Sorry for the long wait (as usual)

Apologies to everyone I kept waiting. When on a Naruto high, it's kind of impossible to update FMA fics.

(This will probably be the second-to-last chapter.)

Here is the long-awaited…Girlfriends for Dummies!

Hawkeye College

Chapter 8: Girlfriends for Dummies

"All right, everyone! We've made it through the day so far (just barely), and this is your last class, Girlfriends for Dummies!" Hawkeye stood at the front of the room.

"Girlfriends. Dummies. Woot." Nobody else really got into it.

I leapt to my feet. "C'mon, guys. This is the most important class for us! And by 'us,' I mean 'you'! I'm such a natural with girls that I shouldn't even be here! EAT THAT, LOSERS!!"

Falman frowned. "How did that change in a split second from encouraging us to bragging about himself?"

"SHUT UP! The point is that you guys should be listening to this and taking notes!!"

Five faces glared at me with undisguised hostility.

Fullmetal shook his head and got up. "This is such a waste of time. Hawkeye, can I leave yet?" (Because we all know he's already got a girlfriend in Resembool. Either that or he hasn't reached puberty yet. Runt.)

Hawkeye pointed her gun straight at…where it would hurt. Fullmetal slowly inched back to his seat, his hands in the air.

"NOBODY WILL LEAVE UNTIL I SAY SO. Any questions?"

Cue collective meep.

"Didn't think so." Hawkeye tossed pens and blank sheets of paper at us. We caught them (just barely) and I decided not to brave the consequences of just letting the paper fly over my head. "For this class, a few guest speakers will attend. You will listen to their speeches attentively. Feel free to take notes."

Okaaaaay. Who could she get to speak at a made-up college, a retired Social Studies teacher? (Nearly all of my subs at school seem to be retired Social Studies teachers. My orchestra sub didn't know what the hell she was doing, and instead of just admitting that there was no one else for the job and canceling orchestra, people who had the power to decide such things gave her the task of subbing. She pretended that she was an experienced conductor, but we were laughing at her incompetence. But I digress.)

But then again, if she could get the Homunculi to be lunch ladies, it's best not to write her off just yet.

We were waiting expectantly for the first guest speaker…and it turned out to be…

Denny Block.

Was this some kind of joke?

As the six of us stared at him, Block stared back, getting visibly more uncomfortable. He involuntarily took several steps back until he was pressed against the wall. Finally, after a few seconds of good ol' peer pressure, he shrieked like a little girl and hid under Breda's desk.

Breda kicked him, and he ran into the center of the room and squinched his eyes shut.

"The sooner you start, the sooner you can leave," prodded Hawkeye helpfully.

"Um, okay…" Block shifted and put his hands in his pockets. "Well…"

Then he shouted at top speed, "IF YOU LIKE SOMEONE TELL THEM BEFORE A 400-YEAR-OLD FAMILY ABANDONER TAKES HER FIRST…" He broke down into anime-tears and was shepherded out by Hawkeye.

Fullmetal's face looked as if someone had done a pagan rain dance on his mother's grave. "What…how did…WHAT THE HELL! HOHENHEIM IS WITH ROSS!! THAT BASTARD!!"

Hawkeye came back in with a bemused expression on her face. "He…wasn't supposed to say that…it's not actually true…"

Fullmetal frowned. "All right."

"He was actually supposed to say something more along the lines of telling the person exactly how you feel about them instead of being in denial or something…but…that's okay too…Time for our next speaker!"

In walked Truth. (Roy knows who Truth is, okay? Please?)

Truth?

Huh?

"Truth…" Fullmetal was facepalming. If there was any more of this, his brain would probably explode.

"Uh…" Breda, Havoc, Falman, and Fury were understandably sweatdropping at Fullmetal's reaction. Havoc raised an eyebrow and turned to Hawkeye. "Who is this guy? Where did you pick him up?"

Hawkeye smiled sweetly. "I was walking to the grocery store one day and suddenly there was a large snowstorm. I ducked into a building for shelter and suddenly I was in another dimension where people walked on their hands and carried things with their feet. I caught sight of a poster reading, 'The Army Of Darknesse Is Recruiting. We Want You.' There was a phone number on the bottom and I was curious, so I called it. Immediately I was transported to another dimension where…"

Havoc, Falman, Fury, Breda, Fullmetal, and me were staring at each other and wondering if there were any funny ingredients in those cucumbers earlier. Hawkeye was still talking. "…and then they told me that I had to eat the leaves or get out, so I ran away and then I fell into a vortex which took me to a place where colors were their opposites and everything was mixed up and then there were some weird people around and I went up to them and asked if…"

Fullmetal started scuffing his shoe against the ground, and I checked my watch. If Hawkeye didn't wrap it up, she'd take up the whole hour devoted to this class.

Eventually Hawkeye came to the end of her story. "And then I was transported back and went to the grocery store and Truth helped me carry my stuff home."

Falman stared. "So basically, all this…stuff…happened to you…and then you met him at the grocery store?"

Hawkeye nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

As the rest of us formed a small circle to discuss this disturbing new development, a shot from Hawkeye's gun rang out. "Because it's my day off, I decided to be slightly looser."

"Understatement of the year," muttered Breda.

"But, if necessary for discipline, I will revert back to office behavior. Do I make myself clear?"

"MA'AM YES MA'AM!"

"Excuse me. Am I interrupting something?"

Everyone shuddered involuntarily at that creepy voice. Hawkeye nodded briskly. "My apologies, Truth. Please speak."

Truth got up and stood in the front, invisible gaze drifting around. "Having been an inhabitant solely of the Portal up until a few days ago when I found myself transported to the sidewalk outside a grocery store, I don't really know all that much about women. In fact, there is no real purpose for me being here at all. Goodbye."

Hawkeye sighed and kicked a desk. "These speakers are not helping! He was supposed to talk about courtesy to strangers who might progress to being more than that! Ugh, this last one better be good."

Sheska walked in.

Ugh was right. Common knowledge: Sheska is to public speaking as snow is to heat. In other words, INCOMPATIBLE. However, she seemed unperturbed by our obvious disbelief in her oratory talent, and started to speak.

"Well, first the girl will get into some kind of trouble, so the guy has to rescue her. This will always happen, even if you think it's not going to. Then the girl will yell at the guy for rescuing her when she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. She will accuse him of being sexist and the guy will get defensive and call her delusional. They will yell at each other and then stomp off. Then, they will find themselves or the world in mutual trouble and realize that the best way to fight it is for the two of them to work together. They will be reluctant and work badly together at first, but as they gradually grow to understand and accept…"

By this time even Hawkeye was looking slightly confused. Fullmetal slowly raised his hand and said, "Um, Sheska…"

Sheska opened her eyes, which she'd had closed to aid concentration for her entire time in here, and smiled. "Hello, Edward! I didn't expect to see you here…"

Fullmetal looked even more confused with that confident little statement. "Uh, why?"

Sheska shrugged. "Oh, you just didn't seem like the romance novel type, I guess. I didn't expect to see you at the convention."

"What…convention…do you speak of?"

For the first time today, Sheska looked a little disconcerted. "This one. It's a romance novel convention, and Hawkeye said that they needed a speaker about the usual plot…" She looked around, noticing the rest of us for the first time. "Thisisn'taromancenovelconvention. Oh. Ah, well, I guess, I'd, uh, better be going now, um, bye!" She scampered out of the room, face burning.

Hawkeye stomped into the center again, muttering to herself. "Damn. Damn. Not a single one of those damn speakers…" She checked her watch and sighed. "Well, it's time for Go Home Already anyway. Everyone, follow me outside!"

Thankful that this hellish day was finally over, me and everyone followed her outside.

I recently looked over the past chapters and was appalled. Readers, I am very sorry about the quality of past chapters and I hope that my writing as a teenager is better than it was as a 12-year-old. Speaking of time-related matters, I am also v. v. v. sorry about the lapse. As mentioned above, a Naruto high leaves little time for FMA. This is the last true chapter of the fanfic, because the next one is an epilogue. I will also be posting an extraspecial omake entitled "Dante's Deli" (yes, it's a real place, just like Hawkeye College) starring Havoc. I believe that will be posted under this story also. So basically, expect two more story updates from Hawkeye College.

Hilaria