Start Of Sophomore Year Banquet *Author's Notes At The End Of The Chapter*

Chapter One

"I don't know. I'm so nervous," I told my three best friends as they did my hair and makeup in front of their vanity mirror. "My freshman year was nerve-racking enough as it is, you know. Why should sophomore year be any different? I didn't really make any friends. No one wanted to talk to me. I had no boyfriends either."

"You don't have to worry about a thing, Megan," Blossom Utonium assured me. That's right, my three best friends in the world were the Power Puff Girls; the crime-fighting super heroines that were going to be starting second grade this month. Ha, yeah. I was going to be a sophomore in high school and my best friends were going to start second grade in elementary. I wasn't really sure why I couldn't get a friend my own age. I guessed it was because I could relate to the Power Puff Girls more. Hey, sometimes it seemed that they were even more mature than me if possible.

Blossom was the leader of her sisters. She had long red hair that she wore in a ponytail fastened with a heart-shaped hairclip and a large, bright red bow. She was the smartest of her siblings, and the most mature. She was also very comfortable around people.

"That is right!" Bubbles agreed with her sister as they both worked on my hair. "You will look amazingly beauteous in this prettiest purple dress I've ever seen!"

Bubbles was the sweetest of her sisters. She had blonde hair up in two pigtails, blue eyes, and an adorable disposition.

"Just get out there and own it!" Buttercup, the toughest of her sisters with black hair and green eyes, told me, having handed me my earrings and my bracelets. "You're cooler than anyone that goes to that stupid Pokey Oakes High School! We just know you're gonna have a good time."

I sighed and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I stared at my hazel-green eyes and my coffee-colored brown hair. I stared at my pinkish/tannish lipstick, and the rest of the makeup I was wearing that was mostly the same way. I was wearing a halter top dress in a pale shade of violet, some expensive earrings, bracelets, and silver high-heels. I didn't look like myself. I looked like someone different. I looked like a young woman who had it all together.

On the inside, however, I was a little girl wanting to go hide.

"Girls, are you almost ready?" the Professor called from downstairs.

"Almost ready, Professor!" all three girls said at the same time.

"Okay!" the Professor called back.

"Oh, can't you guys come with me?" I begged.

"Nope," said Bubbles.

"No can do," Buttercup agreed.

"Sorry Megan," Blossom apologized, but all three girls had these smiles on their faces. "It's about time you went somewhere without us. You need to become more confident, and to do that, you've gotta let go of your crutch. The baby bird has to learn to fly without its mother."

What the heck? She was eight years younger than me and she was talking about me being a baby bird and her being a mother bird!

"You guys really don't understand," I told them. "These people that I go to school with don't like me. They don't want to know me. They don't even talk to me."

"That's because you're famous!" Bubbles reminded me.

"Yeah, they're just jealous," Buttercup agreed.

"Don't let them bother you, Megan," Blossom instructed me. "After all, you're the one who's basically friends with the whole city - not including them. They wish they had your success."

"If you say so," I mumbled to myself, rolling my eyes.

Why was I so worried? I was fine socially. I knew how to talk to people - I guess. But it was kinda hard to be fine socially and talk to people when the people you were trying to talk to you were as Buttercup said, jealous.

I saw how they could be jealous.

Some of them had been living in Townsville their whole life, and I just arrived after my eighth grade year of middle school - BAM! Suddenly I was on every villain's main target list, I fought crime alongside the Power Puff Girls as a Power Puff Girl, I was a friend of the Mayor's and of Ms. Bellum, who was now married to my father, by the way. So now she was Mrs. Sara Brody. But anyway, you get the picture. I was a superstar, basically. I was on every newspaper's front page and on every channel -

Oh sorry. I don't mean to get carried away. I was just thinking about my success. I apologize. It took me a moment or two to realize that the girls were talking to me.

"Are you ready to go downstairs yet, Megan?" Blossom asked in sort of an annoyed voice. I'd apparently been ignoring her.

"Uh… yeah," I decided, nodding my head slowly.

"Okay, then here we go!" Blossom said, and the three of them helped me up out of the chair like I wasn't capable of getting up myself and guided me toward the door.

"Gee, wow, thanks for the lift, guys," was all I could say.

"Don't even mention it," Blossom said with a smile.

"Oh Megan, you look so prettiness!" Bubbles gushed.

"Aww, you're so sweet," I told her.

"Yeah, you actually look good tonight!" Buttercup agreed.

I frowned. "Love you too, Buttercup."

Blossom and Bubbles both gave Buttercup a look. "What?"

When we got downstairs I saw that the Professor was there with company. The company he had was my dad, Mrs. Brody, my mother, my step-dad Daniel, and… oh no! The mayor was with them. The mayor and all of his body-guards and everyone who could possibly make my entrance at Pokey Oaks High bigger of a deal than it needed to be.

"Why, hello Megan!" the mayor greeted me enthusiastically.

"Hi Mr. Mayor," I said unhappily. Then I turned to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup and glared at them. "How could you do this to me?" I asked them through gritted teeth.

"You're a celebrity, Megan," Blossom reminded me.

"Don't you want to make an entrance?" Buttercup asked.

"I would have rather you guys just came with me," I groaned.

"No Megan, this is a special night for you," Bubbles said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I was curious to know.

"You don't want us to ruin it, do you?" Buttercup asked me.

"You wouldn't ruin it," I snapped at her.

"Oh yes we would," Blossom disagreed. "People know that you hang out with the Power Puff Girls, super heroines. They know it very well. You don't have to rub it in their faces."

"Wouldn't bringing the mayor and - a camera crew rub it in their faces?" I asked, enraged when a man lifted a camera and got it ready. "What the heck is a camera crew coming to the banquet with me? Are they going to put the event on the news or something? You guys, I think bringing you would have been less showoff-ish."

"Hey, ya gotta flaunt a little bit," Blossom said quietly.

"I'm gonna be on the news?" I shouted, feeling very upset right now. "Yeah, hear all about it! Megan Carlson-Brody makes a fool out of herself at her Start of Sophomore Year Banquet not talking to people that don't want to talk to her. She just walks around in fifty circles with fifty big cameras stuck in her face."

"It won't be that bad Megan, we promise," Blossom said.

"Yeah, I don't believe you," I said with a scowl. "I don't know why you can't come with me. At least I would have someone to talk to while I'm there, so I wouldn't look like a complete loner."

"We'd like to come with you, Megan," Bubbles assured me. "It's just that we need to be free to fight crime if something happens tonight. We can't be tied up in an event."

"This night is important to me," I said, feeling quite disappointed in them. "Important enough for you not to feel 'tied up' in such an event."

"Hey, is everything alright?" Anna Carlson (my mother) asked, coming up from behind me and placing a hand on each of my shoulders. "This is an exciting night for you. Are you excited?"

"Yeah Mom, I am," I said, turning to her. "And I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but… is all this really necessary?"

I extended my arm in the direction of the camera crew.

"Sure it is, honey," Anna said, nodding her head. "I wish I'd had a camera crew to document my life as a teenager. Don't you want to remember tonight forever?"

"I don't really think I want to," I said honestly. "Weren't you the one who always said, 'privacy is a privilege'?"

"Yeah," Anna said. "But just between you and me, it doesn't really make a difference whether people know about you or not anymore. Especially since there's that evil guy HIM that knows about you whether you're famous or not."

I took a moment to look up at the ceiling as if there was a hidden camera on it. HIM had these… television screens, if you will, that he used to watch everything that was going on at every moment in time at every place in the world. He was one of my worst enemies, but he hadn't been bothering me in a while. I knew he was watching though. I was fascinating to him, somehow. I wasn't really sure why. There was nothing that fascinating about me.

I was just a plain child of divorce who wasn't really concerned with partying or boys or anything like that. I may have seemed mature, but if it were up to me, I would have been starting second grade this year with the girls. It's more my speed.

"But don't worry about him right now," Anna told me. She'd seen the way I'd looked at the ceiling. I gotta be honest: HIM scared the heck out of me. He might have bothered me more than any of the other villains in Townsville - well… with one exception.

"We're ready!" the mayor exclaimed, jumping and waving his arms.

He'd just been having a conversation with Richard (my father), Sara, the Professor, and Daniel. The camera crew all had their cameras up in the air.

"Shall we go?" Anna asked, placing a hand on my lower back and leading me toward the door.

"Yeah, okay. Sorry, I was thinking about something. Can I say bye to the girls -?" I turned around and saw that the girls weren't there anymore. I saw a bright flash of pink, blue, and green outside the window. They had gone to fight crime somewhere. I wondered who it could have been. Whoever it was, I wouldn't be seeing them tonight. But whoever they were, I almost wanted to. I almost wanted them to attack Pokey Oaks High School, just so I could ditch the camera crew.

I knew that was a horrible thing to wish, but sometimes I couldn't help it.

"Uh oh," the Professor said worriedly. "Looks to me like there's going to be some crime tonight."

"When is there not?" Sara asked with a tired sigh.

"It's nothing to be worried about," Daniel said lightheartedly. "It happens every night. We've got a limo; everyone knows not to mess with a limo -"

"No, honey, actually, a limo makes us more noticeable to the bad guys," Anna interrupted, quickly getting Daniel to shut up.

"Oh," Daniel said embarrassedly.

"It doesn't matter!" the mayor assured everyone. "I've seen enough crime in my lifetime to know that everything's going to be fine. Let's just get in the limo and get to the school. We'll be on our jolly way."

So he, the Professor, Anna, Daniel, the camera people, Sara, Richard, and I started toward out the door. Richard walked alongside me and gave me a warm smile. I smiled back and gave him a big hug. I loved Richard. He was the best father any girl could ask for, really. And we'd been through a lot together.

"I'm so proud of you, Megan," he told me as we all crammed up inside the limo. "You're getting to be so grownup."

"Yeah, I can't believe it either," I chuckled and sighed, turning and looking out the window as we drove to see if I could spot the crime.

"You actually want to see what's going on?" Richard asked quietly.

"Yeah," I said, turning around to glance at him. He was looking at his lap and not at all out the window. The crime that went on in Townsville made Richard very uncomfortable. "Megan, I'm glad you stopped fighting crime when you did."

"I had no other choice," I chuckled. "The last time I did anything to save Townsville I caught a bad cold and got every bone in my body broken. I'm not really super the way everyone thinks I am. I don't have powers, and every super hero has powers."

"Batman doesn't have powers," Richard said, smiling briefly. "Just gadgets."

"Yeah, but I don't think the Professor would be willing to make me any," I sighed. "He talks to the girls. They probably tell him all this junk, like I'm unable to fight, I'm totally incapable of doing anything by myself, and I'm a danger magnet…"

"I don't want you to fight crime," Richard said, suddenly serious again.

"Don't worry, Dad," I said for his sake. "I don't want to either."

That was either very true or very untrue. I wasn't quite sure which one.

"Good," Richard said, sounding satisfied. He put his arm around my shoulder. I leaned my head on his shoulder and stared out the window at the same time. I saw the same three flashes of colorful light shoot out from the jail building. I sighed. Whoever had been messing around wasn't going to crash the banquet. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had put them in their place.

When we arrived outside the junior/sophomore cafeteria at Pokey Oaks High, there were a ton of police men blowing whistles and trying to hold screaming people back. My heart skipped a beat. For a moment there I'd almost thought that there was another crime going on right here, but the only crime here was that a bunch of crazed fans were standing around dying to talk to the mayor, the camera crew, my father's wife, and… and… me. Obviously, me.

Anna had told me a few months ago that if I ever wanted to avoid talking to fans or signing autographs all I had to do was wave, blow a kiss, and shout "I love you all!" So I did so, and they all cheered with glee. Geez Louise people, I haven't been fighting crime for over a year, I thought to myself.

Half of the camera crew stuck their cameras in my face and several reporters stuck their microphones in front of me, asking questions as I reached forward to open the cafeteria door. The camera crew had been recording me since we'd walked to the limo. I hoped that I would at least get a little room to breathe for two seconds during this banquet. The members of the camera crew that weren't stalking me right now were busy stalking my parents and the mayor.

"Megan, are you thinking of fighting crime again?" a reporter asked me.

"How come you don't fight crime with the Power Puff Girls anymore?"

"Which one is your best friend; Blossom, Bubbles, or Buttercup?"

"Are you dating anyone, Megan? Some lucky young man?"

"Are you still interested in the villainous Ace from the Gangreen Gang?"

"Do you know that just tonight he was arrested for stealing from a candy store; something he's been doing for a while now?"

"Are you happy or upset that your best friends put him in jail?"

"Wait a second," I said, but I doubted they could hear me. My small voice was drowned out by all of their questions. They wouldn't even let me answer any of them, I couldn't believe it. But right now I had a question of my own. "The Gangreen Gang was put in jail?"

"Megan, are you excited about starting your second year in high school?"

"Do you have a lot of friends here at Pokey Oaks High?"

"Do you typically make good grades in school?"

"Megan, are you thinking of ever dropping out of school?"

"Are you gonna live in Townsville forever, or will you move once you're done with school?"

"No, I need to know about the Gangreen Gang," I tried again, but gave up. To hell with these freaking reporters. I was in the cafeteria now, but all I could see was a blur of red lights coming from the cameras and the running mouths of several reporters. I wasn't even able to see which students were already here.

They must have seen the large group come in though, because there were dozens of surprised "The mayor's here at Pokey Oaks High!" shouts.

"Why hello, bright youth of Townsville!" the Mayor greeted them cheerfully.

There was a lot of movement around me. Students were running over to the mayor to get autographs and pictures taken with him. Fortunately this distracted the camera crew and the reporters. They thought the mayor being good-natured with a bunch of high school kids would make a great story, so they fled from me to him.

I was able to duck away from all the commotion and run over to a table at the far end of the cafeteria. There was quite a variety of drinks and snacks on the table, including cokes, sodas, Pepsi, fruit punch, Kool Aid, nachos, Doritos, goldfish crackers, cookies decorated with the smiling faces of the Power Puff Girls drawn on with icing, and a few cakes (they needed a few; there were more students than pieces of cake, after all).

Hopefully I wouldn't be caught on the news pigging out. I helped myself to a piece of cake. The cookies looked fresh, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat one. I knew they'd been made to celebrate the girls, but the thought of eating a cookie with the face of one of my best friends on it made me ill. I had a cup of fruit punch and looked around at the decorations in the cafeteria. There were artistic banners and posters with pictures of Townsville's most famous villains getting beaten up by the Power Puff Girls on them. The villains consisted of Mojo Jo Jo, HIM, Fuzzy Lumpkins, the Gangreen Gang, Sedusa, and Princess Morbucks. I was hardly surprised not to see the Amoeba Boys up there somewhere.

I walked over to an awfully realistic poster to observe the villains. Whoever created it depicted Mojo terribly wrong, I'm afraid. They made him look like an idiot, though their talent was definitely there. Mojo Jo Jo was in no way, shape, or form an idiot by any means. He was actually brilliant. He was brilliant enough to at one point have made me genuinely think that he was going to help give me super powers and protect me from the other villains. In reality he'd made me steal a bottle of Chemical X from the girls so that he could use it for himself, and reek havoc. I'd never met anyone sneakier in my life, and this wasn't just anyone. This was a monkey. A monkey! Or a chimpanzee, rather. But this chimpanzee was smarter than the whole human race combined, which was a scary thought for us.

Also, the artist of this poster had depicted HIM to look completely effeminate. There he was in his skirt and his stiletto boots and his Elizabethan collar; yeah, he wore all that. But this artist had made him look wimpy and just downright incapable of harming anyone or anything. They had gotten him completely wrong. HIM was the scariest thing there was in Townsville. Though he wasn't as masculine as the other male villains he was even more menacing, tough, and intimidating. He had this way of striking fear into people from the moment they looked at him. Hey, he could even strike fear into people when they heard his voice, just his speaking.

Fuzzy Lumpkins, the giant what-is-it with the country accent, looked so looming on this poster. Yeah, he could make people run. He was insane, but to be honest, he was no Einstein. He shouldn't have looked so threatening in this picture. When it all really came down to it, Fuzzy Lumpkins was a dunce. He was a big crybaby who made a fool out of himself whenever he didn't get his way.

Okay, Sedusa was all wrong. Believe me, I knew that. She'd dated my father and even got married to him at one point. I knew how Sedusa looked. Sedusa was not that thin. Nor was she that curvy. Nor was she that pretty. It must have been a boy that created this image because she looked very sultry on this poster. The guy needed to have added some weight, toned the curves down, and the face on that picture because whatever he'd seen of Sedusa in the past was all wrong.

Princess' mouth was too small in this picture. And she looked so young, innocent, and naïve. In fact, she looked like an angel. Was the artist insane or something? There was nothing sweet and little girl-like about Princess. In fact, she was more like some sort of wild creature that ate a little girl! She was the brattiest kid in Townsville with the biggest mouth I'd ever seen… or heard. She was a monster, just like the rest of 'em. It didn't matter that she was a child.

And here they were: the Gangreen Gang. Grubber wasn't grotesque enough to be Grubber. Little Arturo was too tall to be Little Arturo. Big Billy wasn't big enough. Snake's posture was all off, and his tongue wasn't forked. And Ace - well… he didn't look like himself in the picture. The picture made it look as if he had no kind of human decency at all in him.

And it may have seemed that way at first, but - … then he sort of changed after that. He really wasn't a bad person at all. He was just tortured and sad, and came from a family that hadn't cared for him the way they should have. He became my friend… for a brief time period. After he told me he loved me, he sort of just evaporated from my life. I know he didn't love me. There were probably fifty girls out there he said that to, and I had been dumb enough to think that I was actually special. If I had been special, he would have stayed. I was stupid for still caring about him or the fact that he was in jail again tonight. Once he told me how he felt about me, I'd bailed him out of jail the next few times he was arrested, and then he promised me that he would never do anything bad again. And as good as that was, it was actually the last time I ever saw him. Now after all these months of - nothing- he probably expected me to bail him out of jail again like I used to do, didn't he? Like I was actually pathetic enough to do anything for him like the stereotypical, goggly-eyed teenage girl? Well I don't think so, sir. Nuh uh. Not me. You're gonna be in for an unpleasant surprise when you don't see me at the jail -

"Megan Brody," said Amanda Lennon approaching me. I turned around and looked at her. She was wearing a lime-green dress that matched her lime-green headband and her lime-green shoes. It also flattered her shoulder-length golden blonde hair and her tan skin. She looked great, better than me. Why was she here anyway? Was she here to make fun of me, the way she'd done all ninth grade?

"Hi Amanda," I said, frowning and turning away from her.

"Did you hear about the Gangreen Gang?" She wasn't going away.

"Yes," I said in a very stiff tone of voice.

"How about that, huh?" she asked. "They're in jail again. I'm actually surprised. They haven't been there for a few months. I don't suppose you're too happy about that. After all, the leader Al -"

"It's Ace," I corrected her, making a face.

"Whoever," she said with an eye roll, "was kind of like your boyfriend at one point, wasn't he? And you're supposed to be Townsville's Sweetheart or something. Being a good girl with a bad guy isn't exactly setting a good example."

"You're right. It's not," I said with a sarcastic smile, turning and looking at her in the eye. "For your information, Ace was never my boyfriend. He was more of a distraction, to be quite honest. He bugged me and bugged me, trying to get me off track, and not to set a good example, like you said. But I was too strong for that. I never fell for him, and I'd like to see you resist the way I did."

Amanda looked uncomfortable, like that was too big of a challenge for her.

"Piece of cake," she said, after glancing at the piece of cake I was still eating.

"Yeah, I'm sure it is," I said, narrowing my eyes at her. Oh, I didn't want to believe what I'd just said. I'd never looked at my whole story with Ace that way before. Had everything he ever said to me really been a lie? He never really cared about me? He'd just wanted someone to bail him out of jail when he needed them and boost his ego? Why did I care? It's not like I really cared anyway.

"So… I should just leave you here… to your goggling at him up on that poster," Amanda said, sneering at the second part of her sentence.

"That's not him!" I snapped. "That's… someone else."

"Really?" she said amusedly. "And who's that?"

I gave her a hard stare, hoping it would scare her off. It either did or it didn't, because she turned around and got away as fast as she could. But she'd still had that smile on her face as she got away. I sighed sadly. If the girls had been here they could have served her right. It was a bad idea to have come tonight. I should have tried to get myself out of it somehow.

I just wanted to go get Richard and have him and I head home without everybody else. I didn't want to see anyone else that was here tonight. Richard was the only one I could relate to. Of my two parents, I must have taken after him. After all, my dad looked nervous with all of this new attention and my mom seemed to like it very much. That's not the way I would have thought it to be a year ago, back when I thought me and my mom were two peas in a pod.

I really needed to see the girls. I needed to ask them what had gone on before they'd gotten the Gangreen Gang arrested. I needed to know if Ace had mentioned anyone, someone he wanted to bail him out jail.

Before I could move a muscle, a familiar sweet woman with black hair, a pale-white face, big watery blue eyes, and a rounded figure stepped in front of me. It was Ms. Keane, the girl's kindergarten teacher. "Megan!" she said.

"Hi Ms. Keane," I said smiling kindly. "How are you tonight?"

"I'm doing fine," she said. "How about you?"

I thought about what I could say for a moment. "I'm doing livable."

"Oh," said Ms. Keane looking a bit surprised. "Well…"

"But I'm fine," I said. "Or at least I think so…" I glanced at the poster.

"I'm so glad I found you," she told me. "I wanted to let you know that I've moved up from teaching kindergarten to teaching tenth grade, and I've seen your schedule. You're going to be in my sixth period English Two Honors Class!"

My mouth fell open with excitement. "That's great!" I said when we gave each other a hug. "At least I know I'll know one of my teachers this year! And I have one less teacher to worry about not liking me!"

"Oh Megan, how could anyone not like you?" Ms. Keane chuckled kindly. "You're such a sweet girl."

Well, most of the students didn't like me.

"Ah well, I don't know," I laughed. "But this is great. This really is."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Oh my goodness." I thought she couldn't get any paler.

"What? What is it?" I asked, trying to see what she was looking at.

It was the Professor. Hey, he looked strapping. He was talking to Richard and Sara over by one of the bulletin boards. Ha, I never thought before that Ms. Keane and the Professor… "Ms. Keane, you've gotta get over there."

"Huh? W-w-what do you mean? I don't know what you're talking about."

"The Professor looks great tonight. That's what I'm talking about," I explained. "So you should get over there before somebody else does."

Just as I said that an extremely young teacher with long blonde hair approached the Professor, grinned flirtatiously at him and began to talk to him. Ms. Keane sighed sadly and shook her head. "Nah, I really shouldn't. He looks pretty busy over there."

"No he isn't," I scoffed. "No, he is not busy just because some lady randomly decided to go over there and talk to him. She'll disappear soon enough. Then you need to make your move, Ms. Keane."

"Oh I don't know," she said unsurely, fidgeting nervously with her business jacket. "I mean, he and I have gone out before, but then we got into an argument, and we sorta just ended from there -"

"Have you spoken to him since?" I wanted to know.

"Well yeah, but -"

"Then go over there and talk to him, Ms. Keane! Just go do it. I'm sure he wants to talk to you too."

"You really think so?" Ms. Keane looked up, and I did too. I was excited to notice the fact that the Professor kept glancing up at Ms. Keane like she was at him.

"Yeah, you go for it, Ms. Keane," I sighed. "I'm never gonna have my fairytale ending, so why shouldn't you?"

Ms. Keane turned and looked at me. "Megan, there's no need to be so -"

"I know. It's okay. I don't care. Who needs a guy, anyway - well, no, you do! Go get the Professor. Look, Blondie's talking to the Mayor now. Go get him."

"Aww Megan, thank you," Ms. Keane said and then she walked away.

Ms. Keane was a friend of my familys' and a friend of my friends'. She was also a friend of mine, so I didn't mind helping her to hook up with the Professor. I wished there was a guy out there who was as interested in me as the Professor obviously was with Ms. Keane. As I thought of this I watched as the funny little old man Barney Mayor flirted with the young busty blonde. Wonder what his wife would have thought of that. Hmm. The mayor was an interesting character.

"Hi Megan," Richard said when he and Sara walked over to me.

"Hi you guys," I said faintly. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"Yes, very much so," Sara said. "Aren't you?"

"Honestly, no," I confessed.

"Aww I'm sorry, Megan," Sara said sympathetically. "Is there anything we can do to help you?"

"No, there really isn't, I'm afraid," I apologized. "We should head home."

"Oh Megan," Richard sighed. "Isn't there anyone here you'd like to talk to?"

I looked a few feet ahead and watched Amanda Lennon and some of her friends flirt with Cody Hall, the tall football captain. "No," I said, shaking my head as I stared nonchalantly at Cody. "We should just go home. I'm sick of those cameras anyway. They're gonna put me on the news being all by myself."

"Maybe we should head home if Megan doesn't feel comfortable…" Sara said; just a thought, to Richard.

Richard sighed tiredly again. "I'm sorry Megan. I'm sorry that tonight didn't go the way you had hoped it would."

Honestly, I hadn't had any hopes for tonight. I knew it would be this way.

"That's okay, Dad," I assured him. "It's not your fault."

"What are we supposed to do?" Richard said quietly to Sara. "I thought we would all leave together. The Mayor's got the limo, and that's our only way of transportation home -"

"We could go for a walk," I suggested. "Get a little bit of fresh air."

"A walk?" Richard repeated fearfully. "At Townsville in the middle of the n-"

"A walk sounds lovely, Megan," Sara said. "You lead the way."

I bit my lip and smiled apologetically at Richard after having nodded and grinned triumphantly at Sara. "Let's go," I told them, and I turned, and we were on our way. As I approached the door, Anna touched my arm.

"Where are you going?" she asked, and when I didn't answer that moment, she looked up at Richard and Sara for an answer.

"Megan wanted to go home a little bit early," Richard explained nervously. He always got nervous when he had to explain anything to Anna, like he thought she was going to yell at him whatever he said. "We're gonna walk home."

Fortunately for him Anna didn't say anything. Her mouth just sort of opened; she was speechless. She put her hand down and just watched as Richard, Sara, and I walked out the door. When we got outside, several screaming people tried to shove the Mayor's body guards out of their way to us.

"Megan, you look gorgeous tonight!" some thirteen-year-old girl told me.

"Thank you," I said to her. I guessed she couldn't see very well in the dark.

"Megan, you've inspired me so much!" a young woman shouted at me.

"Megan, what's your favorite color?"

"Megan, can you give me Ace's number?"

"Megan, can I be a Power Puff Girl too?"

"Come on, let's go!" I said, grabbing Richard by the hand and breaking into a run. Sara was able to keep up. We slowed down once we were far enough from the screaming crowd. Richard sighed with relief when we were almost to the suburbs.

"Wow Megan, you really are our good-luck charm. I'm sure if you hadn't been here, several robbers and crooks would have attacked us by now," he said.

"Dad, you have got to relax!" I laughed when we entered our neighborhood.

Sara laughed too. "She's right, you know. You're so uptight."

"Hey, I wasn't always that way," Richard said quietly. And he was right.

"Good evening!" Maryanne Smith called to us when we passed by her house.

"Good evening, Maryanne!" Richard replied.

"Hi!" Sara said to her.

"Hey Mrs. Smith!" I said, waving my hand.

"Harold, why don't you say hi to them?" I heard Maryanne spit at her husband, who was just sitting glumly in his little lawn chair, reading the paper. "They're such nice neighbors. Why don't you say hi to them?"

"Maryanne…" Harold whined in a baby-voice, looking up at her.

So Harold wouldn't say hi to us. That's okay. I think we would survive.

Richard unlocked the front door when we got to our house. I breathed in and out when I got in the living room. It felt so good to be in the peace and quiet now. It wasn't like I didn't like the excitement of the city, but tonight was just too much. The girls had pushed me into going to the school and I'd gotten nothing out of the night, except maybe Ms. Keane to go talk to the Professor.

I flipped on the light switch and sat down on the couch in front of the TV.

"Did you hear about the Gangreen Gang?" Sara whispered to Richard.

"Yes," Richard whispered back as they quickly walked in the hallway to talk some more about the situation. Thanks a lot, you guys. Now I remembered the whole Gangreen Gang situation. I hadn't wanted to. I took a troubled deep breath, grabbed the remote, and turned the TV on. There was a quick news report on the robbery. It wasn't a long one, since robbing from a candy store wasn't disastrous.

I guessed they'd felt the need to put it on the news since the Gangreen Gang hadn't struck in a few months. My blood boiled when I watched the recap of the police putting handcuffs on Ace and placing him in the vehicle. "It's lucky the Power Puff Girls were able to arrive quickly on the scene of the crime," said the male reporter. "The clerk at the candy store had been tied up and threatened before the gang began stealing. We should never assume that the Gangreen Gang have finished after another long no-show. Ace has proved himself completely unpredictable. Alright Susanna, let's turn it over to you."

"Thanks Craig," said the female reporter. She had a wide grin on her face, but I didn't think it had to do with the fact that she was on television. "Oh, and speaking of Ace, tonight we've caught some footage of his ex-good girl Megan Brody at Pokey Oaks High for the banquet introducing her to her sophomore year of high school. Here we've got her snacking on a very large (probably very fattening) piece of cake, gazing dreamily up at a poster decorated with drawn pictures of all of the villains, including Ace. Ya'all don't happen to think that Townsville's Sweetheart knew about the robbery ahead of time, do you? You don't happen to think that maybe the knowledge of robbery was the reason for her craving of sweets?"

"Shut up," I said angrily, turning the TV off. "I can't believe it."

"What don't you believe?" Richard asked curiously, walking up to the couch. He was holding a piece of cold pizza in his hand.

"Nothing," I groaned, shaking my head. "What they're saying on the news. They're saying that Ace and I ever had something, and that I have a craving for sweets. It just really bugs me. I don't know why they've got to penalize a girl on television for eating a piece of cake, you know."

"Just don't let it bother you, Megan," Richard told me.

"Yeah I try not to," I sighed. "But I don't really know why everyone's still so interested in me anyway. I haven't done anything interesting in over a year. All they're doing is talking about me like I'm dirt, starting rumors about me, and subjecting me to all the people out there I don't want to be subjected to."

"You don't have to worry about it, Megan," Richard said smiling kindly at me. "Those people you're afraid of haven't tried to hurt you for over a year. I think they've moved on."

"Well that is a good sign, I guess," I sighed. "But I'm not afraid. I'm just…"

I wasn't quite sure what to say after that, so I just let my voice trail off.

"I know," Richard said. "You know, even though your mother and Daniel seem to like it here a lot, they're going to have to go home eventually. And if it makes you feel any better or safer, you can -"

"No Dad," I argued, shaking my head. "I'm not leaving the girls here."

Richard was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I'm just glad to hear that you're not so concerned with Ace's well-being anymore."

"Never was, Dad," I muttered grumpily.

"Sure, I know," Dad said, but he didn't sound convinced. "Good night Meg."

"Good night Dad," I said bitterly, and I rolled myself into a stiff little ball after he walked into the hallway. Ugh, I couldn't believe I was ever so weird to like that… that… UGH! What got into him anyway? Tying up and threatening candy store clerks? A bunch of months of nothing and then this impulsive little hoax? Hey, what did I care? He was punished now anyway. He was where he belonged.

*Author's Notes*

You told me you wanted to see a sequel, and fortunately I started watching "The Power Puff Girls" again, so here it is. Okay, so here's a couple of things. First of all, I do not like Ace. He is not my type at all. I just needed someone for the first story to be sort of a romantic figure, and I wanted them to be from the show. He was the best thing I could find. Second of all, I was lucky enough during the posting of the first story to be told that Megan wasn't a Mary-Sue, especially because when I posted the first story I had never heard of a Mary-Sue or that it was good to avoid them. I hope that she continues to not be a Mary-Sue. I've looked up the definition several times and have avoided all the things that scream "Mary-Sue." Please give me some advice on how I can continue to avoid the famous fanfiction trap. I've tried to avoid grammatical and spelling errors. "Goggly-eyed" was just something I made up from out of nowhere. I hope you like the sequel so far. I had originally finished a sequel, and the reason it's taken me so long to post was because I didn't like the originally sequel I wrote. This is not it. This is a second attempt at a sequel, and I like it much better than the other one. I had to take a break before attempting at it again. I've worked to make Megan seem much more real in this one, and she wasn't as real in the other sequel. Hope you enjoyed!