There were only fifteen girls in Daria's English II class, and none of them seemed to be particularly talkative. Each of them had formed their own cliques; there was no room for an outsider. Daria's few brief observations were accepted with politeness, but the other girls soon returned to speaking with the same old friends they always had.

Elsie told her that this would happen. "Try not to be surprised if you can't make friends. You're not a Border Collie. It's said that one year at a boarding school is like seven years at a regular school, and those bitches have a lot of dog years behind them." Daria took that to mean that the girls, for the most part, had very close friendships with each other, reinforced with all the feminine bonding that comes with living in close quarters for extended periods of time. Which makes me the outsider again.

The only girl that wasn't involved in some sort of conversation besides Daria was a mousy looking girl with black hair tied with a ribbon behind her head. She sat in the front row, near the window. The hair ribbon was tied so tightly that it gave the poor girl an impromptu face-lift. In contrast to the others, the young woman looked disheveled - as if she slept in her Fielding blazer.

Ms. Merritt passed out the homework assigned the previous day. "Class, I had some wonderful essays returned to me, so I can see we have a very impressive young group of scholars this term. Come along, students. Before we begin the class discussion, I'd like us to discuss the metaphors that Shakespeare returns to time and again in his sonnets. The starting point for our discussion will be Sonnet Number 74...."

Daria looked at the grade. 82, it read. Whatever "wonderful essay" was "returned" to Ms. Merritt, apparently this one wasn't one of them.

Daria couldn't shake it off. I got an 82? Or, as Elsie would call it, 'a ****ing 82?' As Merritt started her discussion, Daria could not pay attention. She read her paper closely.

There were marks through the grammar of her essay - the essay had been virtually copy-edited. Fails to persuade was one damning comment made through a bulky paragraph. A first draft? was the comment at the end.

Like it or not, Daria had to admit it: it was a first draft. There had never been a need to rewrite an essay - anything she produced at Highland High was good enough. She could get 98s just by mailing something in, writing something at the last hour. But for her first class, she had not mailed it in. Yes, she didn't revise her work, but at least she put some thought into what she was attempting to say.

Result: 82. Barely B-level work.

Daria knew she had missed the first part of the lecture. The only girl who was writing notes was Mousy Girl. Daria figured that maybe, even though the notes were on the FTP site, that she should be writing notes as well. Holding back a sigh, she pulled out pen and paper.

Daria was not called upon in the ensuing class discussion. It became clear to Daria that there were at least three girls who seemed to be Ms. Merritt's favorites. Mousy Girl - known as "Ms. Davidson" - and two others. It became even clearer that none of these young women were favorites because of their looks, or lack of looks, or style, or lack of style - each of these girls, Daria's potential rivals, knew the material and could expound upon it. They weren't dummies.

As the class departed, Daria sized up the room into "scholars" and "everybody else". She wanted to be in the "scholar" category. The other two girls were too well dressed, too glib, slightly too haughty or too off-putting. This left Mousy Girl as the target.

Mousy Girl was the last to leave, putting her pens and pencils carefully in her beaten-down wooden box. Daria timed her own departure to coincide with Mousy Girl's.

"Hey," Daria said.

Mousy Girl pulled her books closer to her, terrified. "Please leave me alone," she said, not even looking at Daria, and hurried away.

(* * *)

Quinn's English I paper was handed back to her. Patty Drake - when Patty was still speaking to her - told her that Mr. Goodlett was an ass. The paper confirmed it.

63. Oh well, Quinn told herself, "D for done." She thought about how muddy the sidewalks were at Fielding. You think they could fix that for all that money.