A/N: So this chapter is longer than the others... Woo hoo! Anyway, read and review, if you please.

Disclaimer: Don't own any recognizable characters...

The halls were empty when Jamie arrived at school the next day. But maybe that was because it was already the middle of second hour. He had stayed home to fix his bike, so he wouldn't have to keep relying on Tyler for a ride. Jamie was in no hurry either; he was already late and didn't have a pass, so it didn't matter if he was a few minutes later.

"Mr. Waite," Mr. Spiro, the American Problems teacher, said giving Jamie the evil eye when he walked into the classroom. "So glad you could join us."

"The pleasure's all mine." Jamie walked back to his seat in the back right corner of the room, coincidentally as far away from Mr. Spiro's desk as he could get.

But, they didn't have normal deks. They had the kind of tables you'd expect to see in a Chemistry or Biology classroom. Actually, these tables had been in the Chem. lab. When the Chem. lab got new tables, the social studies department was given the old tables to replace their even older and shabbier desks. Each table could seat three students. Jamie's seat was in between Justin Davis and Trevor Donahue. Halfway to his seat, Jamie realized that Trevor wasn't sitting in Trevor's seat. Chloe was.

Jamie tried to maintain his cool. "Hey," he whispered to Chloe when Mr. Spiro turned back to write more notes on the board.

"Hey." Chloe didn't even look up from the notes she was copying down.

Jamie was a little bit miffed. He pulled a notebook out of his back pack, and began scribbling pretty furiously. When he was done, he ripped out the page and slid it to his right, to Chloe. Chloe glanced at it, went back to her notes, then did a double take and looked at it again. She looked at Jamie in amazement and horror. Jamie had drawn a cartoon of Mr. Spiro, and it was pretty accurate to, from his Donald Trump comb over to the giant mole on his left hand. She was amazed that he could draw so well, but horrified because what if Mr. Spiro saw it?

"Mr. Waite, Miss Andrews, may I ask what's going on?" Mr. Spiro's gaze was harsh and piercing.

Chloe froze up. Her mind went blank, and she couldn't even open her mouth to say anything in her defense.

Luckily, Jamie was used to coming up with excuses to avoid trouble. "I was just telling her about the Darfur article that we read yesterday."

Mr. Spiro eyed both of them for a moment before sitting down at his desk to leave them to copy down the rest of the notes.

When the bell rang, Chloe stuffed her binder into her bag and headed out the door. Jamie grabbed his notebook and tried to catch up with her.

"So how'd you end up in American Problems?" he asked falling into step next to her.

"I was just transferred. Some kid dropped, and I needed the consumer ed. credit." Chloe shrugged.

Jamie made a mental note to thank Trevor the next time he saw him.

"Do you even know what Darfur is?" Chole asked suddenly.

Jamie stopped in his tracks. "What?"

Chloe just kept walking. It was then that Jamie realized that he was on the complete opposite side of the school that he needed to be on. He was going to be late again.

"Shit." One more tardy after this and he was going to earn himself another detention, which he definitely didn't need.

The next time Jamie saw Chloe was at lunch. He ended up getting in the lunch line behind her. He was close enogh to smell the strawberry smell radiating from her hair. She slid her tray down the line.

As she stopped and tried to decide what was edible and what wasn't, Jamie whispered in a confidential tone, "I wouldn't eat the taco salad if I were you. It's grade D beef. Some kid got sent to the hospital with food poisoning last week."

She looked over at Jamie and asked, "Then what would you suggest?"

Jamie pretended to ponder the question. "Hmmm... I'd say to go with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Chloe made a face. "I hate peanut butter."

"What? You can't hate peanut butter!" Jamie exclaimed. He had never met anyone in his entire life who hated peanut butter. "That's not humanly possible!"

"Well, I do. Got any other suggestions?"

Jamie shrugged. "I heard the pizza's okay. Maybe some mild indegestion, but nothing too serious."

Chloe grabbed a plate with a slice of pepperoni pizza on it. "Pizza it is."

They slid their trays down to the cashier. Just as Jamie was finished paying, Caitie came over.

"Come on, Jamie," she said dragging him off.

"See you," Jamie called to Chloe over his shoulder.