Back in the library, Bender leaned coolly back in his chair. "Well this is going to be a fun detention," he commented wryly, "With those two dumb idiots around, we're going to be in for quite a time."

"Will you just shut the hell up, Bender!" Andrew snapped at him, "You could have gotten us all killed there!"

"Now come on Clark, do you really thing the imbecile would have pulled the trigger?" Bender posed, "Come on, Dick may not like us, but he loves his job too much to kill us."

"Well maybe you're wrong, ever think of that!?" Andrew countered. "Just reign it in Bender, you're going to go too far one of these days!"

"There is no such thing as too far, my friend!" Bender shot back, "I can go as far as I want. I can handle that dummy any time, you've seen him. Oh no, going too far, am I? For your information, I'm not going to stop until I get enough, which won't be until this detention is finished!"

At the sound of the phrase, "not going to stop until I get enough," Claire burst into tears. Bender glanced in her direction. "So what the matter with you!?" he snapped, "I gave you fair warning that I had other girlfriends! What makes you think you'd be the only one?"

Claire's response to this was to give him a very bitter glare and toss her book bag at him. Directly across from her, Chandra, who had been watching the whole sorry scene with reserved pity, slowly strolled over. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" she asked Claire.

"Yeah; leave me alone!" Claire growled.

"But if you hold it in, it's only going to get worse, you...."

Something inside Claire exploded. "Now listen to me good, sweetie!" she bellowed, grabbing Chandra by the collar, "I do not..want...your....help! The last thing I want is to be anywhere near some hopeless, inbred, crazy, washed-out, irritating, agitating, worthless whore like you, let alone helped by them! So if you know what's good for you, you'll just trot right back over to your table, sit your rear down, and don't bother me for the rest of the night, understood!?"

"Is that what you really think of me?" Chandra's face was breaking apart from this rejection.

"YES!!!!" Claire screamed in her face, 'Now get lost!" She gave Chandra a very rough shove and, to further punctuate her viewpoint, spat at her feet. Chandra trudged back to her seat, put on a pair of headphones, and started writing her paper. Her torment was only beginning, however, as no sooner had she begun rocking to the beat of the songs than Bender came over and snatched the CD player from her side. "'Michael Jackson: Greatest Hits,'" he read off the CD playing inside, "Fitting. One freak loves another."

"I'm kind of listening to that," Chandra said, taking it gently back form him.

"Now, I'm kind of curious, as one of his few remaining fans, what gives you more pleasure: raping ten-year-olds or tearing your face apart every other week," Bender continued. When Chandra ignored him, he went on, "No answer, huh? I guess that means you enjoy setting your hair on fire more as a sign of devotion."

"Look, I'd really like to finish this paper early," Chandra said, not looking up at him. Bender snatched the paper away from her. "Hey!" she cried at him, "I was just getting started on the body!"

"You've got all night," Bender crumbled the paper up and put it in his jacket pocket, "And don't worry; I'm just getting started too."

"May I remind you Bender that there's man outside with a gun!" Andrew yelled at him.

"Let him come in and shoot us, Clark; I don't care!" Bender yelled back at him. Refocusing on Chandra, he said, "So, what makes a fruitcake like you tick, huh? Your parents have an orgy before they had you that went wrong?"

"I really don't think that's an amusing topic," Chandra said, pulling out another piece of paper. Bender took this one from her as well. "I'm not finished yet," he said, "So when you gyrate around like Elvis's deranged niece-in-law, what going through your mind? Static overkill, or just....."

"Look I just want to be left alone right now, okay?" Chandra asked him. Bender sniggered at this remark. "Oh, leave me alone!!" he crooned in his worst Jackson impersonation, "Just leave me alone! I have never harmed any children, even though I sleep with them every night! Please get your sheriffs to leave me alone, Mr. Sneddon, I have done no wrong! I profess with God as my witness that I am a supremely innocent human being who can never and will never hurt anyone! The fire's in my eyes, and my words are really clear, so beat it! Just beat it! HOOOOOOOOOO! HEE-HEE-HEE!"

"I know what you're trying to do, Bender," Claire shot at him form across the room, "And it's not going to work! You're not going to get me back that way, just by tearing that creep apart!"

"Who even said I wanted you back, dipstick!" Bender snarled at her, "Just go back to your lipstick and fashion magazines!" Seeing Chandra was tiptoeing away, he grabbed her by the arm. "While we're here," he continued, "What are you doing at this school, I want to know. Why don't those schools for the retards want you? Or were you too screwed up for them? Oh, and while I'm at it, are you as sexually impotent as your dear Mr. Jackson? Or are you even worse than him?"

"What do you want from me!!??" Chandra cried at him, her face plastered with tears, "What have I ever done to deserve this from you! Why do you delight in tormenting others!?"

"Oh, we're getting frisky here, are we?" Bender said to no one in particular. Looking Chandra directly in the ye. "You know, if there's one thing I hate, it's being told off by someone like you!" And then, without any warning, he grabbed Chandra's hair and gave it a vicious yank. "Ow, Ow, stop it! That hurts!" she screamed.

"Good," Bender snarled, "maybe now you'll learn to..!"

"ALL RIGHT BENDER, THAT'S ENOUGH!" Brian was on his feet, seething with rage. The guilt he'd felt all day at Chandra being accosted earlier had now boiled up out of control. Bender looked surprised at who was challenging him, but soon regained his composure. "Are you talking to me, Johnson?" he retorted.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am!" Brian bellowed, advancing toward him.

"So you 're actually defending this freak!?"

"She is not a freak, Bender, you are!" Brian screamed in his face.

"Me?" this perturbed Bender, "How am I the freak!?"

"Because you, unlike everybody else, has no regard for other people's feelings!" Brian shouted. "Now I'm warning you, leave her alone right now, or I'll...!!"

"You'll what? Hit me? You can't do that Johnson, you'll lose your honor card, among other things," Bender sniggered. "And besides, we're friends now; you wouldn't hit a friend."

"I've never considered you my friend!" Brian said coldly, raising a fist. For a minute, the two of them stared each other down hostily, Then without warning, Bender threw a punch. Brian ducked it and threw the hardest right hook he could. This one connected with Bender's jaw and sent him sprawling over a table. The other teens stood up, their mouths hanging open in shock at what they'd just witnessed. "That did not just happen!" Allison said, having abruptly dropped her pen to the floor.

"Could we all have hallucinated it?" Andrew asked her, only able to stand halfway up with only one good leg.

Bender jumped back up, his nose a river of blood. "All right Johnson!" he yelled, "You want to go with me, I'm...!"

But before he could retaliate, the library door slammed open. "What the hell's going in here!?" Vernon bellowed. He had just come in, as he was still wearing his hat and trench coat, both of which were covered in snow.

"Johnson assaulted me, Dick," Bender said quickly.

"What's your version!?" Vernon demanded to Brian, clearly not willing to take Bender's word.

"He was picking on Chandra, and, well, I don't know what happened, sir, I just snapped," Brian said. He looked both amazed and horrified at what had just happened. Vernon hauled Bender up. "It's just never enough for you, is it!?" he growled, "You can't go through even one detention without causing trouble!"

"Well it wouldn't be any fun for the two of us if I didn't, Dick; surely you know that by now," Bender retorted. Vernon shoved him back to his seat.

"I'll be stopping back in here all night," he said curtly, "and if I even see you breathe at all, you'll be spending the entire holiday season in my office!"

"That'll be fun; you and I waiting for Santa to come," Bender said sarcastically.

"Put a cork in it!" Vernon shouted. He now turned to Brian. "And what the matter with you!?" he barked, "You know hitting is against school policy!"

"Please Mr. Vernon, I can vouch that Brian was..!" Chandra tried to cut it.

"You keep out of this, Psycho Betty!" Vernon yelled at her.

"Hey don't talk to her that way!" Brian shouted. Vernon leaned in very close to him. "What did you just say to me, Johnson?" he asked darkly.

Brian gulped under Vernon's withering gaze. "I..I..I didn't....I mean....Mr. Vernon sir..!"

"What's your GPA in physics so far, Johnson?" Vernon asked.

"Oh, about 94.7," Brian said, not liking the sound of this, "Why?"

"Because you chose to be arrogant to a teacher, I'm having ten percent taken off that," Vernon said, "Maybe that'll teach you to be nicer to someone like me."

He turned to leave. For a moment the room was silent. Then Brian screamed, "NOOOOOOO!!!!" and grabbed hold of Vernon's leg. "Please Mr. Vernon!" he pleaded, "I'll give you anything! Punish me another way! Please don't take my grade down!"

"Let go of me!" Vernon kicked Brian off his leg and slammed the library door behind himself. Brian looked skyward in agony. "This holiday just keeps getting better and better!" he cried out.

"Now see what you've done!?" Claire yelled at Chandra, "You've gotten into trouble he didn't deserve!"

"Shut the hell up, Claire!" Brian yelled at her, "I won't let you treat her rotten, either!"

"Oh come on Brian, wake up and smell the daffodils!" Claire protested, "She's not normal like the rest of us!"

"None of us are normal, for your information!" Brian spat at her, "And let me tell you something else; she's a hundred times more a princess than you are, you salt-spitting slug!"

"Salt-spitting slug!?" Claire was caught off-guard by this put-down, "Salt-spitting slug!? That really hurts you know!"

For a moment, Brian curled his fists again, as if he was also going to hit her, but then his face collapsed and he moaned, "Oh, what's the use!?" and trudged unhappily toward the rear of the library.

"Are you OK there, Brian?" Allison asked him, concerned.

"I 'd like to be alone right now, 'Brian told her, slumping down to the floor.

"I don't think you should..." Andrew began, but Chandra cut him off. 'Please," she asked him, "He wants to be alone. I think we should respect his privacy." Andrew looked a little miffed that someone like her was telling him not to do something he wanted to, but he nodded and turned back to his paper. Across from him, Allison shook her head at the broken Brian and wrote in her diary, DECEMBER 23, 3:30 P.M.; I THOUGHT IT WOULD NEVER COME TO THIS, BUT NOW I CAN SAY FOR SURE I'M THE MOST EMOTIONALLY SECURE PERSON IN THIS DETENTION GROUP..