Hey everyone, so sorry for the long wait! I could ramble on about excuses and stuff, but there's no point. Anyway…

WOW! WOW! WOW! I am so mesmerized by all the great reviews I've gotten!! Some have made me laugh, some have made me think, but all have made me feel really happy!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED!!!

In response to one question, I'd like to clarify. Tommy and Lisa are Buddhists, but they have an interest in Wicca and all that New Age stuff. If anyone was confused by that, I'm sorry.

Well I've kept everyone waiting long enough! I might as well start the chapter now!

~$E@0K|\|@R|\|@R~

Disclaimer: Obviously, I do not own The Simpsons. It is also not my fault if any of the characters seem a little…different…than you're used to (well actually, that is my fault :-)

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Spinning for Hours

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by Seaoknarnar

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Chapter 3: The Bus Ride to the Rest of My Life

"…and that has been the traffic report! Signing out is Ernie Pie, your Pie in the sky!"

I rolled myself out of bed, and hit the floor with a loud thump. I blearily glanced up at my alarm clock, which read "6:00" in luminous red numbers. I groaned, and then heaved myself off my floor and lumbered into the bathroom down the hall.

I splashed water on my face to wake myself up. I definitely do not look my best right after I wake up.

Ten minutes later my face was washed, my teeth were brushed, and my hair was brushed and pony-tailed. A little more awake, I walked back to my room so I could choose what to wear for my first day of high school. I knew well that what I wore today would greatly influence opinions others had about me for the next four years. What I wore today would decide for me who my friends would be (if any), my teacher's opinions of me (making it easier or harder for me to pass my classes), and it would reflect to others the opinions I had on myself.

"To hell with this," I thought. "I don't care what I wear! Anything is fine with me!"

Another 10 minutes later, I plodded down the stairs, dressed in a pair of old baggy jeans and a T-shirt that read "Springfield Isotopes". I went out and got the newspaper (Headline: Cracker Factory Now In Paris) and plopped down on our old couch to see if there was any worthwhile news to read.

I finally glanced at the clock and decided that if I didn't leave then, I would miss the bus. Homer wouldn't be up until at least 8:30, so I felt no need to say goodbye. I did, however, reach in to his wallet on the kitchen table and pull out a crisp $20, "for later," I told myself. Promptly at 6:55 I grabbed the ID badge the school sent over the summer, and walked out my door.

When I reached the bus stop at the corner, I saw a large group of kids there my age or older. Among them I saw Nelson, Jimbo and his cronies (I didn't even know they went to school), Milhouse (still as nerdy as ever, but now quite rich, thanks to the Cracker Factory), Ralph, Sherri and Terri (cough sluts cough), Martin (graffiting the sidewalk with Nelson), and others. I felt a pang of sadness at the fact that Bart was not present, because the noisy bus stop was just not the same without him. But he was doing time at the Hall, and there was nothing I could do about that.

As I reached the corner, I received a flurry of comments directed towards me, all to the effect of, "Hi Lisa, how was your summer?" I replied, "Fine," then awkwardly jammed my hands in my pockets, staring down at the ground while out of the corner of my eye I watched the hubbub at the bus stop. Eventually, Otto pulled up to the corner in that rickety, smoke-emitting bus of his, and we all piled on.

I found myself in an aisle seat, sitting next to Ralph. I was amazed that he was in ninth grade this year; he was studying quantum mechanics at Springfield University this past summer, and I was convinced that they were going to let him go right in to sophomore year. But, as he informed me, he "did not receive a passing grade in English or French, and thus he was required to continue in the typical scholastic trajectory."

It's quite funny, really. Sometime, around sixth grade, Ralph's teachers had determined that Ralph was not, contrary to popular belief, the slow and stupid idiot everyone thought he was. Instead, when he was tested, they found Ralph's IQ extremely high: somewhere around 215. Needless to say, this shocked me: I had never expected Ralph's IQ to rival mine! He was immediately enrolled in special classes, and soon he flourished in school. He began lecturing at the Nuclear Power Plant where Homer works. Some say he was offered a job there, but couldn't accept due to child labor laws.

Anyway, despite our high IQs, we could find nothing suitable to discuss during our bus ride, and so our conversation finally turned to school.

"I hope we have a good teacher," said Ralph. "I don't want to be hindered by an unfit educator. That would be detrimental to my education, especially since we'll have this person for the entire day and the entire year."

You see, Ralph, Martin, and I (along with several others from the other Springfield middle school, Lemon Tree Middle School) were enrolled in an accelerated magnet program for the gifted and talented, at Montgomery Burns High School. [A.N: If the middle schools and high schools in Springfield already have names, just assume that they have all been renamed by now]. That meant that we had one classroom in the school dedicated to us, and we would attend all our academic classes in that one room. (A fine art and gym—yuck—were required for us freshmen, and for those two periods we would be fraternizing with the commoners, as Ralph put it.) Apparently there were so few intelligent students in Springfield that we could all fit in one classroom. That was just sad.

After I got tired of chatting with Ralph about inadequate teachers and dull-witted classmates, we both fell silent and stared out the window. I watched the buildings blur by until a hesitant tap on my shoulder interrupted me. I turned around and came face to face with Milhouse. [A.N: To the reviewer who ranted about how terrible Lisa/Milhouse is, don't worry!]

Despite being the son of a multi-million dollar business owner, Milhouse was still a pathetic loser. I guess money can't change a case that severe. And judging from his appearance, he was even more pathetic because he obviously took great pains to look hip and stylish for me, which was nothing I cared about at all.

He had slicked back his hair with copious amounts of gel (or glue, I wondered, reflecting back on that time in the store seven years ago). His oh-so-cool glasses were askew on his face, and they made his eyes look small and squinty. He was wearing the a la mode duds of Cracker Factory, which I absolutely could not stand. (I have to back up and explain something. About four years ago, while sewing, Milhouse designed a tee shirt for his dad with the logo of the cracker factory his dad owns. Mr. Van Houten [sp?] printed the shirts, and sold them to all his employees who, in turn, sold the shirts to all their friends. Interest caught among teenagers and young adults, who adopted the shirts to an almost cult level. Pretty soon the old cracker factory stopped manufacturing crackers, and started manufacturing all kinds of trendy clothing. As you saw in the headline of today's paper, Cracker Factory has gone international, leaving Kirk Van Houten with gobs and gobs of cash.) Milhouse now lives with his dad in a mega-mansion in the rich section of Springfield, so I had no idea what the hell he was doing on the bus for my neighborhood. All I knew was that he was staring at me in a way I definitely did not like. "Take a picture," I snapped at him. "It'll last longer."

He chose to ignore my snapping and said to me, "What the hell did you do to your hair?"

"Well if you don't like it," I retorted, "then you don't have to stare so hard. And besides, it's natural. Some weird gene fluke or something like that, I guess. But what the hell did you do to your hair?"

"You don't like it?" His face fell. "I was just trying something new… If I don't do this, then will you like me?" he asked hopefully.

"After what you did last year, I don't see how I could ever be attracted to you," I snapped back, and turned the other way.

"Aw, Lisa," he whined at me, "I didn't mean for you to go to the hospital! I didn't know you were allergic to those flowers."

I turned around very quickly, and said, "Well, if you didn't KNOW, then you should have ASKED!" As I had said that in a very loud voice, a bunch of people turned around to stare at me. I quickly turned back, and stared out the window.

I saw that we were fast approaching MBHS, and I groaned at the fact that I would be imprisoned here for the next nine and three-quarters months of my life. I really did not want to be back in school. Especially not without Tommy. I had no other friends to make my year unbearable.

When the bus pulled up to the front of the school, and the bus doors opened, everyone, including me, jumped up and pushed to get out. Then I thought to myself, "Why am I in such a hurry to get in to the school?" and I let myself be swept along by the mass of exiting students.

Once off the bus, I stopped and looked doubtfully up at the formidable front of the school looming above me. Then a new wave of people carried me through the massive double doors and in to a new epoch of my life.

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Well, I made everyone wait so long, and I still didn't manage to introduce the mysterious boy who will sweep Lisa off her feet! Well, some of you have guessed right about whom it is (LOOK AT THE TITLE OF THE STORY!), and I hope that when the two meet, I can make convincing sparks fly! But that's the next chapter…

I'm going to be on vacation for 2 weeks, so I hope to write the next chapter sometime during the long drive there. But don't be mad if I can't! I'm not quite sure in what direction I'm going to take this story anyway…

I'd love for people to review…(hint hint) :-)

~$E@0K|\|@R|\|@R~