Chapter Sixteen (Part One)

The academic side of school had always come easy for Melody. She made A's, she handed in extra credit reports, and she could often be found in the school library burying herself in books about whatever suited her fancy, sometimes being there until the janitors came in with their buffers to shine the floors. There was a running joke that she had her own key to the place. Even at a rigorous college preparatory school such as Hanover, the teachers had seldom seen a student with such an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Melody's problems at all her schools had always been social, and at Hanover, it turned out to be much the same way. Her grade-school teacher had observed, "Melody does not work well with others. She seems to have a marked preference for solitude." Several years (and schools) later, nothing had changed.
This fall semester, Melody had finally gotten her own private suite (all the girls did now that the extensions in Mariel Simwell residential hall were complete), and so she could put her personal stamp on it. Instead of the posters of musicians and movie stars that adorned the bedrooms of most teenage girls, on her wall were photographs of paranormal creatures and diagrams of the solar system. She reassembled her robot crafting machine in her bedroom at school and returned to work on the intelligent hunks of metal.
Clearly Sarah's words stung, and they weighed heavily on her mind as she worked. True, she preferred to keep her own company, but Sarah's companionship had provided something in her life that had heretofore been missing. And she realized that she missed having it. Was it true that she actually did love Sarah, as Sarah had loved her? Was it true that she was in fact attracted to girls instead of boys? Or was it that she was just attracted to Sarah, regardless of her gender? Either way, she tried to put these thoughts out of her mind as she returned to her bots.

Melody spent the next few days in a walking daze. She thought a lot about what had happened between herself and Sarah -- how they parted ways and why they parted ways. But every time she saw Sarah giggling with her new friends, a sharp pang crept in her stomach and meandered its way to her heart. She did a reasonable job of pretending it didn't bother her -- she'd listen to tunes on her MP3 player or pretend to study or read whenever Sarah and her pals were around -- but there was no question that Sarah's betrayal hurt, deeply.
Making matters worse was the fact that Sarah and her new friends had launched a campaign to make Melody's life miserable. They had, in effect, tabbed her as a lesbian loner. And being considered a lesbian is practically an invitation to ostracism, especially in an environment such as this. Every time she passed by, Alecia Charvat or one of the other girls would mouth the word 'lesbo alert.' Melody would often tell herself, she is not a lesbian, she is not a lesbian, but she wasn't sure if she herself believed it or not.
Pushing these thoughts out of her mind, Melody had no time to feel sorry for herself. It wasn't in her nature. And she had too much pride. She buried herself even deeper in her studies, cloistering herself in laboratories, classrooms, and libraries. She became even more determined to achieve loftier and loftier academic goals. She trusted no one, and no one could get close to her. She had decided that she would never trust anyone the way she trusted Sarah ever again. She had successfully enclosed herself in a shell that couldn't be penetrated. The only consistent social contact she allowed herself was chatting online to people she'd never met in the dorm's computer lab.
There was something about chatting to strangers that was liberating for Melody. Because she didn't know these sims and had never met them face to face, she felt somewhat comfortable releasing her secrets. But of all the people she chatted with, her very favorite was Ubergieke. Many times during their chats he'd expressed the desire to meet her in person, but she would cleverly hold him off, merely saving herself for another place and another time.

Melody made sure to be the first person in her biology lab the next morning, beating everyone else to class. Unfortunately for her, Sarah was still her biology partner. And for an hour every Tuesday morning, she had to look into the eyes of the person who'd broken her heart.
Dusting off her uniform blazer, which had already been pressed and starched to the nines, Melody, arriving at the dissection apparatus, turned to look at Sarah. She didn't even look like the person she'd known and fallen for. Instead of her cornflower-colored hair being straight and short, she'd gotten a wild curly perm. And she'd masked her large dark-blue eyes with tons of heavy eyeliner, eyeshadow, and mascara. "Hi Sarah," Melody stammered, turning her attention to the dummy in front of her.
Sarah haughtily shook her head. "Mel," she said, with a discernible chill in her voice. "Let's just get to work."
For the next twenty minutes Melody poked and prodded with the mechanical dummy while Sarah watched with disdain. They didn't say a word to each other, and even worse, Melody barely even looked at Sarah. How could she? And she had to put up with this for the rest of the school year? How was she going to do it?
At lunchtime Melody found herself navigating the spider's web known as the Hanover cafeteria. She saw Sarah again, laughing it up with her new friends and even the biology teacher, Ms. Jenkins, a chill went up her spine. Finally, however, she spotted an empty seat away from their table and sat there.
But her table wasn't empty for long. A new girl, a cute freshman with dark blond hair, asked politely, "Can I join you?"
Melody shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
The girl smiled. "Shannon Kilbourne. I just moved to Bluewater with my dad. What's your name?"
Looking around the cafeteria, Melody reluctantly answered, "Melody Tinker."
"That last name sounds familiar," Shannon said.
Melody was puzzled. "Really?" she wondered. "I don't know anybody else with my last name, except my parents."
Shannon then told Melody about her family -- she had two younger sisters who were, in her words, 'pains in the rear,' and her parents. Melody, half-listening to Shannon, was so determined not to allow Sarah to see her squirm that she pretended to be interested in what Shannon had to say.
"I'm moving into Mariel Simwell tonight," Shannon added.
Melody perked up. "Really?"

When Melody walked in the school library for study hall, she was somewhat surprised to see Tracy Glick there. The library was 'her' turf, so to speak -- and Tracy was in the way.
Tracy was an overachiever in every sense of the word. A reasonably attractive girl of average height and physique, she had bouncy, shiny blond sausage curls that could have featured in a shampoo commercial. In addition to being student body president, she edited the yearbook, led every committee, and seemed to be a member of every club no matter how obscure. She had her hand up in class everytime, and teachers would often overlook her just to involve others. Every school has at least one of these students. At Hanover, that student was Tracy Glick.
Tracy gave off the impression that she came from a privileged background like many of the other girls, but that wasn't the case. In a sense, this made her achievements all the more remarkable. She was the only daughter of Edna Glick, a divorced mom who worked three jobs -- as a cocktail waitress, a dry cleaner, and a legal assistant. She'd emptied her savings just so Tracy could succeed. Edna had dismissively referred to Tracy's father as a 'deadbeat' and a 'sperm donor.'
Tracy and Melody had an interesting relationship. Sure, they were cordial to each other and could even be considered friends. But, to teenagers, friendship has many layers and definitions, and in this case, oftentimes their competitive scholastic rivalry took precedence. They took many of the same classes and were one and two (in no particular order) in their grade averages in many different subjects. For example, if Tracy was first in history, then Melody was second, and if Melody was first in biology, then Tracy was second. It would appear as though one of them would end up being valedictorian.
They had more in common than met the eye. Sure Tracy was blond and preppy with not a hair out of place and makeup that looked like it belonged on a celebrity, and Melody was, in her terms, a geek. And Tracy was outgoing and perky while Melody was quiet and reserved. But they were both desperately ambitious and seemed to feed off of each other.
Melody leaned over at Tracy and saw that she was intently concentrating on whatever it was she was researching. She sat next to her, doing her own studying, and didn't say another syllable until she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Tracy getting up from her seat an hour later.
Melody's newfound rivalry with Tracy stirred her up and unleashed a latent competitive streak in her. It would go a long way towards healing her broken heart.

Autumn in Bluewater was marked by the change in the colors of the trees that lined the shoreline and change in the direction of the breezes. Instead of the warm trade winds blowing in off the neighboring ocean, they came from the north and were much cooler. Instead of a verdant green, the trees came alive in vibrant oranges and reds, reflecting the diffuse sunlight off their leaves.
Autumn was Melody's favorite season for a variety of reasons. For one, it was the season during which she celebrated her birthday. For another, it was her namesake. And for still another, it provided boosts in skill building, something a sim as knowledge-inclined as Melody loved. It was amidst this setting that preparations began in earnest for the Hanover Academy fall festival.
The Hanover fall festival was held every year and had become a major event in Bluewater Village. It also became an opportunity for the school to 'advertise' itself to prospective parents and students. The school's faculty and staff had asked every student to provide something for the festival. It was talked about in classes, in the cafeteria, during recess and music class, and in the dormitory after school.
Melody had been asked to bake a cake. She'd never even sniffed the oven back at home, leaving the domestic duties to her mother Wanda, so what was she to do now that she'd been told to bake something?
Unfortunately for Melody, Tracy was also using the oven in the dormitory, but to bake frosted muffins. When Melody smelled Tracy's muffins, she decided she was going to try her hand at baking, too. Even though she was more interested in paintbrushes and screwdrivers than spatulas, she was not going to back down.
Melody scratched her head, confused over the recipe she'd carefully scoured from hours of research. "Four cups of flour," she read aloud to herself. What size cups? Surely not the ones the size of buckets back home.
Raiding the cupboards, she placed all the ingredients neatly in a row, checking off everything carefully, just to make sure she had the right ones. The oven didn't seem hot enough, so she adjusted the thermostat slightly. Half an hour later, with gobs of lumpy cake mix stuck to her hair and practically everything else around her, Melody finally popped the cake tin in the oven.
Concentrating so much on what she'd been doing, she gasped at the sticky mess around her. With scouring pad in hand, and a sink full of hot soapy water, she proceeded to meticulously scrub every surface. She forgot one vital thing, however -- her cake in the oven.
Smoke began billowing out, and to Melody's dismay, her creation -- her first ever cake -- was ruined. It had fallen flat and was burned to a crisp. Rather than admit defeat, however, Melody pressed onward. Going back to the dormitory library, she pored over cookbooks to find something to prepare for the festival.
Meanwhile, Tracy sauntered up to the counter and put her picture-perfect muffins away in the refrigerator.
Just then Shannon Kilbourne arrived at Mariel Simwell with her luggage. Melody and Tracy hadn't even seen her, but Mallory Tessacka did, and rushed to help her put up her things. "The bedrooms are on the second floor," Mallory said, carrying a suitcase in her hand.
Melody finally looked up from her books while Mallory and Shannon walked up the staircase.
Meanwhile, putting up her book, Melody sneaked to the refrigerator to look at Tracy's perfectly baked muffins, decorated with orange and black frosting. An evil thought crossed her mind. She took them out and then threw them all in the trash compactor. "Hmmph," Melody thought to herself. "She thinks she can beat me with her snobbery."
Meanwhile, a thought had occurred to Tracy to check the refrigerator. Her perfectly baked muffins were gone! Tracy stamped her feet and huffed and puffed, generally throwing a tantrum. "Has anyone seen my muffins?" she bellowed to anyone who would listen and people outside who didn't intend to listen.
Melody, quietly reading in a corner, pretended she didn't hear Tracy shout.
"Hmmph," Tracy shouted, folding her arms. "Miss Hanover shall definitely hear about this in the morning, I promise. And there shall be hell to pay."