She never meant to be weird. She just sort of was. She also never meant to be unpopular. When you thought about it, it seemed easy to be "in." All you had to do was be beautiful, perky and hyper all the time. Basically, you had to be perfect…

With these thoughts racing across her mind, Shaelia made her slow way across the school lawn, ignoring the telltale signs of the fact that she was getting a watering down. When she finally stopped, she realized that the morning dew that she usually admired at a distance (you never knew when blades of grass would decide to be evil and life-threatening) was covering the backs of her legs completely.

Too late, Shaelia realized she had been muttering snatches of these words aloud. Everyone around her had stopped and was staring. Shaelia pulled a grotesque face at all of them. No use even trying to act like people like me, she thought. It’s like in the Princess Diaries when the girl realizes she’s a princess and suddenly everyone begins immediately liking her.

Wish I was a princess.

Shaelia didn’t talk a lot, that much was obvious. She was a loud person by herself, but when she was around other people, she hardly talked at all. She gave others the impression that she was a timid, mincing little creature. But she wasn’t. Shaelia thought her name should make her popular immediately, but everyone called her "Sheela" and, to put it bluntly, after the many times she had been called that, she despised the name.

"Shaelia? Are you planning on coming inside the classroom today?" questioned her first period teacher Mrs. Derue. Shaelia started. She hadn’t realized Mrs. Derue was talking to her.

Suddenly, it seemed the world was shrinking. Shaelia whirled around. She saw that someone was walking across the lawn, but who was it?! She had a foreboding feeling inside her—either that person was a threat, or that person was…

Who? another voice in her brain couldn’t help interrupting her. It spoke sarcastically and bitterly—it was Shaelia’s cynical side. Your long-lost twin sister, who has been looking for you for years, and with the aid of Oprah, she finally found you? And now you both have to embark on a mission to save the family fortune and in the end you’ll marry a pair of twin brothers and live happily ever after in riches and happiness, and sometimes you’ll switch boyfriends to see what the other is like?

Shaelia sighed. "Mrs. Derue, I have to go to the bathroom," she lied.

Mrs. Derue seemed confused. "But Shaelia, it’s first period, and you’ve been here since eight-fifteen. Don’t you think it’s about time to come inside? Besides, aren’t you cold?"

Mrs. Derue knew that Shaelia knew she didn’t need to take these classes. It wasn’t necessary, but in Shaelia’s words, ‘the representatives and people who run the school are complete brainless morons with no regard for the good of the students and therefore find it necessary to make Shaelia’s life a living misery and as soon as her long-lost twinnie walks across that lawn she will hang them up on the clothesline and then Shaelia will make them die painful, gruesome deaths’.

Whew! an optimistic-sounding voice spoke up in Shaelia’s brain. That was one long train of thought!

Shaelia ignored Mrs. Derue and headed across the lawn. She skidded to a stop in front of the girl. She could see the person was female now (not too late for the whole sister reunion thing, the sarcastic voice hissed at her). "Hi," she said, rather stupidly.

"Waz up." The girl giggled at Shaelia’s reaction—it was to wrinkle her nose and think, I don’t want a sister like this!

"Calm down, I’m not this stupid in reality," the girl said. She took her sunglasses off and tucked them into her collar. The girl moved so swiftly that before Shaelia even realized it, her hair was out of its ponytail and draped about her shoulders. It was long, luxurious black hair—almost like Shaelia’s would be if she actually cared about it.

"I’m Shaparie. What’s your name?" The girl—Shaparie—stuck out her hand. "Wanna hang out?" she questioned. "Just moved here. I’m a woobie noobie. You could show me around. If ya wanna—whoa! Who is that?"

The head of the cheerleaders, Sarah McDallan, was trying to sprint and slink across the lawn over to Shaparie and Shaelia. Her actions were giving Shaelia the impression that she looked like a crippled dog. She laughed quietly to herself.

"That," Shaelia said, not bothering to point because Sarah was nearing their spot on the lawn, "is Sarah."

"Ah." Shaparie nodded, grinning at Shaelia. Shaelia began to feel the beginnings of a warm feeling bubble up inside of her. Maybe, just maybe, this Shaparie was going to be her friend? And maybe, just maybe, she had really meant it when she said, ‘wanna hang out’? Shaelia had never been asked to ‘hang out’ before. What did one really do at a hang out? Would they hang? Would they out? Shaelia had a lot of questions…but if Shaparie was really as nice as she looked, she supposed she could ask her. Maybe.

You just said a lot of maybes, one voice pointed out to her. Shaelia batted the thought away with a ‘oh, shut up’, and turned back to Shaparie. But her ‘friend’ was nowhere to be found.

As Shaelia turned a full circle—360° degrees, she was proud to say that she knew that—she quickly realized that Sarah had dragged Shaparie off. Shaparie was looking behind her with a helpless look on her face, and the social Outcast felt a burning feeling inside her stomach. Before she could think of a rational reason to stop herself, she was marching across the lawn after Shaparie and Sarah, nearly running to catch up with the track member Sarah’s jog.

"Just what do you think that you’re doing?" Shaelia shouted, her courage surprising even her. "Can you tell me that?" Sarah had halted and was now staring at her, clearly startled. Shaparie looked like she would be cheering in a few minutes, but Shaelia ploughed right on. "Can you tell me why you’re dragging my friend around like she’s some kind of, I don’t know, doll? Can you tell me the answers to any of those questions, or are you too stupid? Oh, I know the answer to that one." She turned to Shaparie. "You can see—just look at their faces, they look all panicked. That’s exactly how she looks when Mrs. Derue picks her in class."

Shaparie started laughing and couldn’t stop. Shaelia was encouraged by this, and went on, "Just because you’re a cheerleader doesn’t mean you’re going to amount to anything in life. Actually, I think that because you’re a cheerleader, you won’t amount to anything in life. I mean, cheerleaders are the very images of the Devil."

By then, Shaparie was trying not to gag on her laughter, while Sarah’s groupies were shooting her dirty looks behind her back. Shaparie didn’t look like she’d care if she knew, though. Shaelia came to a meandering stop, but before, she made sure to poke fun at Sarah’s ‘anorexic looks’, which gave Shaparie another good laugh. Even whilst insulting Sarah, Shaelia couldn’t help but think that Shaparie had a very pleasant laugh. Little and dainty and tinkling, like a fairy’s. At least, like a fairy’s should be. If there was such a thing as fairies. Which there wasn’t.

"Hey. Are you bothering my girlfriend?"

Geoffrey Sonmer. (Don’t pronounce the ‘n.’) This can’t be good, Shaelia thought, as she was picked up by the collar and literally shoved against the wall, just like in those movies when the big bad bully said, "Where’s your lunch money?!" in a really mean and gruff voice. Only Geoffrey didn’t say, "Where’s your lunch money?"

He just ran Shaelia right to the wall, shoved her up hard against it, and got up in her face. His voice was just as threatening as the big bad bully’s was in the movie, though. He said, "I don’t appreciate people bothering my girlfriend. I think you need to be punished."

The only thing Shaelia remembered was Oh, God before her world shattered into thousands of little pieces of, strangely enough, Shaparie’s face.