Sarah picked herself up off the floor, dusted her pants, and carefully grabbed her satchel. Checking her watch, she headed toward the nearest restroom, keeping her eyes down the whole time. Shoving the door open, she made her way to the farthest stall. The lock made a resounding clank in the empty room, and Sarah let out a long breath as she sat down on the toilet. She turned her bag around, reached into the pocket, and pulled out a disgruntled Jareth. Before she even got him to eye level, she could see his pinched face and the way his mouth was set in a thin line. She took another deep breath, readying herself for the questions she knew were coming.

"Does this happen often?"

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. "Couple times a week. It's not always so public though."

"How long has this been going on?"

Sarah cast her eyes to the left of the stall, avoiding his eyes. She tried to concentrate on the words jaggedly scraped onto the wall, "principal dunthers is a cow."

"Sarah."

She finally looked back at him, biting her lower lip. "Three years or so."

Jareth's face flushed in frustration. "Three years? THREE YEARS? You never once told anyone? Sir Didymus? Ludo? Hugrump? NO ONE?"

Sarah was thoroughly grateful the restroom was empty at this point, as Jareth's high-pitched squealing was actually quite loud, like one of those cheap children's whistles you could get out of the quarter machines.

"What would they have done? It's not exactly like they can go prancing around the school."

"They could have told ME!"

"You would have stolen their siblings! Or sent them to the bog!"

Jareth huffed indignantly. "I do NOT steal little children. I ONLY take those that have been wished away. As for the bog… you may be right. With their foul temperaments, I might have been inclined to forced them to live there permanently."

Sarah let a few giggles escape her lips, the sudden image of Kimberly standing knee deep in the Bog of Eternal Stench with a horrified expression lightened her mood significantly.

"As much as I would have enjoyed that, I'd still have to go to school with them, and it'd be completely unfair to the rest of the students to have to put up with that stench. Listen, we haven't got a lot of time here. I've got four class periods before lunch. I share some of my classes with those girls, so I need you to behave until then. Otherwise, we'll blow our plan, and they'll find out about you."

"When do we carry out this plan of yours?"

"As soon as most students have sat down to their lunches."

"Give me the suit and explain it once more."

Sarah pulled the rat suit from her pocket and set him on the ground so he could slip it on.

"Alright, this is what we're going to do…"

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Three hours later, Sarah was making her way to the end of the lunch line, slice of pizza and cheese fries on her tray. After paying the lunch attendant for the fries, she turned to spy her quarry. She spotted them huddled at a table in the far left of the cafeteria, so she found a spot at a table close to the lunch lines, far enough away so as not to incur blame for what was about to happen. So glad he didn't lose all his magical abilities when… whatever it was happened. He'll be able to poof himself over there and back without notice. She sat down, setting her bag on the table next to her tray. Jareth poked his head up from the pocket.

"They're at the second table on the left, the one next to the windows."

Craning his neck, he could just barely make out the windows along the wall.

"You'll have to lift me out to see!"

Trying to be as subtle as possible, Sarah stood, lifted her bag and pretended to search for something inside.

"See them yet?"

"I don't… wait! I see them."

She sat back down and set her bag next to her tray once again. Her brow creased as she had second thoughts. "Are you going to be ok doing this?"

Jareth fixed her with a steady gaze. "It would be my pleasure." With that, he was gone.

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Over on the far left of the room, the Terrible Trio were deep into a discussion on the latest fashion trends. Meanwhile, underneath their table, Jareth was diligently tying each girls' shoelaces together. Once his work was done, he gingerly climbed on top of the shoe he had just finished tying. He clenched his jaw and steeled himself for the next step. She had better not breathe a word of this to anyone. Ever. Carefully he positioned himself, and with one last breath, plunged himself underneath jeans covering the leg in front of him.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Michelle's scream split through the drone of voices in the cafeteria, making everyone stop in their tracks. "Something bit me!"

Looking down, she saw a white fuzzy body and a long pink tail scramble from under the hem of her jeans, causing her to scream in an even higher pitch than before. "THERE'S A RAT! A RAT BIT ME!" That was the signal everyone in the room had unconsciously waited for, and what followed can only be described as pure chaos. As she screamed, she turned to run, trying to escape the table and what was surely crawling beneath it. Her flight was hampered when she flopped over the small bench seat and landed with a hard thud on the floor. The same sound was echoed two more times as Heather and Kimberly found themselves twisted in a heap on the floor at the opposite side of the table. They each soon realized that their shoelaces had been tied together, though not one had any idea how it had been done. No one else in the cafeteria paid any attention to the girls as they struggled to get back on their feet and escape the possible rodent that had started the stampede. Kimberly shoved Heather down and used her body as leverage to get up, then grabbed onto the edge of the table for balance.

"WATCH IT YOU SKANK!" Heather screamed, her face red and eyes wild. She yanked at Kimberly's clothes, trying to pull her back down.

"LET GO YOU WHORE!" Kimberly promptly yanked Heather's hair, which resulted in her falling backward, Heather having grabbed her legs. They began to roll around the ground, clawing at each other and shouting various other obscenities, the rat completely forgotten.

"HELP ME UP!" Michelle's voice was lost on the fighting pair. She looked around at the fleeing students, her two friends locked in their struggle, and decided to army crawl herself away as fast as she could.

Across the room, Sarah stood with Jareth on her shoulder, their lips turned up into disturbingly similar smirks. No one even looked their way as they stood still, watching the entire scene unfolding before them. After a few moments, Sarah lifted her bag and let Jareth slide down into the pocket. Grabbing her tray, she walked calmly over to the nearest garbage can and emptied it, finally returning the tray to the stack to be washed. As she made her way to the cafeteria doors, she turned back one last time to see Kimberly and Heather still fighting and Michelle crawling toward the exit she was standing by. Their eyes met in that short moment. Sarah smiled and waved, then watched as Michelle's face contorted into a scowl. Content with her mischief, Sarah turned and left.