So sorry I took so long again! Here are the next two chapters!

Christine Writer, thanks SO MUCH for your review! You're the first one to do that in a long time! I'm glad you thought I brought Clarissa in the right way, and that I picked a good school name - I had thought both were cheesy. And Conformed was an awesome story - hope you write more WAGW fics:)

Anyhow, as always, read & review!! Delila and all her old lady friends KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!!!!

I now understood why Faye so disliked Mr. Harlison. Sitting here next to her in his class (her first for the day), I got the complete picture.

See, this guy was pretty much an equal mixture of grouchiness and weirdness. Kind of like a mangy, wild chihuahua with one leg. Or something like that.

Let me see if I can describe his image for you. This guy was short and stumpy, with his shirt tucked, like, way into his creased brown pants. He had a super-long frizzy gray beard as well as glasses that hung around his neck on a chain, and when he'd grab at his glasses to put them on his nose, they would get caught in his beard. When this happened, he would make this strange little noise at the feeling he'd get when the hair was pulled. And of course, on top he was bald, though he tried to hide it with a combover.

His personality was no better. He liked to lick his lips and then call on some random girl by their last name (which he'd always mispronounce) and add "Miss" to the beginning to answer some cryptic question or problem he'd written on the board. His voice sounded rather like that stuffy guy on Masterpiece Theater (or maybe it's spelled as Theatre, I'm not sure) who sits in a leather tufted chair and smokes a pipe and acts like he has the world's best taste in movies (I beg to differ).

So anyway, there was Faye with me next to her, and she was just mumbling to herself and trying to scribble out whatever was supposedly being taught, and then...

BAM!

This idiot decides to slam a metal yardstick against her desk and practically give her a heart attack. She snapped up.

"Miss Winthrop!" he bellowed.

Shaken, she looked up at him.

"Sir?"

"Tell me the answer to that problem." he said, pointing to the board, where there was an incomprehensible math problem written in chalk.

Poor Faye examined the board from her seat, squinting her eyes at Mr. Harlison's chicken-scratch writing. She seemed to process the information, but unfortunately took too long to do it.

"Wrong!" he shouted. "Perhaps your friend can tell you. You there!" He pointed his stick in my face. "Can you provide the class with an answer?"

With that, I had no choice but to turn to the board myself. I struggled to read.

Sin...something...cos...something...x square root of y...4pi minus 2...log9...

It might as well have been asking me how to get to Sesame Street using the time-space continuum vortex. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been.

"Uh...seven?"

The grumpy teacher looked as if he would spontaneously combust.

"It is most certainly NOT seven. Why are you not taking notes? Get out your notebook."

"Um...well, see, this really isn't my class, and I'm only going to be in here for one day, and...well, this is all Greek to me..."

"Stop! I do not care what language it is written in, you will write what is on that board and you will LEARN it! Then, perhaps, you might acquire some intelligence!"

I scrambled to get out the notebook I'd brought with me, now becoming extremely sickened by Mr. Harlison's demented, lip-licking soul.

"Mindless exchange student." he grumbled to himself as he turned to walk back to the board. It was the second time today I'd been called mindless. It was really starting to tick me off.

Just then, the incredibly loud ringing sounded once again. Though ear-shattering, it was a welcome sound for me at the time. Faye and I stood up to walk with the rest of the class out of the room, and we couldn't get out of there fast enough.

So once again we were swallowed up in the crowd of schoolgirls. I saw a lot of them staring at me. Some of them had stares of disgust, but most just stared in wonder.

It didn't bother me as much as it could have. I'd been through worse. I'd been scorned before. And besides, I was a New Yorker. Hard to bend, almost impossible to break.

However, looking to Faye, I surmised that she was having a much harder time than I was. And really, her downed expression only got worse.

And it was hard to blame her. When people pointed at me, they pointed at her. When I got leered at, she got leered at. That guilty feeling came back to me again.

And the classes? Well, for the most part, they were all pretty much the same. The teachers were either boring, strict, or both. Usually both. And the subjects were not very easy to understand. Of course, all of Faye's classes were, like, extra high level, so I expected them to be hard. But I imagined that my classes wouldn't be much easier, since being strict seemed to be what this school was all about.

So when Faye dragged me into, oh, about her fourth class of the day, I asked her a question.

"Faye," I asked, "why do you even go to this school? I mean, there are so many snobs! Wouldn't it be more fun to go to a regular school?"

Still being strangely less talkative, Faye looked at me. Then she looked away, and sighed.

"I've asked myself that question, Meghan, hundreds of times. But then I think to myself, Faye, if you left, you'd just be giving them what they want. And it doesn't catch my fancy to give them that satisfaction."

Well, okay then. I was rather expecting something along the lines of, "It will prepare me for college." or "I like to challenge myself." or "It's a place where I can grow to my true potential.".

But frankly, I liked her answer the best.

It was time for the lunch break. Faye led Meghan outside, into a courtyard that was, of course, surrounded by wall.

Nevertheless, it was a beautiful courtyard. There was grass, trees, and lovely little stone benches and picnic tables. There were some flowers as well, and even a water fountain in the very center. Girls were everywhere, walking, gossiping, eating their dainty little meals.

Meghan was once again in awe. At her school, there was just a noisy cafeteria that smelled like salami. And if you didn't want to eat in there, your only other choices of places to sit were on railings, graffitied walls, and the occasional dumpster.

Here, even the food service was ritzy. And the food itself was certainly better as well. When she and Faye had gotten their trays, she was shocked to see that her meal for the day would be sliced roast beef and gravy with corn, and soup on the side. The roast beef even had a garnish on it. A garnish.

And soon, Meghan was reminded of Faye's other reason for staying on at this school - her talkative clones. Immediately after they had received their lunch, the two girls were surrounded by Emily, Samantha, and Bridget, with Ayaka at Emily's side. The chattering began again, and Faye seemed to return to her old self as she chattered along with them.

Meghan smiled to see Faye come back to life. She and Ayaka trailed behind the four chirping birds, making their way to one of the stone tables. They sat, and Meghan hungrily cut into the roast beef - but not before removing the garnish.

While Faye and her friends blathered on, Meghan became lost in thought. About how different everything was. Like how so many things here looked older and more refined. Or how everyone seemed to be far more patient and content with their studies. Or how delicious this roast beef was compared to the infamous mystery meat.

"How about you, Meghan? Meghan?"

She looked up.

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry. I kinda missed what you said."

The enquirer, Samantha, giggled.

"We were talking about summer. I was asking you what you did."

Meghan smirked.

"Oh, nothing really. Just a lot of laying around. Tried to get a tan. It didn't work."

The four girls giggled some more and went on talking. Meghan lost track of their conversation again.

She looked around at her surroundings. The uniforms, the trees, the stone, the fountain. It made her feel lovely, and sophisticated.

Meghan still felt out of place. Very out of place. But she didn't really feel like running off to hide under a rock, never to emerge again.

At least, not yet.