Survival Of The Fittest

((Katy Warren continued from You hit like a girl ))

If there was any subject Katy truly hated, it was English.  Composition especially.  She was an ok writer, she guessed.  She wrote the requisite papers, got at least a B most of the time.  But English just didn't make sense, as a language.  It wasn't like Japanese, where everything was in neat, easily understood rules that were almost always consistent.  And it was pretty.  hiragana, katakana, and kanji were aesthetically pleasing, with their swooping lines and multitudes of strokes being art rivaling painters.  Arabic letters and numerals were just disappointing in their sparseness.

So she sat in composition class now, barely containing an expression of glowering distaste as the class waited to receive their papers from last week.  They had to write a paper about how their writing process worked, which she found a stupid task; there wasn't any damn process.  She sat down at the computer, she typed every painful word, she saved the document, and she printed out to hand in to Mr. Shigen.  To get to the required five pages, Katy had to make up a bunch of bullshit about drinking coffee and crumbling up pieces of paper.  It was something she was sure she had seen in a movie.

Shigen set her paper on her desk.  A blood-red "C" was etched across the top.  Her eye twitched, and she clenched her jaw.  

Fucking C?

She couldn't stop a soft growl from escaping her throat.

((Sara Corlett continued from A Breath of Fresh Air))

Sara sunk into her chair, holding her notebook to her chest. Each student had to write a paper about their writing process, and although it only required five pages, she had nearly doubled that amount. As the papers were being returned to their creators, the received grades were a spectrum of diversity; there were a minimum of two instances of every grade between "A" and "F", decorated in red ink. Even though she was certain her paper would excel by the time she printed the pages, by now she was slumped over in anxiety.

The student who sat next to her was the final grade to be returned proceeding Sara's. From the look and sound of it, she didn't seem particularly pleased with the results, as her face was displaying a semi-psychotic expression and what sounded like a growl was emitting from behind her clenched teeth. Sara took a deep breath and prepared to see her own grade, Mr. Shigen beginning to drop the white sheet from just above her head.

"A". She let out a small sigh of relief, and while she was shining with happiness on the inside, she decided not to openly display it.

While there was no facial expression, the girl next to Katy had let out a little sigh, which she heard.  Her eye was drawn to the A standing out on the girl's paper; attractive, and far more acceptable than Katy's grade.  She could feel her slowly grinding together in an effort to not say something.  It didn't work.

"Congratu-fucking-lations."  Katy said, starting to shuffle her paper into her bookbag(she took care not to sweat too lougly, for the sake of Shigen)  "You want a cookie or something?"

Katy leaned back in her seat.  "What'd you write anyway?"  She was prying.  But then, this was Katy being Katy.

((I have adopted Sara Corlett from TheDollBreaker))

Sara started to daydream as she sat there, but was pulled out of her daydream as she noticed the the girl next to her eyeing her paper. The girl congratulated Sara with contempt, evident by her swearing in the middle of the congratulations. She then sarcastically asked if Sara wanted a cookie for it. Sara quietly and uncomfortably replied "Um... no, I don't really want a cookie."

The girl then started prying on the contents of Sara's paper, asking what she wrote. "Um... I just wrote what we were assigned to write." She replied. "But, maybe I put a bit more work in than what was required."

She eyed the size of her paper, it was quite obviously much thicker than the other students' papers, and she had a feeling the girl would notice even if Sara didn't let her see the paper. "If you want... you can look at my paper..."

Bitch may have been book smart, but she was kinda dumb.  Katy had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at her shrinking violet answer.

When the girl said she could look at her paper, Katy didn't take it as a suggestion, but an open invitation.  She didn't even speak before reaching out and grabbing the paper, pulling it to her desk.  She looked at the front page.  Truth be told, she wasn't reading it.  She was feeling the heft of it.  Chick wrote a lot over the requirements.  A true overachiever.

"What exactly do you do to write that you can make this thing so damned long?"

Sara sat and watched as Katy grabbed her paper and pulled it towards her desk without saying a word. Sara observed Katy as she looked at the front page, but Sara could tell from the look on her face that she felt how hefty the paper was, and shortly after she had started looking over the front page she turned back to Sara and asked her how she made her paper so long.

"Well, I tend to be rather wordy... and, um, detailed with my writing." She said. "I'm not quite so sure myself how I got my paper to be that long." She let out a nervous chuckle. "So, are you finished? Er, with my paper, I mean..."

Katy sat back in her chair, sullen.  She tossed the paper back to Sara, and it landed haphazardly on her desk.

"So you fill it with bullshit?"  Katy shook her head, smirking.  "Guess I should have thought of that.  This is rhetoric class.  It's all about bullshit."

Katy glanced up at the clock.  The bell for next period was about to ring.  The other kids were starting to pack their bags, and she followed suit.

"Maybe I'll ask you about your bullshit next time we have a paper."  She said.

[[Gwen O'Connor continued from A Tree Grows in Seattle]]

Gwen was slightly unnerved by the essay requirements. To her, writing couldn't be defined in the strict terms implied by the standards set by the teacher. Mostly she wrote whatever piqued her interest, and she did it using primarily her intellect, not any sort of process.

Still, an A was achieved, though Gwen knew it was probably from her skilled style rather than from any sort of content of the paper.

Unfortunately for Gwen, her contentment didn't get to last. Katy Warren, the angry bitch who strangled a girl a couple years ago, was making fun of poor Sara Corlett's writing behind her. As the bell rang, Gwen stood, grabbing her handbag, and turned to Katy.

"What's your problem?" Gwen asked in an interrogating (though not quite angry) tone. "It isn't bullshit to write with a bit of eloquence and style, that's just working hard." Gwen was starting to get irritated, but tried to keep her composure by taking a breath.

"Maybe next time you could ask somebody who writes how they do it, but if you're going to be nasty about it, that's just being stupid."

Gwen felt a bit better now.

Katy tossed the paper onto Sara's desk and the paper landed messily. She grabbed it and returned it to composure when Katy asked if she filled the paper with bullshit. "Um, no, I did put work into it." She frowned. Sara had poured her heart into the paper, and to have someone call it bullshit without actually reading all of it made her feel rather sad.

Katy commented about how she should try filling her paper up with bullshit next time they have one. "Erm, I don't think that would work... Mr. Shigen is... pretty astute with grading."

It was evident Katy wasn't listening as she packed up her bags. Sara looked at the clock and saw that it was almost time to go. She breathed a small sigh of relief. Now she could get away from Katy without having to be rude. As she started putting away her things, Katy once more piped up, saying that maybe she could ask about Sara's "bullshit" next time they have a paper to write. Sara frowned and stared at the floor as she continued packing up her things. She hated being talked to like this, especially by someone as unpleasant as Katy.

The bell rang. She stood up from her desk and slung her bag around her shoulder. As she was about to walk out, she looked up to see Gwen O'Connor saying something to Katy. She wasn't quite sure what was being said, but something told Sara it involved her in some way. The last thing Sara wanted to see happen was to get involved in an argument. She quietly sneaked past them and out of the classroom door. Breathing a sigh of relief, Sara continued on to her next class.

((Sara Corlett continued in Not So Quiet Time In The Lunch Room))

Bitch A was taking off, and Katy was alright with that, having thrown in more than her two cents for the day.  But then Bitch B came out of nowhere with a chip on her shoulder and a fucked up attitude.

Had this been pre-incident, Katy would have given her the business.  But Daddy wouldn't have enjoyed that at all.  He'd had enough of her fucking up her chances of getting into the Olympic trials.  So she remained diplomatic.

For Katy, anyway.

"I did ask her little ass how she did it.  She gave me an answer."  Katy smiled an insolent little smile.  "If that's how I choose to interpret it, then it is what it is."

Katy shouldered her bookbag, wanting to get away from the chunky bitch before she did something she'd regret again.  Gwen was a big girl, but Katy didn't think she was a fighter.

"If you'll excuse me, I gotta go be 'stupid' somewhere else."  She said, with particular venom on the word "stupid".

She walked out, head high and the insolent smile still plastered on her face.

((Katy Warren continued elsewhere))

Gwen sighed. Katy was such an arrogant bitch, Gwen couldn't stand it. If she ended up on the Olympics like she kept pushing to, Gwen wouldn't even bother watching it.

Still, Gwen wasn't about to chase her and give her another piece of her mind (then she'd be late), so she simply grabbed her handbag, shoveled her papers into the appropriate section, and hurried off to make it to her next class.

[[Gwen O'Connor continued elsewhere]]