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The Not-So-Average Girl

If there was one thing Kim truly hated, it was discovering that she couldn't do something.

Granted, it wasn't a feeling that she experienced very often, but that was what made it so unnerving for her when she realised that she couldn't do something. Right now, she wanted to be there for Claire when her friend prepared to meet her biological parents for the first time, but the yearbook committee had an emergency meeting to accommodate Brody being taken off the football team, and Kim had been asked to attend it as the only person any of the others trusted to make that kind of decision.

Still, even if she recognised that she had other commitments, the idea that she couldn't be there to help a friend who had already had a rough week really didn't sit right with her…

"It's probably best you don't come along, anyway," Claire smiled reassuringly at the other two as they walked away from school. "It's going to be difficult enough trying to bring up the whole… well, how do you ask someone if they're a freak when they'd probably lie about it like I do?"

"OK, Claire, firstly, you're not a freak, you're just… different," Kim corrected, the implications of that term unnerving her for more reasons than she could be sure.

"And hey; nothing wrong with never being normal!" Ron grinned at her.

"Easy for you to say," Claire said, smiling slightly at Ron even as she was touched at the boy's support. "Don't you keep your pet in your pocket all the time?"

"It works for us," Ron shrugged, before he turned back to Claire. "Anyway, what's the problem? Just ask them what happens when they cut themselves?"

"Which could come across as being bitter that they gave me away," Claire observed.

"Are you?" Kim suddenly asked, looking curiously at her fellow cheerleader. "I mean, you've never really spoken about how you feel about the adoption issue…"

"It's… I mean, I'm curious about it, and it's a little weird, and I'm a little sad, but… I mean, I love my parents," Claire shrugged, lost for a better way to express herself.

"But you can't stop yourself wondering what it would be like if they'd kept you, huh?" Ron observed. "I mean, I've never been there myself, but I've always kinda wondered what I'd be like if… well, if my parents were more invested in me…"

"Invested in you?" Claire repeated curiously. "What does that mean?"

"Well, I don't mean that they're abusive or anything like that, but it's just… well, I guess it's like they never really got the hang of being parents," Ron explained, looking around for a moment as though worried someone would hear him. "They never even tell me what's going on in our lives until they're pretty much just about to do it…"

"And this isn't the time to start getting down about the 'rents, Ron," Kim cut in with an encouraging smile at her old friend before she looked back at Claire. "Anyway, we should probably split soon; some people on the Committee wanted my opinion on our plans for Homecoming and Ron's got that make-up class he needs to get out of the way."

"Can't you call it 'catch-up', KP?" Ron said with exaggerated exasperation. "I still haven't lived down that Halloween costume from second grade; I don't need people thinking I wear make-up…"

"Nobody thinks that, Ron," Claire grinned at him, briefly wondering what the Halloween costume thing was a reference to before she recalled what class Ron had to 'make up'. "On the topic of the class, I still can't believe you need to get back the credits for that gym class; it's not like that thing was even your fault-"

"How do you know that?" Ron looked urgently at Claire, eyes wide and panicked. "We don't even have that class together!"

"Word… got around," Claire said, smiling slightly at Ron's mortified expression; evidently the 'pants incident' had been more embarrassing for him than the story suggested. "Hey, at least they'll let you take it as a swimming session; you said yourself you're good at that."

"Yeah…" Ron said, before his eyes brightened and he reached into his pocket. "Oh, that reminds me; here."

"Rufus?" Kim and Claire said in surprise as Ron passed the naked mole rat to Claire, who took him in her hands almost automatically.

"Well, he can't really do anything while I'm at that catch-up session and he'd just get bored at the homecoming thing, so I figured maybe he could tag along while you're meeting the biologicals," Ron shrugged as the naked mole rat seemed to grin at the blonde. "I mean, at the very least, he's good for emotional support."

"Right…" Claire said, studying Rufus for a moment before she gave him a tentative smile. "You… OK with that?"

Claire appreciated that she didn't know much about rodents, but she was sure that the way Rufus chattered at her in apparent response to her question wasn't exactly normal.

"Thanks?" she said uncertainly, as she slipped Rufus into her bag and looked back at Kim and Ron.

"You know," Kim put in, "as long as we're talking about parents, are you thinking of telling… well, your current parents about this?"

"No," Claire shook her head. "My dad would unspool. He's a really simple guy. He'd never be able to wrap his mind around something like that. It would break him."

"Parents can surprise you," Kim observed with a brief smile. "But it's your call in the end."

She glanced at her watch. "Anyway, we'd better get going; we've got to get to… everything."

"Break a leg… or whatever the expression is in this context," Claire smiled, as the three split up to head for their next classes. Waving at Kim and Ron as they headed off to their current activities, Claire took a moment to make sure Rufus was secure in her bag before she hurried off to find Zach; even if she couldn't explain to herself why she was keeping things with Zach separate from her new friendship with Kim and Ron, it couldn't hurt to get someone else's perspective on the meeting that was about to take place, and with school out he'd be going in the same direction as her to get home…

As he finished changing into his swimming trunks, Ron briefly reached out to check his pocket before he remembered that he'd left Rufus with Claire earlier; he spent so much of his time with the naked mole rat that it felt weird not having him along.

Pushing that thought out of his mind, Ron turned around to head for the pool, raising his eyebrows in slight surprise when he got there and found that there was nobody there. It wasn't like he particularly needed supervision while he was swimming, but he was fairly sure there was some kind of rule against leaving pupils alone in this situation…

After studying the water for a moment, Ron shrugged and climbed into the pool; he was a fair enough swimmer, and it wasn't like he was going to do anything difficult-

He gasped in shock as he felt someone grab his leg and haul him under the water, barely able to take one last gulp of air before he found himself underwater facing some other kid who was actually wearing one of those black masks people always seemed to use in bank heists in films. For a moment Ron could only stare in shock, but when the other kid grabbed his shoulders in a manner that made it clear he was trying to force Ron to stay underwater, Ron put his confusion aside to try and force his attacker to let him go.

For a moment Ron struggled, fighting the urge to breathe even as his lungs began to ache as he fought against his strange attacker, his vision dimming even beyond what he had come to expect from when he found himself underwater without goggles, before he felt one of his fists strike something. The impact didn't make his attacker let go, but it gave him enough focus to lash out with a kick that made the other figure back off enough for Ron to swim to the surface. He took a gasp for air before his unknown attacker grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back down, but this time Ron was prepared enough to hit his attacker in the chest with his knee. The other boy was able to regain his control before Ron could get too far away, placing one hand against Ron's chest as he grabbed Ron's shoulder with the other, as though trying to pull him down.

For a moment Ron panicked at the sensation of being pulled underwater again, but he soon forced his mind back to the practical matter of survival, grabbing the other boy's wrists to pull his attacker's hands away. The moment that his opponent had lost his grip, Ron curled up his legs and kicked out at his attacker's chest, forcing the boy back while pushing Ron towards the edge of the pool. Spinning around, Ron hauled himself out of the pool, just as a door opened to reveal the gym teacher walking in from the boy's changing room to look at the pool in shock.

Glancing back, Ron saw his attacker get out of the pool and run for the girl's rooms, a black mask over his head like he was some cartoonish bank robber along with his dark trunks. The teacher tried to move after Ron's attacker, but he ran into the changing room before the teacher could catch him. Ron could see that the teacher might be able to follow his attacker, but if the girls' changing rooms were anything like the boys', they were probably laid out in such a way that the attacker could avoid being caught long enough to get out. Once the attacker got out of the changing rooms, Ron was sure he wasn't the only one who realised that there was no way the attacker would stay in that changing room once he got away, even if they didn't know where he'd go after he got out.

"Are you OK, Sinclair?" the gym teacher said, choosing his priorities to look anxiously at the remaining student. "I heard someone yelling about fire outside the building, and when I got back to the door someone had jammed it shut; I honestly thought I'd be right back-"

"It's… it's cool," Ron said, waving a reassuring hand at the man as he looked at the door on the other side of the pool.

He couldn't be sure who had just attacked him, but he was still fairly sure he recognised the stiff finger on the other boy's left hand when it had been pressed against his chest; the accident had been the main reason Gil had never liked shop class, ever since Gil hit his own hand with a hammer when he got distracted during a woodwork project…

OK, so it's not evidence, and I don't even know why he did something that stupid in the first place, but at least I know to keep an eye out for him doing something that stupid later…

In the end, what really confused Ron about this whole experience was why Gil would have tried to attack him in such a complicated manner in the first place. He wasn't going to kid himself that he and Gil were friends, it was certainly warm enough outside that Gil could have hidden his clothes somewhere outside so that he could change into his swimming stuff and then run inside the building without anyone seeing him at this time of day, and it was quiet enough that he might manage to avoid being seen by anyone until he could get dressed and get off the school grounds, but that didn't explain why he'd bother hiding in the pool to play what Ron had to believe was just a really sick joke.

Gil might have just dived underwater when Ron left the changing room, but Ron hadn't seen anything on the surface to suggest that someone had just ducked into the water when he entered the pool, so how had Gil managed to hold his breath that long and still had enough air to keep Ron underwater all that time?