Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Only Meep and the teachers are mine everything else belongs to Jim Henson.

Sarah's P.O.V

Mondays had always been Sarah's least favourite day of the week. One it meant that she had to go back to school, Two that she would get a load more homework to do after she had just finished the last lot and Three because it would be a whole five days before the weekend. In short the reason Sarah detested Mondays was because it meant she had to spend five days in hell. The cause of Sarah's hatred to school wasn't because she was bad at her classes; in fact in all her classes she had reasonably good grades, only in English and Drama did she really excel. No it was because she didn't really have any friends there.

When Sarah had been little she had had many friends, they enjoyed playing together, pretending to be fairies or princesses, but as they had become older they had began to grow out of their childish fantasies. Sarah who had helplessly clung onto them was soon shut out of her friend's conversations and eventually there was no one who wanted to hang out with her, all because she preferred fairytales over gossip magazines and had no interest in boys who weren't fictional.

This made things harder for her when her mother had walked out. She had no friends with whom she could confide in. She had let the anger and hurt boil up inside of her causing her to resent Karen and to hate Toby. But after the events of the Labyrinth Sarah had realised that life wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that her old friends shunned her. It wasn't fair that her mum had walked out on her and it wasn't fair that she now had to share her father's attention with Toby and Karen. But now she realised that that was the way the world worked and that it was best to just move on and not dwell on the bad stuff. Besides now she did have friends and she had realised that Toby wasn't half bad.

Despite Sarah's new objective to just take the world as it came, she still felt the same reluctance to get out of bed on Monday morning. She wished she could have spoken to her friends last night. She was going to spend most of the day on her own despite the fact that she would be surrounded by other students. It would have been nice to talk with them but it seemed that she would have to wait till this evening before she could. With a great deal of effort Sarah threw off her duvet and headed for the shower.

-x-

Sarah hummed quietly to herself as she walked down the dreary school corridor to her locker. The weather outside reflected her mood. Grey clouds filled the sky and a few droplets of rain splattered against the windows. Sarah had promised herself that she would try to look on the bright side of things but however hard she tried she couldn't find anything pleasant about double calculus on a Monday morning. She was glad that she had finished her homework the night before; those in the class who had failed to do the assignment were now staying behind at the end of school to do it then.

She reached her locker and began twisting the dial to unlock it.

5,8,2,4... there! She yanked the door open then quickly slammed it shut, eyes wide in shock. The boy who was putting his books away a few doors down gave her a strange look before shutting his own door and sauntering off down the hall. Glancing up and down the hallway Sarah made sure no one was watching her and wasn't in earshot before she took a deep breath and opened her locker again.

"Meep! What are you doing here?" Sarah whispered.

"Hello Lady!" Meep chirped happily, Sarah winced at his loud voice. Quickly she brought her finger to her lips in the universal sign for quite.

"Shhhhh." Sarah said quietly checking to make sure none had heard. The goblin sitting on top of English literature brought a finger to his lips too.

"Why are you here?" Sarah hissed putting her calculus book in next to Meep.

The little Goblin's face fell.

"Lady not pleased to see Meep?" he asked, tears filling his eyes. Sarah immediately felt bad.

"Of course I'm pleased to see you; it's just...Well someone might see you." The Goblin's eyes lit back up.

"Don't worries Lady, Meep won't be seen!" he said in a hushed tone. In the back of her mind Sarah briefly remembered Meep saying that he had been ordered not to let her see him but she ignored it.

"But why are you here wouldn't you prefer to be back at home?" she asked reaching for her History of art book that was on the shelf above Meep.

"Meep was Bored Lady so Meep came here! This place fun"

"You came to school because you were bored?"

Meep nodded smiling up at her. Well that's a first! Sarah thought someone actually finds school fun.

"Sarah?" a Voice behind Sarah caused her to whirl round. Before her stood her Biology teacher, Mrs Bradley.

"Who are you talking to?" she asked

Uh oh! She thought.

"Um...no one." She replied. Mrs Bradley gave her a quizzical once over.

"You should be heading off to class Sarah you wouldn't want to be caught wondering the hall during class without a pass." She said before she walked away.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to her locker. Meep had vanished, which was a good thing; she didn't think it would be easy to explain if anyone saw him. "Oh the creature in my Locker? Yeah he's just a Goblin, one of the minions of the Goblin King who I accidently wished my brother to over the weekend." Yeah somehow Sarah knew that if she told people that story she'd be locked up good and tight.

The bell rang causing her to jump; darn I'm going to be late. She grabbed her Biology book which Meep had be sitting on and hurried off to class.

-x-

Sarah was exhausted by the time she got home. Today had been trying, strange things kept happening in her classes after the first two periods. First in her History of Art Lesson everyone who had shoes with laces had them mysteriously tied together causing the wearers to trip when they got up to leave.

Then in her Biology class everyone's microscopes (except for hers) had black ink around the rim resulting in a large number of angry girls complaining that the ink had spoiled their makeup. Luckily Sarah had not accused of this prank although many grumbled about how unfair it was that she was the only one who didn't get a jinxed microscope.

Then in Gym when they were meant to be playing netball all the balls were inexplicably flat and when the Mr Gonzales decided that they should play Volley Ball instead they found that all the Nets were in knots. By the time they had untangled them the lesson had finished and it was time to go home.

As Sarah walked out of the changing rooms she heard her art teaching speaking to Mr Gonzales about the strange pranks that had been happening all over the school and how it was a complete mystery about who was doing them. It wasn't a mystery to Sarah. She had spent the better part of the day worrying that someone was going to see Meep. She had watched as the boy who had given her the strange look earlier by her locker, opened his own to be greeted with an explosion of what she guessed to be black chicken feathers. She had tried hard not to laugh as he had stood there covered in feathers, but now alone in her room Sarah allowed herself to laugh at the memory. She now knew why Meep had called school fun.

She crossed over to her vanity and sat down, staring absentmindedly at her reflection she wondered whether or not her friends would be able to visit her now, it wouldn't hurt to try.

"Hoggle, I need you!" she whispered. The only thing she saw looking back out of the glass was her own piercing emerald green eyes.

"Ludo? Sir Didymus?" she tried but still the only person in her mirror was herself. She shrugged only a little disheartened, she could try again later.

But when she did try again she still got no response. She tried again that night, then the night after that. She was beginning to get worried. She questioned Meep about it. His response was always that they probably had work to do. She noticed that whenever she questioned him about her friends he would act strangle before he would answer her, he went incredibly still, then he would tremble slightly till she changed the subject. When she asked him if anything was wrong the little Goblin would just shake his head.

By Friday evening she knew something was up Meep was acting stranger than usual, more jumpy.

She crossed over to the bed where he was sitting and crouched down in front of him.

"What is it Meep? Why are you so jumpy?" Meep's bottom lip quivered slightly and then he burst into floods of tears. Sarah leapt back and watched horrified as the goblin took the saucepan off his head and proceeded to hit himself over the head with it.

Sarah quickly recovered and rushed forward and restrained him before he could cause himself any really harm.

"What's the matter?" she asked holding the saucepan out of reach. Meep hurled himself at the floor and continued to weep.

"Meep tell me why you're upset?" Sarah pleaded.

"Meep has something to tell Lady!" Meep sobbed.

"So why are you crying?" Sarah asked puzzled.

"Coz Lady won't like it. Make Lady sad." Sarah froze.

"Meep, does this have anything to do with my friends?" she watched as Meep slowly nodded his head. "Where are they Meep?" Meep wailed louder. "Tell me!" Sarah cried.

"In the dungeon in Castle beyond Goblin City." Meep howled.

Sorry no Jareth P.O.V this time and sorry it took so long to update.