A/N: Okay, so I know that I said I wouldn't continue without reviews…but seriously, I'm going to keep writing no matter what because I love it and I think this story is fun and I've got a plan to it. It's just that reviews are really encouraging and when I know that people are reading my story, it makes it that much more enjoyable for me to keep writing! So if it's not too difficult for you to review if you read my story, that'd make me a very happy girl! Thanks a ton! XOXO Nat

Chapter Nine: Trouble with Making Friends

Being a transfer student was the worst. Of course, Joy didn't know that because she had never been a transfer student. She had grown up in LA, Beverly Hills to be more exact, and had gone to school in the high-society city since preschool. She didn't really care either. During the couple weeks that she had been ditching school, Joy had made the decision to hate her new school and everyone in it. Well, maybe not but she was very resolute about her choice to continue as a rebel.

"Hi, I'm checking in!" Joy joked with a forced smile as she stepped up to the counter at the administration office. The woman standing there obviously didn't get the humor. Her face was blank, but if she had made an expression Joy was certain it would have been a very sour one.

"Wait here." The woman's demand was curt but firm and Joy knew that she was no longer in the giddy and carefree city of Beverly Hills. She stood still, waiting for the straight-face woman to return.

When the lady did return, she beckoned to Joy and sent her into an adjoining room which had a label on the door reading: Principal Hart.

"Good morning," A tall man stood and walked around to the front of his desk, leaning against the edge of it in a relaxed and friendly manner. "I am Principal Hart, and you are the new student." He was candid and seemed a little strange, but his smile appeared unusually friendly and fun so Joy didn't close him immediately as she usually would with adults in a commanding position over her.

"That's a good guess, Principal Hart." Joy sat down without an invitation from the principal and nonchalantly fingered the fringed edges of her white halter top.

He frowned for a minute and then smiled at her and she again thought he was interesting and maybe a little funny. "Yea, anyway...the usual introduction...welcome to Sunnydale High, hope you like it, if you have any questions...ya-da-ya-da. Intros are overrated, so let's just cut to it, this is high school, nothing new for you right?" She shook her head, liking this funny principal more and more each minute. He shoved a pile of papers towards her. "So, you have your class schedules and your locker number, and well if you get lost...ask someone." He nodded affirmably and motioned back to the front office. "Try not to frequent my office, okay?"

Joy frowned. He's a strange principal. He's amusing though. With a nod and a smile she left his office, her hands full of papers including her locker location and lock combination. I think I like him. He's not as serious as Principal Nelson. He's sarcastic. To bad he's a principal or else he could be a pretty cool guy, maybe. The school was bigger than it seemed from the outside and in a few minutes of wandering the very crowded halls, Joy was thoroughly lost. Left, she thought to herself turning in that direction down another wing of cold, linoleum floors and shiny, metal lockers. That didn't go where she wanted. Right? She hoped turning down another wing, to no avail. I'm going to be late on my first day. Spectacular. The thought made her smirk and she didn't really take the thought too seriously. She thought about asking someone, but Joy had her 'new girl' pride and was determined to find her lockers herself.

Finally she did, but then there was the new problem of her combination not working. 3...12...0...and...37. She read the numbers three times through, each time trying the combination again, it still would not unlock. The five minute warning bell rang and her irritation rose. With a final sigh of frustration, she yanked hard on the metal lock and it snapped. As strange as it sounds for metal to snap, Joy was equally surprised at how easily it broke free. Oh God, I hope no one saw that! She glanced over her shoulder nervously. I don't want to be a freak on my first day! Then she laughed, whatever, like I really care.

Quickly, she stuffed a few of her empty notebooks into the locker and then began reading over her class schedule. First period...History...yuck. And so she left her locker, making a mental note to get the lock fixed, and then began another frantic search around the school, this time for her classroom, which ended up being more failure for her. I'm really starting to hate new schools! She decided as the students started scurrying faster about the hallways, obviously in a hurry to their classes. Well, sure, they all know where they're going! She sighed, yea, umm, being sarcastic in my head, really isn't helping. And so her thoughts ceased while she continued rushing down the emptying hallways, quickly checking the labels on each of the doors.

"Excuse me!" With her head down Joy hadn't seen the student running hurriedly towards her, in a rush to beat the tardy bell, and they collided. Papers flew, bags dropped, purses emptied...it was a mess, "I am so sorry!" She apologized repetitively to the tall girl.

"Ah, don't be. I'm sure it's my fault! God, I'm such a klutz!" Her laugh sounded shaky as though there was something much more serious on her mind than being clumsy.

Joy took it upon herself to investigate and discover. "Are you alright?" she asked in true concern as she helped the 'klutz' gather the contents that had spilled from her book bag.

"Yea, I'm fine." The girl suddenly became stiff as if she didn't want the strange, petite blonde prying into her affairs; which was understandable though, of course.

"Are you sure? I mean you seem sort of...anxious." Joy couldn't think of a better word to describe the girl's strange, jittery behavior.

"God, nosy much?" She stood and re-slung her book bag over a shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Joy frowned at the girl's curt behavior. Great, Joy! Way to make friends! Why not just shout out that creatures with fangs killed your parents while you're at! I'm sure that'd get the students lining up to compete for best friend status... "Look, I didn't mean..."

"Yea, whatever," The girl brushed a lock of her long, light-brown hair out of her face.

Even though this girl probably wanted nothing to do with Joy, she couldn't get over the desire to make friends with her. "It's my first day. I'm Joy." Joy tried to ease the previous tension that she had created.

"Okay," the girl glanced at the watch on her wrist. "I'm late for class." And with that she turned and started running down the hall. Suddenly she turned and came back towards Joy. "Did you say that you're new?"

Joy had gotten irritated with the girl's rudeness and now she wasn't in the mood to be friendly with her. "Yea, whatever, bye!" Joy turned and started to leave but the girl rushed after her.

"Wait, please!" Joy didn't stop but the girl kept up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. My name's Dawn."

Joy still didn't turn around, she kept walking down the hallway even though she still wasn't sure if she was going in the right direction. "No offense, but I'd really not like to be late on my first day."

Dawn sighed and followed Joy for another minute before she spoke again. "Do you know where you're going?"

"Yes," Joy answered too quickly. "I'll figure it out."

"Fine," Dawn stopped abruptly. "Nice meeting you."

Joy finally found her first period class and arrived only a few minutes late. However, the annoying Dawn happened to be in five of Joy's classes, a little unusual for a large school, but Joy did her best to ignore her classmate.

Fourth period Spanish class introduced a new annoying student into Joy's life. She had just found her seat, only a few seconds before the late bell rang and she was pulling out an empty notepad from her book bag when a deep voice interrupted her concentration.

"Hey," Joy turned around in her desk to identify the voice. It belonged to a young guy, dressed in the classic attire of a high school jock (letterman jacket detailed with excessive badges and other such awards).

"Hey yourself," Joy replied, mostly uninterested in the preppy student.

The guy didn't seem fazed by her coldness. "I don't remember seeing you before." He leaned forward, closer to her, and shook his longish, but styled, dark hair out of his eyes. His eyes were an equally dark brown, attractive but somewhat dull. His smile almost seemed strained even though it was clearly, entirely genuine. Even with his deficiency in perfect features, Joy couldn't say he was unattractive when actually, out of all the guys she had seen so far at her new school, he was probably the best looking (or at least in the top five).

"I'm new," She stated simply.

"That would explain it," He grinned wider and Joy noticed his perfectly straight and sparkling white teeth. "Are you in my grade?" He quickly corrected himself. "That would be twelfth grade."

Joy smiled, "That's flattering…I'm only in tenth grade."

"No way!" he barely glanced up as the teacher entered their classroom. "You look a lot older." He complimented freely and Joy found herself liking his friendly, easy-going personality.

"Thanks," She felt herself slowly loosening her guarded attitude and opening herself up to the idea of making a friend.

"I'm Blake, by the way," He continued to ignore the teacher as he began class.

"Hi Blake," She smiled and turned around in her seat as though she were done with the conversation.

"Wait a minute," Blake whined and tapped her should repetitively. "Aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"I'm still deciding." Joy didn't turn around but spoke over her shoulder. "I'm not sure I want to get to know you that well yet." Her retort was flirty and he seemed to like it. She wasn't sure why she was acting so flirtatiously but something about this older guy put her in a strange mood. She enjoyed teasing him.

The teacher, annoyingly, felt obligated to introduce the new student to the class. "Me gustaría presentar al nuevo estudiante, Joy Peters," He clapped and signaled for the class to join in and they dutifully did so. Joy rolled her eyes at their forced attention.

Blake whistled loudly and then leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Joy…I like it." His breath tickled her ear and she giggled and tried to swat him away.

Joy tried to focus on the class, having so much to catch up on, but Blake was making it impossible for her. Every few minutes he would pass her a note asking her something different about herself. She would hesitate for a moment, scribble down an answer, and return it to him. He learned more about her in that short class period then probably any other student would learn about her for the next few months. Of course, there was certain information which she withheld, mainly the death of her parents. Joy didn't want her new schoolmates to pity her for her loss, she was tougher than that. In order to maintain her brave, "bad-girl" facade, Joy created a life story to give to anyone who wished to know.

After class Joy planed to move on quickly to her next class, but of course everyone felt it necessary to disrupt her plans. As she passed the front of the room, the teacher stopped her.

"Señorita Peters," He stood at his desk sorting through the quizzes his students had just turned in. "Si tienes unas preguntas…"

She stopped him, "Señor Garcias, I know I haven't been in your class all year, but I have already taken three years of Spanish and my dad was…I mean is…he is fluent in the language." She smugly arched an eyebrow. "I doubt I'll have any questions for you," Joy tucked a loose hair behind one ear, revealing her three piercings, two in the lobe and one in the lower cartilage. "No offense." Her smile was sarcastic as she turned determinedly and left the classroom, leaving her teacher stunned by her curt, smartass behavior.

Only a few minutes after she had reached her locker, Joy was again interrupted, this time by Blake.

"You seemed in a hurry to get away from me." Blake peered around her locker door with a sly grin. "Was it something I said?"

Joy rolled her eyes, "I don't want to be late for my next class."

"For some reason, I just don't get the feeling that you care much about tardiness." He laughed and teasingly traced his finger around the butterfly tattoo on her lower back, visible between the edges of her low-riding jeans and revealing shirt.

"Blake," Joy jerked away from his touch and glared at him. "Don't be that kind of guy."

"Excuse me?" Blake frowned at her demand.

"You know what I mean, Mr. everybody-loves-me-because-I'm-a-senior-jock." She slammed her locker door and stared straight into his confused eyes. "I'm not the kind of girl that'd go for that kind of a guy."

Blake backed a little away from her. "Joy, I didn't think…"

"Whatever," Joy started walking away but he followed her so she kept up her lecture. "Just because I've got a pierced naval and a couple of tattoos and tend to avoid school when possible, it doesn't mean that I'm easy." She sped up but he didn't slow down.

"I never said you were, Joy," Blake was still confused. She was being all defensive and as far as he could figure, he had done nothing to make her that way.

"You know, just because you're a senior and I'm only a sophomore, it doesn't mean that I'm going to go all ga-ga and throw myself at you." She stopped suddenly and spun around to face him, causing Blake to almost run into her. "So whatever you're expecting from being nice to me, you can just forget about it, okay? I promise you won't get anything from me…"

"Joy, stop," Blake touched her arm but she glared so he quickly removed his hand. "I don't know what kind of guys you've experienced before, but I promise I'm not interested in that from you. I just thought you were cute, and you seemed cool," He sighed. "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea somehow. I just wanted to get to know you."

Joy frowned, skeptically, "What's your deal, Blake?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, why are you interested in me?" Joy started walking again, this time slower so that they could talk more easily. "I'm sure you've got like a fan club of girls that'd love to be with you, so why are you being nice to me? I'm just the new girl, who's at least two years younger than you."

At that moment a tall, skinny, red-head glided up next to them and tugged at the sleeve of Blake's letterman jacket. "Blake! I've been looking all over for you!" Her red and gold cheerleading skirt swished dangerously high as she almost skipped to keep up with his long strides.

"I can't talk right now Katie," He pried her fingers off of his jacket and waved her away.

"Okay!" Her bubbly voice didn't deflate. "I can't wait for the game tonight!"

"Yep," he sent her on her way and then turned back to Joy whose face portrayed a mocking grimace.

"I think I proved my point," She started walking faster as they neared her classroom.

"Look, do you really want to know why I want to get to know you?"

"Sure, but not now, I've got class," she pointed to the door of her History classroom and gave him a cynical smile. "If you really want to tell me your feelings, then you can meet me after school at my locker."

"Okay," Blake smiled. "I'll be there."

"I can't wait!" She sighed and left him in the hallway.