Chapter 13: Meet Cordelia
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: Very very much appreciated :-)
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Xander and Buffy walked to science class together, exchanging only a few words as they were busy weaving their way through the students crowding the hallway, all going in different directions.
Buffy was disappointed when the teacher, Mrs. Grettle, greeted her at the door, pulled her aside, and gave her a packet of make-up material as well as her new assigned seat, in the very front row. Xander winced in sympathy for her, making a face at Mrs. Grettel’s back for her benefit. Buffy flashed him a quick, grateful smile, before resigning herself to her new seat. She noticed that Xander’s seat was once again in the very back row. Lucky him, she thought.
This time, there was still some time before the bell, and as she pulled out a pencil and notebook from her bag, the brunette girl, Cordelia, took the seat directly behind Buffy. Giving her a condescending look, Cordelia tapped Buffy on the shoulder, asking “So you’re the new girl, Buffy, right?”
Buffy turned and realized Cordelia was speaking to her. “Yeah…hi,” Buffy responded, a little nervously. Cordelia had an unfriendly smile on her face, and her tone was one of disdain.
“Well, Buffy, I’m Cordelia, though of course you know my name by now, right? So, now you’re in Sunnydale High, there’s some things you should probably know...”
By now, Cordelia was looking carefully at Buffy’s outfit. Buffy was confident that her clothes were fine, though somewhat on the neutral side, but was starting to get annoyed at Cordelia’s over-dramatized judging. Buffy took a quick glance at Cordelia’s clothes, which practically screamed pink-preppy-cheerleader-rich-girl. It was almost scary how her clothes could perfectly depict all of those stereotypes at once.
Cordelia wasn’t even looking at Buffy anymore as she continued talking, instead taking the time to judge everyone else’s clothes in the classroom. “You know, the thing about high school is that it’s all about yourself. You need friends, you need clothes, and you need money, to be someone. And,” Cordelia finally turned and faced Buffy once again, “I think I’ll let you in maybe if you try a little harder with the first two, in a couple of weeks. First off, ditch the losers.” She jerked her head very non-subtly toward Xander, who half-rolled his eyes but also looked away, annoyed and a little put out, hoping Buffy wouldn’t decide to run after the Cordy Crew and willingly turn herself into one of the vapid CCC for the sake of social acceptance. Buffy had shown she was nice, friendly, and wasn’t the ultra-cliquey type.
“Also, you need to brighten up your colors,” Cordy continued, indicating Buffy’s outfit, “and, why not get a manicure while you’re at it. I’ll be easier on you since you’re new, and I’ll hold off the Quiz till you’ve done the other stuff. We good?” Cordy put on a brilliant, fake smile, as if she’d just made a very generous offer to Buffy.
Buffy was stunned. Before, she’d had a faint suspicion that Cordelia would be stuck-up and someone to avoid, but it seemed like she’d given her too much credit even at that. For once, Cordelia’s clothes seemed to be an on-the-spot accurate assessment of the girl’s personality, if it could be called that.
Despite that, Buffy gave her as much a smile as she could, and politely replied, “Cordelia, I don’t think—“
She was abruptly cut off by the bell, and Mrs. Grettle immediately held her hand up for silence. Apparently, she was a strict teacher, and everyone fell silent.
A little relieved, Buffy also turned her attention to the teacher.
An agonizing, hour-long lecture later, the sound of the bell cut through Mrs. Grettle’s speech and everyone scrambled to pack their stuff and head out to third block. Cordelia immediately swept off with her chattering group of friends, as Buffy struggled with the stuck zipper on her bag. Buffy was in a slightly worse mood than before, thinking to herself that it would be so annoying if she had to get another backpack already, when a sideways yank finally freed the zipper.
She headed towards the door, smiling when she saw Xander standing by it still waiting for her. Making sure Mrs. Grettle wasn’t around anymore, Buffy asked in a suffering tone, “Is science always this godawful boring? Not to mention the piles of pre-assigned homework? What’s the lady got against us, anyway?”
Xander snickered slightly. “Yup, you’ve gotta hand it to Grettle to make you feel like running and screaming at any mention of science.”
Xander gulped as Ms. Grettel walked right by him, returning to her classroom, and shot him a sharp look.
“Oops.” Xander tried to sound guilty as he and Buffy walked quickly past the teacher, but cracked up at how badly faked it came out sounding.
Buffy laughed too, drawing a scandalized look from Cordelia, who was currently blocking the hall, surrounded by what seemed like Sunnydale’s entire cheerleading and football population.
Xander noticed Cordy’s glare, and turned to Buffy, rhetorically asking, “So you’ve met our famous Cordelia Chase?” He managed to convey his opinion of Cordelia very clearly as he said her name, throwing a glare in Cordelia’s general direction as he shoved his way through the crowd. This earned him some threatening gestures from the football players of the crowd, whose expressions quickly turned to appreciative leers at Buffy as she followed Xander as quickly as possible, avoiding eye contact much like she’d done through all her previous years at school.
Still, Buffy felt about ready to punch someone when one of the guys, urged on by his friends, stepped in front of Buffy, cutting into her path as someone else blocked Xander. Buffy gave up trying to avoid eye contact, and gave an annoyed sigh as she looked up at the guy, and tiredly asked, “Can I get through here, please?” She knew she probably sounded kind of lame, but she seriously wished it wasn’t so hard to simply get through the halls.
When the guy, whose name was apparently ‘Riley,’ just stood there for a few seconds and didn’t move, blinking and looking towards his friends, Buffy just moved to shove past him as politely as she could.
“Hey!” Riley objected. “I’m trying to talk to you here.”
Buffy inwardly rolled her eyes. So this guy was even lamer than her.
“Really? Cuz you didn’t seem to be saying much to me,” she pointed out. Buffy already didn’t like this guy. He was obviously dumb or really tactless, and she didn’t feel like wasting her time even being polite. Besides, sarcasm was fun. The guy didn’t seem to get it.
Riley’s face turned a little red, and he grabbed Buffy’s arm. “What’d you say? I’m trying to say something here you know. You know, you didn’t even tell me what your name is. You’re in a different school now, and you know what, you…” He faltered a little, not really knowing where he was going with this. Buffy took the opportunity to yank her arm from his grasp, shoving her way through the crowd after a last annoyed glance and a quick “Nice to meet you too, but I have to get to class now.”
Grabbing Xander on her way, they made their way towards the gym. Xander was looking very out of breath, and from what Buffy gathered, during that little scene one of the guys had been using Xander as target practice, and he’d had to duck an endless barrage of bits of erasers and paper.
Brushing himself off, Xander gave Buffy an apologetic grin. “I’m sorry to say that a good 99.9% of Sunnydale’s jocks are complete and hopeless idiots.”
Buffy nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how my old school was too.”
So far, she’d basically seen everybody pick on Xander. She wondered how he could stand being under attack so much, since she’d wanted to just drop out of school so many times, and she actually had it pretty good, compared to Xander. At least most of her classmates left her alone, or even outright avoided her. But then again, there was the whole being-able-to-beat-most-of-them-up factor to be considered.
Willow chose that moment to arrive, giving Xander a quick hug, and then brightly asking, “How were your classes?” She looked at both Xander and Buffy, and frowned a little when she finally noticed that Xander was still panting slightly, and Buffy was also looking a little frazzled.
“Our good old buddies, the CCC,” Xander explained. “The Buffster here got to meet Queen Cordy and Cardboard Boy.” At Willow’s look, Xander clarified, “Riley.”
“Oh.” Willow gave Buffy a sympathetic look.
Buffy raised an eyebrow at being dubbed “the Buffster” but was more amused than anything, and continued with, “…and Xander was treated to a private game of dodgeball, with complementary spitballs to go.”
Then, as the bell rang and they entered the gym with everyone else, Buffy asked, slightly angry, “How do all those jocks get away with what they do to you anyway?” She had kind of picked up from Xander’s reaction to his treatment that it wasn’t something new. “Where’s our oh-so-concerned principal anyway?”
Willow gave her a knowing glance, but she also looked a little sad at how Xander was treated, ignoring the passing shriek of Harmony asking “Did your mom buy you that shirt, Rosenburg?”, and replied to Buffy, who was now glaring at an oblivious Harmony, “So Principal Flutie gave you that whole caring-principal speech too? Well, his favorite hobby is actually avoiding student interaction. So we can’t depend on any help from him or the staff. And he also likes the idea of expulsion way too much. We kind of got used to just putting up with it."
Now that they were all seated in the bleachers, the gym teacher, Mr. Rendall, finished taking attendance, only briefly acknowledging Buffy when she corrected him on the spelling of her last name, then sent them all to the locker rooms to change into gym clothes.
When they all returned, Xander commented to Willow, “I guess we’re still doing self-defense then?”, gesturing at the mats now lined up along the gym.
Buffy, surprised, repeated, “Self-defense? You guys do that here?” She wished her school had done self-defense in gym class…
Willow grimaced and nodded, “Yeah, the school board kind of mandated it, after all the stuff that happened the past few weeks.” Willow fidgeted a little when Buffy gave her a pointed look.
“What kind of weird stuff?”
Xander threw a look at Willow, wondering if it was a good idea to creep Buffy out already, and tell her about the crazy stuff in Sunnydale. Still debating the wiseness of his choice, Xander said vaguely, “Well, um, Sunnydale has kind of a high crime rate…” In his mind, Xander was already thinking ‘understatement of the year…
Willow continued, “…and there were kind of some not-so-well explained accidents the past couple of weeks, and it got the parents kind of rattled up, and there was some really quick voting thing, and the school board set this up.”
Buffy looked at the two of them, feeling a bit uneasy. Strangeness in Sunnydale. Like her dream hadn’t been a way-too-obvious premonition. She had only had that one, real-life encounter with a vampire, and still hadn’t been able to find anymore information. As the gym teacher yelled at them to get into groups of four, Buffy decided to question Willow about the “accidents” more later, shrugging it off for now, with an equally vague reply.
Willow and Xander watched Buffy’s face carefully for her reaction to their extremely non-specific news, and were not sure how to judge her calm but thoughtful expression, before her one-word reply of “Weird,” carefully free of emotion, as the class began splitting into groups.
~
A/N: Yay, I had such fun making Riley an idiot. ;-). So then, coming up: self-defense classes. Also, I just want to clear this up a little: there won’t be any falling-in-love when Buffy and Angel meet (at least I don’t have anything big planned, but I hardly have a story outline anyway, so that’s not saying much). Sorry. I just really don’t want this turning into one of those fluffy B/A stories. I have nothing against them, and there are tons of excellent ones on this site, but that’s just not my goal with this story. I do have one idea for developing Angel’s character, which has the potential of making him kind of important, but it still doesn’t involve a B/A pairing. Sorry to you expectant shippers.
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