Here is another "Guidance" story! This one is from "Crazy Ponnie". Enjoy!

...

"Jade," Lane said sternly.

Jade rolled her eyes but finally looked up from her manicure - which had seemingly been absorbing all her attention for the last two minutes - and in a exaggerated polite voice asked, "What's the matter?" If she had had eyebrows, Lane knew they would have been arched into faux surprise at his tone.

"Why did you shave Cat's head?" he asked, although he already had the assumption of revenge. After all, her shrieks of rage and threats in Cat's direction had been hard to ignore this morning when she came to school. From what he heard, Cat had accidentally waxed all of Jade's eyebrows off the previous evening at an ill-fated slumber party. Cat, after seeing what she had done and being unable to appease her friend's wrath, had fled until mutual educational classes had necessitated their close proximity. There had been plenty of screaming between the two girls today - Cat's side full of apologies and fear for her life, while Jade's screeches were similar to that of a banshee hellbent on retribution.

Jade looked smug at his assumption of guilt. "I did no such thing."

"Please, Jade - it's been a long day and I saw it for myself," Lane sighed, sitting across from her. He had wanted to leave ten minutes ago, but he had happened to run into the scene of Cat sobbing about her lost hair and Jade smugly walking down the hallway to watch the disaster unfold. "Did you know that shaving someone's head without their consent can be seen as assault?"

"I didn't shave her head," Jade repeated her assertion. There was no oversell or guilt in her voice.

Just when I thought we were making progress, Lane lamented to himself. Still, he wanted to model unconditional positive regard, so he kept a neutral face and waited. Jade liked regaling him with her adventures on the days when she was not shut up like a clam, so he hoped that if he waited, she would tell.

She seemed to be waiting for him to ask her more questions. When he did not, she quickly became bored. After all, for everyone else, school was out, and although she may be more loathe to admit it than he was, she wanted to go home.

"Fine! You want to know? Cat fell asleep in class, and the teacher didn't notice. After class, I waited for everyone to leave and then slipped a bald cap onto her head. I snipped up a wig so that she'd see hair on her desk and think it was all cut, but I bet they've already figured out what happened by now. She got startled, so it's fair now, because for the record she actually took my eyebrows fully off. So can I leave now?"

Lane squinted at her suspiciously. "How was she sleeping so soundly that she didn't notice you put a bald cap on her?"

"Easy. I overheard Robbie before class telling Cat that she shouldn't be eating melatonin gummies as a snack - which, why do her parents sent her to school with melatonin gummies? Maybe you should follow up with them on that flawed logic on how that would fix Cat's issues. Anyhow, at that point I figured it'd be easy to come up with a plan once Cat was asleep."

"How should I know that you didn't give her the melatonin?" Lane asked.

"Why would I lie to you?"

"Because I'm an authority at your school, and you might be afraid to tell me the truth?" Lane posited.

Jade shrugged. "There's really no point in lying to you most of the time. I only do things at school I don't mind the consequences of. Usually the only issue is that they make me talk to you, and I assume you don't think that's too bothersome since you force me to meet with you each week anyway."

"It's not me forcing - it's a part of a plan..."

"Blah blah blah. The main thing is, I'm not lying. You can check Cat's head yourself."

Just then there was a knock on the door. Jade had a self-satisfied smirk as a now overjoyed Cat - with an abundance of pink hair tumbling over her shoulders again - announced that Robbie had helped her realized that it was just a hyper-realistic bald cap on her head.

"See? Told you I didn't shave her head," Jade said in triumph.

"Torturing your friends by tricking them into believing you did still isn't proper behaviour," Lane said, but he was mostly too relieved that she had not actually shaved Cat to worry too much about her elaborate prank. After all, her own perturbed emotions at being waxed clean of eyebrows had to at least be acknowledged.

"I'll say sorry to her if you let me leave," Jade bargained, the edge of her mouth quirking.

Lane raised an eyebrow. Jade tried to look repentant, but he could see right through her. Still, he did not have it in him to scold her too much. Although the students did not dare mock her to her face, he had seen her tearing some sticky notes off of her locker. Even though she had crumpled them up and pretended like they were not important when he had asked, suspicious of bullying, he had fished them out of the trash after she stalked away.

"Being a vampire wasn't creepy enough? Now you're being a zombie?" one asked, and the other notes had followed in a similar vein.

She had experienced a long, hard day, and he did not want to make it any worse than it had to be.

"Cat, come in here," Lane called from the door to the office.

Cat skipped into the room, and hesitated a couple feet from Jade - far enough to be out of the immediate danger zone.

"Hi, Jadey," she said in her hesitant baby voice.

"Don't use that voice," Jade directed with long-suffering patience in her tone. "You're a big girl, Cat."

"Are you still mad that I took your eyebrows off?" Cat whimpered.

"I scared you. We're even," Jade said, resigned.

"Yay!" Cat cheered, rushing over and plastering herself to Jade with a signature Cat Valentine hug. Lane watched as Jade's rough demeanor melted and she gently patted Cat's shoulder.

"I can fix your eyebrows for you with make up, if you want," Cat offered.

"Make up!" Jade shouted. "H... how did I not think of doing that myself this morning?! I could have saved myself a day of embarrassment!"

"You forget to think when you get mad," Cat said consolingly. Jade rolled her eyes, but Cat smiled contentedly. "Want to have another sleepover tonight?"

Jade sighed. "If you insist."

"I insist!" Cat cheered, grabbing Jade's hand and pulling her to the door.

"Am I good to go?" Jade asked in a bored tone, pausing near the door even as Cat bounced up and down, trying to tug her with her.

"No more extreme pranks?" Lane asked.

"No more that'll involve you?" Jade bargained.

Lane sighed - a very loooong sigh.

"Go home, West. Try to be good."

"Have a good weekend, Alexander. I'll see you for some reason next week," Jade said, shooting him an obviously false charming smile before letting Cat drag her off.

Lane ran a hand through his hair. Might as well enjoy it before Jade West and her gang of friends made him go bald for real.