Quinn walked into the lunchroom looking for a place to sit. She finally found Patty Drake, sitting near the window, an empty chair nearby.
"Patty!" Quinn waved. Patty's face turned ashen for a few seconds, before she said, "Hello, Quinn!"
Quinn sat down. "Patty, let me ask you something. Everybody's taking about 'The Knowledge'. What's that supposed to - ?"
"Oh! Quinn! Excuse me for a moment! I totally forgot about this appointment with one of the profs!" Patty smiled disarmingly. "We'll have to talk some other time, Quinn." With that, Patty grabbed her tray of food - only one quarter eaten - and bussed it herself, leaving an entire apple behind.
Quinn sighed. Yesterday, every girl wanted to talk to her; today, no one did. But it was weird. She wasn't being frozen out, or told to 'talk to the hand' or something that she herself might have pulled at Highland Middle School. Everyone was very polite...but no one wanted to spend any time with her...they looked positively unsettled about it.
A young girl that Quinn didn't recognize walked up to where Patty was setting. She had blond, curly hair and freckles and seemed to be about twelve years old. Quinn was surprised as she reached over for the apple. "Sorry. Patty forgot this."
"Well, you can go tell Patty Drake that if she doesn't want to talk to me, she doesn't have to. Trust me, I don't need friends like that."
"Oh!" It was a cry. "I bet the Tops made her do it. She's a Top. Don't blame Patty for it, she has to do what they tell her to do."
"What's a 'Top'?" asked Quinn. She didn't know if she liked these 'Tops' whatever they were.
"The Tops are the tops. They're the most fashionable, most elegant, most dreamy girls at Fielding. You look for the gold bracelet. That's how you know who they are. Everyone wants to be a Top." The girl sighed. "I have to go."
"Wait!" said Quinn.
The girl turned back around. "What's your name?" Quinn asked, genuinely interested.
"It's Jill," the girl said.
"Hi, Jill. I'm Quinn!"
"Quinn." The girl smiled as if it were a magic word. "If you want to know something, just tell me. I hear that you're new here."
"Yeah," said Quinn. "So what is 'The Knowledge'?"
"I'll talk to you later!" Jill positively bounced away. Quinn watched her go. Everyone keeps all the really good stuff secret. It never changes.
(* * *)
"What the hell is this?" said Daria, looking at a printed booklet. "You're telling me that I have to memorize all of this crap?"
"Think of it as sorority rush," said Elsie. "It's the history of Fielding. That booklet is crammed with a lot of useless stuff. Trust some senior to walk up to you and expect you to rattle off some mindless fact about the glory days of Fielding. There are also some facts that aren't in the book, and those you have to pick up from others. It's a good thing the 'rents were Old Fielding, so I know the vocab."
"Okay. Then what if I don't do it?"
"Then you'll be asked to do something horribly humiliating."
"And if I refuse to do that?"
"Then you're a living target," said Elsie. "They shut you out of everything. Antisocial. Or they just subject you to various forms of physical abuse when no one is looking. I lasted for about a week, and then I made an abject apology to the senior girls, who made me run a lap around the campus that night wearing only my underwear."
"Ow."
"Not the thing you want to do when you're eight years old. I was quite obstinate...but I was cured. Remember when I said that you wanted to flunk the mandatory physical? Well, you don't want to flunk this, dear, or you insult all of our 'dear, dear ancestors of Fielding', wherever the hell they're rotting now. It's why I refuse to be a boarder."
Daria flipped through the book. "What's Grove Hills doing in there? I almost ended up there."
"Really?" Elsie smiled. "Lucky you to end up at Fielding."
"Grove Hills is looking better and better," Daria said.
"Oh. Come now. Grove Hills used to be where they sent young girls before Fielding became co-ed. Did you know that when the young men of Fielding were told that Fielding was going co-ed, they rioted and they took some profs hostage? Which is where I have derived the motto: 'Dear Old Queer Old Fielding'. Why, as a young maiden you're as safe as a house here!"
Daria chuckled. "You can drag anyone into the 21st century if you have enough rope."
"Hardly", sniffed Elsie. "That was in 1971. April 9th, 1971 one day after old Head Adams announced the change. They call April 9th 'Bitchmas' and it is celebrated here by the males every April with great fervor. You won't find 'Bitchmas' anywhere in that little book. I always make sure I miss school that day." Elsie smiled. "Besides, you're lucky that you made it to Fielding. Grove Hills is a factory school now."
Elsie told the story of how Grove Hills faced two problems after Fielding allowed women. The first was the obvious decline in enrollment. The second was a campus fire that virtually burned the place to the ground. "They had to eat their endowment, and take anybody. The only people left at Grove Hills were the antisocial brains that couldn't make Fielding."
"I'm an antisocial brain."
"Then I'm sure you'll attend the Fielding-Grove Hills mixer next month," said Elsie. "Trust me, you'll see what I mean. Besides, Daria, you're not really an asshole. And besides, those urmie kids there are the -- " Elsie suddenly stopped, putting her hand to her mouth.
"What are they?"
"Nothing," Elsie said holding her tongue. "I almost succumbed to a gross impoliteness in public. Oh Daria, can you ever forgive me?"
Daria smiled. "I'll let it go this time."