exist.

I want to thank everybody for reading and reviewing! They make me feel so bubbly inside! (Sniff) I'll update soon, I promise!