"Hey, uh...new girl!"

Pearl stopped in her tracks and groaned. It had to be the giggle girls who sat behind

her. "Listen, I don't want any of your crap," she said turning around. But she stopped. A

smaller girl stood in front of her. Short black hair with red at the tips hung under her

chin, and bangs curved over her eyebrows. Pearl realized instantly that she was not

one of the gigglers.

"I...uh," the girl started, but Pearl cut her off.

"Sorry, I thought you were...someone else," she said.

The girl smiled a wonderfully genuine smile. "Oh it's OK, I saw those girls in there. I

figured you'd be a little edgy."

Pearl ginned and introduced herself.

"I'm Roxanne, but you can call me Roxy. I-"

"Hey witch!"

The gigglers. Pearl looked over her shoulder at the girls. "Can I help you?" She asked

with fake politeness.

"You can go back to where ever you came from because you are not wanted here," the

lead Latino Barbie said.

Latino Barbies, Pearl thought. That's what they are, Barbies. "Oh please," she said.

"That 'I own the school' mentality is so old. Everyone uses it in the movies, why can't

you find your own line?"

The Latino Barbies looked offended. Lead Barbie stepped up to Pearl, her fists

clenched. "Girl, you best not be coughing up an attitude with me!"

Pearl laughed. "Please, what are you, a gangsta wanna be?"

Latino Barbie wound up and threw a punch at Pearl, but she never got the chance to

block it. Roxy, with amazing speed, had the girl on the ground with her hand pinned

behind her back. She had not even broken a sweat. "Back off lemmings or the queen

bee's arm gets broken."

The other girls backed off and then disappeared into the crowd. Roxy let the girl up

and pushed her against the wall. "Am I going to have to teach you a lesson again,

Jasmine? Or are you going to scamper off like a good girl?"

"I'm out Rox." The girl said.

Roxy let her go and she scampered off. Pearl searched Roxy with her mind to make

sure that she had no powers. None showed up. Then how on earth had she been so

fast? I suppose not all vermin are so weak after all, Pearl thought.

"That was great Roxy," she said.

"Ah, those girls are nothin'. I've known them since the first grade. You just have to be

firm with them."

Pearl smiled, knowing that she had found a friend. But her heart hurt. She

remembered when she would do the same kind of thing for new students t her old

school. Oh, well, she thought. No use in lingering on the past.