Sandy arrives a bit early and with steps of both confidence and excitement makes her way into the classroom.

The desks are arranged in three two-by-two squares.

When Sandy arrives, there are two students

at one of the squares

and one at

each of two others. The students are talking across the room about what they did over the break. This one apparently was taken to visit a cousin she dislikes. Her mom was too busy to take her to show her siblings the national park this break. She's looking forward to the next field trip, whatever it might be. And she found some cool bugs at the stream when she explored there with her brother.

Sandra finds herself in the corner by the girl talking about visiting her cousin. As soon as she can get a word in, she'll introduce herself. "Hi. I'm Sandy."

"I'm Lucy. Nice to meet you!"

"Hi Lucy! It's nice to meet you too! Mama and Papa adopted me and so I'm in Ms. Frizzle's class now!"

"What's being adopted like?"

"I'm not quite sure, it just happened. My new mama is much nicer than my old mama."

"Oh. It's good that your new mom is nice.

You're really lucky to be in this class, Ms. Frizzle is a wonderful teacher."

"That's good! I can't wait to meet her. I hope we're learning about nature today! I love nature."

"Oh! So do I! Would you like me to show you the parks around here after school?"

Someone else sits down at this table.

Sandra sees the new person and greets them warmly. "Hello! I'm Sandra who're you?"

"Arnold. Hi Sandra."

Someone comes in with not much time left before the bell. He seems a bit uncomfortable.

By this point there is a third student sitting with Keesha and Wanda

two

more sitting with Dorothy Anne

And a fourth sitting with Lucy, Sandy and Arnold.

Ray sidles towards Phoebe, Dorothy Anne and Ralphie.

"Hello, I'm Ray."

And then Ms. Frizzle arrives, and soon afterwards the bell rings. She is wearing a dress printed with scenes of fish, dolphins and waves.

"Welcome back, class!"

She sounds delighted.

"Welcome back, Ms. Frizzle"

the class sound genuinely glad to welcome their teacher back.

Ray sits down silently while warily keeping an eye on Ms. Frizzle.

Sandra is more excited to see the teacher. She beams widely towards her.

Ms. Frizzle introduces Ray and Sandy to the class, takes the roll, and hands out timetables. The first class today will be science.

Sandra starts tapping her foot with nervous excitement. She loves science, especially anything to do with nature. Everything fitting together so well to make somethings special.

"In science this week, you'll learn all about ocean life, and on Friday we'll go on a field trip to to the ocean to see ocean life up close!"

   "oh man", winces Arnold

"When we look at ocean life, or at any sort of life, it's important to look for connections. Different sorts of living thing affect and depend on each other. Can you think of some ways two different sorts of living thing in the ocean might be connected to each other?"

Ray seems to be passively accepting the news.

A field trip? To the ocean? During the first week of class? This could hardly get better for Sandra. She rubs her palms together in anticipation.

Ms. Frizzle tells the class about how different sorts of seaweed and animal live in different parts of the ocean and eat different sorts of things. Dorothy Anne attempts answers to a lot of the questions. Carlos makes puns at every opportunity, and Ms. Frizzle chuckles at them.

   "Stuff sometimes goes really badly wrong on Ms. Frizzle's field trips", Arnold tells Sandy

   "They're normally really fun, 'though", says Lucy.

Sandra wonders at this contradiction. They can't both be right, can they? Fun sounds much better than things going badly, so she'll just assume that it's going to be an experience. She adores those.

After Science is English. Ms Frizzle talks about metaphors and similes and examples and figures of speech. Liz, the class's pet Jackson's Chamelion, helps her hand out worksheets.

A lizard was pretty strange to begin with, but helping out a teacher? That's highly unusual, and somewhat concerning to Rai. He's not too fond of odd things, what he doesn't understand doesn't always mean well.

If anyone notices Ray's concern, they don't comment on it.

Eventually, the bell rings for recess. Ralphie tries to arrange a game of baseball and invites Ray and Lucy. Lucy invites Sandy.

Rai cautiously accepts the invitation. He seems somewhat hesitant. Once he gets playing though, assuming no incidences, he does quite well. He's a natural athlete.

Sandra joins the game. Sheds probably also be good as she has a natural agility to her. However, she is very easily distracted by all the sights and sounds. Despite this she's still not bad at it.

Eventually the bell rings. Lucy compliments them on the way back to class.

Their next class is Spanish. The teacher tells them about how to describe various sorts of family relationship in Spanish, and gets them to write sentences about their families.

Sandra writes a few sentences talking about how happy she is with being adopted, her Spanish is very good, like she's already been taught it.

Ray writes a few sentences about his family. He mentions being an only child, and a few vague words about loving his parents. Something seems off, however.

If anyone notices something being up with Ray, they don't mention it. And eventually the bell goes, and they have History.

Ms Frizzle tells them about ancient Rome. She explains about Mount Vesuvius. The sketch of a volcano appears to erupt of its own accord.

"What? What just happened?" Ray will ask to no one in particular.

"Magic."

"Really? That's impossible."

"Is not"

Ralphie gestures at the board

"Ms Frizzle says it's magic, and none of us have been able to find any other explanation."