OH MY GOSH, I'm so sorry that it took so dang long for me to update, but I had horrible writer's block. I seriosly had to write and rewrite this chapter, like, eight times, so I hope y'all understand. I won't bore you anymore. Here's chapter four. I know it's a bit disconnected and detached in places, and it doesn't all fit together, and Raven and Gar are both pretty OCC compared to the rest of the story, but this was the best I could do. So I hope you enjoy. And the quote at the beginning is from one of my favorite songs of alltime, just letting you know.

Chpt. 4: Bete Noire

"Maybe I'll admit it, I'm a little bitter,

Everybody loves her, but I just wanna hit her…" -Saving Jane, "Girl Next Door"

It was a warm, muggy, Friday morning in early September, more than two weeks after the infamous Band Introduction™ and though it was only 7:02 AM, not all were sleeping. Out on the football field, a group of dedicated, hard-working Gotham Prep Vikings were already practicing their over-achieving little butts to an early death. Were they the football team? No. The soccer team? Not quite.

"Markov, pick up that bass drum!" shouted Mack from where he stood in the middle of the Gotham Prep drumline, playing his snare drum like no tomorrow. Off to his right, Terra attempted to do as she was told, and ended up dropping the whole drum on the dew-covered grass instead. The drum beat immediately stopped, and all eyes turned to the blonde as she struggled to pick up her instrument.

"Pick that up, and let's take it from the top," ordered Mack, brushing off this common setback.

"I can't do this today," whispered Terra, turning to Gar beside her. Gar was skillfully twirling his drumstick in his hand. Mack had tried Gar out with at least ten different instruments, included but not limited to the trumpet, clarinet, and snare drum, before finally placing him on the quads, which he proved to be quite a master of.

"Keep trying, then," he replied. As soon as he turned back around, Terra took her mallet and tried with a great amount of concentration to twirl it on her fingers. However, Terra lacked coordination, and her drumstick promptly went flying off in some direction unknown. It hit the grass and, oddly, began rolling. It stopped several feet away, right at the feet of some one wearing three inch stiletto boots (They were Lumaini, and had supposedly cost one hundred and ten dollars, according to Maya), and a short, leather skirt (it was a Friday, a dress-down day).

"Well, hello, Terra," said Maya Parrish, taking another step onto the grass, swishing her black hair over her shoulder like she was some kind of supermodel. Terra choked as a wave of perfume hit her like a missile, clogging her senses, and very possibly her lungs and vital arteries.

"What the heck is she doing out here?" asked Anna Kole, the blonde girl with the braces, who was to Terra's left, with a set of cymbals. Terra shrugged and watched as Maya made her way across the drumline, and as Anna got her braces stuck on her lip, and began struggling and bleeding, trying to get it off.

It was then that something entirely unexpected happened. Maya walked over to where the snare drummers (Mack, Raven, and Dash) stood silent. Well, except for Dash.

"Hey, Baby!" he said as Maya approached him, smiling like an idiot. Dash was smiling like an idiot, rather. Maya looked rather sexy in her leather apparel and red lipstick, nothing like an idiot. Dash was, contrarily, dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt that read, "Who are you and why are you reading my shirt?". Typical Dash clothes.

Drumline practice sort of fell apart after Maya dragged Dash away to places unknown.

"They probably went to make wild and passionate love behind the football concession stand," suggested an oddly calm Raven as she walked over to Terra and Gar while everyone else filed off the field. Since it was a dress-down day, Raven was dressed in a modest, denim skirt and a black shirt. Following Kori's advice, she had started wearing her hair nicer, down or in nice buns, but because of the heat today, she had been forced to resort to a high ponytail to avoid being drowned in her own sweat.

Despite the sweat and ponytail, though, she still managed to look petal fresh and rather sexy.

Terra, on the other hand, was having a bad hair day, so her blonde hair had ended up in the usual ponytail, with several limp pieces hanging around her ears. She had gone with army green cargos and a red swim team T-shirt, which was not only the opposite of petal fresh and sexy, but it also appeared completely unflattering on her stick-thin figure, or lack thereof. Life could be so cruel.

"Can you believe those two?" Terra was still enraged as the group of three walked into the cafeteria several minutes later. "I mean, I thought Dash had too much integrity to date someone as manipulative and malevolent as Maya." She spat the words "manipulative" and "malevolent" with as much spite as anyone could possibly muster.

"…Where in the world did you find those words?" asked Raven after a few seconds of silence. Terra ignored her.

"Don't you just think it's a little fishy that Maya suddenly wants to go out with someone as free spirited and weird as Dash?" Terra was practically fuming that no one agreed with her idea as the three sat down at their usual table. Kori, Rob, and Vick were already seated and enjoying a wide variety of complete breakfasts. Well, two were, at least.

"What's eating you?" asked Raven as she took her usual seat beside Kori. The redhead was crouched unstylishly over a thick but neat notebook labeled (in thick but neat Sharpie) "Algebra II".

"I have a huge test today," Kori whined, while yawning. An incredible task to take on. "I studied and studied last night after you guys went to bed, but I still feel pretty not good about it."

"Pretty not good?" repeated Gar to himself as Raven spoke up.

"You kept on studying?" Raven was clearly appalled. "Kor, you studied for that thing for five hours before me and Terra fell asleep. You've studied enough. Believe me." Though the girl seemed a bit more relieved to hear this statement, she, all the same, flipped to another page in her textbook and began the process all over again.

"This needs salt," commented Terra as she sat down at the table with a plate of scrambled eggs. The past few mornings, she had been trying to eat a healthier breakfast to keep her energized long enough to get through English, in which they were watching Romeo and Juliet. Terra had a crush on Romeo, and henceforth had made it her goal to stay awake during it. The first day, she had slept through it and been rather disappointed to learn from Raven that Romeo was worth the wait and the bad, classical music.

Unfortunately for Terra, this new breakfast diet ruled out cookies and snack cakes, as well as Terra's favorite, fruit snacks. She especially loved the ones shaped like dinosaurs. Several boxes of them were still stashed at the bottom of her suitcase.

As Terra reached for the salt, she had the misfortune to elbow her bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper (she was still under the impression that since it was "diet" it was healthy), which tipped dangerously to the side, as if it were part of some balancing act. What was even more unfortunate was that the aforementioned bottle, instead of falling towards the table, fell, landing in Terra's lap and pouring its contents down one leg in a sort of small waterfall of brown liquid and carbon bubbles.

"Crap," moaned Terra, scooting her chair backwards, which was also a mistake, as the bottle now rolled onto the floor and proceeded in a kind of crazy spree across the stretch of tile floor underneath the table. It stopped at Gar's feet, where the remaining Dr. Pepper was depleted in a raging river of carbonated beverage. "Hand me the napkins," she ordered Rob, who was sitting nearest the small, black napkin holder. Napkins in hand, Terra made the journey across the dining hall to the Ladies' room.

Deciding it would look weird to be dabbing her pants leg with multiple pieces of disposable napery, Terra opted to perform the deed in the large, handicapped stall. No sooner had she locked the stall door than she heard the bathroom door swing open, and at least three people file in. One was wearing stiletto boots by the sound of it. Quite possibly leather ones. One hundred and ten dollar ones from Lumaini.

"Am I a genius or what?" laughed the heinous voice of Maya Parrish. Terra held her breath and clutched the napkins in her hand like no tomorrow.

"Why Dash, though?" That was Carina, a rich, snobby girl who could hardly add and subtract, and didn't deserve to be in high school at all.

Terra strained her ears to hear the conversation, which was proving difficult. One of the three was spraying at least a few gallons of something that smelled strongly of vanilla, and Maya was unzipping her rather expensive faux snake skin Liz Claiborne makeup bag (she had been flaunting it since she bought it on a weekend trip home a few days ago), causing a lot of commotion to hear over.

"Because of that Slager girl," Terra was sure she heard Maya say. Were her ears already deceiving her at a young age?

"She pays him an awful lot of attention," Maya continued. Her voice had changed to being slow and quiet, which meant she was most likely applying mascara. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

"Well, I don't pay much attention to them," responded a girl whom Terra knew to be Shauna, the third of Maya's cronies. Shauna was a horrible, racist, gossip-lover. She knew everything about everyone. Raven had once commented that that was why her blonde hair was so puffy. Her head was filled with secrets. This was immediately following an event back in eighth grade when Shauna had started a rumor that Raven's mother was a hooker, which of course she wasn't, but Raven had always hated Shauna after that.

"Well," continued Maya, smacking her glossed lips. "I think she might have the hots for him. And I'll do anything I can to make her life a living nightmare. You know that as well as I do."

Terra tried the best she could not to gasp loudly or anything like that. She was now aware that her finger nails were digging into the palms of her hands, but she didn't care. She had to tell Raven.

Terra almost grabbed the door latch and swung it open, but quickly remembered that Maya and her cronies were waiting on the other side, unaware of her presence.

"Like my shoes?" asked Carina. "They're Jessica Simpson." Obviously, all talk of Raven and Dash had ceased, and Shauna and Maya were now crowded around Carina's sandals like vultures around a tasty carcass.

It wasn't long before they left, and Terra stumbled out of the stall. She had long since forgotten her pants dilemma, and hurried out of the bathroom without second though, napkins still clutched in the palm of her hand.

It was a couple of class periods before Terra could get Raven alone to tell her about what Maya had said in the bathroom that morning. Every time Raven was in speaking range, Gar was there too, and Terra didn't feel right gossiping in front of him. Well, this wasn't exactly gossip as much as it was vital information that could change the course of history (kind of), but Terra still felt uncomfortable saying anything about it in front of Gar.

Anyways, Terra approached Raven as they were entering Health class for fourth period.

"Rae?" Terra said as the two sat down at their usual seats near the back of the room near the reproductive diagrams. Despite the fact that this classroom doubled as a classroom for Mr. Lewis' World History class, the diagrams were up all the time, causing a bit of a commotion in World History.

"You know when I went to the bathroom this morning during breakfast to get that Dr. Pepper off of my pants after I knocked over the bottle?" Terra said it all rather fast, as though the words would disappear if she didn't say them quickly enough. Raven, in return, just stared.

"Yes, I remember that," she replied, pulling her homework (a crossword puzzle of several illegal drugs) out of her notebook.

"Well," Terra was beginning to say, but was interrupted by a voice so vile it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"So, what is it that you freaks talk about over here?" Maya sat down casually in the desk beside Raven and began twirling her black hair around her fingers in a completely repulsive way that reminded Terra of a chimp picking insects out of its baby's fur.

Raven looked Terra in the eye, as if to say, "Oh boy, here it comes", or maybe, "Quick. Hold her head and I'll kick her. Make sure she doesn't bite me." Or maybe it was just saying, "If those aren't gel inserts, I might be sick." It was one of the three for sure.

"Terra, dear," said Maya, making both girls want to projectile vomit. "Would you mind if I had a word with Raven? Alone?" Terra was on the brink of saying "No" and punching Maya in the nose, but the look on Raven's face told her that violence may not be the answer now. Making the smart decision, she turned her back and took a seat a few feet away.

"So Raven," Maya began, her voice lowering and her eyes narrowing. "I'm sure you heard about me and Dash, right?" Raven raised one eyebrow and turned to face Maya.

"Yes, I heard… and saw," she replied. Raven didn't quite like where this was going.

"So you aren't jealous?" Maya gasped, leaning in to look Raven in the eye. The latter was choked with a wave, or more of a tsunami, of vanilla body spray. Her eyes watered and endangered her mascara, while also widening in question and shock.

"Wha… what do you mean?" asked Raven, carefully wiping her eyes to avoid staining her cheeks black and giving her a football-player look. Hardly sexy.

"But everyone's been saying that you like him," Maya argued.

"Why would I like Dash?" Raven was appalled, obviously. She'd never heard this, and she definitely hadn't said it herself. "I don't like him."

"Oh, that's right," answered Maya in a dangerously kind voice. "You like that Logan boy. Garfield, I think it was?" Raven nodded dryly. She opened her mouth, but Maya kept speaking.

"The truth is," she said. "I know a lot about people, and I've heard that dear little Garfield doesn't like you back."

Raven's head promptly began pounding in her ear canals. She felt her heart explode. She died and rose again several times in a row from unknown circumstances.

However, this was well before Raven realized that there was no way that Maya could possibly know this about Gar. That came later that day while Raven was still wallowing in misery and concern on her part.

"He doesn't?" was all Raven could manage to squeak out for the time being.

"I'm sorry things with the opposite sex aren't working out for you this time, Rae," Maya said in false sympathy, emphasizing the use of Raven's pet name. It was completely repulsive.

"Better luck next year," said Maya before walking away, leaving Raven staring at the fake wood of the desk in front of her.

Raven stayed fairly quiet for the rest of the class, speaking only when she was asked for a pen by Terra, and again when the teacher, Coach Durbin, informed her that if she didn't close her mouth, she would get drool on her DUI prevention workbook.

She was beginning to realize now that Maya couldn't possibly have known what she was talking about. People like Maya didn't pay attention to people like Gar and Raven. It was a rule of the world. However, the feeling of uncertainty remained, haunting Raven. She tried her best to keep her mind on why not to do drugs, but it kept wandering. What if Maya was right? What if Gar was actually in love with Terra or someone like that? Or what if Maya and Gar were having an affair in spite of the five inch height difference? If so, Gar would have to stand on a box or something whenever they made out. There was one good side, though: If they got married and had kids, they (the kids, that is) would be average height, and not have to stand on boxes to make out with their future boyfriends/girlfriends.

Okay, Raven's mind was running away from her now. It was almost calming to snap out of the reverie and back into the Health class lesson.

Lunch wasn't much better, either. Raven couldn't stop watching Gar from across the table and looking to make sure he didn't look at Terra for a moment too long. She vaguely wondered what she would do if he did. Perhaps she would leap heroically across the table and confess her undying love to Gar while Terra looked on stunned. Or maybe she would let it pass and then go all assassin on Terra later. But she couldn't murder anyone. She could barely hold a gun, as she had learned that time her mom's guy friend, Coleman, had taken her and his daughter hunting and Raven had dropped the gun, causing it to discharge and blow a hole through a nearby tree, beginning an aerial stampede of small birds, many of which promptly crapped on the party of three and their clothing.

Raven's mind was wandering again. She was snapped back into reality as she heard Kori squeal loudly.

"I think I aced my test!" she nearly yelled, causing the other five members of the table to fall out of their chairs. Her hair was glowing again in an unnatural manner.

"Sheesh," said Vick, rubbing his head in the vicinity of his earlobes. "You sure studied enough."

"You think?" Kori's eyes got wide, and the green of them blended with the green in her beaded earrings and matching necklace. Her friends nodded, nearly blinded by her eyes. Things got dangerous when Kori got excited. Her eyes rivaled the brightness of the sun. Sunglasses were almost necessary in her presence.

"Rae, pass the mustard," said Gar, eyeing his hamburger. Raven didn't move. She just sat staring at her iced tea.

"Rae?" Gar's eyebrows wrinkled. "Rae-ven?" He drew out her name, and the violet-haired girl finally snapped into attention, averting her eyes from her beverage, and looking around.

Vick, who was seated beside Raven, grabbed the mustard and flung it across the table to Gar before continuing in his discussion with Rob about some X-box game that most likely involved lots of gore and killing.

"I'm goin' to get more tea," muttered Raven, standing up from the table. She left her tea sitting beside her salad.

Halfway across the lunchroom to the lunch line, Raven realized that she'd forgotten her purse, which held her lunch pass. She made a beeline for the restroom, but soon heard the noise of someone following her. She picked up her pace, which proved to be hard to do in her denim skirt, which kept flipping up in the back. She was just feeling the triumph of making it to the lunchroom door without flashing anybody when a voice stopped her.

"Rae, what's up with you?" It was Gar, and he sounded frustrated if anything. Raven couldn't face him, so she stayed turned around.

"Nothing," she lied, taking another few strides. She cursed the builders who made the bathroom so dang far from the cafeteria. Thanks to them, Gar caught her a few feet away from the door. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

"Something's wrong," he said, striking Raven as out-of-character for the usual clown. "I don't care if you can tell me or not, just please stop being so distant and depressed. I…I'm worried for you."

When Raven finally turned to look at him, something happened. Her eyes started filling up, and her hands were shaking by her sides.

"I wish I could tell you," she found herself saying. "But I can't."

Then, she turned and stormed off into the bathroom, where she wiped her eyes and pretended that she had just told Gar everything instead of running off like the idiot she was.

There is a French phrase, bete noir ("bay-tay-noo-are"), that means "object of dislike". For some reason, Raven thought of these words every time she saw Maya for the next few weeks or so. Maya seemed to feel the need to torment Raven every waking second they were thrust into the confines of the classroom. Whether it was snapping the back of her bra, calling her a punk, or kicking her in the leg with her stilettos, Maya always seemed to be acting like she was part of some "We Hate Raven" organization. Raven vaguely imagined a some pens and jackets that read "W.H.R.: Come hate Raven with us".

Okay, over-active imagination.

It was third period. Raven tried her hardest to concentrate on the World History review sheet on the desk in front of her. They were always ridiculously easy, but today, Raven's mind was on other things.

Beside her, Terra chewed on the end of her pen, and in front of Raven, Gar sat in concentration, stuck on a question about the Assyrian empire. Raven listened as he flipped frantically through page after page of notes. She had gotten that answer several geological ages ago, and Gar was five whole pages of notes away from finding it.

"Yo, people," said Mr. Lewis, the teacher. He was a short, stocky man with curly black hair and pale skin. He was the only adult who could pull off slang and things like that. "Turn in your sheets if you're done, do them for homework if not. The bell's about to ring."

Raven shoved her paper into her World History binder and put the binder back in her bookbag. She didn't wait for Gar and Terra to follow. She just left.

She had been doing a lot of that lately, leaving without waiting for her friends. She spent a lot more time alone, and even in the dorms at night she listened to her iPod or something. She still talked to her friends, but one thought never left her mind: Does Gar really not like me?

Raven got to her locker in record time without any confrontations with Maya. This was a good day, she could tell already. Put World History binder in, take Health binder out. The whole locker ritual had become mechanic for Raven. She hardly thought before rushing back on to class. Anything to avoid Maya.

What she didn't avoid, however, was running straight into a mid-height, red-headed boy walking in the opposite direction as her.

"Hey, Raven," said Dash, running a hand through his unkempt hair. Today he wore black Converses with his uniform. He had gotten his braces off on his last weekend visit home, so his teeth were white and straight rather than tinted odd colors from the rubber bands on his braces. Raven couldn't help but notice that he had nearly perfect skin, and freckles in all the right places…

"Hi Dash," she was a bout to say, but a bone-chilling voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Are you talking to my boyfriend, Slager?" asked Maya. Her voice wasn't angry, just a bit impatient. Today, her black hair was in a high ponytail. It was repulsive how it looked good on her, and looked like an actual horse's tail when worn on Raven. It was just the cruelty of the world.

He was talking to me, Parrish, Raven imagined herself saying. I guess he just finds me more interesting and attractive than you. Better luck next year. That wasn't what came out of her mouth, though. What she actually said was much dumber. Not that it didn't make an effect, but it definitely made Maya mad, which wasn't a good thing exactly.

"Yes, Maya," she felt herself saying. "I was talking to your boyfriend." Then, she turned on one heel and walked away. If Maya'd had a gun at that second, Raven felt sure that the girl would have used it. The dagger-like stare was almost enough to make Raven cringe as she darted away to Health.

It was a good thing that Gar wasn't in Raven's fourth period class, or else he would have gotten a nice look at his alleged punk friend being shot down by death glares. Maya was dealing them out the entire class while Raven scribbled away at her respiratory system crossword puzzle, most likely getting most of the answers wrong.

"What is that girl's deal?" Terra wanted to know as she wrote "artery" in one of the blanks on her paper. Raven winced. Arteries had nothing to do with breathing, and it pained her to think that Terra could be dumb enough not to think of this.

"I don't know," said Raven in her smallest voice possible. Maya was laughing at something Carina had said, now. Her laugh was hideous. She was hideous. No, Maya wasn't hideous. She was just too pretty.

Maya was writing something on a slip of paper, now. She passed it to Carina, who gave it to Shauna, who passed it to a girl with red hair, who gave it to a tall girl with glasses, who whispered something to the girl beside her, who picked up the paper and tossed it. It landed squarely on Raven's desk. Glancing across the room, Raven saw Maya nod, and return to her conversation with Carina.

Raven waited until she was seated on her bed, safe in her dorm, that afternoon to open the note. Terra was in the shower, and Kori was at the paper shop, buying some note cards. Above the sound of pounding water from the bathroom, Raven could hear her head pounding as she unfolded the note. It still smelled like Maya.

It was written in big, bubbly, black letter. Raven felt her heart stop as she read the words. I will get you, it read. You'll regret laying your grimy hands near my boyfriend. And I swear on my life that you will never, as long as I can do anything about it, be with your dearest Gar, understand? Good. I have power, more than you could know, so be careful in the future. I know who to pay up with to make your life miserable.

Underneath the signature, there was one more line. P.S: Your hair in a high ponytail makes you look like a horse. Thought I'd let you know. Why don't you try wearing it in spikes, or however you witches are wearing their hair these days.

"Rae?" Terra was calling now. "D'ya know where my nail file went?"

Raven glanced at where the aforementioned object was lying in a pile of junk on Terra's nightstand, but didn't say anything yet.

It was exciting to have an enemy. If there was one theing Raven was good at, it was tormenting people.

And if Maya wanted a fight, then Raven only had three words for her: Bring it on.

Okay, done with chapter 4. I have no idea how many chapters there will be in all, but I'm already working on chapter five. Since I have a good bit of it typed, I think I'll start doing little previews of the next chapters:

Chapter Five: Kori the "Smooth Criminal"

Description: When Kori accidentally steals and forgets to return the wallet of eigth grader Anna Kole, she gets caught and sent to a dull guidance couseling class in which she gets a taste of the Gotham Prep criminal lifestyle.

I have about a page typed so far. Unfortunately, I'm really busy, and it may take longer than I think to get it up. Well, that's all for now.

Oh, and just a note, the personalities of the popular girls in this story do not reflect the personalities of anyone at my school. The ones I know are nice. They don't threaten people. Just throwing that out there.

Oh, and there was some foreshadowing in this chapter, and it wasn't the note. Just throwing that out there too.

-Giz

Please review.