Chapter Three

It didn't take long to find Ariel's and Alice's class in the math building. Before they disappeared with the rest of their ninth grade classmates, Ariel wrapped me up in a big hug.

"Bye, Shane!" she exclaimed before releasing and running off to join Alice.

"That was quick," I mumbled to myself. I thought about my checklist of Disney heroines to boink. So far, Ariel was definitely Prime Candidate No. 1, but she was just so damn young! Too bad Belle seemed so strong and self-respecting. She was a total babe.

"Hmm?" asked Belle.

"Nothing."

"The English and history building is across the way from here," said Belle.

"What's your first period class?" I asked as I followed her out the doors and down the steps leading to the white concrete below. I was like a retarded, loyal puppy. It was possible my pathetic vulnerability might endear me to her…but was she even one of the princesses with an affinity for cute little creatures? I wasn't so little, but I definitely had the social skills of a wild animal, so one could hope.

"English," she responded without looking back at me.

"Oh really?" I asked. "Maybe we'll be in the same class together."

This got her to stop and look back at me in amusement. "I don't think so. I'm in Honors."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course you are."

"What a surprise, right? I practically live in the library so it makes sense."

"Does the school have a nice one?"

"It's okay," she said as we entered a building that almost looked like some kind of castle in its old-timey design. "I actually work part-time over at the city library a couple blocks away. It's absolutely gorgeous, much better than our school library."

"Maybe I should check it out sometime," I said. "I love reading."

Belle paused again as we came to a flat area between the flights of stairs. She narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. "Are you just saying that to try and impress me?"

I tried to look as honest and pure as possible as I returned her gaze. I knew I probably looked as pure and innocent as a fox in a henhouse, but for once, I was actually telling the truth. I hoped it would be easily apparent.

"No, I swear. I really like reading."

"Huh," she said, going over this in her mind. "That's surprising."

Suddenly, as though carried by lightning, inspiration struck.

"Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to judge a book by its cover," I said, mentally forcing myself not to laugh at my hilarious pun. "Pardon the expression. I mean, true beauty is found within, right?"

With that last quip, I knew I was throwing caution to the wind, but I thought it was a worthwhile gamble. In the movie, it took her man what seemed like years to learn that lesson and here I was spouting it off within ten minutes of meeting her? That had to give me serious brownie points. Maybe even all the brownie points.

At any rate, Belle's eyes seemed to light up and she gave me the first real smile I had seen on her face all day. "You know what, you're right. I'm sorry for judging you earlier. Really. My apologies."

"Apology accepted," I said. "I can definitely use all the friends I can find out here."

Still smiling, she extended her hand and I shook it. She had very soft skin. Like velvety, soft velvet. Was that redundant? I don't care. I like velvet. (I don't think I've ever touched real velvet. I'm not even really sure what it looks like.)

"Well nice to really meet you, Shane."

"Likewise."

"Our classrooms are up this way," she said and then darted up the stairs. I followed her up and we came to a hallway that was filled with lockers on either side.

"That's your class," Belle said, pointing at a door with a number '4' on it. "Mine is Number 6, right across from it."

"That's where the smart kids are, huh?" I asked.

"I don't know how much smarter everyone else is but the homework's definitely more difficult."

We both smiled at each other again and I wasn't positive, but I thought that we might actually be having a moment, although I wasn't sure if it was one based on attraction or just friendship. I didn't really care; I was relieved to have somebody who wasn't altogether mentally incompetent actually approve of me.

"Belle!" said a female voice.

We turned to see two people come out of Belle's classroom door. The girl had light brown hair and a modest blue dress on. The boy looked like a total nerd, super skinny and awkward-looking with oversized glasses, a bowtie, and a sweater vest.

"Shane, these are my friends Wendy Darling and Milo Thatch," said Belle. "They're in our Senior Class Council with me. Milo and Wendy, meet Shane."

Wendy smiled politely at me ("Hello") and Milo shook my hand. His palm was sweaty and he looked like he was more than a little insecure by my presence. If he found me to be intimidating, I could only imagine what a living hell his life must have been at a school presumably populated almost entirely by Prince Charmings.

"I'm not, I'm not sure we've…" he stuttered, adjusting his glasses, "…have I seen you before?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I'm new. Today's my first day. I'm still getting a feel of things."

"Oh. Well…here's hoping you like it here. It can take some getting used to."

Wendy turned to Belle, all business. "We have our first meeting at lunch in Mrs. Flora's room."

"Already?" asked Belle. She seemed less than thrilled.

"You can never get started too early!" Wendy said brightly. I noticed she had a cute little English accent to go with her obvious Type "A" personality.

"You guys must really enjoy Class Council," I said.

"It's all right," mumbled Milo.

"Oh, it's the best!" Wendy replied. "It's too bad it's too late for you to try and run for a position. We had all our elections right before last summer."

What a disappointment. Not.

"Darn," I said. "What positions are you guys?"

"Well I'm Class Secretary, which is a position I adore. I love reading, writing, and bookkeeping. It's like keeping track of all of our personal little stories. Milo is Treasurer and Belle is Vice President. She really should be President, though, if you ask me."

Belle was quick to point out, "He didn't."

I grinned. "Who is the Class President then?"

"Eric," muttered Milo, a shadow passing over his face. Just saying the guy's name caused him to stare down at the ground and frown as though the mere thought brought him pain.

Wendy leaned in and whispered to me, "Belle's ex-boyfriend."

"O-kay, I think Shane here has heard all he could ever want to hear about our exhilarating lives as Class Council Officers," said Belle. "Let's let him get to class, shall we?"

Before anybody could respond, however, we heard the loud slamming of a locker. We turned to see a tall, swaggering figure in a tight-fitting Ed Hardy tee approaching down the hall, flanked by several other guys.

"Oh no," moaned Belle.

I recognized exactly who the approaching brute was: Gaston, the incredibly narcissistic and daft douchebag from Beauty and the Beast. What I was now looking at was a younger, somewhat less massive version of himself, with shorter black hair. Still, the guy was yoked, a good 6'3" and a solid 210 pounds, at the minimum. That meant he had me by about four inches and at least 30 pounds. He wasn't a guy I wanted to tangle with, if I could avoid it.

Walking in stride behind him were three seniors about his age. The first two guys were both around my height and solidly built. One was Chinese, with slicked back hair, and the second guy looked to be Native American, with long black hair that reached past his shoulders. They both looked extremely serious. I was guessing they were Shang, from Mulan, and somebody from Pocahontas. What was that one stud warrior guy's name? Coco or something equally ridiculous. I couldn't remember.

The third guy was short, squat, and ugly as sin. He seemed to be Gaston's loyal little toady, LeFou, who I found funny in the film, but realized would probably be way less tolerable in real life.

The crowd of students in the hallways quickly parted for Gaston and his posse like he was Moses leading the Jews through the Red Sea. That reminded me, I wanted to ask Belle or some of the other characters what their views on Jews were (just to see if the anti-Semitic rumors about Disney were true.) What can I say; I have a taste for scandal.

"Hey there, Milo," said Gaston. Without breaking stride, he used one arm to send poor twiggy little Milo crashing into a locker, below which he proceeded to fall in a heap on the ground. Wendy quickly crouched next to him to see if he was all right while LeFou burst out laughing. Shang and the Native American fellow remained stoic and motionless.

Gaston leaned one beefy arm against a locker and loomed over Belle, grinning what he clearly thought was a mirror of seduction, but looked more like an over-muscled rhino trying to force its teeth out through its cleft chin.

"Belle," he purred. "It's been too long."

"What's your problem, Gaston?" she snapped.

The bastard actually seemed perplexed as to what had her so worked up, but after a second or two, his feeble mind managed to figure it out. He looked down at Milo, who was anxiously puffing through an inhaler, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. That was meant to be a little love tap. Milo, you should really get into the gym more often, you have the build of an eleven year old girl."

LeFou burst out laughing again and high-fived his buddy. "Nice one, Gaston!"

I glanced over at him and said, "Well, aren't you annoying."

LeFou looked up at me and frowned, confused as to whom this stranger was that felt brave enough to talk smack to somebody who had clearly ingratiated himself with the jocks.

"I have absolutely no patience for your barbarianism, Gaston," said Belle, "nor do I have even the slightest desire to look at you for longer than a second at a time."

"It's a pretty sexy second, though, huh?" he asked, winking.

She closed her eyes and cringed. "I hate you."

"Come on, Belle," Gaston said. "You can't mean that. I know I'm a little rough around the edges for your taste, but we clearly have a connection."

"Gaston, you have a girlfriend!" she shrieked. "Why are you constantly harassing me?"

Gaston waved this off. "Yeah, but she's not a problem. Just say the word, Belle, and I can make you Prom Queen."

"As if I care at all about such a ridiculous reinforcement of shallow stereotypes enforced by insipid high school hierarchies."

Gaston frowned. "You're throwing a lot of words at me that I don't understand, so I'm going to go ahead and take them as flirtation."

"ARGHHHH!" Belle actually screamed in frustration and I decided it was time for me to step in.

"Okay, look, man, you should probably leave her alone now," I said, holding a neutral hand up and hoping that I would have prodigious Mary-Sue powers of peacekeeping.

Gaston slowly turned to look at me, even more taken off guard than LeFou was that I was willing to stand up to them. I noticed a small crowd of students were forming behind us, anxious to watch the wrath I was about to incur on myself.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"This is my new friend Shane," said Belle. "He's a new student and I'd appreciate it if you left him alone."

"He's obviously not very smart," Gaston said, still looking at me.

"I'm not trying to start anything-" I started to say, still hoping he would want to instantly become my best friend. Maybe he would even become my personal bodyguard.

"Too late for that, bro!" cried LeFou, but Gaston shoved him stumbling back, waiting to see what I had to say.

"-but the girl clearly wants her space, and that's her right as an American, is it not?" I continued. I paused for a second and then said, "Wait, we're in America, right?"

I heard whispers going on behind me. Behind Gaston, Shang leaned in and said something to Coco-whatever-his-name-was that I couldn't make out.

"Let me explain something, butt-muncher," said Gaston. "I don't know how they did things at your old school or who you were there, but here, it's my turf. If you don't wanna find that out the hard way, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and stay away from Belle here."

It was worth a shot. Oh well. I decided it was time to screw it and channel my inner smart-ass.

"Maybe if you took your own advice," I responded slowly, "Belle might like you as much as she already likes me…homeboy."

This got an "OHHHHHH…" reaction from the crowd. (Apparently, some stupid crowd reactions are universal to all different high schools, even those populated with fantasy characters.)

Fury filled Gaston's face and he stepped forward menacingly, but Shang quickly grabbed his arm and yanked him back. Gaston whirled on him but Shang was steely in his gaze.

"We can't have our starting quarterback get in a fight on the first day of school," warned Shang. He lowered his voice and said, "There'll be a time for it later."

The bell suddenly rang and I could see Gaston looked like he really wanted nothing more than to stomp my brains out, but I guess Shang had enough sway to deter him. He contented himself with pointing at me and saying, "This isn't over. You're dead."

Then he whirled around and stomped back down the hallway to another classroom, followed by LeFou and Coco-what's-his-name.

Shang glanced at Belle and me and said, "Your friend's going to get himself hurt."

"Whatever, Shang," snapped Belle. "The other morons, I understand, but you're too smart to enable his stupidity. You know better."

Shang just narrowed his eyes and entered the honors English class while I assisted Wendy in helping Milo up to his feet. He brushed off his sweater vest and looked up at me, shaking his head.

"You're crazy, man. Gaston is a psycho."

"Whatever," I said.

Belle put a hand on my shoulder. "I appreciate you standing up for me, but for your sake, you should probably try to lay low a little. It's only your first day. You don't want to be making enemies."

Unfortunately for me, it was much too late for that.

{Being a Marty-Stu is harder than it looks! In fact, it may be next to impossible for our woefully inept protagonist. Don't forget to Review and give feedback (and thanks to the Guests who have.) As for you, "Troll," next time please be more specific about what kind of cancer this story gave you…I suspect it was cancer of the asshole, because you are one. Lol. Hope to hear from you all again soon.}