Chapter 7
Wonderland

*Third Person's POV*

Stefan had been in a peaceful sleep, until Damon sped in with two coffee mugs.

"Rise and shine!" Damon chirped, "Don't wanna be late for school."

"What are you doing?" Stefan asked.

Damon reached one of the mugs out to him, "Peace offering." Stefan didn't seem interested, "Come on, you need it for blood circulation. Does dead flesh good!"

Stefan glared at him, and Damon rolled his eyes slightly, "Alright, I'm sorry."

"Step aside, please." Stefan said, pushing past him.

"I got the town off our back; it was for the greater good, I'm sorry." He said, though still uncaring, "And to prove it, I won't feed on a human, for at least a-week. I'll adopt the Stefan diet, only nothing with feathers."

"Because I realize that killing your closet and oldest friend is beyond evil, and yet somehow, it's worthy of humor."

Damon raised an eyebrow, "Are you mimicking me?"

"Yes Stefan, now that the secret society of vampire-haters is off our backs, I can go back to my routine of 'how can I destroy Stefan's life this week?'."

Damon got the idea and soon indulged in the mocking a bit himself, "And I can go back to sulking, and Elena-Longing, and brooding-I like this, it's fun." He smiled.

"And I," Stefan paused, "Will reveal the ulterior motive behind my evil and diabolical return to Mystic Falls."

Damon paused a second, "Yeah, I'm done" and began to walk out.

"You know I'm not the only one you have to apologize to."

He stopped and turned around, "Oh right, we have a little house guest living with us don't we? Hey, speaking of, can you drop her off at school? I have plans and I would be eternally grateful."

"Sure, I'll drop her off." Stefan said, "But only because I think she'd feel safer with me then with the bloodthirsty psychopath who murdered her Godmother."

Damon placed a hand over his heart, "Ouch. I'm hurt Stefan, that you would think I would harm a tiny helpless human child."

"You had no problem murdering her Godmother."

Damon smirked, "Ah, Lexi. Well, she'll get over it." Once again he turned to leave, but turned around and backed out of the room saying, "Just like you, Damon, always have to have the last word."

He walked down the hallways to Katy's room, entering without knocking.

"Rise and shine girlie!" but soon noticed afterwards she didn't appear to be in sight… And neither were her bed-sheets or pillow.

Then he tilted his head slightly to see a foot sticking out from under the bed, along with the bed-sheets. Confused, he placed the coffee mug on the night stand, and bent down to see a sleeping Katy.

"Hey! Girlie! Up and at 'em!" he said, waking her up, "What are you doing under here? Did you not see the comfy bed right above you?"

Katy glared at him, not saying a word, to which Damon responded by rolling his eyes.

"Two in five minutes, okay I'm sorry, is that what you wanna hear?"

"I was hoping for the rough draft of your obituary." She said

"Hey, Katy, if it makes you feel any better the last thing I wanna do it hurt you." He replied, "But it's gonna stay on the list unless you lighten up. Now get dressed, Stefan's driving you to your first day of school."

With that he walked out, but not before hearing her mumble, "Mom was right; we have enough gun control what we really need is idiot control."

He smirked and walked back into Stefan's room.

"Is Katy coming?" he asked.

"Yes, she's getting dressed now."

"Did you try to apologize?"

"Yes, Stefan. I hit two birds with one stone actually; I found where I'm gonna hide her body when she gets too annoying." He smirked once again.

*Katy's POV*

After I got dressed, Stefan took me drove me to school; we had both been silent for some time until he spoke.

"Katy, I'm sorry you lost Lexi. That shouldn't have happened." He said, sympathetically.

I looked to Stefan, about to say something snarky to offset this moment, and then as I looked at him, I remembered what Lexi said about my parents.

You're not the only one who lost them.

And I thought about it; it took a while for it to occur to me that someone else shared my loss when it came to my parents, I didn't used to have family, friends, or close neighbors—or even actual relatives outside my parents! So when it came to Lexi, it took a while to understand that she lost them too, because I felt like I was the only one who really knew them.

But actually seeing Stefan and Lexi together, hanging out or talking, it seemed to me they had a long history; they really were friends. And I guess that helped me realize, now more than ever, Stefan had lost someone important to him like I had. Not exactly, but she was important to him in one way or another.

Maybe it was because I was feeling sentimental or something, but I felt like I was beginning to have a certain understanding with Stefan.

Or maybe I just wanted to piss off Damon by getting along with his brother, I don't know.

I didn't really know how to respond to his words so I simply nodded. He seemed satisfied with my response and continued to drive up the school parking lot.

When he pulled into a space, I gathered up my duffle bag (now filled with some unused notebooks of Stefan's), but before I could hop out of the car, he stopped me.

"Katy," he looked at me with a serious expression, "Are you gonna be okay?"

I nodded again, "Yeah, I'll be alright."

"You'll try to stay out of trouble?"

I thought for a moment, "Nah."

"Katy." He said sternly.

"Stefan, you've met me right? Do you honest to goodness believe I'll stay out of trouble even if I tried?"

I shook my head and began to head out again, but then heard Stefan laugh slightly and mutter something with the words, 'Damon' and, 'paternity test,' that brought me very close to visibly dry-heaving.

Once I made sure the contents in my stomach would remain in place, I got my things and headed straight to the building in front.

Now you see, for most of my life I had been homeschooled-at least after second grade, so I wasn't familiar with the curriculum.

Needless to say, the mere fact it was school to begin with was just the shiny little cherry on top of the gross cafeteria sundae.

As I walked inside the school, I saw it was practically empty, there were only one or two groups scurrying around to class.

I was a little tempted to say "Slowly I turned!" in a heavily dramatic and pretentious voice.

I headed towards Information when I turned a corner, and from what it sounded like, bumped into a badly recorded Barbie voice over.

"Ah! What the hell!?" cried the shrill voice.

I looked up, expecting to see one person, but instead saw many persons in hideous yellow, black, and orange cheerleading outfits.

Of-freakin-COURSE!

Most of the girls looked like they were trying way too hard to be quote unquote 'hip' ( yes, say that with the fingers), which was half because of the cheerleading uniforms and half because their make-up styles looked like-well, twelve year olds who tried to use their teenage sister's make-up.

The one I crashed into had platinum blonde hair, medium brown shaded eyebrows, bright red painted full lips, and grey almond-shaped eyes-topped with heavy yellow eye shadow and too much eyeliner.

Maybe I should stop commenting on the make-up, I thought to myself, I don't know any more then they probably do.

The girl glared at me for a second then asked, "Who are you?"

"Katy Weston, who are you?"

"Bianca Calloway. You're new here, or else you would have known that." She said, seeming to be almost amused.

"Right…" I drawled, "I am new here, thank you Captain Obvious."

She gave out a humorless laugh, "You're funny. And apparently psychic too, because, I happen to be cheerleading Captain." She said in a superior voice.

Again, OF-FREAKIN-COURSE!

"Why thanks." I said in a snarky tone, "Maybe you are too, riddle me this: What do you call a cheerleader with ESP and PMS?"

She looked confused, when she didn't respond I continued, "A know-it-all bitch! Ba dum ching!"

I said the last part with a clap and some goofy drum movements with my hands, making me think to myself: God, I'm a dork.

Bianca's mouth opened in offense, same went for the other girls, but mostly it was just some shocked looks.

She regained her stance and scowled, "I see they've started letting freaks into this school."

"Started?" I gave a fake look of surprise then said with uncertainty, "Okay…"

Then, without another word, I scurried off back to my task.

On my way, I thought to myself: Really God? Harry Potter had Voldemort, Batman had The Joker, Buffy had the freakin' First Ever Evil! And this is what you give me? The twelve year old equivalent of Paris Hilton? You have got to be kidding me! I'm not against antagonists God, I can be one at times! But please make them likable! Not so 1-dimensional that you could replace them with ANY teen drama 90's villain and not add or subtract a thing!

This went on for a while longer, but I cut it for the sake of time.

When I got to the office, finding it just as dull as Ms. Lark's (seriously people, at least add a plant or something-maybe a wall color other than off-white?), and walked over to the secretary's desk.

I looked at the woman there, Minnie Brewer from what her name tag read, was a woman in about her late fifties. She was a tall twig-like lady, with small brown eyes, pixie-cut blonde hair, and pinkish light skin.

I asked her for my schedule, she grinned happily finishing her tea quickly before getting it for me.

"There you are honey, your first class is English, its two doors down on the right."

I managed an awkward smile at the cheerful old woman and continued towards my class.

Here is one piece of advice for you about my school (aside from don't go there): Never ever be late for a class.

I'll explain.

When I walked into the classroom, it had been in the beginning/middle portion, and so of course when the loud sound of the squeaky door came I was spotted.

I don't know if you know this, but when you are the last one to arrive anywhere, everyone will become instantly emotionless. Hence why, it is one of the most awkward and terrifying experiences of child/teen hood.

It was like I walked into the classroom and was greeted by "Hasta la vista, Baby!"

And one of the creepiest things about looking out over a sea of twelve year old terminators, was just how fast they snap their heads in your direction.

Synchronized!

"You must be Miss Weston," said the teacher, "Come in. Take a seat by Mr. Jensen over there."

I looked to where he pointed and saw a redheaded boy who couldn't possibly be twelve. As I slowly walked to the empty seat, I began hearing the kids around me whisper amongst themselves things like, 'Is that her?' or, 'Which do you think it was?'

I was extremely confused by the tidbits I caught, until I caught two dudes chatting slightly louder than the others.

"It was totally drugs; after all it's what her folks were dealing," the first guy said.

"I heard it was alcohol, she helped sell it to her schoolmates."

And I realized: these kids were talking about my parents!

It made sense, Sherriff Forbes covered their murder by saying it was a drug deal gone awry, and I guess my new classmates heard about it.

Well, this day is just going to suck, isn't it?

I sat down next to Jensen and took out a pencil and notebook from my bag, starting to just write anything written down on the blackboard, not bothering to really listen to what he was saying.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked to see Jensen who whispered, "Hey, I'm Terrance, you're the Weston girl from TV right?"

I shrugged, "I suppose so, and it's Katy by the way."

"Nice to meet you." He said, "So you're the girl whose parents were dealers, huh?"

I snapped my head to him, almost regretting it from his creepy green eyes that shifted weirdly like he was seeing three of me, and bit my lip for a minute to keep from making a scene in class.

I lowered my head and told him in a growling whisper, "Shut up and give that hole in your face a chance to heal."

"Hey! I ain't judging, just curious, sorry. So how old are ya?"

"Twelve. I'd ask how old you are but I know you can't count that high."

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Ha!" he whispered.

I gave him a weird look, "Wait, fourteen? This is seventh grade."

"I was pulled back one year, and my birthday is like in the middle of the school year, so, yeah."

This kid was either really dumb, or one of those sweet, innocent, well-intentioned psychos. Perhaps a little bit of both.

He attempted to say something else but was caught by the teacher, who made him switch seats with a girl named Judy Moore.

I glance quickly at Judy who was about the same height as me, black hair that was in a messy bun sitting on top of her head, and thin wire glasses that made her dark blue eyes look huge.

I didn't pay much attention to anything afterwards, to either my schoolmates or the class, when the teacher didn't write anything else on the blackboard I just started writing down things to annoy Damon.

Here's the list:

Replace all his socks with pink ones

Put vervain under his pillow (that had yet to be determined how, since I didn't have any more vervain besides my ring)

Play the song 'Barbie Girl' in his room when he's asleep

Sharpie (I didn't write anything really specific, there were just so many things to do with that alone)

Put bleach in his shampoo and/or conditioner

I think I'm being too nice, I thought, must google pranks later.

"That's a little too amateurish, don't you think?" Judy asked, obviously reading over my shoulder.

Irritated, I scowled, "Do you have any better ideas, then?"

"Well, now that you mention it-"

"Oh, never mind!" I whispered, not really wanting an answer to my previous question.

She shook her head saying, "Your asinine simian countenance alludes that your fetid stench has anulled the anthropoid ape species diversity."

I replied, fairly confused, "I don't know half those words you just said, but since I'm lacking in an extensively insult-oriented rebuttal I shall use my thought process to further manufacture what the common earthling would know as 'pranks'."

Okay, I thought, Maybe I should stop trying to rebuke my opponents, clearly today is the day when I'm just giving them more reasons to make fun of me.

She shook her head muttering, "Dumbass."

Throughout the class, I rarely raised my head for anything, but hadn't yet mastered the art of selective hearing so I caught pretty much everything.

From what I could tell, Terrance wasn't dumb but wasn't particularly bright either, but then again I was next to the class genius so there was no competition in that case.

Judy was an eager student, and the scary thing about it was just how professional she sounded when she talked. This is English, the BS-your-way-through class, and yet she made it sound like rocket science.

At the end of class I was asked a question-twice since I didn't answer, but didn't respond so the teacher said, "What's wrong with you? Do you know the answer or not?"

Then I told him, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak and remove all doubt."

"Miss Weston, not only are you trying my patience on your first day-leaving a terrible impression by the way-, but you also contradicted yourself just now."

Some of the class let out some muffled laughs and I said, "Touche Mr. Conroy."

After that the bell rang, and we were excused from class for lunch (what can I say? The traffic coming here was terrible… And I took an hour long shower before I came), which for me was basically sitting outside and pretending to study when really I was just drawing random lines on the notebook.

I continued in my boring activity until I heard someone call my name.

"Katy! Katy!" I looked to my right and saw Terrance, smiling widely, "Hey get over here!"

I shook my head, trying to continue focusing on the notebook, but I felt myself being pushed to the right and looked up at the creepy-eyed kid.

"Hey! Get over here I wanna introduce you to some friends!" he slurred slightly as he pulled me to the side of the school building-never a good place to be.

And he shows me, a dark corner of the building where a bunch of twelve year olds smoking joints, and passing around a small bottle of pills like they were chips.

It just made no sense to me, about why or how. I mean, it's kind of understood if it were some high school kids, but these kids were my age! But I remembered Terrance's questionable age, and also started seeing one or two older kids, and I began to understand a bit of the 'how?'

After the accessing the situation, I suddenly was feeling a lot more interested in the intangible notes I had from English, so I tried to walk away only to be pushed back by Terrance.

"Hey come on, you haven't even met everyone yet, we just wanna say 'welcome to school'." He looked over me to somebody I didn't see, "Hey! Dex! Help me out 'ere!"

I turned to see that 'Dex' was Judy Moore! The smart girl from English, was sitting on the side of the building, scribbling something in a textbook and sculling back some pills with a pepsi.

Now earlier I didn't really pay much attention to Judy-or Dex apparently-, but now that I took a closer look, I noticed some strange things about her. Her once messy bun was now undone, with her slipping wire glasses, it now showed her skinny angled face with the sunken in cheeks and shadows under her eyes. Her skin was had a greyish tint, and when you looked closer you could see the vague outlines of her rib-cage through her baggy shirt.

Dex looked over to me, her blue eyes slightly glazed over, and walked over to where Terrance and I were. She held out the bottle of pills in front of me, "Go on, take one, you could use it. I don't get called Poindexter for nothing ya know?" she added in a bitter tone, "At least you can fake some brains."

Offended, I did the next thing that came to mind, which was slap the bottle out of her hand. When I did, some other kids started crawling after the fallen pills and picking them up desperately.

I looked back to Dex who looked pissed off, "Trying to be a martyr huh?" she changed her voice to a high-pitched squeaky one, "'Oh no! She said no! What should we do?!' What do you think guys?" she asked the group who were all laughing like hyenas.

One girl in the back shouted, "Go away!" and the one next to her shouted, "Buzz killer!" and the next one shouted-well, yeah you can see where this goes.

So I shoved passed Terrance (who shouted 'Bitch!' at me as I left) and ran straight for my duffle bag, grabbing it and running inside the school. I went into the cafeteria and read over my schedule for the rest of the day, trying to take my mind off the group from earlier.

When it came time for Science, I was seated in front, with Dex right behind me and Terrance on my far right. Most of the time spent there was listening to the self-important sounding Mr. Gregory rant on and on about how 'evolution is the greatest factor of our time, one of the many things that Science has proven true.'

I had rolled my eyes at this man so much they began to hurt. Evolution was not, by any stretch of the imagination proven true, in fact scientist themselves have said they were proving it to be wrong more and more every day. And this may be my Dad's genes talking, but it was driving me crazy that this man wasn't even mentioning other theories opposing evolution.

Man, this man should have been and math teacher: he adds trouble, subtracts pleasure, divides attention, and multiplies ignorance! I thought.

After getting bored-more so than I already was- I raised my hand when he took a pause.

"Miss Weston, anything to add?"

"Yeah, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that your statements about evolution are incredibly untrue; specifically, how science has proven it to be true, which it hasn't-not even a little bit."

Mr. Gregory laughed slightly, obviously not believing me, "Well, science is a subject which needs stable arguments to back up any claim. So, do you have any evidence to back up your assumption?"

I smiled slightly turning my head in Terrance's direction, "Hey Terrance will you come over here for a minute?"

The kids behind me started laughing-even Dex- as Mr. Gregory and Terrance glared at me in anger.

"Miss Weston, I'm not going to tolerate that in my classroom." He said, turning his back to go to the blackboard.

I muttered, "Your birth certificate was an apology from the condom factory."

*About a half hour later*

I ended up saying that a little too loud, and as one might've guessed was sent to the principal's office. Ms. Winthrop lectured me immensely on my behavior then sent me to Ms. Lark's office, clearly realizing she wasn't getting anywhere with her lecture.

Bitches, drugs, and detention all in the first day, Damon will be proud of me.

So there I was, sitting in the boring little office again, dodging questions from the school counselor and trying desperately not to fall for any of her mind games.

"Katy, how are things between you and Damon? Have you two talked anymore?"

Oh, you mean the psychopath who murdered my Godmother, stole a precious item from me, disrespected the privacy of my mind, took more or less all my sources of defense, ad has the emotional range of that annoying operator voice that randomly calls your house? I thought sarcastically, Well, that's going about as well as you may think. This school is incredibly confusing, it's like Wonderland in Middle School form.

"Fine." I mumbled.

"Just fine? Have you talked to him about the situation?"

I shrugged, "Sure." But I could see in her eyes she didn't believe me, even though it was technically true.

"Katy, what did he say to you that night at the police station? You two seemed to have had a good talk." She said.

I decided not to respond to that question, and she continued, "Did you make any new friends today? There are a lot of nice kids here."

"Nope."

"Have you tried talking to any of them? Like really start a conversation?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm realizing more and more how much I just don't want to deal with people today."

She nodded, unoffended by my answer and asked, "Why don't you want to 'deal with them' so to speak?"

"Because, I don't want to be put in a position to talk about the kind of stuff I tell you." I stated.

"Don't you think it may help? Talking about these things? Not just with me but with others? You may find it's easier to be emotional with someone your own age."

"No, it's not any easier with someone my age then with you."

"Katy, what's the main problem with showing your emotional side with someone?"

"I prefer to keep things private; otherwise everything you say will be contradicted."

"What do you mean?" she asked curiously.

"Like crying, you can never properly cry in front of someone, so I don't like to do so." I said sternly.

"Why not?"

I looked at her, taking a breath to steady myself, "Because you're obligated to stop at some point."

I know that may seem silly, because that should be a good thing-to stop crying, but when it's with or in front of someone it's different.

For me it's almost a trick in and of itself, even if you trust someone enough to cry in front of them in the first place, it feels like you may never be able to trust them when it comes to staying all the way through.

Maybe there are people out there who will stay without question, but for me back then, that's a fear that nagged me all the time when it came to the emotional stuff.

Okay, I realize this isn't my best chapter, it's mostly filler. But I'm trying, next one will be a mix of the end of episode 9 and the beginning of episode 10.

Can'tGuessThis: Katy is based off myself, I don't have an actor in mind for her.

I have a challenge for you loyal reviewers!

I have the main story arks for this story already planned, but I need help in writing the stuff in between for transitions, more specifically the school parts. The challenge is this: I will be accepting about five different long-term school shorts for the story, and anyone whose story is used will get a special mention and PM'd a small tidbit on future story arks. And if the reviews keep coming I may begin to write a riddle for everyone at the end of each chapter for you to guess what happens for a story ark or just the next chapter. It will test your brain skills and knowledge of the TV show.

Thank you all for your wonderful reviews already! I always enjoy reading them! :D