Hey! I got Chapter 3 up a lot faster than I thought I could! I rule! And also, thanks for all the positive feedback I've gotten. You guys rock!

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Chapter 3: School Day

After homeroom let out, students were given five minutes to get to their next class. In the halls, Richard saw Garfield, Victor, and Raven, the boys arguing about food and Raven standing there rolling her eyes.

"I'm telling ya, we need to go to the grand opening of Mighty Pete's Mega Barbecue!" Victor was an avid meat eater. "First hundred customers get a half rack of ribs FREE!"

"Dude! You know I'm a vegetarian!" Garfield had a strong affinity to animals, and as a result, ate almost nothing but fruits, vegetables, and of course, tofu. "I say we go to Sam's. They have a great veggie platter."

"Yeah, and nothing else! Seriously, if you wanna eat that rabbit food, fine by be, but I am not gonna live on broccoli and," Victor shuddered, "tofu." Raven was getting impatient.

"Can we please just decide on something and get this over with?"

"Ahem." All three turned to see Richard standing there with Kori.

"Everybody, I'd like to introduce you to Kori Anders. She's here from Europe and..." Garfield jumped forward.

"Europe? Sweet! I've always wanted to meet a European dude, er, dudette. Nice to meet you, the name's Garfield Logan, but you can call me Gar, or BB. It's my nickname cause…" Garfield was cut off when Raven smacked him in the back of the head.

"You talk too much." She turned to Kori. "So you're the new girl, huh?"

"Yes, but Richard here has been most friendly in making me feel welcomed here."

"Well, if Dick likes you, then you must be alright." She held out a hand. "Raven Roth."

"Thank you friend Raven! You are most kind!" Kori completely ignored the hand and grabbed up Raven in a massive bear hug. Raven looked at Richard over Kori's shoulder as if to say,"You've got to be kidding me." Richard shrugged apologetically.

Kori let go of Raven and moved up to Victor. She had to crane her head to make eye contact.

"And who may you be, large friend of Richard?"

"Victor Stone. It's nice to meet you little lady." He held out a hand and Kori shook it. Victor winced.

"Wow. Little lady, big handshake."

"Alright," Richard said. "Now that we're all introduced, I assume that we're arguing about where to go for lunch?" BB and Victor nodded.

"Why don't we just go for pizza? Mike's New York Deli's always a good choice." Victor shrugged.

"Eh, why not. I can always go for a meat-lovers."

"What? No way! Were getting a veggie pizza!" Seeing as the two boys would continue arguing indefinitely, the other's left for their next classes. En route, Kori asked,

"Richard? What is a pizza?" Richard froze.

"Kori, you've never had a pizza?" She shook her head.

"I have always lived in Tamaran, and life was very," she paused to think of a word. "Sheltered." Richard started cracking up.

"I am sorry for lacking in the knowledge of American life" Kori looked slightly hurt, and Richard stopped laughing.

"No Kori, I'm sorry. It's just surprising, that's all. I don't think I've ever met somebody who's never had pizza before." He smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, you'll love it." Kori thought for a moment, then smiled and said,

"Very well. After the school day is completed, we shall journey to Mike's for consumption of the pizza." Richard grinned; her English was a little odd, but that was just one of the qualities Kori had that made her so endearing.

"Excellent. Now let's get to class."

The rest of the day passed pretty quickly and uneventfully. Well, relatively uneventfully. English went by without a hitch, though their teacher did look confused by Kori's interesting use of the English language. Then they separated and went to some rather interesting classes: Mr. Mod decided to teach Government by dressing up as a judge, powdered wig included, and accuse all his students of treason to "king and country". Gar had almost started a riot in math when Alan Waters, the pretty-boy captain of the swimming team, stepped on a spider, and Victor broken a table and a cabinet full of beakers when he and Gerald Knarck had started an impromptu football game in Chemistry. Fortunately, everyone survived to the last period of the day: Richard and Kori's free period.

During this time, some students do homework, some study, and some just hang out. Most, however, head for the student lounge. This was a place with vending machines, comfortable chairs, and even things like a pool table. It was a good place to hang out when you had nothing better to do.

When they got there, Kori saw Karen Beecher and some other girls she had met throughout the day, and went to greet them. This left Richard to himself, and to the one thing he always did when he came here: ping pong.

Richard liked playing ping pong, and he was good at it. Since his freshman year, he had a standing record of 145:0; he was unstoppable. Of course, this just made everyone determined to beat him, and people had already gathered to challenge the king of the table.

One by one, challengers came up, and one by one, Richard delivered the smack down. In a matter of minutes, he was done, and was just about to head to the pool table when one more voice spoke up.

"Richard, would you like to play the ping pong one more time?" It was Kori.

"You sure? I'll warn you, I'm pretty good." Kori smirked (has a little attitude, doesn't she?)

"Do not worry about me. I shall be victorious." Richard gave a condescending smile.

"Really? Alright then, here we go." He lightly served the ball to Kori, trying to be nice.

Whap! Smack! The ball nailed the corner of the table and sailed off. One point Kori. Richard was stunned. Had that been a fluke? He stared at Kori, who just smirked back. He served again, this time even harder. Repeat, and one more point for Kori.

Richard knew he was good, but soon he was doing all he could to stay alive. Soon the entire room had gathered to watch Richard get his but handed to him. They stayed in a wide circle though, after Richard once did a flying dive to get a particularly nasty angle.

The rules said play first to twenty-one. The score ended at twenty-one : six. Kori had dethroned the king.

"Thank you friend Richard, that was a most wonderful game." Kori gave him one of her sweet-little-girl smiles, and practically skipped off. Richard could only stare in disbelief at the major owning he had just received.

"Dude, you just got killed," one person said.

"Yeah, I know."

"But somehow, It doesn't feel as bad as I thought it would."

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Well, that's Chapter 3. Did you enjoy it? If you did, write a review for it. I love reviews. Chapter 4 will be up soon. Grazie to all.