I groaned loudly as I crawled out of bed. Still groggy from sleep, I slowly rubbed my eyes. I took my time putting on the clothes I planned on wearing to my first day of school. It was rather ironic, considering I had worn the same outfit for my other first day of school just a few days prior. Or, I counted on my fingers, would it really be only a few hours prior? I shook my head, whatever, it didn't really matter.

I guess this was supposed to be my first day of school: version two. Sighing at the prospect, I headed out the door.

Considering the fact that I was practically dragged there by a certain someone the first time I came here, the school was a bit harder to find by myself. After several minutes of precious time asking for directions, I finally found the place. I rushed toward the Basic Knowledge classroom just minutes before class started. Just before I stepped through the doorway, my body froze at what I saw inside the classroom.

I stared on in disbelief, hoping that it was some kind of joke. I finally figured out why this classroom had felt so nostalgically familiar to me, it was uncannily similar to my fourth grade classroom. Several children no older than nine or ten years old filled the seats. Wonderful... I sighed and took one of the empty seats at the back of the classroom.

A little blue haired sat in the seat next to mine, I couldn't help but wonder if it was natural. With all the crap that's happened, I really wouldn't be all too surprised if it was. She smiled at me and I offered a small nod of acknowledgment. I faced the front of the class, Fairyglitter was going on about ratios or something. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the blue haired girl was still staring at me. The same bright smile was plastered over her face.

I tried my best to ignore her. What was her deal? I heard the soft scraping of metal and quickly realized that she moved her seat closer to mine. A chill ran up my spine as she continued to smile at me, only this time with less space between us.

"Hi," the girl whispered, "You're that Earth girl, right?" I relaxed, it was just some curious little kid. I mentally slapped myself for even humoring the thought that some little girl was some random psychopath.

"I guess so," I whispered back, shrugging passively.

Her smile grew, "I knew it. My dad showed me an article about you. A bunch of researchers are totally worked up over the whole thing."

"So I've heard," I remarked dryly, remembering what the Pre-Philosophy teacher had told me the day before. I inwardly sighed, it seemed that no matter what universe I was in, scientists just seemed to freaking love me.

She smiled and discretely stuck her hand under the table, "My name's Emma."

I tried to hide my surprise and shook her hand in return, "I'm... Calamity, sort of."

"Sort of?" She whispered, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

"Nevermind," I shook my head, "You know, I had a friend from Earth named Emma."

She smiled, "Well, now you have two friends named Emma."

"To understand how to control fear, keeping in mind the biological aspects can be important," John stated, sitting cross legged on his desk. A variety of children had made themselves comfortable on the supplied bean bags and lawn chairs. An enchanting floral scent wafted across the dimly lit room. I sat limply in a lawn chair beside Emma, who had taken her seat on a blue bean bag.

He continued, "All of you have what is called an organ called an egeslic located in your body, can anyone tell me what that is?" I watched as a few of the children raised their hands. I was rather taken aback when Emma began flailing both her arms around, practically jumping out of her seat. "Yes, Emma? I'm getting the feeling you really want to tell us," John tried to hold back a laugh.

Emma beamed, "The egeslic is an organ that produces a chemical that induces fear. This chemical is transported through our bodies and released as an odorless and invisible gas from our skin."

"Correct," John nodded in approval, "Though we only excrete small amounts of this chemical at a time. Due to the fact that we are constantly inhaling these chemicals, our bodies have become immune to the natural secretion of this chemical. Those who aren't used to it, will feel constant anxiety until they're bodies have adjusted to it. In higher doses, it could paralyse someone with fear."

I slowly rotated my hands and squinted my eyes, trying to see if I could detect any sort trace of this chemical. I didn't really know what I expected to see, being that the chemical was both odorless and invisible. Still, it was unsettling to know that I was constantly leaking a gas that could make people become terrified of me. Why would I have it at all? I was no expert, but what purpose did something like this serve?

"John?" I called out, he look at me expectantly, "What's the point in this ability? I mean it's cool and all, but why would our kind develop with something like this?" I immediately regretted asking this. Numerous sets of eyes locked on me, looking like I had just grown a second head. I did notice a few clueless people who were only staring just because everyone else was though.

"I'm sorry Calamity," John shook his head, "But this school isn't allowed to teach about the history of the Between." I stared at him in bafflement; I was just asking a question about evolution, as far as I could tell, that was a science question. Wasn't it?

"Aren't there laws against this or something?" I quickly jumped to my left, a glowing rubber ball whizzing past my ear. Myrrhfalls had decided to orchestrate a rather onesided dodgeball game. Literally. Dodgeballs were throwing themselves every which way, the only point of the game seemed to be to just get out of their way.

"It's difficult, but I don't think there's anything illegal about this," Emma frowned, hopping over a ball that was aiming for her legs.

I shook my head, "No, I mean the whole "Janitor" thing. Isn't it immoral to force children to work in a single job? Aren't there, like, child labor laws around here or something?"

"We don't have to be janitors if we don't want to, it's only encouraged," Emma shrugged, "Some people choose other jobs. But if they do, it's usually only a side job. Around here, as long as you're capable, you can get a job at any age." Huh, so that's another thing that differs from home. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, human-like or not, this is an entirely different place. "Funny you should ask that though," she continued, "Personally, I don't want to be a janitor."

I looked at her in surprise, "Really? What do you want to be?"

She smiled at me, her nine year old face and flower patterned dress looking absolutely adorable, "A mortician."

I stared at her in stunned silence, not even noticing the dodgeball flying towards my face.

"Does anyone know what this is?" Were the first words out of Staticbreeze's mouth as the beginning of class. A jar was place on his desk, filled with some kind of dark fog.

"Oh, I know! I know! That's a fizzle cloud!" Emma yelled out.

"That's correct, and please raise your hand next time," he nodded. Emma looked away in embarrassment. He went on, "For those of you who have seen a battle, you've probably seen one of these things around and where there's a fizzle cloud a battler will most likely fizzle. For those of you who don't know what fizzling is, it's basically just failure of a spell casting. Fizzle clouds are attracted to battles and will try their hardest to get to them." He picked up the jar and handed to the kid in the upper corner seat of the room, "You can pass this around to get a closer look, but please don't open the jar." Numerous children had immediately taken to shaking it in order to see the contents swirl around. Hardly anyone noticed the child standing in the doorway.

"Ex-excuse me?" The child asked timidly, "Calamity is wanted in the office, it's an emergency." I stared at the kid in confusion. I had only been here for a few "days", what could possibly constitute as an emergency. I got up and walking towards the doorway as the teacher waved me away.

My clothes exploded.

That made about as much sense to me as it did to you. My clothes literally exploded, and then disintegrated right in front of me. Right in front of the child who had called me out of class too. Along with everyone standing in the hallway. You know that dream where you forget to put clothes on before you go to school? Well apparently, this place can make that dream a reality.

I stood frozen in shock, naked, in the middle of the hallway. About a dozen people were gaping in horror. The child who had been escorting me to the office was currently turned away, cover their eyes. "Oh shit," were the only words out of my mouth before bolting to the nearest bathroom.

My face was red with embarrassment as I locked myself in the nearest stall. I folded my knees to my chest and tightly shut my eyes. Of all the things that could have gone wrong today, that happened. Was that even a thing around here? Did clothes usually just randomly disintegrate? I knew that nothing like this would ever happen back home.

I pulled my legs closer as I heard the bathroom door open. "Calamity, you in here?" A boy's voice, Kory's voice.

"Y-yeah?" I answered nervously, "What do you want?"

"We're here about your clothes," it sounded like Sponge was here as well.

I sat in silence for a few moments before it finally clicked, "So, you knew that was going to happen?" My voice was slow and deliberate as I spoke, my embarrassment was quickly evolving into anger.

Kory laughed nervously, "Sort of. Before we brought you to the Between, we had to enchant your clothes and hair so they wouldn't be destroyed when we brought you here. We kind of misjudged the time limit of the spell though. Heh." Wait, hair? My hands flew to my head, a distinct lack of hair was felt.

"I see," I hissed through clenched teeth, "It probably would have been helpful if you told me about this ahead of time."

"Probably," Sponge responded dissmissively, "You can wear you're uniform for now." He tossed the familiar blue and yellow uniform over the door of the stall. I put it on and calmly exited the stall. My hand was on the bathroom door when I stopped and turned to the boys behind me. My voice was even as I spoke, "If anything like that happens again, I'll show you what life is like without a spleen."

A/N: First off, I wanted to say that fizzle clouds don't belong to me, they are the property of fellow fanfic writer Goldenpelt's father. I would also like to thank Goldenpelt for supplying me with the information for the fizzle clouds.

I would also like to point out that the "book cover" of this story belongs to Pokegirl14 of DeviantArt.

While I'm still talking, I'd like to point out that Calamity is an asshole. Whenever she's rude to someone, it's mean to come off as rude. I'm not one of those authors that lets their characters do and say whatever they want just because they're the main character. If you think what she's says sounds jerkish, then it probably is. Just wanted to say this ahead of time in case there was any confusion.