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Chapter 2: Introductions

Dib stared out the window of the second floor classroom. He had arrived early to his first class, everyone else was either lost or chatting with friends. He couldn't even go torture Zim. Dib had taken the first seat in the last row. He watched people enter by their reflection on the glass. Soon the class was full, absent one teacher. No one sat behind him, and the one person sitting on his left looked like she'd sit anywhere else, if all the other seats hadn't been taken.

The bell rang. No one noticed.

Dib took out a notebook and doodled a werebat/vampire thing. He was used to this, the kids ignored and avoided him, and the adults (teacher) didn't care about them.

A girl appeared in the doorway. She was panting, one hand on the wall. The freshman wore a black t-shirt that read, "The villagers are coming with torches and pitch forks (below:) Please hide me," in white letters. The hem of her long shirt stretched down to the hips of her blue jeans. Dib noticed she wore men's boots.

"Sorry, I'm late." She said to the floor. "I got los-" she looked up and realized the teacher she was trying to give an alibi to was not there. Her classmates continued to ignore her.

She un-squared her shoulders, stopped fake panting, and walked calmly to sit behind Dib.

Dib hesitated. New girl (had to be, Dib knew all the kids in the school); didn't know he was "crazy".

Dib spun in his seat. "Hi." He held out his hand.

The girl looked up from her desk. "Hi."

Dib dropped his hand, as he realized she would not shake it. "I'm Dib. And you are…?"

"Auri." Auri digged in her backpack for a binder and a pencil.

"Settle down students." Came a familiar voice. Everyone looked to the classroom entrance. Ms. Bitters walked inside.

Dib raised his hand. Without waiting to be called on, he said "Don't you teach fifth grade?"

"I used to." Drawled on the teacher in a creepy voice. She glided behind the desk at the front of the classroom. "The school board said I 'scare little children', or something like that."

Auri leaned forward and whispered in Dib's ear. "What about scaring us?" Dib chuckled, partly nervous because her breath was on his ear.

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Auri sat at the end of a rectangular table in the corner of the cafeteria. The rest of the kids at that table were talking to each other.

Dib walked in with his lunch, looking around for somewhere to sit. He spotted Auri sitting "alone". He put his tray opposite her.

The clang of the tray made the kids look up at him. They quickly got up and spread out to different tables.

"Thanks." Said Auri, still staring at her food, "They were starting to get annoying."

Dib took this as an invitation to sit. She looked up. "There aren't any other seats in here?"

"I-I'm Sorry." Dib got up quickly, feeling embarrassed. "I just figured that I was sitting alone, and you were sitting alone, and that we could just sit alone together," he said in one breath, knowing how stupid it sounded.

"Sit down. I just thought there were no other seats, since you went and sat with me."

Dib sat down, no longer embarrassed but confused. He watched her poke her lunch with a plastic fork. "You gonna eat that?"

"I don't need to." She muttered.

"Hmm?" he asked, a piece of spaghetti hanging out of his mouth.

She ignored him, but stabbed harder. A painful memory shot up in Dib's mind and he held her hand to make her stop. Auri looked up questioningly.

"Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Reminds me of something. Bad images…"

"Sorry."

Dib looked down to his lunch and noticed he was still had her hand in his. He turned red for a second and took his hand back.

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