Brittany overheard and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to contain her automatic rage at the memory. There was something almost deadly about Lela's babble... What was she on about?

     Lela was talking about Sam, her favorite subject. "And with the Firebird you get a pretty big back seat. Not like Kevin's Jeep, with all those stupid switches under the seat. I accidentally kicked under there once and turned on that electric cooler he's got. It ran out the car battery and we got stuck way out in Clarke County-

     "What!" Brittany felt faint. Kevin had just installed the cooler, with its under-seat switch arrangement a month ago. Flushing, she realized that he'd cheated again. Abandoning Lela in mid-word, Brittany turned and walked over to the two football stars.

     "Kevin? Can we go? I'm not... feeling good." She was trying to hold her temper. The whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that she was trying to ration her drug supply. It just wasn't working.

     Kevin scowled, still stinging from Sam's expert needling. "Again? Awww, Babe, we just got here!"

     Brittany's fist's clenched and her features hardened into an all too familiar mask of rage. "You big jerk!" It came out as a scream of pure hatred.

     Kevin backpedaled, eyes widening. "Oh, shit! Babe-

     She moved so fast that he never even glimpsed the blow that felled him.

     Daria sat in the car with Tom, scowling. He'd done it again, jumping in to refuse his mother's offer of tickets to a dance. He hadn't even bothered to consult her.

     "C'mon, Daria. Those dances are... no fun." It was the simple truth. He hated them, like a dental appointment. He looked at her, and winced. When was he going to learn? She didn't like him making decisions for her, without asking her. He'd blown it again. Daria wouldn't be taken for granted.

     "How would I know? I've never been to one." They'd never really been anywhere in his world, formally. Was he ashamed to be seen with her or something? Daria felt a terrible pang of self-consciousness as she looked down at her drab outfit and shapeless jacket.

     She flushed and with an iron will pulled herself out of an anxiety attack. It distressed her that he could get past all of her defenses and hurt her so easily. What made it so much worse was that it wasn't even deliberate. What could he do if he was angry? It didn't even bear thinking about.

     "I'm sorry." He sighed. "I'm not exactly a whiz at this relationship thing, either. Do you really want to go to the dance?"

     She glared at him. What did he mean by either? "With you? Sorry, I'm going to be polishing my spoon collection."

     He swallowed. He was in deep do-do. "I never told you when it was."

     "It's a huge collection." Daria folded her arms and looked away, out of the side window. She didn't want to be with him, if he was ashamed of her. She needed to get away and deal with her feelings before she lashed out or did something really stupid. Daria relished her integrity, gritty as it was, and he was threatening it.

     They pulled up to her house.

     "Daria wait- Tom winced as Daria left without a word.

     Tom drove home, upset. He often got mad at her, but he could never stay that way. All he could think of was the way that she smiled, a secret, shockingly attractive and wholly unexpected smile that only came out for him.

     Turning into his street he sighed. It all disgusted him, in a way. He'd never groveled before in his life, until he'd met Daria, but now he might as well just buy some kneepads. Where had his self respect gone? Why was he so... obsequious? What had happened to him? What if she didn't come around? Acid churned in his stomach and he groaned.

     Quinn Morgendorffer sat at her makeup table, brushing her hair, thinking. She was the epitome of elegance and beauty, as near to perfect as it was possible to get, physically, but that wasn't the problem. She sighed, wondering what David was doing. She missed him. He'd talked to her about things and made her summer so interesting. She fought back tears, once again meeting her reflection's hurt looking eyes. "All dressed up and no place to go."

     She sat down her coarse brush and picked up her fine hairbrush. David had jinxed her, opening her eyes to the world beyond high school and to a different type of relationship not based on status. All of her usual dates were so pointless and boring, now. Why hadn't she ever noticed how stupid they really were?

     If Quinn heard one more football story, she'd have to kill someone. She looked into her own eyes, in the mirror and wondered how Daria coped. Depth just made you crazy. Ever since David referred to her friends as losers, she just couldn't see them as anything else. Quinn hated the thought of being a loser among losers. Every day, Sandi and Tiffany were a little more irritating and irrelevant to everything that mattered. And Stacy... well, she didn't even want to go there.

     Quinn cocked her head, considering. Sure, she liked to look good. It was a way to get what she wanted. Her looks were her personal power and she liked having a lot of that sort of power.

     Frowning at her reflection, she set her brush down. That was the problem. She had power and no one to use it for. Who was she supposed to go out with? Lawndale didn't have very many good guys. Daria was just too lucky.

     Plucking an errant eyebrow hair, Quinn sighed. Daria wasn't exactly popular, but she could see that Daria wasn't a loser. Not by David's definition, anyway. Daria's bewilderingly bad attitude was beginning to make a chilling sort of sense. Quinn swallowed, willing tears away. She couldn't bear to be less than perfect, and this was like suddenly discovering a hideous blemish on your nose that everyone has been laughing at, all along.

     The phone rang and Quinn picked it up, happy to have something to distract her from her ongoing identity crisis. "Hello?"

     "Hello, is that Quinn? This is Jodie Landon." Jodie rolled her eyes. She wanted to talk to Daria, and now she had to go through the whole cousin's au pair's slave-girl rigmarole. Sometimes she just wanted to slap the cosmetics right off of Quinn's painted little head.

     "Hi, Jodie." Quinn leaned back. Jodie was different. She seemed to mix easily with every clique, even the really exclusive ones, without really being in one. Maybe she could learn something, here.

     Jodie suppressed a sigh. "Is Daria there? I need her help and its kind of an emergency."

     Quinn looked in the mirror, inwardly debating. "Sorry, Jodie. She went somewhere with Tom. Maybe I can help. What's the matter?"

     Jodie raised her eyebrows in shock. "You? Help? Okay, then. We have a study buddy program with the Lawndale middle school, for grade school students who need a little help. The trouble is that our original tutors were all football players picking up extra credit, and they were doing more harm than good. The middle school ended the program when they discovered that Ms. Li was just using it as a way to help the most academically deficient players maintain their eligibility. The kids were left in the lurch and now we want to make amends."

     Quinn shrugged. Her dating possibilities were pretty limited, so she had plenty of time, even with her intensive studying. David was supervising her by email, and she desperately wanted to impress him. "I'll help, for the credit." Quinn needed the credit. She had plans.

     Jodie coughed, to cover her gasp. "That's a little bit... different for you, Quinn. It's an hour or more after school, three days a week. These kids need help with academic subjects, not fashion advice."

     Quinn laughed. "Well, I'll just have to give them both. Look, I'm no pedagogue, but I got a tutor and worked really hard, all summer. I can do this, Jodie."

     "Alright," Jodie said, doubtfully. "I'll sign you up. We start Monday, after school, with an orientation for our study buddies. Do you think that you can get Daria?"

     Quinn smiled. "I doubt it. My sister's busy with Tom. Besides, she already has a middle school study buddy. This kid named Link comes over and hangs around all the time. But I'll ask."

     "Really? Well, I'll put her down. If she's already doing it, she might as well get the credit." Jodie smiled, pleased. Quinn seemed to be emerging from the brat pack, finally admitting that Daria was her sister. Maybe she would turn into someone worth knowing.

     Tom Sloane nervously reread the research material that he'd collected. He knew that Inland Biotronics was going places. His father, the current managing director of Grace, Sloane and Page -- the current legal form of the old Sloane Foundation -- had assigned him the task of investigating the world of biotechnology. Over the last year, his youth and his apparent lack of guile had enabled him to make contact with most of the major scientific players, using the pretence of soliciting guidance in the task of selecting a biotech career. Each contact had led to another and now he had an insider's view of the state of the industry. They had all been bursting with the suppressed desire to spill their secrets, and most had dropped hints that he could put together. Combining his interviews with extensive reading, he had glimpsed an enormous opportunity for profit.

     Tom gathered his material. He was presenting to the full committee and would be recommending heavy investment in several emerging companies. It wasn't his first time at bat before the full committee, but he was nervous. It was silly, consisting as it did of his father, his uncle, Solly and nine directors that handled Sloane money. He had been working with most of them since he was ten years old and respected them all, save for his uncle. Straightening his tie, he stood, heading to the boardroom.

     "Biotech is the future, Tom, but that's a little too far out there. It's a matter of timing. We're looking for a five-year horizon for returns. Right now computer technology is still where the smart money goes." Angier smiled at his son. "That doesn't mean that we should stop watching, though. I agree that we need to start investing, but I just don't think we should enter the field on that scale, yet."

     Thorton Sloane jumped in with his usual blather. "Tom, you're a nice kid, but still wet behind the ears. The Asian stock market is where it's at, now! China's the place to invest. It's got a billion consumers that-

     Angier halted his idiot brother's runaway train of thought. "Thorton, Tom's youth isn't the question here and we aren't talking about the Asian stock market right now." Or ever, so long as he had his way, thought Angier.

     "Oh. All right. Well, I'm against it." Thorton, his brilliance once more ignored by his stodgy brother and the plodding hirelings of the board went back to planning the eviction of his old mistress so that he could install his new mistress in the convenient downtown apartment. He liked it there because it was so close to his club.

     Tom couldn't help his angry flush. They weren't listening to what he said, only reacting to his youth. He knew that he was right.

     Angier looked around the table. His brother wasn't paying much attention, but that was normal. "What do you gentlemen think? Reese?"

     Reese Winters, a technology analyst, shook his head. "I disagree, Angier. Tom's nailed it. One of these companies is the Microsoft of the twenty-first century. I'm buying in personally, no matter what the Sloane Foundation does."

     Angier nodded, thoughtfully. "Solly?"

     Solomon Gold, overseas portfolio director and senior fund manager for the big-ten firm of Berkshire-Morton nodded his agreement. "I think that we should throw some mad money into this, Angier. Tom has what amounts to inside information, gathered legally. We'd be fools to ignore it."

     Angier nodded. He had a terrible headache, and it was hard to think clearly. "Thank you, Solly." He looked at the newest member of the board. "Martin?"

     Martin Lords, a Wall Street toiler of similar eminence was of a similar opinion. In the end, Angier and Thorton were the only holdouts. Visibly shaken by the fact that he'd agreed with his brother, Angier passed the boards resolution to put one hundred thousand dollars into biotechnology.

     At the end of the meeting, Solly held Tom back until the others had left. "We have to go with our own instinct sometimes, Tom." He glanced after Angier and Thorton. "I just hope this doesn't turn into a problem for you. It's too bad that your father doesn't get along with your uncle."

     Tom shrugged. His uncle was an idiot, but at least he had some idea that that was the case. He always voted with Angier. If it wasn't for his great-grandfather's carefully constructed Sloane Foundation requiring that all direct male descendents serve on the board once they married, Thorton Sloane wouldn't have been allowed within fifty yards of a board meeting.

     Tom trusted Solly, but didn't like speaking of family divisions before outsiders, even those as close as Solly. "It'll be alright, Solly. My father is just having a bad day." He smiled. "His anniversary is coming up next month and he still doesn't know what to get my mother."

     Solly smiled warmly, sensing the evasion. He wished that his son Levi was as deftly intelligent as Tom. "Kay is indeed a lucky woman." He cleared his throat. "That was an excellent presentation and fine work. It reminded me of your grandfather, Drummond."

     Tom smiled with real pleasure. "Thanks, Solly. I just hope that I can be as half as good as he was, someday."

     Solly raised his eyebrows. "Does this mean that you've decided to make a career in finance after all?" Tom had been lukewarm about it since he'd started at the age of thirteen.

     Tom took a breath. "Yes. I think so. I like it well enough. I plan to work at one of the big brokerage firms for a while though, after college." He wasn't hot about it, but someone had to do it. He was the only Sloane other than his father that had any aptitude to handle the family money. If the foundation ever went broke, it wouldn't be pretty to see the Sloanes trying to find work.

     Solly nodded. "That sounds like a fine plan, but as far as I'm concerned you've already earned your spurs. You're young, but you've spent years apprenticed to the best in the world. What can a college professor teach you? Call me if you ever get tired of wasting your time in school and want to start with Berkshire-Morton." Solly never hesitated to poach talent when he could, and Tom Sloane had a superabundance of talent.

     Tom blushed. "Thanks, Solly. I'll keep it in mind. I'd better go make sure that Dad doesn't kill uncle Thorton while they wait for their drivers."

     Solly watched him go and fervently hoped that he wouldn't end up with the competition. He would be taking Tom's analysis straight back to his own company's research department. Being an outside director for the small but prestigious Sloane Foundation had its perks.

     Janet Barch sat across from Timothy O'Neill and smiled at him. The small Italian restaurant was a reasonably priced family place, but had several intimate nooks. They usually ate there on Saturdays.

     "Janet..." O'Neill swallowed, and froze again.

     "Spit it out, Skinny!" Janet gave him a fond look. He was passive to the point of being a jellyfish, but after being married to a completely evil Neanderthal, he was just what the doctor ordered.

     "Well." He twisted his napkin, nervous to the point of fainting. "It's just that I've been staying at your house for a long time now..."

     He was leaving. Janet felt a pang of dread. "Go on," She said, tightly.

     "I..." O'Neill turned a bluish color.

     "Tell me!" Janet felt sick, then managed a smile. If she shouted again, he might run.

     "I just... want to pay some share of the household expenses." O'Neill looked like a man standing on the plank, with sharks on one side and pirates on the other.

     Janet sat, mouth open, totally shocked. Once again, he'd surprised her with his atypical behavior. Men were supposed to be leeches, living off of the woman's toil.

     Timothy looked at her, anxiously. "Please, Janet, I'm not trying to take over your house, I just- He gasped as she whipped over to his side of the booth and squeezed the breath out of him.

     "Great! We'll shut your apartment down next Friday! How much time do you have left on the lease?" She looked at him, intently.

     O'Neill tried to inhale, but couldn't. She had shocked him to the core. Janet finally slapped him on the back, freeing his lungs.

     "Ah." He wheezed, then swallowed. "Six months."

     "We'll have to see if we can sublet it." Barch smiled at him, and decided on a spring wedding, with a honeymoon in Venice.

     Jane stood, gazing at her canvas. She was good. She was ten times better than the best of the poseurs that she'd met at the art colony. The trouble was the lack of any real appreciation for art out there in six-pack land. The whole thing was controlled by a handful of rich snobs and art dealers, out to get laid.

     She sighed and plied her brush. Realism sucked. She was turning into Daria. Her goal was as unreasonable as Trent's. The unpleasant truth was that the art world was as big a scam as the music industry. Unless she was willing to put out, in plenty, or had an uncle somewhere with an influential gallery, she could pretty much forget about being a famous artist. She would probably end up as an art teacher, doing life in some lame suburban high school somewhere, just like Defoe.

     Jane threw down her brush, sat on her bed and put her head down between her knees trying to deal with her intense nausea. She wished that Trent were still around to talk to. Even her mother would be good at this point. Jane had never been left on her own for so long before and the isolation was depressing her.

     Trent had always been there for her, day in and day out, but now that she had turned eighteen, he was spending more and more time on the road, sleeping in his car and taking every paying gig that he could get.

     It never occurred to Jane to wish for her father's presence. Vincent was a stranger. She shivered, wondering if this was what a nervous breakdown felt like.

     There was a knock at the door. Jane staggered over, feeling nausea combine with relief, and stuck her head out of the window. "Come on in, Dar- Urrrp!" Jane collapsed across the windowsill, eyes closed, groaning, unable to believe what she'd just done. She shivered and pried her eyes open, but Daria was nowhere in sight.

     Daria had jumped away just in time to avoid the rain of vomit. "Jane!" She pushed through the door and took the steps, two at a time.

     Jane rose to her feet as Daria entered the room. "God, I'm sorry. It just happened-

     Daria touched the back of her hand to Jane's forehead. "Jane, you're burning up. Do you want to go to the doctor?"

     "No." Jane collapsed back onto the edge of her bed. "I was fine, this morning."

     "Well, you're not fine now." Daria looked around the room and began capping paint tubes and cleaning up the mess. From what she'd seen, the whole house was unbelievably filthy. It looked like Jane had been sleeping on the couch, downstairs. "You need to get to bed, Jane."

     "Uhhhh. God, I feel awful." Jane swallowed, gestured helplessly at the mess, then lurched off for the bathroom at a run.

     Daria cleaned the room up, excavating the junk piled up on the bed and putting all of Jane's work back into its usual places. She went to the bathroom door and heard the shower running. Shaking her head, Daria found the linen closet and dug out some clean sheets. After making the bed, she found a vacuum cleaner and removed the smaller debris.

     Wondering if it could be food poisoning, Daria went into the kitchen and looked around. The place was filthy, the mess obviously abandoned for a while. There was nothing in the refrigerator but a jug of brackish looking water, an open can of pork-and-beans with a spoon dug into it and a paper sack with half of a fast-food hamburger inside.

     "Of course. Jane has no car." Daria pursed her lips. Jane had probably been running to Burger World for dinner, every day.

     Jane finally emerged from the bathroom and saw the clean room. "Thanks" She gratefully slipped into the freshly excavated bed.

     "Hey, are you feeling any better?" Daria dragged a chair up next to the bed and sat.

     "I think that I just threw up my spleen." Jane turned on to her side. "I must not have needed it, because I am feeling a bit less miserable."

     Daria shook her head. "Hey, do you mind some company for a while?" She didn't want to come out and say it, but she was worried about Jane being alone. Daria felt bad about neglecting her friend.

     Jane smiled. "Thanks." She frowned. "I don't think that there's a whole lot left to eat. I've been making do with burgers and beans."

     Daria shrugged. "Pizza. My treat." She cleared her throat. "Where's Trent?"

     Jane closed her eyes. "On the road, Daria. I haven't seen him in weeks." Her eyes fluttered back open and she sighed.

     Daria sat with her friend, thinking viciously unkind things about Trent and Tom, until Jane finally dropped off.

     After a tense internal dialog with her sense of justice, Daria finally had to blame herself. She had been neglecting her best friend because of a lingering sense of uneasiness about Tom. He was perilously close to strike three and she didn't want to talk to Jane about it, because Tom was such a sore subject.

     Straightening resolutely, Daria put her troubles out of her mind and went to work.

     When Jane woke up, she heard the vacuum cleaner going downstairs and wondered if her mother was home. Then she remembered Daria. She sat up and saw a glass of ice water on the nightstand.

     "Well. Where did she get ice?" Jane hadn't filled the ice trays in a while. Last that she'd seen them, they were under a huge pile of dirty dishes. She drank it all, then her stomach growled. She noted the afternoon sun and then looked at the clock.

     "Hmm." She got up and headed back to the bathroom. She felt a lot better, for the nap. Almost completely well.

     Daria heard Jane moving around and made a call. About ten minutes later, Jane came down the stairs, ravenous, smelling the newly delivered pizza.

     "Hey, that was fast work!" Jane looked around, marveling. The whole place was clean and looked like it had been dusted. Even the dirty dishes were gone.

     Daria stared. "Fast work?"

     Jane gestured around, bewildered. "The whole house is clean. How did you do it? I was only out for an hour or two, at most."

     Daria laughed. "Jane, its Sunday. You've been asleep for about twenty-six hours. How do you feel?"

     Jane sat down at the table, stunned. "Pretty good, actually." She shrugged. "Hungry."

     Daria opened the pizza box. "Well, dig in."

     They ate and Jane considered. "Thank you, Daria."

     Daria shrugged. "You'd do the same for me." She looked uncomfortable. "I should have come over here more often."

     Jane shrugged. "Young Thomas can take up a lot of time. Last year, it was you on your own."

     "Not quite. I was still afflicted by my family." Daria felt the same futile dread rising up in her that had driven her away from Jane and threatened their friendship. She couldn't talk about Tom because it brought up bad memories for Jane, but Tom was such a major part of her life now that it left her with precious little to say. "I'm thinking about dropping him anyway."

     "Drop Tom?" Jane flushed, angrily. Tom was a friend too, and she didn't want to see Daria crush him. Especially after Jane had made such a tremendous effort to forgive. Daria could be monumentally cold at times. "Don't do it. Not without a solid reason and not without at least talking to him about it, first."

     Daria opened her mouth to respond and was cut off by the sound of Trent coming through the front door.

     "Trent!" Jane bounced over and hugged him, shocking him. "When did you get back? How was the tour?"

     He hugged her back, then shrugged, smiling. "The tour was okay. Really, okay. No one throws bottles at us, any more. It's getting better." He grinned, crookedly. "I even heard about another band, covering some of our songs." He had some money in his pocket, at least. He hugged her again, hard. "I missed you, Janey. I got you a present. Oh, hey, Daria!" He beamed at them both. "Come on out and take a look!"

     They trailed him out of the house and halted in shock.

     Jane stared at the new-ish minivan, astonished. "What happened to your trusty old beater? Did you and Monique decide to get married or something?"

     Trent shuddered. "No way, Jane. That contract she had us sign... She pretty much owns me anyway." Monique was Mystik Spiral's manager-agent.

     Daria smirked. "I hope you looked it over first. You could end up as her towel-boy."

     Jane nodded. "He's already her towel boy. She just wanted the option of selling his body for spare parts."

     Trent nodded, ruefully. He'd only thought that she had him by the balls, before. They were the property of Monique Martin Productions until the sun burned out.

     "Monique has really changed, since she started that business college. She wears a suit and treats us like we're retards, now. She gets us plenty of gigs though." Trent sighed.

     "That'll teach you to sign contracts without reading them first." Daria smirked at him. His clothes were nicer and his hair had been trimmed. Monique was obviously doing her best for them.

     He smiled and nodded at the minivan. "It was a real trip, driving that thing back. I didn't get pulled over once. I do still have the old Iron Horse. It's a lucky car." He smirked at Daria, waiting for the inevitable cheap shot.

     Daria laughed aloud, passing it up. She smiled at Trent, knowing exactly what he was thinking and what was coming. "It's perfect."

     "Perfectly weird. You gonna start wearing a suit and tie on stage now?" Jane couldn't believe it. Trent, driving a minivan?

     Trent smiled. "I swapped an amp for it, Janey. I got it for you. It's all yours."

     Jane blinked, shocked silent. "What?"

     "Yours. Happy... whatever." Trent gestured. "You need a car. There you are."

     Jane laughed, unbelieving. "But... Trent! Thank you, so much. This will really change things. Now... I can get places." She made to hug him again but he ducked behind Daria, laughing.

     Daria walked over and opened the passenger door. "This is really pretty nice. You say a musician owned this?" Under the mess that Trent had made it was very clean.

     Trent shrugged. "Not really. His wife owned it."

     "Ex-wife, by now." Jane had opened the driver's side door and gotten a look at the beautifully maintained interior. "Someone really liked this thing. Wow... Trent. It's not exactly sporty, but damn, it's so nice."

     Jane went around to the back and opened the door. The back seats were folded down and it was crammed to the roof with gear. "Look at all this room! I could load up some art and some of mom's ceramic rejects and take it all down to the swap meet, or even the starving artists market down in Lafayette! Maybe even get a job, if worse comes to worse."

     Daria nodded. "It's got a trailer hitch. You could move a lot of merchandise with this thing." She looked at the dark green paint. "Love the color."

     Jane climbed in. "Can I take it for a spin?"

     Trent looked uncomfortable. "It's already in your name, Janey, but you might want to hold off. It needs to be registered and it's not exactly insured yet."

     He winced as both girls pinned him with their eyes. He'd driven it a long way uninsured. "Hey, I'm a musician. What are they gonna do, sue me?"

     Jane started it up and then adjusted the seat, mirrors and steering column. She sank back into the seat, sighed with bliss and then turned on the stereo.

     Grinning, she rolled down the window and leaned out. "That's okay, Trent. I like it better than everything else I have, put together."

     Daria smiled. "You're in luck. My dad just spent a week tracking down the cheapest insurance on the planet."

     Jane was almost hugging the steering wheel, listening to the smooth hum of the engine. "I can get a shift at the Burger Barn if I can't con mom into getting dad to pay." She turned it off, got out and opened the hood, peering inside. "I'm gonna buy a book for this and really learn how to take care of it."

     Trent scowled and pulled a couple of gear cases out of the cargo area. "I had it lubed and serviced in Ashland, so you're good for a couple of thousand miles." He stalked angrily toward the house with his burden.

     Noticing that Jane was oblivious to Trent's sudden anger, Daria grabbed a bag at random and followed. She caught up with him in the Lane living room.

     "Trent! What's wrong?"

     Trent shrugged. "It's just... my dad always paid for everyone else's first car, insurance and stuff like that. It pisses me off the way that he's just abandoned her. I had a car when I was sixteen. So did my brother and my sisters. All of us did, except for Janey."

     Daria followed him down the stairs to dump off the gear. "Well, at least you look after her."

     Trent nodded tightly, unsuccessfully attempting to hide his mounting fury. "I try. I don't do a very good job."

     Daria stopped him. "I'd dispute that. There are plenty of screwed up people with both parents at home. You've done pretty well, Trent. It's cost you though, hasn't it?"

     Trent sighed and nodded. "They never come home. If I hadn't been here she'd have been pretty much alone since she was fifteen." He smiled at her. "It's a good thing that you're here."

     Daria made a joke to cover her pang of guilt. "Aww, Trent, Don't worry. Our little girl is all grown up now."

     It fell flat. Trent shrugged, uneasily. He clearly didn't agree. "One thing is certain. It's all happening, Daria. We're getting better gigs, but I've lost a lot of time. I've only got about three more years to make it, but it is starting to happen."

     "I know. I heard Headlights of Darkness on the KBUZ Indy Spin, last week." She nodded at him. "You guys won the call in vote. There's no doubt about it Trent, you're getting good!" She had called and voted for him four times, each time using a different Morgendorffer phone number.

     "Really?" Trent smiled, happily. "I didn't even know!" He thought for a minute. "KBUZ? Is that a new one?" He wondered how they got a hold of the MS CD. They sold them at gigs and Monique had placed a few of them in some local music stores, but aside from MP3 samples from Nick's girlfriend's website and buying them at gigs, there was just no reliable way to get them.

     Daria nodded. "Geared to the younger, alternative crowd."

     "Alright! This calls for a drink!" He went back out and got an ice chest from the van, brought it into the kitchen and set it on the counter. He looked around, unloading soda-pop and road snacks into the empty fridge.

     "A drink?" Daria wondered when he'd started drinking.

     Trent smirked. "You'll see. Where did Janey go? Did you see her come in?"

     Daria shrugged. "No. She was crawling around under her hood the last time that I saw her. Maybe it swallowed her."

     Daria put the cold pizza into the oven to warm, glanced after Trent and called for more. When she hung up, she saw Trent come back in with a couple of duffel bags and start unloading wine and liquor bottles, all wrapped up in tablecloths and bar towels.

     "So when did you start drinking?" Daria watched him push expensive looking bottles into an empty pantry.

     Trent shook his head. "I don't, usually. One of the nightclubs that we played went broke and the owner didn't have enough to pay us. He told us to take whatever we wanted, then left. We stripped the place pretty bare."

     "So you got a bunch of bottles that you can't use?" Daria shook her head.

     "I'm going to see if I can sell this stuff to some local bars." Trent blew some dust off of a bottle of Crown Royal. "If I drank all of this my liver would melt."

     Daria caught a bottle of Canadian Mist as it rolled out of his bag and off of the counter. "Careful. My dad dropped a gin bottle once and you can still smell it in the kitchen."

     Trent smirked. "Yeah. Max didn't wrap his bottles and some of them broke. He has to do a drunk test every time he gets pulled over now."

     "It can only be an improvement." Daria smiled at him, realizing that she had really missed talking to Trent.

     Trent coughed, then pulled out a neon beer sign. "Want this?"

     Daria shook her head, amused. "No thanks. It would clash with the decor of my padded cell."

     Trent chuckle-coughed, nodding. "How about a pinball machine?" He knew that Jesse would never get it into his mother's house.

     Daria laughed. "No thanks. I am a pinball, Trent. Life is the machine."

     Trent halted. "Hey! Can I have that?"

     Daria shrugged. "Sure."

     "You have to write some lyrics for me, someday." He beamed at her, then went for another bag.

     Daria flushed a little, then got a distracted look.

     Trent came back in with the last of his loot, also looking distracted. Removing a bunch of heavily wrapped glassware, he sat it on the sideboard, then threw the empty bags down the basement stairs. Walking back over to the sink, he selected three huge Champagne glasses from the pile and rinsed them out.

     "Hmm." He sang, "I'm just a shiny steel pinball in the big machine, bouncing all around, what the hell does it all mean... He halted, stuck.

     A smooth feminine alto suddenly shocked him with its presence. The next thing you know, it's Flipper hello, a grinnin' Grim Reaper playin' high and low, so learn to bounce back and the next thing you see, you're bouncin' off the bumper and scoring with me.

     So keep it flat on the ground, don't tilt me around, ya wanna be with me ya can't bounce my heart around, cause I don't want to get hard and cold like steel, to make it through life, I want to be able to feel. Daria ran out of lyrics and opened her eyes. "Eep!"

     Trent was staring, awed. "WOAH! Daria! Did you just make that all up?"

     Daria nodded, blushing. "Guilty."

     Trent had his pad open and was scribbling it down. It was a little bit country, but could be adapted. "You're pretty good. Hey, you want to come over and hang out with the band sometime? We could really use some help with our lyrics."

     Daria's blush returned. "I don't think that Tom would understand."

     "Okay." Masking his disappointment, he reached into his ice-chest and pulled out a magnum of expensive French champagne.

     "Do you like champagne, Daria?" He poured himself a glass.

     Daria nodded, reluctantly. "It's about the only kind of liquor that I can stand."

     "Good! Want some?" Trent had wrapped a napkin around the bottle, like a waiter.

     Daria hesitated and then nodded, hoping that the glass was clean.

     She sipped and then looked surprised. "This is good!"

     "It's expensive." Trent refilled her glass, then called his sister.

     "Janey!" Trent listened, then shrugged. "Where did she go?"

     Daria laughed, drinking more champagne. "She was under the hood fondling her new motor so she probably got a little bit greasy. My guess is that she went up to shower again."

     "Let's see." Trent grabbed the handle of the kitchen tap and turned on the hot water for a few seconds. A faint shriek echoed from upstairs.

     "Yup, she's in the shower alright," he informed Daria, solemnly.

     Daria giggled. "That was nasty." She did it to Quinn, fairly often.

     "Janey likes doing that to me. You know what they say about payback." Trent smirked and led the way into the living room. They sat down companionably on opposite ends of the sofa.

     "So, what's going on? How's it going with Tom?" Trent looked at her over the rim of his glass.

     Daria shrugged, smile fading. "He keeps... I don't know, acting like he has to keep me hidden." She looked at him, closely. "Honestly, would you say that there's anything... well, wrong with me, Trent?"

     Trent was dumbstruck. It was a no-win situation. He cleared his throat and flushed. "You? No, Daria. Don't worry about it. You're one of the beautiful people." He quickly took another drink, trying to think of a plausible reason to run for it.

     "Thanks." She flushed a little from the embarrassment of having asked and then calmed down. It was just Trent, after all. "I don't exactly get a whole lot of compliments."

     Trent shook his head, bemused. He didn't think that Tom was that stupid. "Okay then, speaking as a guy, I have to say that you have about the prettiest face that I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, those eyes..." He went on, "You have a great figure. I've seen you without that baggy jacket. You have really nice legs, and an a- like I said, you're really cool." He smiled at her, crookedly. "If you ever get tired of Tom..."

     "Ohhh! Does this mean that Tommy-Boy has been dumped?" Jane came into the room, wearing a robe and drying her hair.

     "Almost." Daria squirmed in pleased embarrassment. "He didn't invite me to one of the country club dances again and I wanted an unbiased male opinion of my looks."

     "Yeah. Well... We were just celebrating winning that KBUZ call in poll." Trent shot his sister a warning look. "Join us?"

     "Sure." Jane looked at them both with raised eyebrows. Daria must be even blinder emotionally than she was physically if she thought Trent was unbiased.

     "So, young Thomas is pulling his 'let's not go out anywhere where anyone can see you,' routine." She went into the kitchen and came out with another glass and the bottle, in a bucket of ice.

     "What does that mean?" Daria moved down to the center of the couch as Jane motioned her over and sat, putting the bucket on the table.

     "I went through that whole thing. He finally took me to one of those country club deals and he got totally swamped in hopeful debutantes, all scheming to acquire an option on the Sloane Foundation." Jane frowned. "I couldn't get within ten feet. Tom is a prime target for acquisition and some of the Muffys can be pretty vicious to the competition. More to the point, his fellow proto-oligarchs like a new face." She grinned. "Access to their incestuous little functions are strictly controlled by the elder beasts of the herd. I got swarmed and Tom didn't like it one bit."

     "So you think its just jealousy?" Daria looked a trifle less upset. Now she knew why Kay kept pushing those tickets.

     Jane nodded. "That and over-protectiveness. You'd think the boy would learn." She smirked. Anyone who tried to cross verbal swords with Daria would get diced into Muffy-chunks.

     "Hopeful Debutantes? Instant Debutantes? Drooling Oligarchs?" Trent frowned, trying to change the subject. He was still a little upset with Sloane. "Nah, the debutante thing has been done." He hadn't given up his quest to find a better name than Mystik Spiral.

     Jane and Daria stared at him, then laughed.

     "Phoenix Rising," proposed Daria.

     "Raw Spam," came Jane's rejoinder.

     "Lost Decade," Daria countered.

     "The Billdodgers," Jane shot back.

     "The Sandman's Band," Daria said, thoughtfully.

     "Wasted Space," Jane trumped her.

     "You win," acknowledged Daria.

     "Tin Men," Jane continued, on a roll.

     "It's been done," said Trent, who was scrawling them all down on a pizza coupon.

     "Sonic Stun," sniped Daria, giving him a smile.

     "Bombing Run," Trent grinned back at her.

     "That's IT! STOP IT NOW! NO MORE RHYMES!" Jane had seen this kind of thing get out of hand before. Daria and Trent could shoot rhymes back and forth forever. She'd have to break it up before they got out of hand, or things would be absolutely unbearable.

     "Good times," said Trent, foolishly.

     Jane leaned forward and punched him hard on the shoulder.

     "OW!" Trent rubbed his shoulder. "C'mon Jane, that hurt. You've got those bony little fists." He pouted, hoping for sympathy.

     "Wimp." Jane looked at Daria, eyes narrowed. "I owed you for the shower thing, anyway."

     Daria opened her mouth and subsided under Jane's look. "Damn. Now... I'm... thinking in rhyme."

     Jane poured them all drinks. "Drink up, it'll make you stupid and help you get over it!"

     Trent opened his mouth, then shut it, at her warning look.

     "I'd better call home while my head is clear and tell them that I'll be... here. If I drink all that in one day, I'll have... to... stay. " Daria clamped her mouth shut, gave Jane an apologetic look and went into the kitchen to use the phone.

     Trent watched her walk away, through the door.

     "See something you like?" Jane looked at him, curiously.

     Tent shrugged. "Well... yes. Do me a favor, Janey?"

     "Tell you when she's finally ready to drop kick Tom to the curb? Sure." Jane frowned, uncertainly. "She will, eventually. Tommy boy's got a roving eye. He'll do a 180 and go with some Muffy that can maintain the family manse and be presentable at cocktail parties, just like his mommy. He's pretty much got his whole life scheduled out already and Daria doesn't just go along with anybody's plan without a lot of persuading."

     Trent shrugged, watching Daria's reflection in the kitchen window-glass. It was true that keeping her happy would be a full time job. "I don't know, Janey. From what she told me, they didn't exactly want to fall for each other. He just couldn't help it."

     "I guess." Jane didn't sound happy about it.

     "Hey, it's early days yet. I just want to keep track. It wouldn't work out now, anyway, me being broke and on the road all the time, but who knows? Since we got Mark on keyboard, things are really looking up." He took a drink. "She could be a great songwriter and I really like her, but I don't know if we could be together that way. It's good to see her going out with someone that's not a complete jerk, though."

     Jane scowled. "He can be a huge jerk. An immense jerk. The Lord High Emperor of all the jerks."

     Trent laughed. "Me too, but she's really opened up since she got over that crush. Daria's ultra-cool." Trent blinked, whipped out his notebook and started a new song, jotting down a lyric that had come to him, then trying it out.

     Jane shrugged dubiously, then went to get dressed.

     Trent heard the doorbell ring. He looked out of the window and saw the lunatic Artie outside with a pizza. He smirked, then slipped on a pair of dark glasses before opening the door.

     Artie handed over the pizza. "That'll be twelve fifty, please."

     Trent put the pizza down and dug for his wallet. "Right. So how is the new skin working out for you, Artie? Any shrinkage?"

     "Wh- what?" Artie looked around, wondering how he could have known about the aliens and their fiendish experiments. He didn't remember the house and Trent didn't look the same with a mustache and a full goatee.

     Trent let his smile slip. "Does it fit okay? I hope it's not too tight, because we can always take you up and make a few quick adjustments-

     "Artie! There you are! Ready to go?" Jane asked. She and Daria had walked up behind Trent.

     "Aaaaaaaah! Heeeeelp! SPACE BABES!" Artie spun and ran for it, knowing that the psychiatrist was wrong. They were real and they were after him.

     "My, that was fairly evil." Daria stared after him. "But then, twelve bucks is twelve bucks. Call it tough love. Pizza, anyone?"

     Trent started laughing. "Cool."

     Kevin limped down the hall at LHS on Monday, before the first bell, desperately trying to look nonchalant. His face was badly bruised and he had a shiner under his left eye. "So, Mack Daddy, you going to take anyone to the Howl?"

     Michael Jordan Mackenzie, Team captain and defensive lineman, gritted his teeth and reminded himself again that his promised athletic scholarship depended on him being able to deliver Kevin to State U unharmed. Kevin wasn't talking, but he'd clearly suffered one hell of a beating. Kevin was a classic idiot savant, magic on the gridiron and absolutely useless off of it. Mack considered Kevin his personal curse, the result of bad karma.

     Kevin said that the bruising on his face was because of an accident, but Mack didn't believe it.

     "No, Kevin. Don't you remember Andrea? Do you remember how bad she felt?"

     Kevin swallowed. "Nah, she forgot all that, already."

     Mack rolled his eyes. If only he could show a little more hustle, maybe the colleges would be more interested in him for his own sake... "Look, Kevin. First, whoever you con into going with you might find out. That's cruel and dangerous, Man."

     Kevin sulked. "Well, it wasn't my fault! If she hadn't wore all that shit on her face and that weird vampire makeup, she wouldn't have won. I mean, I get her to go on a date, she shows up looking like Draculette and then gets mad because it's a Dog Fight? It was all Jodie's fault, for telling her."

     Mack turned his reflexive punch into a friendly tag on the shoulder that Kevin's pads mostly absorbed. Jodie still didn't know that Andrea had been the victim and Mack wasn't about to let her find out that she had been the one that had let the cat out of the bag. "Just stay away from those assholes, Kevin. Besides, what would Brittany say?"

     "Brittany... She's not... She's.... um, we broke up." Kevin scowled and turned to his locker. It wouldn't be long before that story got around. She'd snapped and beaten him to a pulp, right in front of Sam Stagg. He didn't want to talk about Brittany right now. He'd had enough of her constantly yelling and beating on him. Her casual kicks and punches had escalated to the point that he was a little bit afraid of her. It didn't help that she was a blackbelt in karate and could demolish him anytime that she really wanted. Everybody laughed at him for wearing his pads, but he had a damn good reason. In fact, he was thinking about wearing his helmet, too.

     "Uhm, right." Mack spun to hide his grin and rapidly strode away, bumping into Upchuck. He was desperately trying not to laugh. Being the sole voice of reason in Kevinworld was a thankless task, but there could be moments of true enjoyment. She must have really pounded him, this time. Brittany had been taking karate classes since she was five years old and Mack knew that he wouldn't last ten seconds against her either, but it was still funny. He couldn't wait to tell DeMartino.

     Charles glowered at the oblivious quarterback as he made his way to his own locker. He'd overheard most of it. So that was why he couldn't get the time of day out of Andrea. Charles loved women. They were such perfect creatures. Being cruel to one was a concept so alien to him that he just couldn't encompass it. He shook his head and then smirked. At least the bountiful Brittany was back on the market.

     Kevin tried his combination over and over, until he got it. He was thinking. 'Why are they all so... mean? I mean, what's the big deal? Why not just... be a sport about things?' "Say, Mack Da- He looked around, but Mack was gone.

     Kevin hauled out the unread books that he'd dropped off on Friday afternoon. He was thinking, hard. After Brittany had knocked him out, she'd screamed at Stagg and then stamped away. When he'd finally woke up and Stagg had quit laughing, he'd accepted the Dog-Fight challenge. Being brutally beaten unconscious by his date had caused him to lose way too much face. 'I gotta bring a date or Sam will think I'm weak... Can't show weakness... Shoulder hurts, good thing I wear pads... why doesn't everybody wear them? ...not someone like Andrea... I really thought she didn't care with that makeup... Damn, I'm thirsty... I could lose the hundred bucks... So what? Without her, I'll have some money for once... What am I gonna do? Why not bring a girl that's kind of cute but just not... a... a... like a... Goth? She'd never win and never know! He froze, smiling, leaning up against the locker next to his. He had a solution! And on his own, too.

     "Excuse me." Daria, hung over and loaded with books, frowned when Kevin just beamed at her instead of moving.

     "Hey, Daria! Want to go to the Howl with me, Saturday?" Kevin smiled maniacally at her. It was as good as done. How could a girl like Daria resist the QB?

     "Excuse me?" Daria shook her head, throwing off the apathy of her hangover, wondering if she had heard right and hoping that she hadn't.

     "On a date!" He stepped away from the locker and she put away her books.

     "What happened, did Brittany finally spring a leak?" Daria got out her notebook and closed her locker door.

     "What... no. Don't worry about her. Its just like, you're the only girl left in my grade that I haven't dated. So, you know, it's like, your turn." Kevin realized with a start that it was true, if you didn't count the science project.

     "What, you already forgot about our passionate affair of last year? In a short and succinct word, that you should really try hard to understand, NO." Daria walked rapidly away, toward her class.

     Kevin stood, puzzling over 'succinct,' then ran off after her. "Wait! Wait, Daria! That was school stuff! I meant a real date! Want to go?"

     "Only if my boyfriend can come along. Besides, Kevin, a deal is a deal. I swapped you to Brittany for a rat, remember?"

     "You don't have to pretend with me, Daria. I don't mind." He put his hand over his stomach. "Cross my heart!"

     "What the hell are you talking about? Never mind, just stop talking." Daria rolled her eyes and made for the sanctuary of the A-V room. Barch was there and would flame Kevin if he kept following.

     Stacy sat in class, peering cautiously at DeMartino over the top of her Waif magazine, as usual. She glanced nervously back at Sandi, who was totally engrossed in her magazine and then at Quinn, who was paying close attention, taking careful notes.

     Seeing her looking, Quinn smiled.

     Swallowing and keeping her back immobile so Sandi wouldn't see, Stacy opened her notebook and began taking notes. It was easier than doing it from memory in the toilet stall after class.

     When the bell rang, Sandi, who was aware of everything, cut Stacy off. "Taking notes? Gee, Stacy, are you turning into a brain, like Quinn?"

     Stacy froze and started making little fishlike gasps.

     Quinn laughed. "Oh, Sandi, Taking a few notes doesn't make you a savant or anything. She's just taking notes for all of us, if we want to read them. It's her job. She is the secretary, after all."

     Stacy straightened in excitement. Maybe now she could take notes, openly. "Uh huh! You can look at them any time!"

     Sandi scowled. She had to go get the new pocket dictionary hidden in her locker and look up savant, now. "Why don't you just let us look at your notes?

     Quinn smirked. It would be a very cold day in hell when Sandi got a look at her notes. "Oh, you probably wouldn't be able to learn anything from my notes. Stacy's the real professional. Just look at how well she does with the minutes from the club!"

     Sandi frowned, petulantly. "Is that true, Stacy?"

     "Whaaat's a saavaant?" Tiffany blinked at them, then fixed her eyes on Jeffy, who was staring at Quinn. A lovesick expression flickered over her normally placid features and she started primping.

     Stacy looked like she was going to hyperventilate. "Um, sure! That's it!"

     "I'll... be right back." Quinn shook her head and walked toward her locker, more to get away from them than anything else. Losers, she thought, viciously.

     Jeffy launched himself after her like a hunting dog, quickly followed by Jamie and Joey. Tiffany stared after Jeffy, then sighed. She must be too fat or something. It was time to get serious about her diet.

     Andrea was in the bathroom stall when she heard Daria and Jane come in, talking.

     "So it started this morning?" Jane shook her head. "What do you suppose got into his head that makes him think that he has a prayer?"

     "A bee? The pea shaking loose? Without a PhD in abnormal psychology, who can say? All I know is that every time I step into the hall, Kevin's there, begging me for a date." Daria felt the urge to vomit. "He wants me to go to 'the Howl' with him, Saturday."

     "Why?" Jane frowned. "He only goes for the jockettes."

     Daria smirked. "Believe it or not, he says it's my 'turn.' He said that he dated all the other girls in his grade- Daria's eyes widened. "Did he ever date you?"

     Jane nodded. "In fifth grade he asked me to a birthday party. He 'forgot' to bring a present and then he clogged up their toilet by trying to flush a bar of soap that he'd accidentally dropped in. We decided that we weren't right for each other after they threw him out."

     Andrea stepped out of the stall. "That was soap? That toilet still doesn't work right."

     Jane shrugged, still embarrassed. "Hi, Andrea."

     "Hey." Daria looked curiously at the enigmatic Goth.

     "So, Punkinhead's going to take you to the Howl?" Andrea swallowed, remembering the pain.

     "Not unless he turns out to be Jesus, in disguise. Why did you ever invite a moron like him to your birthday party?" Daria had never seen them interact.

     "We were born in the same hospital, went to the same daycare, and we've been in the same classes since pre-school. Believe it or not, he begged me to marry him about a hundred times, back when we were both twelve." Andrea looked at Daria. "Look, can you guys keep your mouths shut?"

     Daria nodded and so did Jane.

     Andrea took a deep breath. "The Howl is a dogfight."

     Daria swallowed, paling. "Wh... what?"

     Andrea winced, looking a bit haggard. "Yes, it's exactly what you think. An ugly contest. I won two years ago."

     Daria made a shocked little noise and sagged against the sink.

     "That stupid bastard." Jane was PISSED.

     Charles took a careful look around the lunchroom. He'd cut his calculus class to take lunch early. No teachers were present, so he slipped away from his cover and unobtrusively sidled up to Quinn.

     "So we meet again, my gamine little toaster-tart. What's with your sister? Are the rumors true?"

     "Ewww! Don't talk to me!" Quinn looked around, but the three J's, who ordinarily would have bludgeoned him into a pulp at the merest crook of her finger, were unaccountably absent along with nearly everyone else. How had he managed it?

     "What do you mean? What rumors?" She took a pad out of her bag and jotted down 'gamine.' If it was dirty, Upchuck was so dead.

     Charles smirked, watching her search for her missing lackeys. He'd waited until Quinn ditched them all to get in some PSAT practice testing in the library, as she often did on Mondays. When the anxious masses were milling around trying to puzzle out the latest of her mysterious disappearances, he'd let some of them overhear him talking on a dead cell phone, saying that Quinn went up to the gym roof every Monday for nude sunbathing. Unless he missed his guess, they were all currently hiding behind a ventilator watching the towel and bottle of suntan lotion that he'd put up there, still unaware that they were trapped.

     "Come, my exquisitely erudite flower, surely you know? Why, she's your sister, after all." Charles settled in for a good match. He had played this game before, trying to extort a date out of the most popular girl in Lawndale High. She had a slippery intelligence that immediately moved to thwart him, no matter how good a net he had around her. "The Three Stooges are stuck up on the gym roof, so don't bother looking around for them." He sighed, theatrically. "Is a beauty such as yours only worthy of such as they? Do they really deserve you? Is it you who they're really after? Who knows, maybe Cupid will strike! They spend so much time together, already..."

     Quinn involuntarily giggled, then guffawed. He was funny, sometimes. "I wouldn't be all that surprised. So what's your game, Upchuck? Forget about a date." She eyed him, smiling. What would he try next?

     "Ah, what a smile. You wound me, Quinn. Not even if I took you to... A ball at the Lawndale Country Club?" Charles fanned out two tickets and took his obligatory shot, while she was in range.

     Quinn was briefly tempted. That was an exclusive one. She could meet some really rich guys there. "No, not even then. Why don't you try Sandi?"

     Charles shrugged. He'd have to promote her on his list. Getting them laughing was half of the battle. "Sandi is just a little too quick on the trigger, if you know what I mean."

     Quinn looked at him, thoughtfully. Most of Sandi's problems stemmed from the fact that she was desperately lonely. Quinn had once caught her staring at him.

     "Bennet says that there's no reward without a risk, Charles. You really ought to think about it." Quinn gave him a significant look.

     "Ah, my poor lonely heart goes 'thumpity thump' with rapture, the fickle goddess of beauty deigns to call me by my right name." Charles sighed theatrically and spread his arms in the posture of a man receiving a blessing.

     "God! Quit it!" Quinn laughed helplessly, her head on the table to cover her red face.

     Charles watched her laugh, grinning, and when she had run down said, "How about Daria, then? Why is Kevin Thompson chasing her? Is she available, now?"

     "Daria?" Quinn looked up at him, curiously. "Kevin is chasing Daria? But... she's going out with Tom Sloane!" Not to mention that Daria despised Kevin anyway.

     "Sloane? Ah, yes, an old... acquaintance from my dark days at prep school." He remembered some upper formers throwing them both out of the same second story window. Sloane had been caught in a big net. He'd been caught in a big thorn bush, just to the right of the net. He'd had an irrational dislike of Sloane, ever since.

     "You went to school with Tom?" Quinn was eaten with curiosity about her sister's boyfriend.

     "Yes, right up until that fateful day that I saw a woman." Charles smirked. "I passed out from testosterone poisoning. When I woke up I knew that a boys academy, no matter how upper crust, just wasn't for me."

     Quinn laughed. "What's it like, there?" She took control of the conversation, interrogating him about the Sloanes, wondering why he wanted her to know about Kevin chasing Daria.

     She suddenly realized that Brittany was his target and that he wanted her to spread the rumor for him. She smiled. She'd willingly play her part to keep him off of her tail for a while. He deserved a break anyway, for making sure that the Fashion Club wasn't around. She could use some intelligent conversation. Tiffany was morose, Stacy was being extra-clingy and even Sandi was being very saccharine, trying to keep her in the club.

     "Oh, no! I think it locked behind us!" Stacy tugged at the door. "We're stuck up here on the gym roof!" She almost started crying.

     Sandi scowled. "Calm down Stacy! Quinn had better know how to get down. Let's go find her."

     Carrying towels, tanning oil, a radio and dressed in PE clothes, they walked to the other side of the roof. A towel lay spread out in a spot next to the low wall. It was a perfectly concealed spot for sunbathing, right where Missy had told them that Quinn would be, behind the covered roof door and some ducts. The place was hidden where a sunbather would hear the door slam and have plenty of time to slip on shorts and shirt before anyone could approach through the tangle of ducts.

     "This must be the place." Sandi gazed around at the deserted roof, then shrugged. "Quinn's probably downstairs, maybe in the bathroom." Sandi scowled, and delicately drove another wedge between Quinn and the Fashion Club. "She really has some nerve, leaving us out of a beauty enhancement scheme."

     "Yeaaaah." Tiffany looked around, blankly. She was weak with hunger.

     Sandi spread her towel next to Quinn's, then motioned Stacy and Tiffany to do the same. "Well, come on, then. Let's catch up with Quinn. We'll show her what we think of her efforts to show up our tan lines."

     Stacy looked around. "But... are we sure the roof is empty?"

     Sandi frowned. "We'd better check. Let's each take a side."

     They each walked to one of the other three sides, looking. Stacy hammered and tugged at the door of the little wooden storage shack, but it was locked. She shrugged and went back to the towels, on the other side of the roof, behind the cluster of ventilators.

     "Is she gone?" Jeffy was holding the door closed.

     Half a dozen voices hissed, "Shut the fuck up!" The shack was completely filled with guys. There were twelve of them, in a space designed for four.

     With difficulty, Jamie pulled his eye from the empty nail hole that he'd found in the wall. "They're all back over there. We can get out, now. You guys better remember to shut up and keep down. I'll toss the guy that fucks up and gets us caught right off of the roof."

     "Open the door!" Bill Nordlinger, the center, was getting claustrophobic.

     "I can't!" Jeffy tried to push back, but the pressure had him plastered against the inward-opening door.

     "Fuck! We got it closed, so we gotta be able to get it open." Joey looked up. "Some a you guys, hang from the rafters. That'll make room."

     The little building trembled and groaned, but Jeffy got the door open.

     "They're behind those ventilator stacks," Jamie hissed. "Just barely peek over, and don't move around. The guy who gives us away is goin' for a short flight, I swear." Jamie glared at each of them, then led the silent little troop to the vent stacks. He stopped and gave a hand signal to halt them and make them drop.

     Jamie crawled up and peeked over the cooling stack, frowning in disappointment when he saw that Quinn wasn't there. Looking back at the crowd behind him, he felt relief cancel his disappointment. He motioned them forward, five at a time, pointing out places to hide. They stealthily followed his lead, taking up positions behind the stacks, jamming the roof turbolators and peering at the unsuspecting girls through the stilled blades.

     Sandi looked at the sky, then shrugged. "Rain clouds are blowing in fast, from the east. If we're going to get any sun, we'd better get it now." She stripped off her gym clothes, exposing the bikini that she was wearing under them. "When Quinn comes back, I'll take the rest off." She lay down flat and unstrapped the top, letting the strings flop to the sides.

     Tiffany followed suit. "Whyyyy did those... those... whirly things, quiiit mooooving?"

     Sandi gave her a censorious look. "Do I appear to be some sort of an engineer or something? Maybe they don't go all the time."

     Stacy shrugged and took another look around. It was quiet and kind of peaceful, up on the roof. She stripped to her bikini and sat down on her towel. "I'll sit up and keep watch."

     Sandi didn't answer. The humming ducts were putting her right to sleep.

     Stacy anxiously wondered if she'd said anything wrong. Yawning, she untied her top, took it off and had a long, back-arching stretch, instantly becoming the most popular girl in Lawndale High. She folded her clothes, sat back down on her towel and began a series of graceful seated stretching exercises, yoga moves that Quinn had showed her. Then she applied tanning lotion to her front.

     Twelve guys simultaneously sucked in a breath and swallowed.

     "God in heaven," someone whispered, hoarsely. "I never saw anything that turned me on so much in my whole life."

     The riveted male mass stared, dry mouthed, as the sight seared itself into their brains.

     "She's got some big tits," someone whispered back.

     Tiffany sat up, and put on some lotion, followed by Sandi.

     "Stacy's got the best legs, too," an answer came. "She's... hot. Really hot. Much hotter than Sandi and Tiffany. C'mon, Stacy baby, show us some bush!"

     "Bush, bush, bush..." came the low chant, until Jamie angrily waved them to silence.

     "All right!" Even Jamie said it, this time. Everyone flattened as Sandi sat up and took a careful look around.

     "Oooh, God," There another gasp came as Stacy rubbed tanning oil on Sandi's back, then Tiffany's. Tiffany did the honors for her.

     "It's too bad that Sandi's such a mega-bitch. Witches should be ugly." Duane said, regretfully. There was a general murmur of agreement.

     "Tiffany's pretty hot, I guess. I never really noticed before." Jeffy blinked, then flushed. He'd betrayed Quinn.

     "She's too bony. Besides, she's as dumb as cowflop." Jamie looked at him. Jeffy was no Einstein, either. "But that shouldn't hold you back, dude. Go for it."

     "Go to hell," Jeffy snarled. Jamie was going to get hurt.

     Stacy stretched again.

     "Did anyone think to bring a camera?" Ted demanded. He wanted that picture, blown up to poster size.

     "Fuck!" The expletive came in ten voices.

     "Shut up, assheads!" Jamie hissed back at them.

     After half an hour of staring, The door behind them slammed. Fortunately, it faced away from their area, which was on a lower level and concealed by machinery. "Oh, shit!" Jamie hissed. "That's got to be Quinn! Everybody, back in the shack!"

     The horde pelted quietly back and piled into the plywood storage shack, forcing the door closed behind them once again.

     Behind the stacks, the three girls rapidly dressed.

     Mrs. Li, in search of her AWOL students, trudged around the roof and found the girls in their gym clothes, sitting on the towels. "Ladies, this area is off limits! Gather your things and come down off the roof, this instant! I'll keep this incident in mind when I review the Fashion Club's funding this week!"

     Stacy whined, "But Ms. Li, there's no sign and the door's not locked-

     "No buts! The door was locked. What would you do if the building caught on fire? Move, move, move!" Ms. Li shepherded them to the door, took a last look around and unlocked it. Impatiently shooing the girls through, she locked it again from the inside, making a note to have the door fixed so that it couldn't trap people on the roof anymore.

     Li wagged a finger at them, when they reached the gym floor. "The gym roof is off limits! There's a very delicate rubber membrane underlay, up there. That roof is not designed for a lot of people to walk on!" She glared at them, then impatiently gestured at them. "Go on, but I won't forget this incident. Don't you ever let me catch you up on that roof again, Ms. Blum-Deckler, Ms. Rowe and Ms. Griffin!"

     "Yes, Ms. Li," they chorused, then beat a hasty retreat into the locker room.

     Li, still looking for the missing men, uttered a chillingly obscene curse that she'd picked up from her boyfriend. Stamping angrily away, she went looking for a flashlight to check the steam tunnels behind the boiler room.

     Up on the roof, all was silence. Then the tool shack groaned, trembled and collapsed. An instant later, the heavens opened and it began to rain on the heap of wreckage and splinter pierced voyeurs.

     As the groaning mass extracted itself from the wreckage, a timer in the schools comms closet clicked. Upchuck's music selection, piped through the PA speaker on the corner of the roof, began.

     Devo's Jocko Homo started to play, loud and clear, in an endless loop. Upchuck had thoughtfully turned the speaker around on it's pole so that they would be able to hear every word.

     "No Kevin. No means no. No way. Never." Daria stomped ahead of him, angrily trying to lose him. "You can just forget it."

     Kevin couldn't believe it. No chick could resist him. Only a.... The not so blinding light of realization hit him. "Ohhh! Sorry about that, Daria. I should have realized." He caught her shoulder, halting her. "I won't try anything, I promise. I just need a new girl for this one date. Jane can come, too. Look, I'll even pay for a romantic dinner for two at Dibs on Ribs. It'll help keep people from knowing that you two are lesbians, just like with that dweeb brother of yours, Tom!"

     Brooke and Tori, just coming out of the lounge, froze, gaping in shock.

     Daria smacked his hand away. "I'm not a lesbian, I'm just not attracted to idiots of any gender. Don't talk to me again." She raked all present with a glare and then strode away.

     Mack gaped from his position at the end of the hall. Daria's eyes had speared him, burning like twin peepholes into hell. He wouldn't want to be in Kevin's shoes right now. Daria was a person that worked at revenge.

     Hurrying away, he tried to put the whole thing out of his mind. Kevin had asked for it, and he was done cleaning up behind the moronic QB. He frowned, mind returning to his search. "Hey, Upchuck. Have you seen the football team?"

     Charles nodded. "Do you mean lately?" He smirked. He'd netted all of Quinn's hangers on and unofficial bodyguards.

     Mack nodded. "Most of the offense, anyway. We can't find them anywhere and their cars are all still in the lot. Ms. Li's going batshit and dumping all over Jodie because of it."

     Charles briefly considered the benefits of leaving them up there or letting them off of the roof himself. There was no upside in it for him, so he might as well get a little credit with Mack. "Have you tried the gym roof, Mack Daddy?" Charles grinned and started to walk away, bound to slip a note into Brittany's locker.

     Mack frowned, massively. "Don't call me Mack Daddy, Upch... Sorry, Charles." He grimaced and nodded his thanks. Upchuck... no, Charles had a point. Mack headed for the gym.

     Charles' machinations were typically murky and untraceable, but he always had the same old goal. Idly, Mack wondered which girl was in the Ruttheimer crosshairs this week and why trapping a bunch of idiots up on the roof was necessary. Ruttheimer's plans often had a Wile E Coyote meets the Cold-War feel to them.

     Stacy rapidly showered and then anxiously looked at the clock. It was almost time for math class. The others had ditched her again, while she was putting the radio away. Fighting down waves of anxiety, Stacy dressed, rapidly applied her makeup and then stepped out of the locker room, searching for the Fashion Club.

     "Hey, Stacy." Duane Bourn, a fairly popular tackle, came up smiling. "Can I carry your books?"

     "Um... hi, Duane. Well, sure." She blushed, prettily. He'd never looked twice before.

     "Stacy!" Ted DeWit Clinton jogged up with a soda. "I got you a soda, the orange kind that you like. Want to go out to dinner at Chez Pierre, Saturday?" He exchanged a belligerent look with Duane. As a blackbelt he had no worries at all about being able to mop the walls with the hulk.

     "What? Thanks." Stacy accepted the soda, smiling radiantly. She just didn't know what to make of it. "Well... okay, Ted." He was kind of cool, now.

     "Excellent!" Ted roughly elbowed Duane aside and relieved him of the responsibility of carrying her books.

     "What are you doing Friday, Stace?" Duane stretched and flexed his large biceps, sneering at Ted. Ted was a geek, but a pumped-up ass-kicking karate geek with a short fuse. Caution was in order. Maybe a really hard sucker punch, right in the back of the head...

     "Well-

     "Hey, Stacy! Wanna come for a ride in my new Porsche after school? I'll drop you off at home!" Harry Bright came up with a big smile, smoothly cutting between her and an increasingly homicidal Duane.

     "Um, sure, Harry. Why are all of you guys so wet?" Stacy asked, as more and more guys clustered around her, glowering at each other and following her to class. In the excitement of becoming the absolute center of so much male attention, she completely forgot about having to find Sandi before class.

     Angela Ms. Li was in her office, brushing the cobwebs from her jacket, having given up on the mysterious missing students. Clearly, they'd left the campus. Ms. Li scowled, then decided not to press the issue. She would have them watched tomorrow.

     The phone rang and she answered it, shortly. "Principal Li."

     "What are you wearing?"

     Li giggled, all of her problems forgotten. "Buck! Where are you?"

     She had met Buck Conroy the previous year, when he'd come to Lawndale High to recruit mercenaries. Ms. Li suspected Daria Morgendorffer of being the one that had invited Buck to Lawndale, but subsequent events, notably Bucks extreme charm offensive and terrific stamina had made her forgive the girl her public embarrassment.

     Having to make up for voter mandated budget cuts, Ms. Li had allowed the New York Modeling Agency to recruit on campus, for a fee. Daria, angry because Quinn was a target of the modeling agency scam, was widely suspected of being the one that had contacted General Buck Conroy and offered the maniacal mercenary the very same deal. Of course, the media had also been called in and had been present when Conroy's little army had invaded Lawndale High.

     Buck laughed. "Now, Doll, you know that those NSA faggots listen in on my calls, so I can't say much. But let's just say that the war's over and I won, big-time. Me and my boys are bugging out of here in about fifteen minutes. I'll be coming in to the usual airstrip at the usual time and I want to be doing the usual to you by ten thirty, at the latest."

     Li flushed all over and hugged herself. "I think that can be arranged."

     "Groovy. Let's meet in our usual place. Well, I gotta get back ta work. See ya soon, Doll!"

     He hung up and turned back to the prisoner, the former minister of finance, a self-important man who was presently hanging by his heels from a chain hoist attached to the hangar ceiling.

     Buck walked over and cut away the man's blindfold and gag. "Well, ya got two choices, ya bastard. You can help us and get a little cut or else Marko here will give you your cut right now. Whaddaya say, Gomer?"

     Marko slowly drew his knife and grinned, his stainless steel Soviet-era dentistry gleaming in sharp counterpoint to the black-bladed combat knife in his hand.

     The minister swallowed, gray-faced. "Who do you think you are! This is an outrage, an act of piracy! You call me a murderer, yet you brutally slaughtered my entire bodyguard-

     Buck lashed out with a boot, silencing him. Buck knew that he was a stone cold killer but at least he wasn't a baby-eater like the minister and his boss.

     "Now what's the matter, Boy, you worried about your boss catching you? Let's ask him what he thinks." Buck spun the Minister of Finance around on his chain so that he could see the dictator.

     Someone had made a savage joke of the killing, propping the former dictator up in a chair in a casual attitude, sunglasses and a cowboy hat on his head, a lit cigarette in his mouth and a can of beer in his hand.

     "What? Impossible!" The minister goggled in shock.

     "Hey! Lookie here, everybody! It's the boss! Say, boss, you mind if your boy here helps us steal all of your money?" Buck feigned listening. "Ya don't? Swell!" Buck started the chain swinging. "So whaddaya say, Mr. Unemployed Henchman?"

     The Minister shook his head in disbelief. "But... No! It couldn't be!"

     Buch shook his head, in mock sympathy. "Yeah, I've had days like that. One day everything's fine, you're burnin' hootches and shootin' gooks. Then all the sudden there you are, watching that last chopper take off without ya." He grinned, savagely, the bright tinge of insanity shining through clearly. "But lemme tell ya, Boy, that's when the real fun starts."

     The minister tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.

     Buck suddenly drew his pistol and blew a hole through the corpse's torso. "Hey! You awake? Well, I don't think he's fakin', but I'm not a real expert. Hey, Marko's an expert! What do you say, Marko?"

     The Ukrainian mercenary grinned, his face a mask of pure evil. "I say cut off fat man's balls unless make wire transfer."

     "Sad to say that I agree with you, ya godless commie." Buck turned regretfully back to the minister. "Sorry, fella, but Marko here has gained himself a real appreciation for free enterprise since leaving the Spetznaz."

     "Da. Cash good." Marko smirked. "Knife sharp." Buck was the craziest and by far the most dangerous man that he'd ever seen, but he always got out alive with a ton of loot.

     The finance minister vomited, then spat out a tooth. "I will cooperate if you let me live."

     "See, Marko? I knew he'd do okay!" Buck grinned at the Minister. "The new boss'll just hang your sorry ass anyway if we don't take you with us. This way you get out alive with a shitload of money! Ain't that great?"

     "What of my family?" The minister swallowed as they lowered him. He could care less about them, but he would have a better chance of surviving if his family came with him. He'd married Soiza because she was the dictator's niece, not because he found her attractive.

     "Tell ya what, son, you make us all really rich and we'll get 'em out for ya." Buck nodded and Marko brought the minister's computer over, and a telephone.

     The former Minister of Finance exhaled in defeat. "I will-

     "Better got on with it." Buck didn't really care. It didn't matter anyway. None of the local gomers would be around for much longer, whatever they did. Family or not, Marko and the boys would probably wait until they cleared the land and then throw the minister out of the airplane for laughs, unless he was a fast talker.

     Everyone knew that dead men told no tales, and he would be too busy flying the plane to interfere. The barrels of uncut diamonds, bales of cash and bags of gold coins stolen from the dead dictator were already loaded onto the plane, but the boys wanted to squeeze out every last cent.

     Buck took a deep breath, breathing in the old familiar smell of battle. The taint of blood, gasoline, gun-smoke and terror always brought back happy memories.

     Looking around at the shattered remnants of the presidential guard, huddling under the guns of his men, he smirked.

     "God, I love war. I'm sure gonna miss all this." Buck showed a prisoner how to operate his camera and forced the man to take some pictures. Buck took a pose with the dictator, grinning, clinking beer cans in a friendly-seeming toast while holding up two fingers behind the head of the dead dictator.

     Buck straightened and looked at his grinning men. "Okay, boys, who else wants their picture took with the Great Leader?" It would be a pity to end his brilliant career, but he was far too rich to be a mercenary now. Maybe the oil cartel that had hired him could help him get started in politics.

     Tom knocked at the Morgendorffer door.

     Quinn answered. "Oh, Hi, Tom."

     Tom smiled. "Hi, Quinn. Is Daria in?"

     Quinn stepped aside, noticing his car. "That's a Jag, isn't it? Daria's in the shower. Come in, if you want to wait."

     He stepped in. "Yes, it's a Jag. It's pretty old though. It belonged to my grandmother, so I doubt if it rates more than a four." He grinned at her. Daria had shown him Quinn's date rating system. He was secretly rather impressed with the sophisticated weighted averaging system that she used.

     "It looks nice." Quinn led him to the couch and sat down next to him.

     "Thanks." He'd gotten rid of his Pinto when he'd started to date Daria. Unlike Jane, who appreciated the irony, Daria was more of a materialist. Or else she didn't like the idea of riding in a car with a reputation for exploding. He'd had the rusting Jag fixed up and painted when he'd seen her grimace at a rust spot. It looked pretty good, now.

     Helen walked by, on the phone. She smiled at Tom, waved and continued into the kitchen, arguing with Eric.

     Quinn was getting over her shock. The only way that he could know about her rating system was if Daria talked about her on their dates. She certainly never talked about Daria on hers.

     Quinn frowned, wondering if she was being shallow again, then covered it with a quick smile. "It's a six. The folding tables in the back seat are worth two extra points. So, what are you and Daria going to do tonight?"

     He shrugged. "I'm going to grovel and Daria's going to yell. She's mad at me again."

     Quinn wondered what her sister's problem was. She had a rich hottie on her line, and all she had to do was play him until the time came to reel him in. "Why? What did you do?"

     He shrugged. "I didn't take her to a dance. My mom offered us a couple of tickets. Daria hates it when I don't ask her what she wants, first. I just didn't think when I said no."

     "I'd hate that, too. What dance are you talking about?" Quinn was interested. She'd assumed that Daria would rather go in for a root canal than go to a formal dance.

     "The Harvest Moon dance, at the country club." He sighed. "I can't stand those things."

     Quinn briefly conceived and discarded a plan to extract the tickets from him. "Well, Daria probably thinks you're ashamed to be seen with her." She shuddered. "I know that I am sometimes, with the way she dresses."

     Tom was literally struck dumb for a moment. Such a thing wouldn't have occurred to him in a million years. "Bu... Really? You think that's what the problem is? But I love the way she looks! Daria looks great. I mean, she's just so pretty."

     Quinn nodded. "But she doesn't know it, Tom. She doesn't feel pretty. Of course she is pretty. I mean, she's my sister, after all, so she couldn't be like, plain. It's just not genec-tic-ally possible. But she dresses like such a freak and wears those hideous goggles all the time. I mean, God! The punk look is out! You have to look past all that to really see her. She probably thinks that you're afraid that all your rich friends will laugh at you or something for bringing her."

     Tom scowled. "I don't have any rich friends, Quinn." He thought. "Jane is a friend now, I guess."

     Quinn nodded, sadly. "That's one more than me. It sounds like you're a popular guy, just like I'm a popular girl." She smirked. "I wouldn't depend on Jane, if I were you."

     He shrugged. "How should I fix things up with Daria?"

     Quinn thought about it. "Give her lots of presents, treat her like a queen and take her to every single dance, event or whatever whenever they happen."

     "It's not really that bad, just boring and stupid." He sighed in frustration. "Every guy there will hit on her while their dates hit on me. She'll hate it."

     Quinn nodded. "Yes, she will. But she'll also figure out why you really don't want to go."

     He grinned. "You're okay, Quinn. You should meet my sister. You'd be a good influence."

     She smiled back, wishing that she could meet his brother, instead. "I love dances like that. I got asked to that one. Maybe I'll go after all."

     "Oh?" Tom cocked his head. She would cut a swath. He made a mental note to start sending her the unused tickets that he got in the mail. "With who?"

     "Up- Charles Ruttheimer." She smiled. "Your old school chum."

     He frowned. "Ruttheimer. That guy is nuts. He nearly wrecked my school, trying to get thrown out of there." Tom leaned back, thoughtfully. He kind of admired Ruttheimer. In his quest for expulsion, Ruttheimer had blown the head off of a plaster bust of the founder with a remotely detonated M-80, during morning chapel. When the laughter subsided the headmaster had demanded a confession. Ruttheimer had stood up and denounced them all as heathens and idolaters, loudly proclaiming that God had done it, in a fit of divine wrath over the graven image in the chapel.

     Tom snorted at the memory. "He never liked me, because-

     "The thorn bush. He told me all about it." Quinn shook her head. "What's with all that? Why do they let you guys treat each other like that?"

     Tom shrugged, guiltily. He'd been on both sides of hazing. "The hazing? The institutionalized sadism? It's an old boarding school tradition. My theory is that it's to harden us up, so that the big scary world doesn't eat us pampered overprivileged types alive. It also keeps us from trusting each other enough to band together against the administration. That's the effect, anyway. We're all 'good old boys,' when we graduate, though. It's a network." He grimaced, his anger coming through clearly. "Thank God I'm a day student. Some of those poor guys have been stuck there for eleven years."

     Quinn nodded, marveling. A whole school full of sex-starved rich boys, just waiting to be conquered.

     Daria came down the stairs. "Tom!" She walked over, leaned down and kissed him, thoroughly. She'd been listening for a while and Quinn wasn't far off in her speculations.

     "Wow!" He smiled, happily. "Am I forgiven?"

     Daria feigned deep thought. "Provisionally. She glanced at Quinn. "Tom, do you want to come upstairs for a minute? You've never seen my cell."

     "Sure, if you don't want me hanging around with your very cute little sister." He smiled warmly at Quinn, then followed her up.

     Quinn sighed, smiling dreamily after him, then shook her head, alarmed. I gotta get more sleep, she thought, firmly fixing her attention back onto the TV.

     Staring, flabbergasted, he gasped. "My God! It is a cell!"

     Daria smirked. "Ma and Pa are kinda' strict. They keep the bullwhip and leg-irons down in the basement."

     He laughed. "So what's the story, here?"

     She waved him to a place on the foot of her bed, then flopped down next to him. "Later. How about a kiss? We've got about ninety seconds before Mamasaurus Rex comes charging through that door to make sure that she doesn't become a grandma today."

     Tom blushed, grabbed her, passionately kissed her for eighty seven seconds, then leapt theatrically into the desk chair, eyes on her clock. His expression dissolved into shock when the door opened.

     Helen entered. "Hello, Tom, Daria. How are you kids, today?"

     "Fine, Mom." Daria, flushed and still breathing hard, beamed at her. Helen was so very predictable.

     "Hi, Mrs. Morgendorffer. I was just asking Daria who her decorator was." Tom smiled.

     Helen rolled her eyes, noting his mussed hair. Hair only got mussed like that one way, when a hand was run through it while kissing. "Terrible, isn't it? That's how it was when we bought the house. Daria won't let us touch it." Helen sighed. She longed to gut the place and have it decorated.

     "And rightfully so. I mean, look at this place. It's even got a hand rail." He frowned. "I don't like the window, though."

     Helen wrinkled her nose. "The sawn off bars? Me either."

     Tom shook his head. "I mean the lack of an emergency exit. If there was fire in the stairwell, Daria could be trapped in here."

     Helen looked at him, thoughtfully. "Quinn too. But what could we do?"

     "All of our upper floor bedrooms have rope ladders under the beds. In case of emergency, you hook it over the windowsill and you can get out." Tom looked at the window again. "As it is, she'd have to jump."

     Helen nodded. They'd already had one fire and Jake wasn't getting any smarter. "Where do you get these ladders?"

     Tom shrugged. "I'll find out and let you know."

     "Thank, you, Tom. I would be grateful." Helen looked them over. Daria was flushed, absolutely bubbling with good humor and Tom was in a similar state. She'd give them a bit of time. "Will you two be staying for dinner?"

     "Will we?" He looked at Daria, inquiringly. They usually ate at the country club.

     "Yes." Daria looked at Helen. "That country club can really put on the pounds." She was in no mood to run into Kay Sloane, and she suspected that the club staff called Kay whenever Daria was there.

     "Well, it's Chinese takeout tonight, so think of what you want. I'll order in about an hour." Helen was in no mood to cook and it would be impolitic to feed Jake's ghastly stew to Daria's boyfriend. "You kids have fun." She walked out, leaving the door conspicuously open. She didn't want them having too much fun.

     "Are you really that worried about me, Safety Boy?" Daria smirked at him.

     Tom shrugged. "Well, Rapunzel," He smiled, wickedly, "maybe you'll want to let down your hair, someday."

     Daria smirked. "If I was Rapunzel, I would have just dropped cinderblocks until I could climb down and rob the prince's body."

     Tom nodded. "That's why I don't go in for storming the tower. I like to skulk in through the back door.

     Daria smiled at him, then said, "It's wide open, for some people. I need your help, Tom."

     Tom sat up. "Really? You have it of course, but why?"

     "Have you ever heard of a dogfight?" Daria looked at him, carefully.

     Tom frowned. "You mean with pit bulls?"

     Daria shook her head. "No, with girls."

     Tom raised his eyebrows, then frowned. "I saw a movie once, where this army guy takes a girl to this contest where-

     "I got invited to one and publicly branded as a lesbian, all in one sentence." Daria swallowed, feeling another rush of humiliation.

     Tom stared, then the blood drained from his face. "W... who? Who did that to you?" No wonder she was so touchy.

     Daria sighed, grimly. "Remember the village idiots?"

     He nodded, flushing angrily. "Of course. The QB strikes again. He must be as blind as he is stupid. Do you want me to beat him up?"

     Daria hung her head. "No. Well, yes, but it wouldn't help, so don't. He wanted a plain girl to take and he sweetened the deal by offering to pay for a nice romantic date for Jane and I. Of course he had to say it in front of two of the biggest gossips in the whole school."

     "I'll start coming over there for lunch. That'll end any stupid lesbian rumors." Tom got up, pushed the door closed, sat down next to her on the bed and took her glasses off. "Let me tell you right now that you, Daria, are absolutely beautiful and I mean that, on my honor."

     He kissed her to silence her sarcastic reply and they commenced some serious making out.

     Quinn climbed the stairs and went into her room to do her homework. She sat down at the immaculate student desk that had replaced her makeup table as the most useful piece of furniture in the room and turned on her new desk lamp, briefly fiddling with it's ten luminance settings.

     Unlocking the solid cover of her bookshelf, she smiled in satisfaction at the immaculate new textbooks that she'd acquired. Quinn didn't want to lug home the dirty old used books that she had at school.

     Quinn took a lot of care to not appear to be a brain, but she was adamant about her schoolwork coming first. If she worked really hard, and brought her grade point average up to where Daria's was, she could be a freshman at Princeton during David's senior year. Quinn had never given up on anything in her entire life.

     Selecting her chemistry book, she opened it to the assigned reading and opened her class notes next to it, as David had advised in his last email. She went through the notes first, skimming for the topics emphasized in class. Then she started hi-lighting them in her text.

     "Damn!" Her yellow first pass hi-lighter was dry. Suspiciously, she examined it. It was almost new. As she suspected, someone had chewed on the cap and split it, drying the marker out. This wasn't her marker.

     "Daria!" Quinn stood and angrily went to retrieve her hi-lighter. Daria used up school supplies quickly and had raided her for supplies before.

     In high dudgeon, Quinn knocked on Daria's door and pushed her way in.

     "Daria, If you're going to take- Eww! Daria! Ga-od!" Quinn halted in shock. Tom was a pretty fast worker. He'd gotten past second base and was well on his way to third.

     Daria pushed herself away from Tom, red-faced. "Nice timing, Quinn," she gasped, shrugging back into her shirt.

     Quinn flushed. "Sorry. Never mind, I'll um, just use my orange hi-lighter." She turned to go.

     Daria got up, deeply embarrassed, straightening her clothes. "Wait." She got the hi-lighter and handed it to Quinn. "Silence is golden, Quinn."

     Quinn smirked. "How golden?"

     Tom grinned. "How'd you like some dance tickets?"

     "How'd you like to die?" Daria was flame red.

     Quinn raised an eyebrow, ignoring Daria completely. "Aren't you and Daria going?"

     Tom shrugged, eyeing her appealingly. "We always get extras."

     Quinn nodded. "Nah. I'd have to ask some guy, and I nev- almost never do that. Don't worry about it, Tom. I'd never tell Mom about something like this. The payback would be too bad." She smiled at them, shook her head in bemusement and went back into her room. Now at least, she knew that the lesbian rumor wasn't true. It was too bad that she was going to have to tell everyone, but it was better than having that stupid rumor going around.

     Tom looked after her, curiously. "She's a lot nicer than Elsie. The little brat would be up on the roof with a megaphone by now."

     "She won't deliberately talk, but it'll slip out. She talks constantly and everything comes out, eventually." Daria sighed. "Oh well, maybe they'll miss it in the usual flood of verbiage."

     Tom looked at the open door then at her, longingly.

     Daria shook her head. "Things were getting out of hand, Tom." She looked at him and swallowed. "N-not here."

     The muffled sound of Quinn's laughter floated in through the door.

     Tom smiled. If not here, then where? "So, want to go for a drive, then?"

     Daria sat at her desk, still red. "Uhm, yes, but... I don't think we... should, yet." Things had gotten awfully intense in the little padded cell. Hormones were raging, nearly out of control.

     Tom nodded, crestfallen. "I guess you're right." He wanted to do better than the backseat of a car for her, anyway.

     Daria stood, then sat down next to him again. "I can't believe that I was so mad at you Friday, for nothing. You really get to me sometimes, Tom Sloane."

     Tom embraced her, careful not to let his hands wander. "Daria, the truth is that I love you." He kissed her, then looked into her stricken eyes. "I think about you all the time. I really wanted to date around and keep things light until after college, but... you know."

     Daria felt a tear start. "I... I love you too, Tom, more than I can say." She sighed. "I've been fighting it, coming up with all kinds of stupid reasons to run, but no more. I'm afraid that you'll hurt me, but... it's too late." She sighed, looking like a prisoner who was on her way to the firing squad.

     Tom released her, got a Kleenex and wiped her eyes, then his.

     "I think that I probably will, Daria, but not on purpose. You'll hurt me too, you know. You can twist me up so bad sometimes that I think that I'm going to die. I'm pretty much helpless. I can't defend myself from you, and I won't try any more. I'd never have believed that anyone could do that to me, and that I'd still think about them every few minutes."

     Daria looked at him, guiltily. "I'm sorry. I get scared and I just don't know how to control it without lashing out." She sighed, bitterly. "I'm an emotional basket case. You deserve better than me. I can't show emotion, unless it's negative. You should- "

     She gasped, yowled and curled her toes as Tom slid his hands over places that no man had gone before. "Huuuuuh... Tom. Oh, God!"

     "That was emotion." He smiled. "Quit believing your own propaganda, Daria. You're a firecracker, and I'm your match. It doesn't matter that you can hurt me. I know you love me, and that you don't really mean it. I never mean to hurt you. When I do, talk to me. I'll always be there for you."

     Daria smiled, and he swallowed. That smile was what had hooked him.

     "Tom?"

     "Yes, Daria?"

     "Let's go for that ride, now." Daria gave him a scorching look.

     "Daria!" Tom blushed and got his keys. "What about your mom?"

     Daria thought about it. "I'll tell her that we're going to the club after all, then to the Zon."

     He nodded, blushing. "It'll be a few minutes before I can stand up."

     Daria showered, blushing as Tom joined her. "Well, I guess we'll make some more noise after all."

     Tom laughed. "I doubt if whoever that was in the next room will care at all. They were making as much racket as we were. I'm just glad that we got the room on the end."

     Daria blushed even redder, as he began to soap her up. "Tom! I have to go to school." She giggled. "It was pretty funny, though."

     Tom nodded. "I thought they were going to drive the headboard right through the wall."

     Daria smirked. "And your competitive instincts just got the better of you?"

     Tom shrugged, pouring shampoo onto her hair. "I wasn't even thinking of them, Daria."

     Presently, they dressed and made to discreetly exit the motel room. Daria stepped out and bumped into one of the people who had come out of the next room.

     "Daria!" Angela Ms. Li gaped at her, paling.

     Daria, gasping, thought that she was going to have a heart attack. "I didn't see you, you didn't see me, we never talk about this again."

     "Deal." Ms. Li sagged in relief. She noticed Tom. "Ah, Mr. Sloane..."

     "The same goes for me." He snaked an arm around Daria's waist. "Well, we should be getting on to breakfast. We-

     "Howdy, son!" Buck stepped out and grabbed his woman. "Looks like both of these fillies have been rode hard and put away wet!" He slapped Tom on the back, almost knocking him over. "Yippie ky yay, cowboy!"

     Buck turned to Li. "C'mon, woman, I wanna go get me some chow and unload the plane." He dragged the terminally embarrassed but unresisting Ms. Li off by the arm.

     "Er, nice to meet you." Tom looked over at Daria and they ducked back into the room for a good long laugh.

     Brittany opened her eyes and sighed. Things looked just as bad after sleeping on it. Not that she'd gotten much sleep. She'd spent days in her room alternately weeping and raging. She hadn't been able to get her prescriptions filled.

     Her temper was totally out of control and Kevin had finally dumped her for good.

     She got up and obsessively checked her pill stash. "Oh! Damn that little... geek!" Her brother... Half brother, Brian, had dumped them out and put them back in the wrong bottles. He was always messing with her stuff. Someone had taught him how to pick locks back when he'd been incarcerated at the boy's ranch for arson.

     Brittany separated the pills, counted them and refilled her pill bottles, then looked in the mirror. It was time to put on her face and go back to school.

     "Hey, Britty-Honey. Good morning!" Ashley-Amber stood at the foot of the stairs with the same blank expression that she always had. Maybe she had some pills. Brittany had checked before, but if Amber-Ashley had a stash, it was well hidden.

     "Good morning." Brittany tried to put some life into her voice, but she couldn't quite manage it.

     "What's the matter, Sweetheart? Still feeling bad?" Steve Taylor came out of the weight room with a towel around his shoulders.

     Brittany looked up, irritated. "Nothing." It was his fault. Him and his damn doctor friend. They'd used their connections to hush everything up. That was fine, but she didn't even get any help with her problem. "Why?"

     Steve shrugged. "Nothing, honey. Why aren't you wearing your uniform?"

     Brittany gritted her teeth and shrieked, "Because it's stupid to wear a cheerleading uniform all the time!"

     As everyone gaped at her in shock, Brian shot past with Steve's autographed football. "Woooh! Hey, do me, I'm the QB!"

     "Dammit! YOU LITTLE TURD! That ball was autographed by Joe Namath!" Steve shot off in hot pursuit.

     Brittany slipped away and drove herself to school, not wanting to have to beg a ride. She'd had enough of home for a while.

     Pulling into the student parking lot, Brittany swallowed down her nausea and wished that she still had her prescriptions. It wasn't fair. Popping her last Seconal, along with seven 10mg Ritalin pills, she entered the building.

     Brittany hid out in the bathroom until the first bell rang and then ran for her homeroom. She slid into her desk and grimaced as Kevin came in, late as usual..

     "Hey, Babe." He gave her his best smile, the one that she'd always thought so cute. He still needed her help.

     "Don't call me 'Babe' when you don't mean it. My name is Brittany." Brittany looked away from him. He was just so... irritating.

     Kevin's grin slipped a little. He'd wanted to cool her off and then pick her up again when she was back to normal, but it wasn't going according to plan. "Awww, Babe, I-

     "Do I have to report you to Barch for sexual harassment?" Brittany gave him a look of withering scorn.

     "Ewww, I don't want to be harassed by Barch." Kevin flinched at the look in her eyes, then swallowed, edging back. She was still way out of her gourd.

     "God!" Brittany glared at him, feeling her murderous rage building. She put up her hand. "Mr. O'Neill, Can I change seats?" It was either move now or claw his eyes right out, on the spot.

     "Why, of course, Brittany." O'Neill indicated an empty seat next to Jane. "You can move right there, if you like."

     Andrea looked at Kevin's back and scowled. Since dinglebelle was moving he'd want to cheat off of her, now. She leaned sideways, so that O'Neill could see her. "Can I change seats too?"

     O'Neill brightened. "Why, yes! That's a rather good idea, Andrea. I often miss you, hidden back there behind Kevin. You can have Brittany's old seat!"

     Andrea blanched. "But-

     "I think that you really should, Andrea. Please move to your new seat." O'Neill beamed and changed the seating chart. Now Brittany wouldn't be able to move back, when they got over their tiff. With any luck, the academically proficient Andrea would be a good influence on Kevin. Maybe Andrea could be induced to participate in the classroom discussions if she was more visible.

     Andrea groaned and moved. Shooting a look over at sarcasm central, she saw Daria and Jane smirking knowingly at her. She glared back at them.

     Brittany sat stewing all through O'Neill's lecture. She didn't have her usual Valium to go with the uppers and the nausea was making her swallow. Five minute before the class was to end she suddenly stood and bolted for the restroom.

     Jodie asked permission and followed, to find Brittany retching helplessly into a toilet.

     "Brittany!" Jodie swallowed, feeling sick at the sight. "Are you pregnant or something?"

     Brittany gagged and shook her head. "Sick... Withdrawal." She was violently sick again.

     "What?" Jodie stared in amazement. Had she heard right?

     Brittany stumbled to the sink and rinsed her mouth. "Ugh." She looked at Jodie, uncaring. "My doctor got arrested and they just cut me off, cold, Jodie." She shivered again, uncontrollably. "Cold..."

     The school had launched a prescription policy that mandated that each student have their prescriptions on file with the school, so that drug abuse could be more easily detected.

     When Brittany filed her prescriptions, her doctor had been arrested. Ever since, she had been unable to get the prescriptions honored.

     She'd gone to a new doctor, a younger man who'd taken one look at her old prescriptions and brought additional charges, but had done nothing else to help her. Her old doctor was very influential and insisted that she was fine.

     Brittany moaned. The pills had made her life blur by in a happy haze of mental silence. Amphetamines and barbiturates in the morning, which gave her intense energy while putting her in a, loopy, drunken state. Prozac at noon to mellow her out and extend it, then more barbiturates in the evening to counteract the uppers and get her to sleep.

     Her chemical lifestyle had been great, like a constant high-energy bender. Now her brain just wouldn't leave her alone. She hadn't been able to be depressed since she was ten and it was all crashing down on her at once.

     Jodie gaped at her. "No!"

     "I've been high for years." Brittany shrugged and walked out, trembling. She'd been rationing, so she wasn't as bad off as she would have been, but cold turkey day was fast approaching. She had to get her pills. But... how?

     Stacy, blushing and smiling, was again the center of a large knot of boys. Quinn came next, amused at the situation, surrounded by her usual entourage.

     Sandi was not amused at all, trailing along behind them with an equally disgruntled Tiffany.

     They entered their homeroom and Quinn dismissed her entourage with a smile.

     Watching closely, Stacy dismissed her own followers in the exact same way, exchanging a delighted grin with Quinn.

     Sandi snorted, angrily. The situation was a disaster. "Will you like, bother to show up for the meeting today, Stacy?"

     Stacy was staring into space with a rapturous smile. She was really, really popular. She came back to reality with a jerk. "Um, did you say something, Sandi?"

     Sandi put a note of saccharin into her voice. "Gee, Stacy, is this newfound popularity of yours somehow affecting your hearing? I asked you if you were going to be able to resume your post as secretary, this afternoon."

     Stacy looked stressed, but not nearly as stressed as she should have looked. "Oh... sorry. I have a date this afternoon."

     Sandi scowled. "The meeting can be rescheduled for this evening, to accommodate dating activities."

     Stacy smiled. "I have another date this evening."

     Obviously outraged, Sandi opened her mouth to rake Stacy.

     Quinn jumped in. "Of course we understand, Stacy." She smiled at Sandi. "I have a couple of dates, too." She didn't, but she was tired of hearing Sandi bitch.

     Sandi gave them both an acid look. She hadn't had a date in