Okay, here's chapter 3. I apologize for the slight delay; I've decided to make the chapters longer from now on. Again, any reviews or constructive criticism are welcomed and appreciated. :)

"Kyle?" Stan asked tentatively, pushing the door open to the men's room. He had followed his agitated best friend out of the cafeteria, anxious to see if he was all right, but now he hesitated. What if Kyle was still crying? Tears, after all, made him nervous – and Kyle was hardly one to cry.

Much to his relief, however, he found Kyle standing glumly by the sink, and his eyes - though red and puffy – were now dry. They were cast downwards to the tiled floor below, and his shoulders were slumped in dejection.

"Hey, dude, are you okay?" Stan said. "Look – Cartman's a fag, we all know that – "

"I give up," Kyle interrupted in a dull voice, still staring at the floor. "Cartman will always win one over me, won't he? It's always been the same, ever since we were in preschool together. We've never gotten along – we're always fighting with each other. The Jew jokes will never stop from him." He took a deep breath, calming himself. "It just isn't going to work anymore. I'm talking to Mr. Garrison after lunch. Maybe he can appoint someone else assistant-overseer."

"Don't quit just because of Cartman, Kyle!" Stan implored. "Don't you see? Quitting is exactly what Cartman wants you to do! That way, everything will just go his way and nobody reasonable would be able to stop him!" Stan stopped there, waiting for a rebuttal from Kyle, but none came. "Look… don't quit. You'll be disappointed with yourself if you do – especially if Cartman ends up producing a pageant that sucks ass."

Kyle sighed but remained silent. Finally, though, after apparently doing some serious thinking, he raised his eyes from the ground and looked directly at Stan, his eyes rekindling some of their former determination. "You're right, Stan. Quitting is for pussies. Besides, I'm not going to let fatass win this time. True, I may now be only the assistant, but I'm not letting this pageant go downhill just because of him."

Stan smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. Now, come on, let's get out of here – the bell's going to ring any minute."

The rest of the afternoon passed fairly quickly with nondescript events. Cartman – to Kyle's immense relief – had said nothing to him about his embarrassing cafeteria episode. Later, Mr. Garrison surprised the class by announcing that Cartman and Kyle would be switching places "due to Father Maxi's wishes". Though a couple kids glanced quizzical glances at Kyle (who steadily avoided their gazes), nobody said anything or called him on it. Then, as the bell was seconds away from ringing, Mr. Garrison reminded them of their rehearsal tomorrow afternoon from 3 to 6 P.M.

"Ugh, thank God that's over with," Kyle breathed a small sigh of relief in the frosty air as the trio – Stan, Kyle, and Kenny – walked to Stark's Pond for ice-staking. "All those stares – people were probably wondering why the fuck Father Maxi wanted Cartman to be overseer. Hell, I'm even wondering why…"

Stan chuckled. "Probably gave him oral or something…"

Kenny joined in. "Yeah, probably... or had butt sex…"

Stan was seconds away from replying – probably with a remark even more disgusting than Kenny's – when a voice cut through the frosty air. "Stan! Stan, wait up!"

All three turned to see Wendy and Bebe rushing toward them, their boots sinking through the snow drift and their coats flapping openly in the wind. Kyle felt Stan give a small jolt of surprise beside him, and a quick glance to the left confirmed that Stan was pleased – yet embarrassed – to have Wendy call his name out like that.

"Wendy, what are you doing here?" He managed to croak out as the two girls fell into step beside them. "I thought you would be home… doing, um, homework or something…"

"Don't be silly," Wendy said, her cheeks pink in the cold air. "Bebe and I wanted to go ice-skating today, and we saw you heading there… so I thought, why not? Let's go with Stan and his friends." She cleared her throat. "Actually, I'm a bit surprised to see you here… I thought you weren't a big fan of skating… but Stark's Pond… that brings back a lot of memories, doesn't it?" she added in a wistful voice as the frozen pond came into view.

Stan cleared his throat, suddenly feeling overheated and extremely uncomfortable. He glanced at Kyle, silently begging him to change the subject. Picking up on the nonverbal message immediately, Kyle quickly scrounged around for something to say and finally blurted out the first thing that hopped into his mind: "So, um… how about that pageant? You guys excited about it?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Bebe said as they crouched near the pond's edge, untying their shoelaces and slipping on their ice-skates. "It's just a shame Wendy beat me to signing up for Mary. I would've loved to play opposite Joseph… especially when he's being played by Stan." She threw a quick wink at the startled boy over her shoulder.

"W-what?" Wendy stammered; her skates tied, she stood up quickly. "Stan's going to be Joseph?" She turned to Stan with an odd look in her eyes; Kyle couldn't tell where she was going with this. "You… you're serious? We're both going to be Jesus's parents in this pageant? Together? I don't know what to say…" Her face expressionless, nobody in the group could tell whether she was happy or disappointed about the arrangement, and a heavy silence fell.

"Oh, look!" Stan said feebly, suddenly cutting through the awkward stillness. "There's Token and Clyde over there… see you…" Looking both miserable and hurt, he quickly jumped into the ice and furiously skated away.

Wendy stared after him, a closed look forming in her eyes. Frowning and blinking back tears, she turned away and muttered to Bebe, "Come on. Let's get out of here."

"What? No!" Bebe looked wistfully at the glistening lake, where kids were happily skating around. "We just got here, Wendy…" But Wendy, determined to leave as quickly as possible, grabbed the blonde's arm and yanked her away.

As Bebe's departing protests became fainter and fainter, Kyle and Kenny exchanged looks of identical puzzlement. "What the hell just happened?" Kyle questioned. Kenny just shook his head in confusion. "Come on, let's go talk to him." Kenny nodded and jumped onto the ice, skating over to where Token, Clyde, and Stan were standing. Kyle was about to do the same when he heard a taunting voice sound behind him.

"Aww, did Stan get his feelings hurt by Wendy again?" Cartman jeered. "He should learn that he's better off without that bitch…"

Kyle turned around, glaring at Cartman. "When the hell did you get here, fatass?"

"Just a couple minutes ago. It was really nice of you to invite me, by the way," he added, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "But then again, I suppose you have an excuse for your forgetfulness – you've been crying your eyes out all day, ever since you found out you're not the overseer anymore. If I were you, I'd be distraught as well…"

Kyle bristled, stung by the crying remark. So Cartman did choose to hurl that embarrassing moment back in his face, after all. "Oh, will you give it up already?" he retorted, clutching his mitten fists at his side. "I don't give a shit that you're the overseer now. Quite obviously, I'm over it. Now, if you'll excuse me, Cartman, I have more important things to do than stand here talking to you."

"Actually, no, you don't," Cartman corrected him in an annoyingly superior voice. "Rehearsals start tomorrow, and we've got a shitload of business to discuss about this pageant before that time. Well… actually, I have some things to tell you about the pageant and you have to more or less agree with them. But hey, same thing, right?" He chuckled, glancing down at his fistful of notes. "Now, first on the agenda, we have to discuss scenery – I was thinking about hanging that two-hundred year old star the church always has over the manger scene…"

Kyle turned away from Cartman, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. He didn't feel like talking about this with Cartman – not here, not now… especially with Cartman repeatedly rubbing it in his face that he was now in charge of the whole thing…

"You know what, Cartman?" Kyle suddenly interrupted; Cartman glanced up from his notes to throw Kyle an exasperated look. "Since I really don't have a say in what goes on with the pageant anymore – according to you, anyway – I'm just going to leave you to masturbate with your notes. Have fun." He half-turned, getting ready to jump onto the ice.

"Kyle, you stupid Jew, we have to accomplish all three pages of these notes before tomorrow's rehearsal," Cartman insisted. "Now, goddammit, we're going to talk it over right here, okay!"

Kyle smirked at him. At any other point throughout the day, if Cartman had told him all this then, he would've probably exploded in his face. But now, he felt strangely aloof and saucy. "No, that's not okay, Cartman," he said. "I came here to ice-skate, and that's what I plan on doing right now. We can talk about these pageant matters tomorrow at rehearsal with everyone else. Talk to you later, tubby." And with that, he skated away, leaving an infuriated Cartman standing on the snowy banks.

He didn't even realize Cartman had hopped onto the ice after him in an angry pursuit until he heard Cartman yell, "Figures a stupid Jew would shirk away his responsibilities! Figures a stupid Jew would think he's the most important person here!"

Kyle spun around on the ice to face Cartman, an outraged look on his face. "Oh, right, I'm the one thinking I'm the most important person? Look at yourself in the mirror, Cartman! You're always the one itching for more money, and everything always has to go your fucking way. Well, I'm sick of working with such an egoistic asshole!" And he turned around and began skating away at top-speed.

He probably should've been looking where he was going, but the burning anger against Cartman growing inside him had blinded him; mere mili-seconds after turning around and skating away, he abruptly collided with another person on the ice. With a yell of surprise, the poor skater fell to the ice, landing heavily on his arm.

"Oh my God, dude, are you okay?" Kyle, concerned, looked down at the person he had collided with, who was slowly sitting up, his lips pressed together as if he was suppressing cries of indescribable pain.

"Oh, nice going, Jew!" Cartman jeered, skating up to Kyle and tauntingly pulling on his scarf; Kyle angrily slapped his hand away. "You think you own Stark's Pond now or something? Going around knocking innocent skaters off their feet just because they're better than you are, O Precious Jew? Oh-ho-ho…"

The boy surprised both of them then by jumping angrily to his feet, glaring at both of them with indescribable animosity. "What the hell is your problem?" he spat out, rubbing his arm. "You think it's funny to run into me?"

"N-no," Kyle stammered, taking an indistinctive step backwards. "Look, I'm really sorry I ran into you – it was a complete accident! Are you okay?"

Cartman now addressed the boy with an attitude of indifference. "Oh, don't mind my friend Kyle here," he said, tossing his arm around Kyle's shoulder; the latter shook it off in disgust. "If he sees someone doing something better than him, it's in his Jewish blood to immediately take them out. Trust me, I've been there – with this pageant we're throwing…"

"Shut the fuck up, fatty," the boy snapped, startling Cartman into silence. He turned to face Kyle. "I see we're going to have a real problem about this, aren't we?" He angrily jabbed the front of Kyle's jacket. "Mr. Hot Shot here thinks it's funny to almost break my arm, doesn't he?" Before Kyle could even open his mouth to protest against this, he launched another question at him. "You're from South Park, aren't you?"

"…Yes," Kyle answered timidly, secretly wondering how fast a person could run away with ice-skates on.

"I knew it," the boy jeered. "All you South Parkers have something against us North Parkers. It's always the same; just because your football team is better than ours doesn't mean you always have to pull shit with us!" He took a step forward and shoved Kyle backwards. "Well, guess what, Mr. Hot Shot – I'm sick of being pushed around from stupid South Parkers like yourself!"

Kyle, nearly toppling over himself, quickly regained his balance and angrily retorted back, "I wasn't pushing you around, asshole! It was merely an accident! You're making something out of nothing! Now why don't you just leave me alone so we can continue on with our lives, okay?"

The two of them stood there, glaring with each other. Finally, the boy relented; shrugging his shoulders, he was about to let the fray fall through and skate away when Cartman suddenly taunted after him, "Well, you know, your football team does suck compared to ours…in fact, anything in your crappy old town sucks compared to South Park. If I were you, I'd hide away in my house all day because I'd be too ashamed to come out and show my ugly North Park face."

"Cartman!" Kyle yelled out in alarm as the boy suddenly lunged back, knocking Cartman off his feet; as he fell onto the ice, the boy leaned over him and hissed, "You'll be sorry. Your whole fucking town will be sorry. Just you wait. North Park is going to fight back against South Park's self-acclaimed 'respect'. Just you wait." And with that, he skated away and disappeared into the crowd of surrounding skaters.

Kyle gaped after him. "Ohhh," Cartman moaned from the ground. "Pain. Paaaain. I think I'm dying. I think this is it…"

Kyle frowned. Grabbing Cartman's hand and hauling him back up on his feet, he said, "Shut up, Cartman. You're fine. But why the hell did you yell that after him? We know that North Parkers are assholes, but still…"

Cartman gritted his teeth both in pain and in frustration. "He asked for it. Nobody pushes South Park around, and I let him know that." He moved to adjust his scarf and winced in pain. "Ouch… I think I cut my wrist on the ice somehow…" And sure enough, there was a small trickle of blood protruding from a cut. "Listen, I'm just gonna grab my notes over there and head home. Too much drama for me."

"Wait," Kyle said. He quickly scanned the crowd for a glimpse of either Stan or Kenny and saw neither. "I'll come with you; I have no idea where Stan and Kenny went. I need to get home and start my homework anyway."

The two skated over to the edge of the pond where they had just been five minutes earlier. Kyle sat down in the snow and gently slipped off his ice-skates. He was in the middle of lacing his shoes back up when he heard Cartman yell out in indignation. "What? What's the matter?" he asked.

"My notes!" Cartman said. "My notes aren't here! I threw them down here when I went to chase after you, and now they're gone!"

Kyle rolled his eyes. "Look around. I'm sure they're around somewhere…"

"They're not, Jew!" Cartman insisted, groaning in exasperation. "Goddammit! I really had some good ideas on those, too. Who the hell would've taken them!" Suddenly, he stopped ranting and stood there for a couple seconds; something was slowly dawning on him. Finally, he turned to Kyle with a furious expression on his face and yelled, "YOU! I knew it! You took them, didn't you? Man, Kyle, I knew you were pissed about not being overseer anymore, but that doesn't mean you have to steal my goddamn notes! Now give them back to me, you gay homosexual!"

Kyle stared at him with a calm expression on his face. Jesus Christ, was he sick of Cartman right now. "I didn't take your notes. I don't know where they've gone, but I would suggest looking up your ass – most things you lose somehow end up in there. Now I'm going home. See you tomorrow." And with that, he headed home, his ice-skates slung over his shoulder.