Chapter Three-
"Jeez!" Meg's ghost fumed testily. "You could've warned me if you were going to do that!"
Despite having his face hidden under his hood, and, quite frankly, having no face to speak of, Death still managed to look insufferably smug. "Would you have let me if I did warn you?"
Meg put her anger on hold to ponder that, and then said with an understanding sulk, "No."
"There ya go, then."
Meg took in the panoramic view of a white, cloudy vista that slowly evaporated in places to reveal what looked to be, strangely enough, an earthly-looking college campus.
"Where are we, anyway?" she asked.
"St. Montage University," Death said, "Home of the Fighting Rockys. You're going to get a crash course in being a lawyer by enrolling here."
This took Meg aback. Surely, he was joking,
"But I thought you said that Jennifer and the others didn't have a whole lot of time. It takes years to be a lawyer."
"You're right. It would take years, but not here in St. Montage.
"Really? How?"
"Jeez, kid. Haven't you ever watched any movie from the 80's? All you have to do is look around for the campus big shot. Let him know what you're studying and let him pick on ya. The rest is easy."
Meg scanned faces and clothes as casually and as carefully as any newbie student could, but she just found herself examining all the typical throngs of university scholars one would encounter.
She sighed in frustration. Whatever was going to happen was only going to happen once she found...
'The bully', she thought, snapping her fingers in understanding. A school was a school, and every school had its social strata. She just had to ask the right people.
The right people in question were congregating near the base of a knoll near the side of the main building. Plainly dressed, bespectacled nebbishes and their equally looked-down-upon, eccentric intellectuals, hung together for mutual protection and bonding as they warily perused the campus for signs of disturbance. Meg felt at home immediately, so she knew she hit pay dirt.
"Hey, you look new here," a black student sporting coke-bottle glasses, said to her as she approached.
"Yeah, just transferred from, uh, Dawson's Creek High School in Beverly Hills 90210," she flustered. "Say, can one of you tell me where I could find the really cool kids? I'm thinking about joining them," she said, giving her best eager smile.
The geek collective looked at her with what could only be described as quizzical shock.
"Right over there, by the fountains, but why shame your family for seven generations by consorting with the enemy?"
"What do you mean?"
"They may not look it, but they all sold their souls to be with the coolest guy in school, Brad Alan Chatsworth. He's captain of the swim team, star quarterback, MVP of the basketball team and chapter president of Rho-Epsilon-Sigma. The guy's got juice."
"Then I think I found my man," Meg said as she squared her shoulders and marched in the direction of the throng that gathered around the tall, blond, decidedly arrogant-yet-good-looking preppie.
Brad Alan glanced from entertaining his sycophants to notice the more diminutive Meg saunter up to him.
He wore his cardigan sweater like a cape and his condescending sneer was like a weapon ready to lash out to meet its mark. Meg ignored his appearance and put all her energy into what she knew was a performance on her part.
"Hi, there!" she greeted, long experience allowing her to play every bit the naïve, new student. "I was wondering if you could help me find the Admissions Building? I'm new here."
"I can tell," Brad Alan chuckled.
"Hmm?"
Brad Alan glanced back to his entourage, a joke at the ready.
"Admissions, huh?" he said in his oily, clipped voice as he looked her up and down with anything but appraisal. "Well, if you wanted to admit that you're ugly, you can just tell us here. Save yourself the trip."
Even though she understood that all of this was just a plot device to allow her to ultimately learn through a timesaving montage, she really felt the sting of that barb.
"What?" she fumed, not caring if she broke character.
Brad Alan sighed. The fact that she was, to his way of thinking, unreasonably upset with his obviously astute aesthetics call, was bad enough, but the fact that she was still standing next to him didn't make sense to him. Well, he figure, never let it be said Brad Alan Chatsworth didn't point people in the right direction.
"Hey, I saw you talking to that bunch of dweebs over there. What are you? A Pauper?"
Meg traced the direction of his dismissive nod back to the group of students she had just left. At the same time, she began musing what he meant by the term Pauper. They all seemed well to do enough to afford tuition to a university.
But what about her? Maybe they all had some way of detecting how financially solvent a student was from their clothing, or their posture, or perhaps even their hairstyle. Noticing her own unpretentious ensemble, Meg didn't feel embarrassed, but instead became proud, indignant.
"What? No, I'm not. My family's not the richest in the world, but we get by. Why?"
That admission elicited nothing more than a pitying whisper from Brad Alan to his friends. "Pauper." Sure in his assessment of her, he asked, "So, poor girl, how did you slip in? A scholarship, like them?"
It would be a little while later, after she cooled off a bit, that she would realize that getting upset with the insufferable Mr. Chatsworth was indeed part of the plan. However, now, Meg was in top form. Dealing with similar jack-asses in her life had made her a fighter.
"Yeah, from The School Of Hard Knocks, Prep-Stain. Just because we don't have a gold credit card up our asses, doesn't mean we can't be good lawyers. When we graduate, we'll prove that."
"Yeah?" Brad Alan countered, a little of his bravado stripped when he didn't hear his friends cheer loud enough. "Well, my old man is dean of this school. So you've already lost this fight, Pauper!" He quickly turned to his friends. "Hey, guys! I've heard of a Poor Boy Sandwich, but what's a Poor Girl Sandwich?" he joked.
"Well, that's easy," Meg interjected smoothly with a venomous smile. "You in a three-way with two other guys."
Meg walked, almost skipping, proudly away from that and Mr. Brad Alan Chatsworth, who was fuming in lieu of a come-back, the symphony of low commiserating ohhhs from his cronies, and the cheers and whistles from the so-called Paupers nearby.
Meg turned once more to Brad's group and said dismissively, "Oh, and by the way, Brad, you're no Billy Zabka."
As she headed towards the administration buildings, she said to herself with a dark smile, "Well, that's one way to make friends and influence people."
The tableau ended, the students closest to it began to wander back into the crowds. As the tension of the moment started to wind down, Brad, still burning a hole in Meg's back with his eyes, gathered his friends together in a huddle and said with darker anticipation, "Fellas, I think we need to take that girl down a peg."
Meg had never been in a classroom as large and as circular as the one she was now sorting her books in. Chalk dust-refracted sunlight flowed through large open windows, making the chamber even more airy.
Students had already begun chomping at the bit towards the end of the hour, occasionally glancing at the exits, happy to be free of the class, and Meg couldn't believe she was actually getting the grasp of legal concepts and theories as easily as if she were back at James Woods High studying world history.
The instructor, a portly, elderly man with wispy strands of white, surviving hair and clear, intense eyes, was collecting his personal effects, as well. He stood up from his slight stoop to regard her fumbling by her desk.
"Miss Griffin, are you experiencing a case of ants in the pants from where you are sitting?"
"Uh, sorry, Mr. Kingsfield. I-"
"That's Professor Kingsfield, you mouth-breathing little nobody," he coldly corrected.
"Oh, uh, sorry, Professor," Meg said, already chagrined from being the odd girl out so soon in this strange, hyper-accelerated school year. "I was checking to see if I still had my primer on court procedure with me."
"My class will be over soon, to the delight of your fellow students, but not to worry, I will back tomorrow for an encore, if you wish," he said dryly.
"Yes, sir. I mean I really want to learn the ins and outs of being a lawyer. You have no idea how important that would mean to me," Meg gushed forth, now realizing what a boob she was making of herself amidst the light chuckles of her peers.
She was still thinking in terms of real-time, as well as this impossibly edited one. The doubts that she was quite possibly wasting precious time here made her nervous and worried inside. Thoughts that she could fail Jennifer, that she was losing the battle already, made the serpent of fear in her gut twist and twitch. To Kingsfield, he just wanted to make an example out of this strange and possibly bothersome student.
"Why, Miss Griffin? To become filthy rich? To become a…mover and a shaker, as it were? The importance of being someone's counsel can never be stressed enough. It's not to be a launching pad to superstardom. Just because you're here on scholarship, doesn't mean that you can treat this class lightly."
How does everyone know my folks don't have that much money? she wondered before answering in earnest, "That's the last thing I want to do Mister, er, uh, Professor Kingsfield. That's why I want so badly to be a lawyer. People's lives are at stake."
Kingsfield seemed to take pause at that curious statement.
"Really, young lady? What an interesting outlook on this profession. Which people's lives are at stake that you know of?"
She thought about Jennifer and the other souls waiting for help, but what blurted out of her mouth because of that, caught Meg by surprise. "Anybody who needs help. You know, people I…might not know anything about, and who can't help themselves."
The teacher favored her a quizzical look, trying to read her expressions. He was having a hard time trying to see if this was a risky joke on his expense or not. The seeming honesty mixed with tension in her voice was making it difficult.
"Hmm, there isn't much money in something so altruistic as that, Miss Griffin," he baited. "Are you sure you have the right career mapped out? Do you plan to work pro bono for the rest of your life?"
"Not very realistic, don't you think?" she countered, steadying her breathing. Being shot down by teachers was old hat to her, but she was determined to let this windbag know that she was serious and for him to back off. "But this isn't about money. Sometimes money can't help these people. It's not even an issue."
The students, the ones who weren't playing with their hair or talking amongst themselves, sat spellbound by the duel that was being waged.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Kingsfield called out in mock-surprise, making Meg's face flush pink. "I daresay that we have the makings of an ethical champion in our midst. Would you like free legal counsel with your Happy Meal?" The laughter that came was expected, he knew. He looked back at her.
"Miss Griffin, money may not be the issue, that's true enough, but, then again, there is nothing wrong with acquiring remuneration for services rendered, either," he misinterpreted, reveling in his pomposity. "This is not a school for martyrs. Who he or she represents should have no reflection on whether or not said lawyer makes money. The ethical lawyer can get paid for what he or she does as much as the corrupt. He or she would certainly have deserved it, and in this class, you will learn how to do that the old fashioned way…you will earn it."
Meg scoffed. She didn't come all this way to be lectured and made a cautionary tale of. "Well, hopefully, I'll have understood how to be a good lawyer the old fashioned way…I'll have learned it," she mocked.
Now it was Kingsfield's turn to look like an indignant beet. Looking up at the students' amused faces was taking needed wind from his blustering sails. He stood straight, his chest puffed up like some perturbed species of bird, and he challenged her.
"You, my dear will not graduate this school, let alone pass my class, because you lack the discipline. You haven't yearned it."
The students oohed at the comeback as Meg let her bookbag fall to the floor and grasped the top of her desk, eyes focused on Kingsfield in a stubborn glare.
"Don't be so sure about that table, chances are, I'll have turned it," she shot back.
"If a law degree's in your hand, in good conscience, you should've burned it," he countered.
"If it turns into a pile of ash, I'll have proudly swept it up and…urn-ed it."
Everyone was momentarily perplexed at Meg's seeming use of the word earned after his or her teacher had just used it last, until she smugly spelled it out…
"U-r-n-e-d."
The students, impressed by the clever turn of phrase, rewarded Meg with a burst of murmuring applause and wondered what Kingsfield would say to top that.
Kingsfield's mind was buzzing with what to say, scowling more in thought than to what this cheeky girl was doing. He thought for a second to simply stall until the bell rang and class was dismissed, but he and, worst of all, they, would know that he failed this little challenge Meg threw at him. He would give as well as he got.
"Take some Maalox for your gut, child. Your first case will have churned it."
"Ha! I'll stay on that case, until the judge has adjourned it," she fired back.
"Your disbarment trial's due. Your mistakes will have concerned it."
"Yeah, and then they saw my true greatness. Yes, the court easily discerned it."
"Really? In a battle of wits, my mind seized yours and then, wholeheartedly, interned it," he said slyly.
"My mind is much more flexible, Teach. I've outwitted you and returned it."
Back and forth the two combatants went, the students' heads turning from Meg to Kingsfield as though they were watching a tight game of tennis.
"Miss Griffin, on the road to excellence, I have sojourned it," Kingsfield said, actually trying to get through to her despite the rhyme.
"So?" Meg retorted, noticing his tone and responding back to him in kind. "Of the road of mediocrity, can't you see that I have spurned it?"
The teacher heard that clearly. A declaration if ever there was one. Maybe she did have what it took.
The bell rang suddenly, ending the match and calling the students to the exits like sirens to the sea, all thoughts of this game of one-upmanship forgotten.
The class was emptied by the time Meg set her bookbag on her back and was about to leave up the aisle. The sound of Kingsfield calling for her halted her steps.
"Yes?"
"Miss Griffin, I need to understand something," he said. "You said that it was very important that you learn law from me. Why, exactly? There are other instructors you could have chosen from within the parameters of the school system."
Meg let her guard down and answered. "I asked around. People said that you were the toughest teacher here. They also said that you were the best. I need the best, so I came to you. I wasn't lying when I said that people's lives were at stake, and I don't know if you'd believe me if I told you the whole story, but I really need you to teach me everything you can. I promise, I'll learn everything you can give me. It's that important."
For what seemed like the first time today, Kingsfield let out a sigh and relaxed. She had drive, this one, he thought. A little rough around the edges, but can be taught.
"Alright, Miss Griffin. I will take you up on your offer. I will teach and you will most assuredly learn."
"Thanks, Professor Kingsfield," Meg said, a smile beaming from her face as she could actually, impossibly, hear in her mind, the cueing-up of music, the oh-so-familiar sign of a montage, a blessed montage, finally coming up. "You won't regret it."
It didn't take long for Meg to experience the phenomenon firsthand as time began to become compressed and moments became more cinematically pronounced and musically synced, as Meg's college life began to flow from one "scene" to another…
Meg continuing to go to class, the pile of books in her vicinity noticeably bigger.
Meg makes friends with The Paupers.
Meg enjoying her first dorm room, and she and some female Paupers try to "realistically" fend off a panty raid.
Meg and some Paupers enjoying the local coffee house scene and later, her enrolling in a secret sorority, where she is properly initiated by having to streak through campus, and instead, accidentally running through a charity alumni ball.
Meg still studying, this time in Study Hall.
Meg and some Paupers sneaking around the campus at night, trying to solve a mystery as Mystery Inc. Meg is dressed as "Velma".
Meg is the new drummer and singer in a college band.
Meg going through a Goth phase.
Meg going to a rave with music provided strangely by Perry Mason, showcased as "DJ P. Mason", getting drunk and waking up the next day in bed next to an equally hungover Brad Alan.
Meg and the rest of the class enjoying lessons provided by substitute teacher Matt Murdock. Matt mistakenly writes on the classroom window, thinking it's the blackboard. Meg is about to warn him of this, when Matt puts too much pressure on the glass and his arm goes through the window, cutting it badly.
Meg studying even harder, eventually becoming Kingsfield's teaching assistant. One day, she's writing on the blackboard when two G-men come into the classroom and interrupt her class. After a short chat, she goes over to the professor's desk, pulls out a large, old bible, opens it and shows the men a picture of the Ark of the Covenant in use.
Meg having her first mock trial, defending Seth MacFarland against Matt Groening and then vice-versa, as prosecutor.
All the while, to the outside observer, superimposed calendar months flutter to the ground, as whole years pass by…
Then one day, in class, Professor Kingsfield stood in front of his well-worn wooden desk and said to the class, "Seniors, the final exams will be held soon. This will make up a significant portion of your grade and it is most likely that this will determine whether on not you will graduate."
His eyes scanned the students' face, watching for the expressions that would tell him if anybody was worried because they hadn't studied or if others were cool and confident about the news.
"Do well," he said before class was dismissed.
Meg sat in the crowded cafeteria waiting for the rest of her friends as they stood in line to get their food, served by the elderly attorney Matlock in a hair net. It was then that she noticed the familiar black robe of Death flowing between the chatting, eating multitude, heading to her table.
"Hey, Death."
"How are you, kid?" he asked conversationally as he sat across from her. "I heard that little exchange you and your teacher had earlier. What was that, dueling Dr. Seusses?"
Meg scoffed good-naturedly. "Whatever. Anyway, thanks for the advice about Brad Alan and the Billy Zabka line. That montage worked like a charm."
"No problem, but I came here to let you know that we don't have much time here. A little while longer so you can take your test and see how you came out, and then we're outta here."
"Okay," Meg said before taking a bite of her lunch. "I think I'm going to miss this place when I get back home. It certainly gave me something to think about, career-wise."
Now it was Death's turn to scoff good-naturedly. "What? You thinking about being a lawyer full-time? Meg Griffin, Metaphysical Attorney."
Meg blushed slightly at such a grand, if not strange, occupational description.
"Well, maybe not all of this flying around and stuff, but I can see how this could be a worthwhile thing for me to get into someday, y'know?"
Her thoughts of the pride and prestige of a legal practice started to fade at the sight of some of her friends, The Paupers, approaching her, their faces worried and sober.
"What's up, guys?" Meg asked. "What's wrong?"
A blond girl with glasses spoke in urgent, low tones. "Meg, we just came from the girls' dorm. We were looking for you when we saw your dorm room. You better come with us. It's not pretty."
Meg got up, leaving her lunch and a concerned Death at the table, as she followed the knot of people out of the exit and into the campus daylight.
The crowd of female students, teachers and security that clustered around the threshold of Meg's dorm room gave Meg a moment's pause before she gathered her pluck and maneuvered past them all into the room.
She stopped ahead of them in shock to see the room destroyed, her paperwork scattered and her books still burning in some areas of the room. Her mattress was slashed deeply and left on the floor, her goldfish bowl was smashed and its occupants lay dead beside it. Graffiti dominated the walls with crude, ugly words and pictures, noticeably a sentence written large that says, "Pauper, don't preach…"
One of the teachers came up to Meg from behind, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay? Don't worry, we'll find out who did this, Meg," she said. "I'll take you to Campus Security so you can file a report and then you can come back here, if you like."
From the teacher's position, she couldn't see Meg's face fall with sad resignation. Meg said nothing as she walked away from the crime scene.