• Erin tapped impatiently on her keyboard and gritted her teeth. "Urg. Lag again," she muttered to herself. As soon as Gaia loaded, she logged on as quickly as she could type, muttering her username and password as she typed them.
    "Okay, Katniss_Everdeen56, password: macsrule." More impatient tapping, and then she was on. Erin clicked on games, then zOmg, and found herself in the Zen Gardens.
    Hey, Gurl! said someone's character.
    Hey Katiegirl79! chatted Erin back. Behind the monitor, she grinned. She hadn't expected her best friend to be on.
    Do you want to quest? I have to go whoop the shewolf for Gustav, asked Katiegirl79.
    Sure! said Katniss_Everdeen56. The two girls quested together until 7:00, when Erin was called for dinner.
    "What took you so long?" asked Erin's mom.
    "I wuz on da computah," responded Erin with a mouthful of broccoli.
    "Don't talk with your mouth full," her mom told her. "Also, don't play that stupid game so much. You'll melt your brain, and then where would we be?"
    Erin took a quick gulp of orange juice, and then quickly responded. " I was hanging out with Katie, mom."
    "Can't you just call her?"
    "Yeah, but we were, like, doing stuff together."
    Erin's mom sighed. "Fine. Just try to cut back, okay?"
    "Fine," Erin grumbled.

    The next day at school, Erin went straight the the locker room when school started. She had P.E. first period.
    "Hey freak!" shouted a voice. She didn't have to turn around to know who it was. "Get another A? Man, you get such good grades it makes me sick."
    "Ha. You're one to talk," Erin tried fighting back. "What kind of name is Janet, anyway? Born in the 1920's? Or were your parents just culturally challenged?"
    Janet's expression went from smug, to hurt, to shocked, and then just disgusted. "Whatever, freak girl."
    Erin didn't like to pretend she wasn't hurt. If it was up to her, she would probably sulk all day in the bathroom, in this unbecoming gym uniform. But she had grades to maintain, and she wasn't going to let her straight A's slip for someone as stupid as Janet, whom she knew for a fact had perfectly maintained D's.
    After gym, the day continued to drag. Math second period was her absolute least favorite subject. Then Spanish, which she wasn't fond of either. She lived in Minnesota, so what difference did it make if she knew Spanish or not? Unfortunately, she couldn't get into her dream college, UC Berkley, if she flunked 8th grade Spanish.
    She mentally sighed. On Gaia, she was a powerful 6.0 CL. In the real world, she was...not.
    "Erin!" She froze. Why would a boy be calling her name? Unless...
    She didn't turn around. Instead, she shouted, "Hank! Just because you're Janet's boyfriend doesn't mean your not a jerk! Because it makes you even more of one! Just go away!" She turned around to find that it wasn't Hank. "Daniel?"
    "Uh, yeah," said Daniel. "Though I must say, had that outburst been directed toward the boyfriend of the most evil Janet, you would have had my utmost approval."
    Erin blushed. "Well, yeah, see, she was teasing me this morning, so I thought she might be sending one of her cronies after me, cuz you know, she's such a witch and all that, so I thought maybe..." Okay, she thought, now I'm just blabbing. "So then she told me I was a freak girl, and you can imagine that I didn't take that well--"
    "No, I bet you didn't." Erin was startled for a second after Daniel spoke to her, then realized that he had actually been listening to her. Go figure.
    Brinnngg!
    "Oh no!" Erin wailed. "We're late for class!"
    "Oh, that's okay," Daniel assured her. "We can walk to class together. Mr. Cramer would surely believe that we were caught in a foot traffic jam."
    Oh yeah, we have History together, Erin realized. Then when she remembered that Daniel had just asked her to walk to class together, she blushed again. They spend enough time hanging out in P.E. that people had been wondering...not that that mattered. They were just friends.
    Thankfully, Mr. Cramer did believe that they had been held up by the foot traffic in the halls. It was, after all, half the truth.
    After lunch, which was after fourth period, Erin's favorite class cropped up in the middle of the day.
    "Yes, band!" she exclaimed, leaping up from her chair when the bell rang.
    "You are so lucky," Katie began. "Having band fifth period. I have my elective at the end of the day."
    "We can't all be amazingly lucky," Erin grinned.

    When Erin took her seat in the with the other Bass Clarinet, she noticed Daniel sitting with the other Euphoniums. Her heart gave a little flutter. Maybe the kids in P.E. were right. Maybe there was something going on there. She expelled the thought from her mind when class began, and continued happily through English and Science.
    After she got home, her first act was to collapse on her bed, and after considering the day, pull her iPod out of her backpack and listen to the calming tunes of Coldplay for the next half hour. And the next. And the next. And the...she was asleep.
    She was jolted awake at 6:37 by one of the three heavy metal tunes she kept on her iPod. Then she realized. "I haven't played zOmg for the entire day." Her first impulse was to reach for her computer, but then she realized that maybe she could give it a break. Maybe it was better to let the real world take over. Just this once.