She puts on a t-shirt and some boxers and walks to the bathroom where she brushes her teeth, smiling at herself in the mirror. She then goes back to her room to finish getting dressed, and slides down the banister to the first floor.

Her mother is already at the breakfast table. "I wish you wouldn't do that," she says, peering at Elizabeth over a cup of coffee.

"If I break my neck it'll at least be good for a laugh. Idiot Dies Doing Something Stupid." She puts some bread in the toaster. "People love to read stuff like that."

She sits down and pours a glass of juice, while Angela watches her. "You seem to be going to school an awfully lot lately."

"You think?"

"Definitely. Last year there were times when you'd only condescend to attend once or twice a week, and now you go almost every day."

Elizabeth takes a sip of juice. "I've got to grace them with at least my occasional presence. Otherwise I'll get kicked out."

"Do you really care if you get kicked out?"

"Well, no, not really."

There's a moment of silence, and Angela smiles. "Now you're going so you can see that boy Liam, right?"

"As if, mom." Her toast pops, and she goes to get it. "Like I'd let myself get attached to the proximity of a mere boy."

"I like him," Angela says, and her smile spreads to include her eyes. "The two of you would have very attractive children."

Elizabeth sits back down and begins buttering her toast. "I'm pretty sure there's more to life than having beautiful babies."

Angela stands up and walks to the other side of the table. "Whatever you say," she answers, then leans down to kiss Elizabeth on the forehead. "My beautiful baby."

Elizabeth rolls her eyes and says, "Sure, mom." But as soon as her mother walks away she smiles happily to herself.

Liam's alarm rings shrilly, and he reaches clumsily toward it. His hand connects, silencing it, but he loses his balance and falls out of bed, hitting the floor with a loud thud.

"Ow! Fuck!" He sits for a moment in only his boxers, rubbing his back, then leaps to his feet and grabs his alarm clock. He winds up, preparing to pitch, mumbling, "You no good piece of..." Then he relaxes, letting his shoulders slump. He puts his alarm clock back and gets dressed.

He walks to the kitchen and sees that his parents are both there, wearing suits, his mother cooking eggs while his father quietly reads the paper. He pauses for a moment before going in, absorbing the scene. Classic.

"Hello, hon," his mother says.

"Morning." He sits down and his mother puts a plate of food in front of him, which he begins eating immediately.

"So," his father says. "Report cards are coming soon. I'm assuming you'll do better than last time."

"Oh yeah, don't sweat it. My grades're gonna be fucking fantastic."

"Watch your language, dear," his mother says.

"Sorry. My grades are going to be fucking fantastic."

"Don't be smart with your mother." His father folds his paper. "Now, are your grades really going to improve, or are you just being patronizing?"

Liam, still eating, says, "Patronizing. My grades suck."

His mother putters around the kitchen and says, "Maybe you wouldn't do so poorly if you skipped fewer classes."

"If you skipped no classes," his father corrects. "You know this'll come back to haunt you later."

Liam shrugs. "Maybe. Y'know, Elizabeth's mom doesn't care if she goes to school or not."

Both of his parents look at him. His mother asks, "Who's Elizabeth?"

Smiling, Liam says, "You know, if you guys ever talked to me, you'd know."

His father looks annoyed. "We're talking to you now, aren't we?"

Liam concedes the point with a smile and a slow nod. "She's this harlot I met at school – basically, we just have sex all the time. In the bathrooms, on the roof, out in the woods, or we just skip school and go back to her room. Don't worry, we use protection. It sure beats the piss out of schoolwork, I can tell you that."

His mother looks somewhat shocked, but his father just smirks and looks back to his paper. "Son," he says, turning the page and straightening it with a shake. "You are so full of shit."

Jennifer stands in front of her mirror, smoothing out her clothes. She looks good. She puckers her lips at her reflection, then grins. But something isn't right... she spends a moment looking herself over. Her skirt goes all the way to the knee – too long. She unzips it and slides it off, then goes to her closet. She searches through her collection and pulls out one of her shortest skirts, holding it up so she can look it over. It's pretty short all right...

She smiles and goes to the mirror to put it on.

Steven shuffles to the television, bowl of cereal in hand. He turns the tv on and flips through the channels, then frowns. Nothing on but a bunch of crappy kids shows... He settles on one of them and crouches before the television, watching, transfixed.

He eats from his bowl and thinks about school. He doesn't want to go. Oh god, he doesn't want to go. It's like a weight, closing in, crushing him... What he wouldn't give just to stay home. Maybe he will stay home. He'll just stay right here and stare at this tv, and eventually school will be over and everything will be alright...

A woman's voice yells, "Steven! You're going to be late for the bus! Get a move on!"

He pulls himself to his feet. "Whatever you say, stepmother," he thinks. "Queen of the Harpies..."

He drags himself out of the room and drops his bowl in the kitchen sink. After donning his bookbag he pulls himself straight for a moment and faces the day with a sigh.

When Elizabeth arrives at school she sees Liam and Jeff standing outside, talking. She walks to them and Liam smiles. "Good morning."

"Morning, slowpoke." She nods to Jeff and says, "Jeffrey."

"Elizabeth."

Turning back to Liam, she asks, "Are you going to class this morning?"

"No, me and Jeff have to help Mr. Ennis sort some equipment in the gym. It'll probably take a few hours, the way we work."

"Oh yeah?" She looks a little disappointed. "You can't skip?"

Jeff, grim faced, says, "Nope."

Elizabeth frowns slightly. "I'll probably just go home for the morning then."

Steven walks up beside her, nodding hello, then skips Liam and moves his attention directly to Jeff. "I've got that stuff done for the project."

"Great, pass it over here." Jeff open his bookbag and Steven hands him a collection of papers. "So," Jeff says to Liam, sliding the papers into his bookbag. "Did Elizabeth tell you how she flaked out on this assignment with us?"

"No!" Liam looks at her, shocked. "Elizabeth, how could you?" He turns to Jeff and adds, "It's as though she's got no team spirit at all."

Jeff glances skyward. "Tell me about it..."

She waves a hand at him. "Ah, quit your bellyachin'. You don't need marks. I'm sure you'll get by fine with your badminton scholarship."

Jeff glances at Liam. "Doesn't it bug you how she's always disparaging our chosen sport?"

"Yeah." Liam smiles at her. "Worst groupie ever."

Elizabeth sticks her tongue out at him quickly, and Steven watches her with a mild fascination. Nobody notices him, and he feels as though he's watching the whole conversation from a long distance away.

Just then Jennifer strides up and takes a place in the circle. "Hello, children. So, what trouble are you getting yourselves into this morning?"

"We were just planning to egg your house," Liam says.

"And call you in the middle of the night," Elizabeth adds.

"Breathing heavily," Jeff appends.

"And then we were gonna key your car," Steven blurts.

"Hey," Jennifer says, turning to Steven. "That's not funny."

Steven blushes slightly.

"Oh, Ms.C," Jeff says, "I'm going to need a little extra time on that history report." He shoots a glance at Elizabeth, who seems not to notice. "I've been a little swamped lately."

Jennifer smirks. "Why don't you just copy from Liam?"

"Because Liam writes whatever shit he wants, and you still pass him."

Jennifer's eyes go wide as she turns to Liam. "You told him that?"

Grinning sheepishly, Liam shrugs a little. "He was looking through my notebook and it happened to come up..."

Elizabeth frowns. "Wait a minute – What are in these reports, exactly?"

"Oh, you know," Jeff says, "Mash notes to his girlfriend, that kind of stuff."

"Why Jeffrey," Jennifer says. "You sound like you're jealous."

"He labeled one of them Fake Report for Jen's Class. Right on the front! Who wouldn't be jealous?"

Steven raises his eyebrows. "He calls you Jen?"

Jennifer raises an eyebrow in return. "Sure. It's my name, right?"

"I don't know. I didn't know what your name was." There's a moment of silence, and Steven adds, "It seems somewhat unorthodox to me."

Elizabeth bursts out laughing and puts a hand on Steven's shoulder. "Buddy, that's the funniest thing you've ever said!" She chuckles some more, sliding an arm around Steven's neck. "He's right, this just won't stand at all. I might have to register a complaint."

Jennifer and Liam both smile, and Steven tenses up. As awareness of his close contact to Elizabeth finally reaches his brain, his mouth forms a smile. Jeff catches his eyes and gives him a knowing wink, which causes his smile to quickly fade.

"Anyway," Jen says, "I've gotta get inside. I'll see you all later."

Elizabeth takes her arm from Steven and everyone bids Jennifer a good day. Jeff watches her as she walks away, noting how heroically short her skirt is. "Man," he mutters, "That woman is so fucking hot..."

Liam grins. "I'm sure she says the same thing about you."

Still watching her, Jeff says, "You're crazy not to be hitting that."

"Hey," Elizabeth interjects. "As long as I'm around, there'll be no 'hitting'."

Liam looks at Jeff. "Well, then. I guess she's all yours, man."

Steven furrows his brow. "Hitting..?"

"Oh yeah." Jeff leans toward him conspiratorially. "That chick's nuts. She likes to be strangled, and punched, and burned with cigarettes..."

"Hey!" Liam's face turns angry almost instantly. "Show some fucking respect!"

Jeff raises his hands defensively. "Hey, I'm just playing with Stevey-boy." He smirks. "Besides, we all know that she'd be sweet vanilla, through and through."

Liam stares at him for a moment, then breaks into a grin. "Yeah. Come on, we'd better get going." He turns to Elizabeth. "Are you going to be at school for lunch?"

"I'm not sure," she says. "I'll come meet you either way."

"Good." He smiles. "See you then."

"Bye." She waves a little as Liam and Jeff turn to go. She watches them for a moment, then becomes suddenly aware that Steven is still standing beside her. She turns to him.

"So," she says, surprising him slightly. "What are your plans for the day?"

"Nothing, really. Going to school."

"Are any of your classes particularly important?"

He starts to answer, then hesitates.

She jumps in. "Okay look, I know all your classes are "important", but would it kill you to miss them? Would you literally die if you didn't go?"

He grins and says, "Well, no," then looks at her. "Why?"

"Well, I've got nothing to do this morning and I was thinking of going home, but instead we could go somewhere. You know, do something."

He stares at her blankly for a moment, and she feels a twinge of exasperation.

"You know, something that doesn't involve school. Something interesting!" She claps her hands. "Come on, Steven! Get with the program! Don't be a sheep!"

"Well... won't I get detention?"

She folds her arms. "Maybe. But look, I know as well as you that if you go in there and sit down, you're just going to start thinking about how you'd rather be out here." She smiles and walks closer to him, speaking quietly. "I've seen how you watch me, when you don't think I'm looking. Surely school's grip on you isn't strong enough to fight that."

He looks a little uncomfortable and says, "Well, it's just that we're doing some important stuff in sociology that I'm not sure I totally understand, and..."

He trails off as he notices that her face has changed to a hard frown. "Why are you doing this?" she asks. "I could say let's go and you could say okay and maybe we wouldn't become the best friends in the world, but at least we could go do something. Instead you're pulling this bullshit."

He pauses for a moment, then puts on his best approximation of an indignant scowl. "Well, what is this, anyway? Am I just a replacement for Liam?"

Her expression brightens into a smile. "Yes, that's exactly what you are. Now are you coming or not?"

His shoulders slump slightly, he looks back at the school, then walks toward her.

She beams and turns toward the woods, leading them inside. "I don't know why I'm so happy," she says. "You're not really much of a catch."

He shrugs. "I guess not."

She shoots him a glance. "You should really try sticking up for yourself sometime. You might like it."

"And what method would you propose for doing that?"

"Well, here's what I'd do." Gesturing with her hands as she talks, she says, "We're far enough from the school that nobody can see us, right? So first you clock me in the face, really hard, then maybe in the gut to make sure I go down. Then you give me a kick and yell, "Shut up, bitch!" Then maybe you could spit on me, at your discretion. And then I could break your neck, defile your corpse, bury you in a shallow grave and go back to school."

Her gives her a look of mild aversion. "You really are fucked up, you know that?"

"Like hell I am. You're just boring."

Annoyed, he says, "So you'd be happier if I just randomly attacked you?"

"In a lot of ways I just miss fighting." She looks up at the trees as they walk. "I used to fight all the time when I was a kid. If somebody was being an asshole I'd just fucking whack them a couple of times and they'd stop. But when you grow up it's not the same. If I were to knock somebody out, they'd probably end up coming back and burning my house down." She puts her hands in her pockets. "I don't know, I'm just babbling. If you were to suddenly crank back and give me a black eye it'd at least be interesting, is all I'm saying. Then we'd have something." She gestures between them. "We'd have some dynamic tension."

He lowers his eyebrows and mumbles, "Tension is overrated..."

Liam and Jeff sort through piles of badminton shuttles, tossing away any that are unreasonably mangled. After a few minutes of working in silence, Jeff stops to wipe his brow.

"I'm gonna go get a drink," he says.

"No problem."

He gets up and leaves the gym, walking down the quiet hallways. Everyone else is in class, and he takes his time selecting a water fountain. After quenching his thirst, an idea strikes him.

He walks to Ms. Cantrell's classroom and knocks politely on the door. Jennifer answers.

"Yes, Jeffrey? What is it?"

"Could you come out here for a moment?"

She furrows her brow slightly and says, "Alright." She steps out into the hallway and closes the classroom door behind her. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I just came to see you. An excuse for you to get out of class for a minute."

"Get out of class? You do realize that I'm the teacher."

"Yeah, but I know you don't want to do it. So I pulled you out." He grins. "So... what's up?"

Clearly annoyed, she says, "This isn't funny. Don't interrupt my class again, unless you have an important reason."

She turns to re-enter the class, but freezes with her hand on the doorknob when he says, "You wouldn't have any problem with this if Liam were the one asking for you."

Her eyes narrow and she considers a bevy of replies, but says only, "You're not Liam." She opens the door and walks back into her classroom.

He stands outside the door for a moment, angry. He then makes his way back to the gym where he silently returns to work, obviously annoyed. Liam stops scrutinizing shuttles for a moment to ask, "What's up?"

Jeff almost speaks, then holds his tongue. He's quiet for a moment, then says, "Nothing."

Elizabeth and Steven sit together at the top of a small slope, the woods behind them. They watch a few kids who play in the playground at the bottom of the hill.

"You see, it's not that I want to tell everybody to fuck off, exactly, it's more that I have to," she says. "I feel like I'm part of some intellectual aristocracy, when I don't necessarily want to be. But if you don't distance yourself people just end up hanging off you, you know?"

"Nope."

"I'm sure you do, if you just thought about it a little more. It scares me more than anything, the idea of having to support other people. Economically or spiritually. You can expend some energy and help get them on their feet, but there are a whole fucking pile of them who are just gonna fall down again, over and over. It's maddening."

He furrows his brow slightly and says, "So is that what I am, then?"

Surprised, she says, "I don't know – you tell me. Are you?"

"I don't think so."

"But have you ever really thought about it?"

"No, not really."

"I always have, ever since I was a kid." She leans back, looking up at the sky. "It was always important that I not impose on other people, and that they not impose on me. I knew really early on that that's how I wanted things to be. Eventually I just learned to assume that other people weren't going to be like that, because they somehow decided that they preferred living life grafted to anyone who'd let them stick." She looks over at him. "Have you ever read the book Wild Seed?"

"Can't say that I have."

"It's by Octavia Butler – it's about these people who have extra abilities: healing, or psionic powers, that sort of thing. But before they become active they have to go through "transition" – it's a few days of intense pain that hits in their mid to late teens, and if they come through it alive it determines whether they've got powers or whether they're going to spend the rest of their lives ordinary. I think you can explain regular people that way too. Did something happen in their lives to really wake them up, to really make them want to use their minds, or did it pass them by? For Liam he said it was a book, for me I'm not sure – whatever it was hit too early for me to remember, I guess. But for a lot of people, it's nothing; they never seem to realize just how important their lives are. Even if they're intelligent, even if they've got the potential, if they never make it through some kind of transition they're just hollow shells. And it doesn't have to happen in the teenage years, it can be any time, but the later it gets the less likely it seems that a given person is going to wake up."

She sighs slightly, then continues. "And then all you're left with are leaves in a river, just floating along. And occasionally some of them get the idea into their heads to become leaders, and they start herding the other ones together. Leaders and followers... it's all total bullshit."

Steven grins a little with the side of his mouth. "You've gotta stand alone until the bitter end, huh?"

She looks at him. "No. There's nothing wrong with forming connections, with having a bond with people. But it can only be with people you can count on, people you can respect. People who can honestly look you in the eye." As if in test, she begins watching him closely. He looks back at her for a moment, then looks away, down at the grass. A moment later she looks away as well, up to the sky.

"Hey, you got any money?" she asks.

"Sure."

"Wanna buy me some food?"

He smiles. "Okay."

The bell finally rings, signifying the end of first period. Jennifer's classroom quickly clears, and she has 10 minutes before the next class starts. She was going to go down and see Liam, but with Jeffrey there it would just be awkward. That damned kid... what was that stunt all about? She grits her teeth as she sits back at her desk and reaches for a paper to grade.

Steven places a tray on the table before Elizabeth, then sits down. "Thanks," she says, then begins to eat. After a moment she looks at him and asks, "Didn't you get anything?"

"Turns out I was a little low on cash."

She turns her tray toward him. "Well, have some of mine."

"No, that's okay."

"Look, I'm not gonna shill you out of all your money." She starts splitting everything in two. "Here, take half."

He chews idly on a french fry, watching her as she continues to eat. "You know, I was more than happy just to buy you something."

"Yeah, I know. But like I said, I don't want people bending over backwards to accommodate me. It's like when people say "Why doesn't so-and-so like me? I'm a nice guy". But what they really mean is that they're spineless and boring and they want people to tell them what to do. Tell me what you want, so I may please you. Not too exciting. Not referring to you specifically, it's just something that bugs me."

"Right..." He glances at her, and smirks. "Because what you're looking for is somebody to punch you in the face."

She laughs. "Yeah, that's the stuff! Just say whatever comes to mind, whatever you're not supposed to say." She smiles. "Keep this up and I might stop calling you Jellyfish."

He narrows his eyes. "You've never called me Jellyfish."

"No, but I always meant to. We just don't talk enough for it to come up."

"Well, if I ever want to talk to you from now on, I'll just walk over and push you down."

Her smile widens. "Works for me. Then I'll have to break your nose, of course." He smiles back, watching her face, feeling almost hypnotized by it. She goes back to eating, and he makes a half-hearted effort to do the same, though his eyes are continually drawn back to her.

Mr. Ennis walks into the gymnasium storeroom. "Alright boys, it's almost noon. Good job so far; you can go for lunch."

Liam says, "Thanks!" He and Jeff gather up their things, nod goodbye and split up, Jeff going to the cafeteria and Liam to the side of the school, to wait for Elizabeth. Once outside he takes a deep breath, then sits against the side of the school, getting comfortable. He closes his eyes and relaxes.

About ten minutes later he hears her voice, and stands up. She steps out of the woods with Steven, talking and laughing with him. She notices Liam and waves, and he's glad to see that Steven's attitude immediately turns somewhat defensive.

They walk over to him and Elizabeth says, "Hey Liam."

"Hi." He takes her by the hand and says to Steven, "Don't worry son, I'll take it from here."

Steven frowns at him and says, "Alright... I'll see you tomorrow, Elizabeth."

"See you." She gives him a smile before he goes, and she and Liam watch him for a few moments as he walks away.

"So," he says. "What was that all about?"

"What?" she asks innocently.

"I'm talking about our good friend Mr. Parker over there."

"Well," she says, glancing away from him. "Let's just say you may have a little competition."

He grins and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, right."