Sandi Griffin tiptoed to her door and checked for the fourth time that it was locked and that the piece of tissue was crammed into the keyhole. She then closed her blinds, put on "Cross of Changes" by Enigma, climbed onto her bed, sat with her legs crossed and her palms up, and remembered...

When she was in kindergarten, her mother had taken her to a business function, hoping to impress everyone with what a wonderful mothering job she had done. And that was where she had first seen him - the love of her life, so handsome and serene with his beautiful copper tone hair and straight, white teeth. And he was so mature - a whole year ahead of her. Even then, his voice and melodious laugh were deep, manly, and sensitive. She knew when she first saw Charles Ruttheimer III that she had found the man of her dreams, especially when he, who always knew exactly what to say, had walked boldly up to her and purred gently in her ear, "Come to Chuckie, feisty baby! Rowrrr..."

But of course her mother, the ever vigilant, could not see him for what he truly was and had requested that Charles Ruttheimer Jr. and his young son leave the function, Sandi recalled bitterly as she returned to reality.

She now walked swiftly toward her closet and unlocked the doors, then drew the lighter from her pocket and swung the door open. Happy, smiling faces of her beloved greeted her and she smiled back as she lit the candles and incense surrounding the largest picture of him. After a few moments of observing the beautiful shrine, she removed her favorite picture of Charles and kissed it gently, then kissed it again and again. She didn't realize until it was far too late that the corner of the photo had been ignited by one of the shrine's candles, and though she tried desperately to save the picture, soon all that remained of it was a small pile of ashes on the floor and several ashy smears on her blouse.

"Oh God! This will never come out of silk!"

Something was terribly wrong with the Compress-O-Matic 4000. Charles didn't know how he knew it, but he did. And as flames and shards of metal erupted from its angry framework, the last thought that registered was that he was not too terribly surprised. Then horrible, unending blackness crept over the corners of his mind and he cried out in pain for the last time.

"Lawndale High Student Killed in Fiery Bast? What the hell does that mean?!" a pink-faced Jake Morgendorffer roared from the Morgendorffers' breakfast table.

"That you shouldn't invoke the wrath of the cat goddess, of course," Daria, who was reading a different copy of the same paper, replied without looking up from her reading.

"That's 'Blast', Jakey," Helen calmly answered him. "And what is that article?" she asked as she rounded the table.

"Damn eyes," Jake grumbled as his wife's face grew more horrified by the second.

"That poor boy!" she exclaimed. "I remember he was always so kind and considerate and so sweet."

Daria, unconcerned, told her, "Mom, you and I must be thinking about entirely different Charles Ruttheimers the Third. Knowing this town, the Lawndale Tabloid just ran out of news tidbits and got Ms. Li to write a sensational work of fiction for them."

"Eew, Upchuck?" asked Quinn, also rather horrified, though for somewhat different reasons. "Why do only the geeks make the paper?"

"Oh, do I hear that!" Jake exclaimed, red-faced again. "When I was in grade school, all I ever wanted to do was to enter the science fair so I could get my name in the paper! But my old man said it was unmanly!"

Daria watched her family disapprovingly: Helen looking at the newspaper with interest, probably thinking that the Ruttheimers would need a good lawyer around now, Quinn pouting because for once she wasn't the center of attention, and Jake screaming and shaking his fist skyward at his dead father. She quickly got over her disgust, as she would have run away long ago if she wasn't able to tune out her family, flashed them a Mona Lisa-esque smile, and remarked, "Well, looks like its shaping up to be another great day at the Morgendorffers'. Guess I'll head for Jane's."

She picked up her backpack and walked out, just barely catching Jake's "Daria? Did you say something about a new paper in town? The Lawndale Tabloid? I wonder if they need consulting..."

Daria rang the doorbell at the Lane residence and was greeted by a tired looking Jane, complete with rumpled hair and pajamas. She gave her usual, "What are you doing here? School's not for an hour," line, but gestured for her friend to come inside.

"My family is driving me insane. And now the paper is going insane, too," Daria told her.

"I hear there's a nasty insanity bug going around, so we shouldn't be too surprised about that. Anyway, isn't it your family's mission to drive you insane?"

"Well, yes..."

"But the paper?"

"Exactly. It says that Upchuck got blown up by an air compressor last night."

After letting this revelation sink in for about fifteen seconds, Jane replied, "Ah, then I suppose that Brittany and her bunch of highly trained exorcists will have to be called in again." She paused, then continued, "Are you sure that Sick, Sad World hasn't been getting to your brain? It's a good show and all, but I think it actually says you aren't supposed to watch more than twelve episodes at a time."

"And all this time I thought they made subliminal messages illegal."

"But has something as minor as a law stopped the SSW crew from doing...things before?" Jane asked her. "And have you been getting any unexplained cravings for Skittles or Dr. Pepper?"

"Nope. Sorry, looks like that's one point SSW's lost on the dishonesty scorecard. They must feel pretty dejected. But anyway, I'm not making this up."

"Then Li's behind it. No doubt about it," Jane told her.

"That's what I said. I guess we'll just have to go to school and find out," Daria replied.

"Wow, I never thought I'd hear that line coming from you. Are you sure you haven't caught the insanity, too?" Jane asked her friend, then continued, "Well, I guess I'd better go get dressed."

"I don't know. Those PJ's of yours make quite a fashion statement."

Angela Li's first response to the lead newspaper story was panic. How could that despicable Upchuck do this do his school? Now Lawndale would forever have to bear the name of the school that that poor Charles Ruttheimer attended. And she would never get those important grants if it was proved that despite all the drug dogs, metal detectors, and other security precautions, one faulty air compressor could take the life of a student...

By this point, Li was on her third cup of coffee laced with Vodka and was lying on her breakfast table trying not to sob. However, six cups of the same concoction later, the wheels of her devious little mind were turning at full power.

"After all, the boy didn't die at school," she thought. "Perhaps something good can still come of it."

And the only thing that Principal Angela Li could think of as she swerved her way to work, screaming at anyone who was unfortunate enough to stand between her and the Lawndale High faculty parking lot, was money.

Timothy O'Neill sat on a pillow on his bedroom floor, shaking his head a sniffling. Why, oh why did the Great One take away such a virile young life? Charles Ruttheimer III, though not the brightest of his students, was certainly one of the happiest. He recalled Charles, with his shiny black hair, cheerful smile, and bright yellow football uniform, sitting at his desk and trying, yes trying so hard to answer the challenging questions put to him.

"Was I too hard on the poor boy?" he wondered. "Was it me, in fact, who drove him to his dreadful fate?"

O'Neill just couldn't take it anymore, and at that last thought, he finally broke down and sobbed.

"Hey Daria, Jane, what's Mr. O'Neill doing over there?" Jodie Landon called, walking through the parking lot, pointing to their English teacher, who was unloading what looked like a cheap linen shop's worth of pillows from his olive green Honda Civic.

"Uh, I've got no idea," said Jane.

"Probably just having another of his psychotic breaks," said Daria. "Oh no, I hope he's not going to make us do pregnancy breathing exercises again to go along with the Scarlet Letter."

"Eck. Well, hopefully he'll accidentally bring his exercise tape again instead of the rhythmic breathing music," Jodie replied.

"And if he follows through with it, I believe we may just have to pay a repeat visit to Mr. Roof."

"I don't know about that. Have you seen the handprint scanner Li installed on the roof door last month?"

"Handprint scanner? Good thing I brought my chisel," Jane said, rooting around in her bag and coming up with the said tool.

"Okay, Handyman Jane," Daria said, pulling on her friend's bag. "Let's go to class. Maybe this weirdness will be explained there."

Angela Li held the dictating device stealthily behind her left hand as she bent down and spoke softly into it.

"Eight-forty-one AM. Thursday. Contact Jodie Landon about Charles Ruttheimer III Security Memorial Fund and bring it to the attention of the boy's family. Alter Student of the Year elections. Talk to Yearbook Committee about this year's dedication."

Li clicked the recorder off, then chuckled to herself.

"You are far too good, Principal Li," she told herself, thinking of the Ruttheimers' vast monetary holdings. Surely they'd want their boy remembered properly.

She congratulated herself again for her brilliant thinking, then poured herself a reward from the bottle of rum so carefully concealed in the hollow body of the faux jade Buddha on her bookshelf.

Jodie was getting a tiny bit impatient with Jane, who was trying to cram a bag of art tools into her already completely full locker. She stood tapping her foot for a while, then walked over to the doorway of Mr. O'Neill's room and peered inside.

"Ohhhh," she breathed in disbelief, then called out, "Jane, Daria, come look at this!"

The pillows they had seen earlier were arranged in a circle around the room. Giant pictures of Kevin were wreathed in leafy branches and candles burned on every tabletop. O'Neill was kneeling on the ground, plugging in a bright yellow boombox. Suddenly, horrible music of the 'inspirational' grade began blasting from it.

"Uh-oh," Jane commented. "Ghetto blasters are back."

Daria cringed and covered her ears. "With a vengeance," she said loudly.

A red-eyed O'Neill turned around and greeted them.

"Good morning, girls...oh, really this morning isn't good at all...that poor boy! Why? Why?"

O'Neill threw his hands up into the air over-dramatically, then grabbed and economy sized box of tissues and blew his nose loudly.

"I'm sorry, girls. It's just that poor Tommy Sherman was killed so recently and now the very quarterback who took his place was stricken down in the prime of his life!"

He was so overcome with emotion that he flopped down on the nearest pillow, put his face in his hands, and sobbed.

"Upchuck wasn't a football player," Jane whispered to Daria.

"Yes, but observe the giant pictures of Kevin prominently displayed throughout the room, " Daria responded, also whispering. "One of us is wrong and it should be interesting to find out whom."

Just then, Kevin walked into the room with Brittany at his side.

"Hey-hey, babe! Look at all this just for me! But Mr. O, the championship isn't for three weeks. I guess he's just getting the team spirit up, huh babe?"

"Go Lions, go!" squeaked Brittany, leaping into the air.

"I'm the QB!" Kevin proclaimed loudly.

"Go Kevvy, go!" squeaked his girlfriend.

At that, O'Neill's head snapped up and he stared in amazement at Kevin.

"Oh Charles! You aren't dead! It was all just a big mistake!" he cried, running over to Kevin and hugging him.

"But Mr. O, I'm Kevin," Kevin replied, smiling stupidly.

"I guess I've underestimated Kevin. He's smart enough to know who he is, after all," Daria whispered, drawing outright laughter from an already snickering Jane.

Sandi had been nervous and jumpy ever since the evening before, but had almost convinced herself that it was just weird hormones or something. But her mom and dad were both on business trips and her brothers were both staying with friends, so she was home alone and the empty house that morning hadn't exactly been inviting. Her friends were too stupid to notice anything different with her before school and she was feeling somewhat better by the time she got to her first period class: history.

As she filed in with the rest of her classmates, she noticed that Mr. DeMartino hadn't gotten anything out for the day's lesson and was standing with his hands folded at the front of the class. Something was definitely amiss, Sandi realized as the bell rang.

"Now CLASS, we were going to conTINUE our LESSon on the Civil WAR toDAY. But in light of the TRAGEDY, Ms. Li has DEMANDED that we take the DAY to talk about and REMEMber him."

Sandi was confused, but quite interested. This sounded like gossip, and she wanted the scoop. "What happened?"

"SUREly you must know, Ms. GRIFFIN. Only the tragic DEATH of your classMATE Charles RUTTheimer the Third."

Sandi stared at him as the words sunk in, then broke down.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" she sobbed, running from the class.

"Whoahhh," said Tiffany. "What's wrong with her?"

"Like, it must be the same thing Quinn said," Stacy told her. "He was, like, a total geek. Now he's dead and he's, like, getting all the attention and no one even noticed Sandi's really cute new fuzzy barrettes."

"Yeahhhh ... that is sooo wrong."

Sandi ran to the door leading to the parking lot, stopping only to tie a kerchief around her head.

"After all," she thought, "bad hair is always a Fashion Don't, no matter what the circumstances."

She raced out the door, tears threatening to ruin her perfect mascara, and got into her little red Mazda Miata, her mother's birthday gift for her. Thoughts of her beloved racing through her mind, Sandi drove madly to Lovers' Lane, right next to the quarry on the edge of town.

She carefully got out of her car and walked to the edge of the quarry, staring at the ground a vast distance below. And with that, she closed her eyes, splayed her arms, and jumped.

"Hey guys, have you seen Quinn?" Joey asked into his walkie-talkie.

It was his turn to add to the Quinn's route map project while his two fellow Quinn worshippers stayed at school and told him where she was going. The project had expanded from its original preferred way to school to everything from her favourite route to the mall to maps of which rooms in her house and her friends' houses she was most likely to be in at specific times. Now he was on a delicate mission - to figure out the fastest way to Lovers' Lane so that they could easily find the car Quinn was in and beat up the guy she was with.

Now he heard Jeffy's voice over the walkie talkie.

"Uh, she's in the girls' bathroom putting on mascara. She won't be out for another... two minutes and twenty four seconds."

"Good," Joey thought. "She'll never guess what I'm up to."

When he drove toward Lovers' Lane, he saw a little red sportscar pulled up to the very edge of the quarry.

"That's dangerous," he thought. "I wonder where the driver went. I hope they're okay."

He pulled over, jumped out of his car, and walked over to the Miata. Then he looked over the edge, gasped in horror, and screamed frantically into the walkie talkie, "Holy shit! Guys! It's...it's Sandi! Come quick! And bring help, like a teacher or something!"

"Where do you think you're going, you MAN?!" Janet Barch shrieked as Jeffy tried to ease his way out of her classroom. The tardy bell hadn't even rung yet, but she wasn't about to let him go anywhere. And she wasn't the kind of help Joey was looking for, was she? He gave her a stupid looking smile, which probably served only to infuriate her even more.

"Uh, Sandi just jumped off a cliff. Joey says I have to come."

Barch looked shocked, then more furious than Jeffy had ever seen her before.

"Oh, I see how it is!" she screamed. "Another young woman's life ruined by an disgusting, uncaring man! But this time, it wasn't just her good looks and her charms; it was her entire life! HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF, YOU WORM?! YOU PARASITE! YOU...YOU...MAN!!!!"

Jeffy took this opportunity to bolt out of his science teacher's classroom and out toward the parking lot. He ran by the office, then stopped and turned back. Maybe Ms. Li could be of some help.

Irritatingly enough, Mr. O'Neill was forced to break the guidance circle in his study hall when the intercom crackled and Ms. Li's voice came over it.

"Oh drat," he thought, reaching out to press the power button on the yellow boombox. "And I think that we were really connecting with the Child of Emotions."

"...unfortunate incident involving Sandi Griffin. Apparently, she jumped off the edge of the quarry. I have to go and see about this, so school is dismissed early. I repeat, school is dismissed. Everyone, just go home. Oh...this is not the kind of publicity I needed right now..."

The intercom clicked off.

"Eep!" squeaked a distressed Brittany, as tears began to fill her eyes.

"Yes! No school!" shouted Kevin.

"Oh no! Not another horrible accident! And so soon after the first tragedy!" O'Neill cried, glancing around at his walls, which now bore Upchuck's pictures where Kevin's had been.

"But Mr. O, this isn't a tragedy! School's out! Right, babe?"

"You big oaf! Sandi's dead and all you can think of is getting out of school early?" Brittany stomped on her boyfriend's foot, then started crying and ran out of the room.

"Fine!" Kevin, totally oblivious to the fact that she was upset, shouted after her. "I won't drive you home!"

As Brittany ran along the hall, she remembered those happy junior high years when Sandi was still her best friend; before the ill fated gymnastics tryouts. Poor Sandi, all she'd wanted was to be in that class, and after she found out that only Brittany had made it, she'd withdrawn from her. Brittany had always meant to apologize and get the friendship gong again, but then she'd made the cheerleading squad and met Kevin and she was always just so busy...and now Sandi was dead! She just couldn't believe it, but there it was, awfully, horribly real.

Without really knowing what she was doing, Brittany reached for her bag and got out the bottle and opened it. Panic stricken and crying fearfully and angrily, she almost fell into the girls' bathroom. But once there, everything became perfectly clear and she knew what she had to do.

"This has, without a doubt, been the weirdest day of my life," Jane told Daria and Jodie, whom she was once again keeping waiting by her locker. "I can't believe that they're actually dead. It was strange when Sherman kicked it, but I actually knew these people. Not by choice, but still."

Daria was too stunned to be sad yet, so she was what was natural for her: sarcastic. "What a tragedy. Two of Lawndale High's brightest minds snuffed before they could achieve the greatness for which they were destined."

Jodie was already upset and off balance by the day's happenings and Daria's seeming total lack of emotion really rubbed her the wrong way.

"Daria, sometimes you astound me," she said coldly. "These weren't your little pawns who got killed so you could kid around about them, these were actual people with actual families and actual lives. And now they're dead. And I'm sorry, but if that's all the sympathy and respect you can show for them, no wonder people don't like to be around you. Okay?"

Daria looked stunned, then rather sheepish. Jodie glanced over at her and smiled a little.

"That was a bit preachy, I guess," she said. "But Daria, I'm really not in the mood to joke around."

"Yeah, I see your point. Look Jodie, I'm sorry," Daria told her. "I'm having kind of a hard time keeping together myself."

Jane couldn't believe that she had just heard all of this from utterly unperturbable Daria. This day surely had been one of her strangest...

She was just about to say something to break the uncomfortable silence that followed when she heard a distinct clattering noise from the girls' bathroom, which should have been deserted more than ten minutes before that. By her friends' turned heads, she knew that they had heard it, too.

"You guys, stay here," Jodie whispered as she quietly walked over to the bathroom and opened the door.

She looked from across the floor to Brittany, who was slouched in a corner, then back along the floor. It was only then that she noticed the empty pill bottle tossed onto the tiles. Jodie gasped, then ran over to her friend, grabbed her around her waist, and shook her violently. Then she forced open Brittany's mouth and the brightly coloured pills spilled to the ground. Brittany started screaming and crying at the same time and Jodie looked over at the pills again. Something was quite wrong. She knew that she recognized the bottle so she picked it up, looked at it, and suddenly got an irritated look on her face.

"Brittany, you tried to OD on TUMS?"

"Yeah," Brittany squeaked/sobbed. "I remembered that I always kept them in my bag because sometimes after games Kevvy would get a tummyache. I thought they would work..." She sniffled again. "Wouldn't they have?"

Daria and Jane who had watched the scene unfold from the doorway, walked in.

"They might have, had you planned to die from constipation. And had you taken about eight more bottles," Daria told her.

"Oh," Brittany squeaked, looking forlorn. Jodie suddenly felt so sorry for her that she went over and hugged her.

"Brit, it'll be alright. Come on, I guess we'll drive you home."

Joey just couldn't take his eyes away from the cliff face, where, almost a half hour before, he had first seen Sandi hanging precariously by one of her shoes on a stunted tree growing a few feet down from the edge. She had been knocked out then, but had quickly come to and had just as quickly started complaining about how she'd been hanging there for what seemed about half of her life and her clothes were all ruined and why hadn't he gotten there sooner? Hed finally gotten sick of listening to her whining and had unsuccessfully tried to pull her over the cliff by her other foot a few moments before. Her shoe was now falling swiftly to the gravel below.

"Oh my God, you dork! Do you know how expensive these were?"

He hoped that Jeffy would hurry up.

"Sorry, Sandi."

"You'd better be. And it's, like, sort of uncomfortable here, so could your friend or whatever please get here? Now? And if you lose my other shoe..."

Sandi was cut off by several cars pulling up almost simultaneously. Ms. Li, armed with a megaphone, jumped out of her black Crown Victoria and immediately began shouting orders through it. Jeffy and Jamie got out of their cars, as did several other students.

Jeffy threw Joey a yellow nylon rope, which Joey tied around Sandi's ankle and tried to haul her up with.

"What is that thing you're pulling me up with made of?" screeched Sandi. "Because 'Waif' says that synthetic material or whatever suffocates your skin and doesn't allow your pores to breathe. Not that I like have pores or anything, but I still can't have like polyester or whatever touching my skin."

After convincing Sandi that the rope was 100% cotton, Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie managed to pull her over the ledge.

"I didn't think she weighed this much," Jamie whispered to Jeffy.

"Yeah. I bet Quinn would have been nicer to us, too," replied Jeffy.

"Yeah," said Joey.

As soon as Sandi got to safety, she began surveying the injuries to her clothing.

"I hope that you know that there is now mud or whatever all over the front of my new cashmere sweater. And you, like, ripped my Versace jeans! Do you know how much these cost? I hope that you are, like, going to pay for this. You," she said, pointing to Jamie, "you, Jonathan, are definitely paying for my shoes."

"Huh? I'm Jamie."

"Whatever. Well, one of you is the one who, like, caused all of this."

"Okay, young people! Load the victim into a vehicle and let us make our way back to Lawwnnndale High!" Ms. Li shouted rather ceremoniously into the megaphone.

"Victim is such and un-cute word," Sandi commented as she was helped toward one of the cars. However, she was soon too busy noticing the grass stains on her remaining shoe to pursue this latest complaint.

It had been a long day. Coroner Annie Chen had barely sat down at her desk when her assistant, Bill Sanders, wheeled the newest case through the morgue doors.

"And what's this one, Bill?" she asked, vaguely interested.

"Heard about that poor kid down in Lawndale who got blown up in his room by an air compressor? This is him. And from what I've heard, he's a pretty nasty one. Burned beyond recognition and completely covered with machine oil and pieces of insulation. My, oh my, I can feel a lawsuit brewing. Don't you think, boss?"

"Yes, Bill. Get him up on the slab, please."

The young man lifted the sheet wrapped body easily and set it carefully onto the autopsy table in preparation for its careful dissection and analysis.

"He was pretty light for his size. One of those underfed ghetto kids?" asked Sanders.

"No, apparently the dad is pretty well off," said Chen, preparing to make the initial Y-cut.

As Chen's scalpel cut into Charles Ruttheimer the Third's charred corpse, an eerie whistling could be heard. Then, suddenly, the body flew up into the air and zoomed around the small autopsy room. Sanders started screaming something about malevolent ghosts, but Chen calmly walked over to where the body, now a dejected looking black lump, lay in a corner of the room.

She bent over the thing to inspect it, but suddenly began laughing and turned to the pale and quivering Sanders.

"Sanders, come over here and take a look at this."

"My God, boss, it's an inflatable doll!"

Hours before, the hot afternoon sun had brought him back to a twisted, aching version of reality. Something under him felt like sandpaper and his whole body had floated in liquid seeming pain. When he saw the dazzling light before him, he just closed his eyes again and let himself be pulled back under by the pain, for surely he was already dead.

Now that he was a bit less confused, he realized that the light was not the fabled death light, it was just the sun, and he felt vaguely stupid. He tried to lift his head, but the same nauseating pain swept over him the instant he moved. He would wait.

And a bit later, sirens pierced the cold early morning air. For somewhere out there, someone had given orders to search everywhere around the Ruttheimer estate. Charles, lying on the stable house roof, could have kissed that person.

Especially if she was a woman.

A young, foxy woman.

"Rrrowwwrrrrr..."

Friday dawned cold and foggy. Daria woke with the first light, feeling tired and disoriented. Then she remembered the happenings of the previous day, groaned, and rolled out of bed.

"How is it," she thought, "that there could be two so profoundly botched suicide attempts only hours apart?"

She wondered about how, now that he had been so tragically killed, Upchuck's faults would be forever forgotten, for the ultimate taboo was to insult a dead person.

"I wonder how people would remember me if I died," she thought, running a finger along one of her own pale wrists.

"Oh, dammit, I'm way too tired to be thinking of this," she said, then walked off to take a shower.

Jane dragged herself out of bed and down the stairs for another lonely breakfast before Daria came to walk to school with her. She, too, had given the previous day's events more than enough thought and had barely gotten any sleep, so she wasn't in the best of moods.

And she wasn't prepared to see Trent sitting at the breakfast table, drinking a cup of hot water and looking unusually chipper.

"You forgot to add the coffee again," Jane informed her brother.

Trent looked in irritation into his coffee cup, then looked up at Jane and nodded. He got up, opened a grimy cabinet, and pulled out a can of instant coffee. Then he removed a spoon from a tottering pile of dirty dishes in the sink, wiped it absently on his less than spotless shirt, and stirred the coffee into his cup.

"Thanks, Janey. I thought the coffee tasted a little weak."

"Trent, why are you up this early? I didn't hear Mystik Spiral at all last night, so you shouldn't be up for hours."

"Got a gig."

"Gigs aren't this early, Trent. What are you hiding?"

Trent's cool exterior was slipping and he turned a little red.

"Gigs for school are." He tried to save himself from instant embarrassment, though he knew Jane would get her way eventually.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jane asked, confused. Then the truth hit her. She grinned. "You didn't."

Trent hung his head and nodded.

"Jesus, you must have been really hard up for cash. How much did Li offer one of her more dishonorable former students and his newfound musical friends?"

"Thirty-five each and a really long lecture about setting goals. And I really needed the money."

"God, I'd hope so. Well, now that you're up, how about giving Daria and me a ride to school?" She stopped and yawned loudly. "And how about some of that coffee? I'm exhausted."

"Students!" Ms. Li whacked the microphone on her podium a few times before she realized that it wasn't yet plugged in.

Pictures of Upchuck hung Chairman Mao-style around the auditorium and the stragglers were just taking their seats as Li's voice came booming over the now working microphone.

In the popular section of the seats, no one was paying attention to their principal's futile attempts to make the speech, for Sandi, uninjured except for for a small bump on her head and the damage to her no longer flawless manicure, was back and was now, once more, the center of attention.

"And it was, like, this total geek went and made this fashion statement about, like, dying and everything, and I just couldn't live with that or whatever," Sandi recited her fake reason for jumping, carefully invented the day before in the ambulance, her heart breaking with every word at the thought of her beloved.

"Wow... Sandi, you are sooo smaaaart..." drawled Tiffany.

"Yeah, Sandi, I would have, like, never thought to do anything that...fashionable!" Stacy added.

"If she had died," Quinn thought indignantly, "I would have been president. Why does Sandi always have to screw with my life?"

"Yeah, Sandi, we are so lucky that you didn't die. No one could have taken your place," said Quinn.

" ...and now a song for the unfortunate boy himself," Ms. Li was saying.

Suddenly, the curtain behind her lifted, and Mystik Spiral began playing some really bad song with a chorus about "A boy on the edge, Of a very high ledge."

"Well, how long was this groundbreaking piece of music in the works?" Daria asked Jane.

"Five, possibly ten minutes. Trent wrote it while I was trying to eat breakfast. I hate it when he does that - damn hard to do anything but writhe on the floor and moan. I still can't believe he's doing this for thirty-five lousy dollars."

"Hey," said Daria, "Five minutes, thirty-five dollars. That's 420 bucks an hour."

Just then, the song ended and the cheerleaders started walking toward the stage. Brittany, to Angie and the others' horror, stopped to talk to Daria and Jane.

"Daria, Jane," she squeaked, "I just wanted to thank you for...well, you know."

"Sure, Brittany. Anytime," replied Jane.

"And I wanted to say that I'm glad that it worked out that way because she wasn't even dead, so I would be and there wouldn't be any reason and I couldn't cheerlead anymore and Kevvy would be sad..." Brittany was obviously getting herself confused. She frowned and concentrated hard, but Daria interrupted her.

"Don't think about it too hard, Brittany," she said rather sarcastically.

Brittany instantly perked back up and started smiling again.

"Okaaay, Daria!" she squeaked, then rejoined her fellow cheerleaders.

Jane looked at her friend with a strange expression on her face.

"I've come to understand cheerleader logic," Daria explained.

"Now, that is a scary thought."

Just then, Mystik Spiral began playing what sounded somewhat like Jimi Hendrix's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" (but way worse) while the cheerleaders did a cheer to the anthem. The contrast was so strikingly stupid that Daria and Jane barely kept from cracking up, while Ms. Li looked horrified at something that was going on behind the side curtain.

"All this for little old me? Grrr...my lady friend in the principal's office must have arranged it. Helllloooo, feisty little ladies! Your Chuckster has returned!"

A bandaged Upchuck was being wheeled out from behind the curtain by a buxom blond nurse.

"Oh my God....Upchuck is baaack..." Tiffany could be heard throughout the auditorium in the dead silence that followed Upchuck's unexpected arrival.

"I knew it was too good to be true," Daria remarked.

"Only in Lawndale," said Jane, sighing and putting her forehead in her hands. "Only in Lawndale."

Standing behind the podium and opening and closing her mouth, managing to mimic a goldfish perfectly, Ms. Li was in a state of shock. Finally, she picked up something from the top of her podium and held it out for Upchuck and the rest of the school to see.

"The most expensive yearbook in Lawndale High's history, that's what it is!" she exclaimed, frantically gesturing to the yearbook, which bore an enormous picture of Upchuck on its front. The fluorescent lights caught the gold glitter of the cover, which sported small neon coloured flowers and a metallic purple dedication: In Loving Memory of Charles Ruttheimer III.

Upchuck wheeled himself up to the podium and put one hand on the yearbook and one hand on his nurse's shoulder.

"I must be the luckiest man alive," he announced. "I'm touched, Ms. Li, I'm really touched."

Ms. Li exploded. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Ruttheimer! Lawndale High is going to be the laughingstock of the town! You, Mr. Ruttheimer, have brought the punishing hand of dishonour down unto yourself, Lawndale High, and its distinguished principal. No one will buy a yearbook memorializing a boy who turns out to still be living. You have caused the loss of sums of money that could have been put to far better uses, such as the placement of a Breathalizer at the door of every classroom. How could you let you classmates down this way?"

"Whoa, feisty little baby! I'm sure that my father would be pleased to relieve you of those little books of joy to send to the Ruttheimers across the globe."

Ms. Li seemed somewhat soothed by this most recent revelation, so she backed down and the whole school sat in stunned silence for the moment.

Then Sandi overcame her shock, was swept by a wave of joy, and let out a small shriek, a shriek that everyone mistook for horror. She careened down her row, open backpack and purse emitting occasional tubes of lipstick, and ran, shrieking, to the girls' room at the back of the auditorium. Stacy ran after her.

"It's okay, Sandi! He's back! They'll, like, notice your barrettes now!"

Everyone turned around and watched them, the popular ones sympathizing and the others pointing and laughing.

Jane turned back around at nearly the same time as Daria did.

"Well, looks like everything's back to normal," Jane remarked.

Daria started to nod, but noticed that something had landed on her boot.

She bent down to pick it up and discovered that it was a picture of Upchuck.

A picture of Upchuck with pink and purple hearts drawn around it.

She handed it to Jane as though it was contaminated.

"I don't know, Jane. Am I a total idiot, or did this just fly out of Sandi's purse?"

Jane turned the photo over. Sure enough, written in Sandi's loopy script were the words "Sandi & Chuckie 4-Ever!" Another huge heart encircled the inscription. Jane wrinkled her nose and cocked an eyebrow.

"Daria, as much as I'd like to deny it, I believe that you're right."

And so, as the bandaged Upchuck made passes at the cheerleaders, who screamed and ran off the stage, Trent remarked, "Man, what is wrong with that guy?", Li planned what to do with the yearbook money, and kids started to leave Lawndale for their cars, Jane put the picture in her pocket and the two agreed to save it in case Sandi needed to be blackmailed in the future. Then, they walked up to the stage together, for Trent could probably be convinced to give them a ride home.

THE END

You didn't actually think we were going to kill him off, did you? You did? Oh. Well, sawreee...

Endnotes

The tragic demise of the skimpily clad babe on Upchuck's straw: She can be seen in "The Daria Diaries", in a soda in front of a computer displaying Ultrasuave Universe: The Charles Ruttheimer III Webpage.

Upchuck's treatment of the air compressor: Just a bit of proof that Upchuck is capable of being turned on by anything.

Banker's lamps (in the Ruttheimers' hall): For the benefit of anyone fortunate enough to have never picked up a cast off copy of Renovators' Supply Catalouge in the waiting room of their dentist's office while being bored to death and nervous before getting something painful done to their mouths by some demonic stainless steel device, a banker's lamp is a type of lamp with a green shade that was very popular in the houses, and apparently the banks, of the Victorian age, but can now only be seen in houses of upscale neighborhoods, the aforementioned catalogue, and select Home Depots across the nation. (Run on? Never.)

The window for "birdwatching": "Birdwatching", as in the kind that Marty's dad was doing in "Back to the Future" when he met Marty's mom.

The Shrine to Upchuck: Well, this is a bit of a story in itself. Bridget and I picked up an art class 2/3 of the way into the first semester this year, and, naturally, we chose to sit at the least populated table. But for some reason, as the year goes by, more and more of those annoying popular people keep migrating over to our table. These people talk incredibly loud with difficult-to-ignore snob accents, plus I must admit to being an eavesdropper by nature, so I usually catch what they're saying. However, recently I've been applying the Larissa Block Out, which I used to use on my parents until they figured it out and started grounding me when I did it, so they're somewhat more bearable now. Anyway, at the infrequent times when they aren't discussing drinking beer, having sex, or surfing, the favorite subject is what they would do if they went to one of their thousands of friends' houses, opened their closet up, and found a shrine to themselves. I always think, "Yeah, right," but that isn't the point. By now you have forgotten the point. It was why I put Sandi's shrine to Upchuck in it. Also, I thought that Sandi having a crush on him would make it somewhat more entertaining.

Sublimal messages: I got this one from my friend Prado, who might not be the most trustworthy source, but oh well. We will live on. According to him, the advertisers at the theatre used to pay to get these fraction-of-a-second long things that said stuff like "Buy a Coke or the Evil Dentists Will Surely Get You With Their Demonic Instruments of Death" (okay, okay, they'd just say "Buy a Coke") on the screen during the movie. The theory was that these would register in your subconscious mind, but not your conscious mind, and because your subconscious seems to be extremely stupid and impressionable, you'd suddenly get an irresistible urge to go to the snack bar and buy a Coke. This might not be quite as successful on TVs, but could certainly be implemented. BTW, subliminal messages have been outlawed.

"Lawndale High Student Killed in Fiery Bast?...." .... "That you shouldn't invoke the wrath of the cat goddess, of course....": Bast, or Bastet is the Egyptian cat goddess; goddess of music and dancing. She's also my alterego. ^_^

O'Neill's pillows: In the tradition of "Heathers" (I drew a LOT of inspiration from this movie) and O'Neill's house in "Her, Uh, Cane".

Pregnancy breathing exercises: If you've ever watched one of those stupid pregnancy movies (a good example is "Nine Months") or have been pregnant or have known anyone who was, then you know that it's practically a requirement to go to these breathing classes where everyone - men and women - have to bring pillows and learn how to breathe while in labour. According to my mother, doing these exercises is profoundly worthless, but Mr. O'Neill seems like he would be an advocate.

Ghetto blasters: My parents are in the habit of making up terms, but this (along with "ILF", which means "In Like Flint", which was pretty much an original version of Austin Powers and means "everything's fine" or "everything went alright") wasn't made up by them. Anyway, in the mid to later 80's and early 90's, starting in the ghettos, but occasionally spreading to more classy parts of town, these people would carry around boomboxes cranked up to maximum volume, on their shoulders. The music was frequently extremely bad. Also, the yellow boombox is the one that my English teacher has. It's so funny to me to hear this totally proper sounding British guy reading classics out loud, then to look around and realize that it's really a virulent yellow sports boombox on my teacher's desk.

The TUMS scene: Based, of course, on the scene from "Heathers". I may not have the description down quite right. And it was just so...so Brittany to try to overdose on TUMS. Morgan says that it's pretty obvious that it came from Heathers, but Robin hasn't seen the movie, so this is for the benefit of those like her. It's really a great movie until about 2/3 of the way through, when it gets pretty damn corny. You can die from pretty much anything, so it would be possible to kill yourself on TUMS, but you would have to take A LOT of them. Also, I thought that it wouldn't be too hard to have her friends with Sandi, plus I needed a reason for her to really freak out.

Please, please, please send in feedback! Please! I got so depressed about getting absolutely no comments that I suffered a short retirement as a fanfic author. Morgan, thankfully saved me. *hugs Morgan* Just tell us we suck if you want to at: disciple_of_daria@hotmail.com

And on a final note, Bess and I wrote about equal parts of this fic. It's really is nice to have someone to write with, as a lot of times when one got writer's block, the other could just take over.

There. That's it. Now I must type episode reviews.