Chapter 8: Teacher's Pet Part 1

The vampire's attack caught the kids in the Bronze completely off guard. Even Buffy, wasn't ready. She tried to fight the monster, but he was too much for her. A girl screamed as the vampire threw Buffy onto the Bronze's red pool table. Then the undead creature got ready to pounce. Fear showed on the Slayer's face. She was helpless. Would this be the end?

"May I cut in?" Rei said as she grabbed the vampire from behind.

The vampire tried to go for her throat, but she was ready for him. Rei slammed his head into the edge of the pool table, stood him up, then gave him a blow to the stomach and a sock to the jaw that sent the creature of the night careening across the room.

Rei then went over to the pool table and helped Buffy up. Buffy looked stunning in her low-cut red dress. "Are you all right?" Rei asked, staring into her deep blue eyes.

Those eyes stared back at Rei with gratitude—and longing. "Thanks to you," Buffy said breathlessly, taking Rei's hand in hers. She looked down and said, "You hurt your hand."

Rei followed her gaze. She hadn't even noticed the pain. After all, there was a job that needed doing.

"Will you still be able to—?" Buffy started asking before her voice caught.

Rei completed the question: "Finish my solo and then kiss you like you've never been kissed before?"

Buffy nodded, smitten. Rei smiled. Around Rei, all the girls in the Bronze seemed to melt. Some shot venomous looks at Buffy, as if to say, Why her? What did she do to deserve Rei?

Nobody noticed that the vampire was stirring. Rei did, but pretended not to while she headed back to the stage and her abandoned guitar. As she passed by an overturned table, she yanked off one of its legs, whirled, and threw it unerringly at the now-upright vampire, all in one smooth motion. The makeshift stake found its target. The vampire fell to the ground and crumbled to dust.

Buffy clasped her hands over her heart; tears started to form in her eyes.

Rei leaped back onto the stage, picked up her Fender guitar, and proceeded to whomp out one of the many killer solos in her extensive repertoire.

In front of Rei, Buffy walked up to the base of the stage and said, "You're drooling."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Rei sat up in bed, her heart pounding in her chest. She looked at her alarm clock which read three o'clock in the morning. Rei sighed it was too early in the morning to call Marie and ask, not that she expected to get future information. Though she already figured she knew the answer to the question.

Later that day, in biology class Rei was sitting next to Buffy at a black Formica lab table. The next table over sat Willow and Xander and behind them sat Faith and Blayne Mall.

". . . ancestors were here long before we were. Their progeny will be here long after we are gone," the teacher said. "The simple and ubiquitous ant."

Then Dr. Gregory shut the slide projector off and turned on the lights. He stared out at his students through his glasses. As expected, about half the students looked like they had just been awakened from a sound sleep. He enjoyed doing slideshows, not for their educational value, but so he could see who was actually paying attention. Naturally, Rosenberg was completely alert. Just as naturally, her lab partner, Harris, wasn't.

To his disappointment, the pair at the table next to them, Summers and Mori, weren't either. He had hoped for more from them since they were both transfer students.

Walking down the middle aisle between the two rows of lab tables, he said, "Now, if you read the homework," and he noticed several students squirming at that, "you should know the two ways that ants communicate. Ms. Summers?"

Summers got the deer-in-headlights look that characterized the high school student who had no clue. "Ways that ants communicate . . ." she said, using the classic stall of repeating the question.

Dr. Gregory nodded.

"With other ants . . ." she added, extending the stall.

"From the homework," he repeated, "ants are communicating . . ."

Summers was now making eye contact with a point just over his right shoulder. "Uhm, uh, touch—and, um—B.O.?" Obviously, Rosenberg was giving her hints: probably touching and smelling Harris.

Laughter spread throughout the class.

Dr. Gregory said, "That would be touch and smell, Ms. Summers. Is there anything else Ms. Rosenberg would like to tell you?" The teacher didn't have to turn around to see Rosenberg's patented guilty look.

Then the bell rang. Before it even finished, the sound of stools scraping linoleum could be heard as students got up and prepared to bolt to their next class. "All right, chapters six through eight by tomorrow, people," he called out over the din, then turned back to Summers. "Can I see you for a moment?"

Again, Summers got the deer-in-headlights look.

As the other students filed out, Dr. Gregory noticed Mall calling out to one of the girls walking by in the hall. "Cheryl, wait up, doll."

"Doll?" the teacher thought. Haven't heard anyone use that since I was in high school.

Mall turned to Harris. "Isn't she something? Do you know what a woman like that wants?" Before Harris had the chance to reply, Mall said, "No, I guess you wouldn't."

As the football player walked off with a grin on his face, Harris called out: "Something really cutting!" Then he turned to Rosenberg. "Sometimes I just go with the generic insult."

Nodding, Rosenberg said, "Why pay more for the brand name?"

Dr. Gregory shook his head. If they devoted as much time to studying as they did to their witticisms, the whole class would be in the National Honor Society.

After a few moments, the class was empty, except for Dr. Gregory—who had no class to teach this period—and Summers.

As he gathered up the slides he needed to go through for his next class, he said to her, "I gather you had a few problems at your last school."

"Well, what teenager doesn't?"

"Cut school," he said, checking a couple of the slides to make sure they were the right set, "get in fights, burn down the gymnasium?" She seemed surprised that he knew all this, so he added, "Principal Flutie showed me your permanent record."

"Look, that fire," she said, stammering, "I mean, there weremajor extenuating circumstances. Actually, it's kind of funny."

He walked over to the closet to retrieve his reading glasses. "I can't wait to see what you're going to do here—"

"Destructo-girl, that's me," she said ruefully.

"But I suspect it's going to be great."

This time Summers looked confused. "You mean 'great' in a bad way?"

Dr. Gregory smiled as he cleaned off his reading glasses with his tie. "You've got a first-rate mind and you can think on your feet. Imagine what you could accomplish if you actually did the—"

"The homework thing?"

"The homework thing," he repeated. "I understand you probably have a good excuse for not doing it. Amazingly enough, I don't care. I know you can excel in this class and so I expect no less. Is that clear?"

"Yeah," she said. "Sorry."

Students always said they were sorry. Just once, he wanted one to mean it. "Don't be sorry. Be smart. And please don't listen to the principal or anyone else's negative opinion about you. Let's make them eat that permanent record. What do you say?"

Summers smiled a genuine smile, which was exactly what Dr. Gregory was hoping for. "Okay. Thanks," she said.

Dr. Gregory returned the smile. "Chapters six through eight."

Nodding resolutely, Summers left the room.

As he put on his reading glasses and turned his attention back to the slides on his desk, Dr. Gregory thought, A good reaction. Amazing what a difference it makes when you treat them like human beings.

He once again turned off the fluorescent overhead lights and switched the light board on. The slides were for the advanced-placement, college-level class of seniors tomorrow morning. No worries about them nodding off during the slideshow.

Peering at the slide, he saw that it was, as expected, from a species of salamander. As a general rule,

Michael Gregory preferred reptiles and amphibians. He found their habits much more fascinating. Insects just didn't interest him, and he would be grateful when the sophomores moved on to something else in another two weeks.

A strange noise sounded from behind him. He thought he heard something shuffling.

Then he was grabbed by the neck and yanked from his stool. His reading glasses went flying onto the floor.

The last thing Dr. Gregory saw was what looked like huge mandibles.

His last thought was, But that's impossible.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Rei walked into Marie's classroom. "Dawn," she said as Marie looked at her. "I need to know something, and I understand you may not be able to tell me… but."

"If I can, I will," answered Marie as Savannah stepped into the classroom behind Rei.

"It's about Buffy and myself. Are we …?"

"Together," said Marie as she smiled at Rei. "Yes. You two get married in the future." She motioned toward Savannah who stepped up beside Rei. "Meet your step-daughter, Savannah."

Rei turned and looked at Savannah. She really looked at the girl. Marie and Anne had told her that Savannah was Anne's daughter. But now that she really looked at the teen, she could see it. Savannah had the same eyes as her mother and the same hair color as well.

"Hi, Mama Rei," said Savannah as she smiled at the immortal. "I've heard a lot about you from mom. It is nice to finally meet you."

Rei returned the girl's smile. She looked at Marie. "Thank you."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

That night at the Bronze a good rock band was playing, but not of the thrash or metal variety, therefore allowing Buffy to carry on a conversation with Faith, Savannah and Willow without too much shouting.

"So," Willow asked gravely, "how'd it go after bio class?"

"Actually, it went pretty well," Buffy said. "Dr. Gregory didn't chew me out or anything. He was really cool." Sighing, she added, "But Flutie showed him my permanent record." She looked at her sister. "I assume he showed Dr. Gregory yours as well."

"Probably," agreed Faith.

Buffy looked back at Willow and Savannah. "Apparently, I fall somewhere between Charles Manson and a really bad person." That had been the one part of her talk with the teacher that annoyed her.

"And you can't tell Dr. Gregory what really happened at your old school?" Savannah asked with a mock-innocent smile.

"I was fighting vampires? I'm thinking he might not believe me or Faith," Buffy said dryly.

Willow nodded. "Yeah, he probably gets that excuse all the time."

Their conversation was interrupted by the approach of Cordelia. "Here lies a problem," the brunette cheerleader announced as she came up to them. "What used to be my table occupied by pitiful losers. Of course, we'll have to burn it."

Faith looked at the well-etched tabletop she said with mock gravity, "Sad. You have so many memories here. You and Lawrence, you and Mark, you and John. You spent the better part of your J through M here."

Taken aback by an actual response, Cordelia simply made atcha noise and moved on.

"Wow. No comeback," Buffy said, impressed.

"You brought up bad memories, Faith," Willow said. "Lawrence dumped her before she had a chance to dump him. It's a sore point."

Xander wandered up toward the stage, he gave the guitarist/lead singer a quick nod. The singer just looked at him like he was a dead cockroach and then ignored him. He then sought out Savannah, Faith, Buffy and Willow. He wandered over to the couches near the coffee bar, but found only Blayne and one of his fellow football dorks, whose name Xander couldn't remember. If Blayne hadn't been Buffy's lab partner, he probably wouldn't have remembered his name, either. Xander made it a rule not to remember the names of people more athletic than he was.

"Seven," Blayne was saying. At first, Xander assumed they were comparing IQs, but then he added,

"Including Cheryl. I tell you though, her sister was looking to make it eight."

"Ooh, Cheryl's sister?" the other jock said, eyes wide. "The one in college?"

"Home for the holidays and looking for love. She's not my type, though. Girl's really gotta have something to go with me."

Without thinking, Xander said, "Something like a lobotomy?"

"Xander," Blayne sneered. "How many times have you scored?"

"Well . . ." Xander said hesitantly. Why do I get myself into these things?

"It's just a question," Blayne said with an evil smile.

"Are we talking today or the whole week?" Xander asked, stalling. He was looking frantically around for Savannah, Faith, Buffy and Willow. Finally, he sighted them. "Ooh. Duty calls."

Quickly, he went over to where the four girls were sitting. He said, "Babes!" loud enough for Blayne and his crony to hear as he put one arm around each of them.

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked.

"Work with me here," Xander said quickly before Buffy did something unfortunate, like elbow him in the ribs. "Blayne had the nerve to question my manliness. I'm just gonna give him a visual."

Savannah and Buffy looked at him like he was nuts, but Faith clutched Xander tightly. "We'll show him."

Xander turned and gave Blayne a thumbs-up. Blayne just shook his head.

"Rei!" Buffy waved having spotted the immortal Slayer.

Rei spotted Buffy and smiled as she walked over to Buffy, Faith, Xander, Savannah and Willow.

"Well, look who's here." Buffy said by way of greeting.

"Hey," Rei said. She looked at Buffy. "You look cold." She removed her jacket and put it around Buffy's shoulders.

Savannah noticed the three long, parallel cuts on Rei's arm. The cuts looked recent. "What happened?" she asked.

"Ran into a vampire," said Rei. "He had a claw instead of one of his hands." She looked at Buffy, if she was to fall in love with Buffy and get married to her she knew they would have to start somewhere. "Buffy, would you care to dance?"

Buffy smiled and nodded.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The following morning, Rei wandered the Sunnydale High quad with a spring in her step and a song in his heart. She sighted Willow sitting on one of the brick walls, going over her biology homework, and also Faith, Savannah, Xander, Marie, Giles and Buffy approaching that same wall. As she got closer, she caught the tail end of the conversation between Buffy and Giles.

"That's all Rei said?" Giles asked. "'Claw' guy?"

"Pretty much," said Rei as she walked up to them. "I didn't get a good look at him. But he had a claw for a hand."

"I'll see what I can find out," Giles said. He looked up at the sky. "God, every day here is the same."

"Bright, sunny, beautiful—how ever can we escape this torment?" Buffy said with a roll of her eyes.

Giles gave Buffy one of his looks, then turned to Marie as they hurried off. "Do you know anything about this 'claw' guy?"

"Not much," said Marie. "I know Buffy and Faith find him eventually."

Wanting to share his good news, Xander immediately started in on it. "Guess what I just heard in the office? No Dr. Gregory today. Ergo, those of us who blew off our science homework aren't as dumb as we look." He punctuated the statement by closing Willow's bio textbook.

"What happened?" Buffy asked. "Is he sick?"

Xander shrugged. "They didn't say anything about sick—something about missing."

"He's missing?" Faith asked.

Xander frowned. "Well, let me think. The cheerleaders were modeling their new short skirts, I kinda got—" Rei, Faith, Savannah and Buffy shot him a look, and he grew serious. "Yeah, they said missing. Which is . . . bad?"

"If something's wrong, yeah," Buffy said.

Xander felt like he'd missed something. No bio teacher meant a substitute, which meant, in essence, a free period. What could be wrong?

Willow, as usual, explained: "He's one of the only teachers that doesn't think Buffy, and maybe Faith, is a felon."

Mustering up his sincerity, Xander said, "I'm really sorry. I'm sure he'll—iya huh huh huh!"

He had intended to finish the sentence with the words turn up, but he had been distracted by a sight that made every overactive hormone in his body stand at attention.

The woman who walked down one of the quad's pathways was remarkable in many ways. For one thing, she was a woman in a setting primarily populated by girls; for another, she was attractive.

To Xander's amazement and glee, she walked right up to him. "Could you help me?" she asked. Her voice was mellifluous, with just enough of a hint of an accent to sound moderately exotic, but not enough of one to place it.

All thought fled from Xander Harris. His mind was filled solely with this incredible image of beauty before him. "Uhhh—yes."

"I'm looking for Science One-oh-nine."

"Oh, it's um—" His mind remained blank, but for the image of her. He had no idea where Science 109 was. He wasn't entirely sure he could remember his full name if he were asked to provide it. "I go there every day," he said with a short bark of laughter, then turned to Savannah, Faith, Rei, Buffy and Willow in a panic. "Oh God, where is it?"

Before anyone could respond, a voice belonging to the teenager whom Xander right there decided he hated more than anyone else who ever lived said, "Hi. Blayne Mall. I'm going there right now. It's not far from the varsity field where I took all-city last year."

"Oh. Thank you, Blayne," she said, and Blayne led her off. The football star gave Xander a friendly pat on the shoulder as he led the vision of perfection off toward the main building.

"It's funny," he said to the girls, "how the earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it to."

Rei, Savannah, Buffy and Willow looked completely unsympathetic. In fact, they were smiling. Faith on the other hand was frowning.

"Come on," Savannah said, "we'll take you to Science One-oh-nine. If you want, you can even drop bread crumbs so you can find your way the next time someone asks you directions."

"Hardy har har," Xander said, and the six of them went to bio class.

Xander noticed that the goddess was standing at the front of the class. She had removed the jacket, revealing a white sleeveless shirt or blouse or whatever that exposed a pair of arms that were like porcelain.

She wrote the words Natalie French on the blackboard. So now she has a name.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked as Buffy knelt down to pick something up off the floor.

That something was a pair of glasses with a cracked lens. "If Dr. Gregory dropped his glasses, why wouldn't he pick them up?" Buffy asked. Shrugging, she put the glasses on one of the tables and took her seat next to Rei.

The final bell rang, and the class settled down. "My name," said the most glorious voice in the universe, "is Natalie French, and I'll be substituting for Dr. Gregory."

Buffy asked, "Do you know when he's coming back?"

"No, I don't, um—" she consulted her seating chart, "Buffy. They just call and tell me where they want me."

Blayne muttered, "I'll tell you where I want you."

"Excuse me, Blayne?"

"I was just wondering if you were going to pick up where Dr. Gregory left off," Blayne said quickly.

"Yes," Ms. French said with a smile that lit up the entire room. "His notes tell me you were right in the middle of insect life." She went over to the display table and picked up one of the glass cases that had a plastic replica of some kind of bug in it. "The praying mantis is a fascinating creature, forced to live alone. Who can tell me why—Buffy?"

Buffy stared at the case for a moment, then said, "Well, the words bug ugly kinda spring to mind."

The smile disappeared, and Ms. French's face darkened. "There's nothing ugly about these unique creatures." Then her face returned to normal. "The reason they live alone is because they're cannibals."

Several students made eeeww noises.

"It's hardly their fault," Ms. French went on. "It's the way nature designed them: noble, solitary, and prolific. Over eighteen hundred species worldwide, and in nearly all of them, the female is the larger and more aggressive than the male."

Blayne, having apparently forgotten the shoulder incident, leaned over to Faith. "Nothing wrong with an aggressive female." Faith shot him a look and he straightened up.

"The California mantis lays her eggs and then finds a mate to fertilize them. Once he's played his part, she covers the eggs in a protective sac and attaches it to a leaf or a twig out of danger." She held up the textbook and showed it to the class. "Now, if she's done her job correctly, in a few months, she'll have several hundred offspring." She put the textbook down, and looked around the room. Her eye caught something on the bulletin board. "You know, we should make some model egg sacs for the Science Fair. Who would like to help me do that after school?"

Xander's hand shot up. So, he noticed, did Blayne's—and pretty much every other guy in the class.

"Good," she said with another one of her smiles. "I warn you, it's a delicate art. I'd have to work with you very closely—one on one."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Rei met up with Savannah, Xander, Faith, Buffy and Willow at the entrance to the cafeteria, and together they went to greet the midday meal with the usual sense of anticipation and dread.

A sign proclaimed the latest culinary disaster from the graduates of the Sunnydale School of Medieval Torture. Buffy read it aloud. "'Hot dog surprise.' Be still my heart."

"Call me old fashioned," Willow said, "but I don't want any more surprises in my hot dogs."

Xander smiled, picked up a tray, then looked at his reflection in the stainless-steel finish of a napkin holder. "I wonder what she sees in me. Probably just the quiet good looks coupled with a certain smoky magnetism." The girls looked at him questioningly. "Ms. French," he explained. "You five are probably a little too young to understand what an older woman would see in a younger man."

"Oh, we understand," Savannah said.

"Good," Xander said.

"A younger man is too dumb to wonder why an older woman can't find someone her own age and too desperate to care about the surgical improvements."

"What surgical improvements?" He chose to ignore the rest of Savannah's diatribe, fobbing it off as a jealous tiff.

"Well," Willow said to Buffy, Rei, Savannah and Faith, "he is young."

"And so terribly innocent," Faith added.

With that, the five girls went off to fetch drinks. Xander called after them. "Hey, those that can, do. Those that can't—laugh at those who can do."

Before he could come up with anything better, Blayne went by, his tray piled high with inedible delights.

"Gotta carb up for my one on one with Ms. French today. When's yours? Oh right, tomorrow. You came in second, I came in first. I guess that's what they call natural selection."

Xander was really starting to hate Blayne's habit of answering his own questions. "I guess that's what they call rehearsal."

Blayne wandered off, unable to muster up a comeback. Much better, Xander thought. Rejoinder Boy strikes.

"Excuse you," said an obnoxious voice. Xander looked up to see Cordelia shoving her way past the girls with her usual absence of decorum. She plowed forward into the kitchen, stood in front of one of the huge fridges, and held up a slip of paper like a cop holding a badge. "Medically prescribed lunch. My doctor ships it daily. I'll only be here as long as I can hold my breath."

Xander shook his head. This was Cordelia's latest diet, which included specific food from the latest in a series of dieticians—at least, according to two of her friends, who had discussed it at great length during the previous day's English class. Cordelia had many flaws, but the need to diet had never struck Xander as one of them.

Suddenly Cordelia let out an ear-piercing wail. She stood in abject terror before the now-open fridge. Faith, Rei and Buffy exchanged glances with Savannah and Willow, then they ran into the kitchen. Xander followed about three steps behind them.

They found hanging in the fridge like it was a massive side of beef was a human body.

The body wore a lab coat with the words Dr. Gregory sewn on the chest.

The head was missing.

"His head! His head!" Cordy cried. "Ohmigod, where's his head?"