"Hi! I'm Jenny. Nice to meet you, Soph. New, really? That's cool! What do you think so far?"

"It's smaller than my old school, which isn't bad. I'm not new new, my dad lives here, but we didn't use to live with him during the school year, just summers."

"He's nice! But it doesn't sound like you'd know him. He's the chief of police, but he'd probably think it was a bad sign if you knew him that way."

Jenny laughs. "I have not met him, and I am totally okay with that! Er, in his job capacity, I mean? No offense?" She racks her brains. "I think he's been mentioned in the papers before, though, there's stories about cases sometimes."

"Makes sense. I don't really read the news except for the comics and the - I don't know what the section is called here, but the one with the movie listings and things about how there's art galleries having showings and whatever. The, like, 'if you leave your house, these are things you could do outside of it'."

"I read the paper when... I dunno, I'm bored in the registrar's office or something? Which is a lot of 'have half a front page before you go change your class schedule' and not super picky. I don't, like, looooounge at breakfast reading my newspaper and looking like a character from an old tv show."

"Dad reads the paper, but it's probably not because he doesn't know what the police are up to."

"I hope not!"

"Have you always lived in Sunnydale?"

"Yep! Born and raised, that's me. I just don't get out much. Or at least, not without my siblings in tow." She grins. "And that's a lot of siblings in tow! I am a mama duck. With tiny blonde ducklings."

"Ah, I'm a little sibling myself. And I just have the one elder sister. And we are united in brunette-hood."

"Nooooo! How you can be a trail of ducklings if there is only one of you? I shall have to loan you some ducklings. So you can fulfill your duckling destinies." She pretends to think very carefully about this. "The color thing is okay I guess. Anne's really kind of a redhead anyway."

"I've gotten this far without ducklinghood."

"You don't know what you're missing!"

"Well, have you ever tried having a big sister?"

"Aha. I try to make sure I get an adequate dose of silliness."

"Let me know if you ever need help with that! I am an expert at silliness."

"Ooh, any tips?"

"Candy. Lots of candy. Bonus points for chocolate."

"Oooh, chocolate."

Jenny manages, by some miracle, to stay reasonably quiet and attentive through the rest of class. But come lunch time, she is off hunting for Soph again. Where, oh where, has hypothetical ice cream buddy gotten to?

"Hi. Ice cream sounds good to me."

"Oooh, tough one. Is the ice cream quality about the same?"

"Hmmmmmmmmm. Too close to call. The closer one has frozen yogurt, though, and the farther one does milkshakes? If that helps?"

"Oooooh. I don't know. The siren lure of toppings is pretty siren. Bella, shakes or froyo?"

"I'm gonna say shakes."

"Awesome. Front steps after school? Well, mostly you, Bella," she says apologetically. "I have this sneaky suspicion Soph's in more of my classes."

"That makes sense, considering I'm in eleventh and she's in tenth. But yeah, sure."

"Want to see what we've got?" Jenny offers Soph a rather beat up copy of her schedule, extracted from the front pocket of her binder, for comparison purposes. "We should have most things together, I think, except maybe stuff like languages."

"Are you not in Spanish? I'm in Spanish." Soph produces her schedule, which has been folded and annotated but not wrinkled or smudged.

"I'm in Spanish," Jenny says, and grins mischievously. "It's just Italian with an s at the end, it's great!"

"Are we in the same one... ah, no. Oh well."

Soph giggles. "Noooo! Spare me! You might invite me to go for ice cream again! I'd never recover!"

"You have discovered my evil plot! Death by ice cream."

"Best way to die."

"I should probably have been more sneaky about it. Hi, let's go for ice cream, nothing suspicious here."

"And then death. Bella, lilies at the funeral."

"I hereby promise to order dahlias. So there. Stay alive."

"Many lactose intolerant people live normal and fulfilling lives."

"Sorbet helps, probably. And dark chocolate candy."

"Well, of course. Chocolate helps with everything. Except maaaaybe chocolate allergies."

"Those people will have to eat, um, blueberry pancakes with lots of syrup."

"Or French toast! I make it for the ducklings a lot."

"Aww!"

"The who now?"

"She's got little siblings."

"And when we all go out together they follow me around in a little line, so they are my tiny blonde ducklings and I am the mama duck."

"How old are they?"

"Oookay, let's see. Michael's fourteen, Thomas is twelve, Anne's nine and Patrick just turned eight."

"Do you have to babysit a lot?"

"Yeah, all the time, Mommy and Daddy are never home. But Anne and Patrick get out of school later than we do and Michael and Thomas have soccer today, so I don't have to rush home or anything."

"Perfect for ice-cream-ing."

"I take my ice cream where I can get it," she agrees solemnly. Mostly solemnly.

"Such wisdom. Teach me."

"Only when you have proven yourself worthy in today's ice cream quest!"

"How may I be worthy, great master?"

"...meh, it's really not more complicated than 'eat ice cream, find it delicious.'"

"Oh. I should be good, then. Unless I have a tragic ice cream accident."

"Then we might have to try again. More ice cream!"

"But after a tragic ice cream accident I could be out of ice-cream-eating condition for weeks! Months! What if it goes up my nose? What if my brain is so frozen that all I can think about is snowflakes?"

"Then we'll get you a scarf and a carrot for your nose and name you Snowgirl?"

"Frosty the Snowgirl, was a jolly happy soul. With a frozen brain and a carrot nose and some ice cream in a bowl."

"Oh, all right, since you asked so nicely."

"Pretty please with chocolate on top?"

"I already said all right. You have my permission to eat your lunch. I will not improvise further belated Christmas music."