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See Jane
SPIKE
©2010 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Daria and associated characters
are ©2010 MTV Networks
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me,
whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: Daria, Jane, and the Fashion Club find themselves on
opposing teams in a nasty session of volleyball—a first-season sequel, of
sorts, to the opening scenes from every Daria
show in which Daria screws up the game for Stacy and Tiffany.
Author's Notes: Hiergargo challenged me on PPMB to write a story that had
Daria, Quinn, and Sandi competing against Jane, Stacy, and Tiffany. After some
thought, the amusing scene of the volleyball game with Daria, Stacy, and
Tiffany came to mind—and the story was on its way. Volleyball games in which I
played and the Internet’s wealth of volleyball rules and regulations supplied
the rest.
This tale, like many of my sillier
stories, makes use of a free font called Jester for the title and other bits.
This delightful, useful font can be easily downloaded (for free) from Dafont.com and Urbanfonts.com.
Acknowledgements: My thanks go out to Hiergargo for his excellent PPMB
challenge.
*
Ms. Morris’s
shrill whistle cut like a spear through the stale gymnasium air at the start of
Monday morning’s P.E. class. Dozens of female students in gym clothes winced
and mouthed “Ow!” including Daria Morgendorffer and
“All right,
girls, let’s go!” Ms. Morris shouted. “Get in formation! Move it, move it, move it! I want everyone out on the gym floor, now!”
“I don’t know
which is worse,” Daria whispered through gritted teeth. “That
whistle or the rest of her.”
“On the one
hand,” said Jane, sticking a little finger in her ear and wiggling it around,
“an irritating noise that jars the nerves and disrupts coherent thought. On the
other hand, the whistle is awful, too.”
Daria pushed
her glasses further up on her nose. “With any luck, we can debate this issue a
few minutes more before she finds out we’re AWOL.”
“Unless
someone tells on us, like last ti—”
“There you
are!” cried Ms. Morris, coming around the side of the stack of mats. “You were
right, Sandi! They were malingering again!” Her voice rose to a drill-sergeant
shout. “Get off your butts, shirkers, and get out there with the rest of
them!”
Daria and Jane
got up with glum looks and dusted themselves off before walking out to the
formation. Because of a temporary teacher shortage, the sophomore phys-ed class of Lawndale High had been combined with that of
the grade behind them. Daria now suffered the double indignity of being made to
exercise, which she hated, while her younger sister Quinn enjoyed the show.
That worked both ways, of course. The appearance-conscious Quinn often found herself sweaty and tired while Daria smirked at her in the
background. The only opinions they shared in common was a loathing for their
teacher, Ms. Morris, and for their yellow gym shorts and blue tees—Quinn
because they weren’t fashionable and Daria because they reminded her she was
still in high school.
After a set of
rigorous calisthenics that left the class panting and weak, Ms. Morris blew her
whistle again for attention. “We’re doing volleyball this period!” she shouted
at the wavering formation, ignoring the groans of despair. “And I expect every
single one of you will participate! Including you two!”
She looked pointedly at Daria and Jane, who stood together at the rear of the
formation. Daria looked back with a bland but resigned expression, while Jane
grinned and waved. Ms. Morris began pacing in front of the formation. “I’ll
divide you up into six teams, and you’ll play against each other in three
courts that we’ll set up down the middle of this gym!”
“Ms. Morris!”
called one of the girls. “The cheerleaders and pep club and—”
“—and everyone
else are gone to the school-spirit workshop today, I know. We still have enough
players for some gung-ho practice.” The teacher raised her clipboard and
studied it. “I can get four teams of nine people each,
and two small teams with the leftovers. Let’s find out if we have that
championship potential that’s made
A depressed
cheer rose and faded in seconds. Then a deadpan voice broke the silence. “Can
we eat them, too, or is this just for sport?”
“I’m
not going to clean and cook the catch this time,” added a gravelly voice.
“Morgendorffer and Lane!” Ms. Morris shouted, red-faced.
“Front and center!”
With a double
sigh, the two troublemakers made their way to the front of the formation. Ms.
Morris glared at them, then turned to the rest of the
class. “The other Morgendorffer, too! And
Four more
girls left the formation: Daria’s sister Quinn, her best friend Sandi Griffin,
the vacant-looking Tiffany Blum-Deckler, and a pigtailed brunette who nervously
called out, “Stacy Rowe! My name’s Stacy Rowe!”
“I don’t care
what your name is!” Ms. Morris shouted, drowning out Stacy’s gasp. “The six of
you cause me more headaches than anyone else here, even Andrea! Divide yourselves
into two teams and go set up your net on that side of the gym! Move, move, MOVE!”
The Fashion
Club and the Sarcastic Duo eyed each other in disgust as they headed for the
far side of the gym. “Eww, run laps,” grumbled
Tiffany. “Perspiration is so... unnatural.”
“Things could
be worse, you know,” said Jane in a loud, matter-of-fact tone. “We could be
living in a totalitarian prison run by a crazed dictator fond of grotesque
torture.”
“Did you girls
hear me?” screamed Ms. Morris behind them. “You have one minute to get your net
set up before I drag you outside and make you run laps until your underwear
catches fire from your thighs rubbing together! Now MOVE!”
“Does she
think we’re infected with cellulite or something?” Sandi said under her breath,
walking faster. Her three Fashion Club companions immediately reached down and
felt their upper thighs, trying not to be conspicuous.
The six of
them set up the net for their court without incident, having done it countless
times already. They then stood in two small groups, eyeing each other.
“If we must be
made to suffer,” said Sandi Griffin with a sour look, “we should keep the pain
level as low as possible. One of us must sacrifice herself by playing on a team
with those two—” She glanced at Daria and Jane “—while the rest of us
stay together and offer mutual support to the unfortunate one. Quinn, since you
are distantly related to one of the two outcasts, I suggest you fall upon your
sword like a good Fashion Club soldier and join them.”
“I have a
better idea,” said Jane. “Since we’re all going to be miserable anyway, why not
just stay in two uneven groups like we are? That way, you can be miserable on
your side of the court, we can be miserable on ours, and we don’t have to
breathe each other’s intestinal gas.”
“Thanks a
lot,” said Daria. “You ruined my little surprise.”
“Mine will be
worse,” Jane said. “I ate two bowls of chili out of the refrigerator last
night.”
“I ate my
dad’s onion barbecue,” Daria returned. “With beans.”
“Eww!” squealed Stacy and Tiffany.
“Sandi,” said
Quinn in a pleading tone, “can’t we draw straws or pick numbers or something?”
“Damn it! Why
aren’t you girls ready?” shouted Ms. Morris, striding over in her blue sweat
suit. “Everyone else is already playing, and you twits are still arguing about
what team you’re going to be on! What is it with you?”
“Democracy in
action,” said Daria. “We were in the middle of electing delegates to our
respective party conventions before we voted on our team choices, and then we
need to pick a secretary and a sergeant-at-arms before we—”
“You,
Morgendorffer!” shouted Ms. Morris. “You’re a team captain! Lane, you’re a
captain, too! Pick your teams and get going, or I swear you’ll do pushups until
you move the Earth out of orbit!”
“Ms. Morris!”
cried Stacy, waving a hand. “Ms. Morris, with all due respect to everyone
present, please don’t let Daria pick me! Tiffany and I
had to play on her team last fall, and she never hits the ball! She just sticks
her hand out after the ball goes by, and Tiffany and I even ran into each other
once trying to cover for her and almost permanently disabled ourselves, and—”
“I pick
Tiffany and Stacy,” Jane interrupted. “It’s my turn to torture them.”
“Leftovers
again,” Daria said, eyeing her sister and Sandi.
“Ms. Morris!”
cried Quinn, waving a hand. “Ms. Morris, my doctor says I can’t play on the
same team as my sis—cousin! She has a... a thing! I’m not allowed to
talk about it except with the school psychologist, and it could be really damaging
to my self-esteem and my reputation, and it might even damage my popularity and
even my natural cuteness, too!”
“It won’t
damage your brain,” said Daria. “You’d have to have one, first.”
“Shut up
and start playing!” roared Ms. Morris. She flipped the ball at Daria, then
stalked away to watch another game in progress. Daria dutifully put her hand
out to stop the ball—waiting until two seconds after it flew past her and
bounced off the back wall. Stacy retrieved it.
The two teams
took up their positions on each side of the net. Sandi took the volleyball from
Stacy and bounced it a few times, then looked back at Quinn. “We should
minimize our shortcomings,” she said. “Tell your cousin with the ‘thing’ to
stand somewhere where she won’t spoil the view or the action.”
“Gladly,” said
Daria, and left the court for the bleachers.
“DARIA, DAMN
IT!” screamed Ms. Morris from across the gym. “GET BACK THERE IF YOU VALUE YOUR
LIFE!”
Daria turned
in her tracks and returned. “I’ll cover the back court,” she said, and stood at
the rear like a store-window mannequin. Sandi and Quinn looked at each other
and shrugged, then turned around and tried to forget she was there.
On the other
side, Jane took a position in the center by the net, with Tiffany and Stacy
behind her. “Get ready!” Stacy called to Tiffany, who nodded. Both crouched,
ready to jump. Jane yawned. Standing behind the rear court line, Sandi held the
ball out and gave it a gentle underhand hit, sending it on a low arc toward the
net. Tiffany and Stacy cried “Oh! Oh!” and started forward.
In a flash,
Jane was in the air, her right arm windmilling over
her head. She hammered the ball with the butt of her fist, rocketing
it back across the net to bang the floor between Quinn and Sandi. It then shot
high over Daria’s head, coming short of the ceiling as it flew over the air
conditioning ducts to fall into the bleachers behind her.
Daria watched
the ball go over, her head tilted back and long brown hair dangling free. Two
seconds after the ball hit the bleachers, she stuck a hand out to block it.
Jane went back
to her relaxed, carefree pose, rubbing the edge of her hand against her leg.
Tiffany looked at her with huge eyes. “Whoa!” she said. “What was that?”
“Wow!”
shrieked Stacy, pumping her fist in the air. “Yesss! Ohmigod,
did you see her spike that—” She noticed Sandi and Quinn glaring at her “—I
meant, for an unfashionable outcast, it wasn’t too bad, was it?”
“Beginner’s
luck,” Sandi grumbled. “That won’t happen again.”
Another girl
threw the ball back, and Quinn caught it and rolled it under the net to the
other side. Jane picked it up and gently tossed it to Tiffany, who had been
inspecting her nails and saw it coming only at the last moment. With a shriek,
she flailed at the ball and knocked it back to Jane with her left kneecap by
pure accident. “My nails!” Tiffany cried. “You
almost broke my nails!”
“It’s your
serve,” said Jane evenly, bouncing the ball over this time. Tiffany caught it
with a glare, then walked behind the end line. She
started to serve, then stopped and changed hands. A second serve was also
aborted, as was the third.
“I can’t do
this,” Tiffany said despondently. “It might damage my nails.”
“I’ll do it,”
Stacy said quickly. “Pass it here and trade places with me.”
“You can’t do
that,” Daria called. “Tiffany has to serve.”
“Tiffany
doesn’t have to serve if she’ll disfigure herself!” Sandi shouted back. “Just
stand there and don’t do anything nerd-like!”
“Daria’s
right,” said Jane. “Your serve, Tiffany.”
“Jane and I
are the team captains,” Daria added. “You have to do what we say.”
“Let’s vote on
it!” Quinn said suddenly. “All in favor of Stacy serving,
raise your hands! I knew it, four votes to two. Get the ball, Stacy.”
“That’s not in
the rules,” said Daria.
“You’re the
one who said we were doing this democratically!” Quinn shot back.
Daria rolled
her eyes but subsided.
Stacy got the
ball and gave a passable underhand serve over the net. Sandi took two quick
steps to the left and hit it back with both hands over her head.
In a lightning
whirl of arms and legs, Jane was at the net again. She pounded the ball down in
another spike, bouncing it almost straight up into the air. Both Quinn and
Sandi gasped and jogged backward to get out of the ball’s way. Unfortunately,
Sandi backed into the gym wall and whacked the back of her head. Quinn crossed
into the adjacent volleyball court and collided with two other girls, sending
all three to the floor in a heap of arms and legs. The ball came down to smack
the gym floor again and again, bouncing lower and lower until it rolled to a
dead stop right in front of Daria. A moment later, Daria stuck a hand out to
one side to block it.
A shouting
match ensued between Quinn and the girls she had hit, beginning with “Watch
where you’re going!” and “You watch where I’m going!” repeated four or
five times at high volume. It concluded with softly muttered phrases like
“Bitch!” and “Thinks she’s all that!” as everyone went back to their own
courts.
“That’s two to
zero,” said Jane, as the dust settled.
“No,” said
Daria. “That’s zero to two.”
“Two to zero,”
said Jane, imitating Daria’s deadpan.
“Zero to two.”
“Two to zero.”
“Shut the
hell up!” Sandi yelled, still holding the back of her head with her eyes
squeezed shut. “I’ve got a concussion, thanks to you morons!”
“Ohmigod!” cried Stacy, rushing over. “Ohmigod! We have to call an ambulance in case you
have a brain injury!”
“Too late,”
said Daria and Jane in chorus.
“Your hair is
mussed, too,” said Tiffany. “I’ll get my mirror and brush.” She left, only to
be sent back under protest by an angry Ms. Morris.
Quinn,
Tiffany, and Stacy comforted Sandi as best they could until their friend’s eyes
and nose stopped running. “I’m telling my mom about this,” Sandi said grimly.
“She’ll have this stupid game outlawed.”
“Then only
outlaws will have volleyballs,” said Daria.
“They’ll have
to pry mine from my cold, dead fingers,” Jane returned.
“Will you
two stop being so freaking melodramatic and start the game again?” Quinn
shouted in fury.
“Yeah!” said
Stacy. “We’re ahead by two! Let’s—” She again intercepted dark looks from Quinn
and Sandi “—let’s let the other side have a chance to win!” She immediately
rolled the ball to Sandi.
“Wait,” said
Jane, watching the ball go by. “It’s still your serve, Stacy.”
“No, no!”
Stacy cried. “It’s Sandi’s serve! We’re taking turns!”
“Our side lost
the point,” said Daria. “And even if we got the ball, we’d rotate because it’s
Quinn’s turn to serve.”
“Gawd!” yelled Quinn. “Don’t you brains ever quit? We’re
taking turns, like Stacy said! And Sandi’s president of the Fashion Club, so of
course she’s still serving!”
“But we’re the
team captains,” said Jane.
“I say let’s
vote on it,” said Sandi, gingerly touching the back of her head.
“Forget it,”
said Daria to Jane. “The election’s been rigged.”
“This game has
a lot in common with the one Alice played with the Queen,” said Jane, as Sandi
prepared to serve. “The game with the flamingos and hedgehogs, I mean.”
“What?” said
Sandi, lowering the ball and staring across the court.
“What kind of paint fumes are you art geeks inhaling now? The royal game of
“No,” said
Jane, shaking her head, “I wasn’t talking about... oh, never mind.”
“Animal
cruelty is so awful!” Stacy piped up. “To think anyone would use those pigs as
volleyballs is—oh!” She moved forward, hands raised, as Sandi thumped the ball high over the net in her
direction.
“Mine!”
roared Jane, backpedaling at high speed. Panicked, Stacy and Tiffany instantly
threw themselves out of Jane’s way as she barreled between them. Jane then hit
the ball with both fits in a straight-line power shot that barely cleared the
top of the net on its way to Quinn. Quinn saw the missile coming and squealed
in terror. She shut her eyes, crossed her arms over her face, and backed up.
The ball whizzed by her head, missing her by a yard. Her feet became entangled,
and she fell back solidly on her butt, knocking her wind out. When it was over,
Daria stuck a hand out to her side.
Sandi,
Tiffany, and Stacy ran over to help Quinn, who could make only asthmatic
wheezing noises. “You could have killed her!” screamed Sandi.
“Yeah,” said
Daria in a flat voice. “Why didn’t you?”
“What in the hell
are you girls doing now?” shouted Ms. Morris, walking over with her fists on
her hips. “Stop screwing around and play some damn volleyball!”
The Fashion
Club chorused that Jane had tired to hit Quinn with the ball and could have
broken her arms, her spine, and possibly her perfect nose, until Ms. Morris put
the silver whistle in her mouth and blew it until her face turned bright red.
“This is your last chance!” she yelled in the silence afterward. “Play ball or
run laps until you cough up a lung!” She stamped away, swearing under her
breath.
“Maybe Jane
could stand over on the side and keep score or something,” said Stacy, eyeing
her with visible fear.
“Ms. Morris
says I have to play, so I’m playing,” said Jane mournfully. “I have no choice.
I’m just a lonely puppet on a painted stage.”
“Can you do
some other kind of puppet thing besides kill people at volleyball?” snapped
Quinn, rubbing a forearm. “In addition to mangling my rear, I bruised myself
when I bumped my arms together! I’m going to have to wear long sleeves for two
weeks because of this! Oh, no! Look! It’s turning purple and green!”
“Eww, gross,” said Tiffany, making a face. “Can you turn the
other way?”
“We’ll make a
special trip to Cashman’s tonight after school to find the proper prosthetic
outerwear to conceal this unsightly injury,” Sandi announced. “Meet at my house
at six sharp. Meanwhile, Quinn, can you tell your cousin-whatever to tell her
behaviorally disordered acquaintance to stop playing Terminator Ball?”
“Terminator
Ball,” said Jane thoughtfully. “Terminator Ball. Hmm. I like it.”
“I’ll run the
first-aid concession,” said Daria.
“Would someone
hit the ball, please?” said Quinn. “Ms. Morris is looking at us again!”
Sandi picked
up the ball but looked down at her right hand. “This is reddening my fair skin
more than I think is tolerable. Quinn, you hit it.” She bounced the ball to
Quinn.
“Rotate,” said
Daria, heading for Quinn’s spot.
“No, stay in
the back court,” said Quinn, catching the ball. “You’re out of the way there.”
She made ready to serve.
“You’re not
even behind the end line,” said Jane. “You can’t serve from mid-court.”
“Let’s vote,”
said Sandi.
Daria and Jane
groaned in unison. Daria remained motionless in the back. Jane, however, began
to pace, carefully watching Quinn on the other side of the net.
“Can you look
somewhere else?” Quinn asked anxiously.
“You’re the
one with the ball,” said Jane.
“Jane?” called
Stacy in a high, nervous tone. “Jane, why don’t you take the back court, and
Tiffany and I will cover the front, okay?”
Jane thought, then nodded. “Hokie-dokie.”
Everyone changed sides so that Jane covered the center rear, and her teammates
were by the net. “That good for everyone?” Jane
called.
“I’m happy,”
said Daria in a deadpan tone.
“Great,” said
Quinn. She held out the ball and started to hit it underhanded, then stopped.
“I just remembered, if my wrist swells up, I won’t be able to get my watch back
on after class. Can I just throw it over the net?”
“Knock yourself out,” said Daria. “I meant that literally, by the
way.”
“Geek,”
muttered Quinn, and she swung the ball up for a two-handed overhead throw.
Jane growled.
Everyone turned to look at her. She was crouched down as if ready to run track,
her eyes burning into the ball in Quinn’s hands. Tiffany and Stacy kept their
heads turned and their eyes on Jane, instead of on Quinn, until Sandi snapped,
“Hey! The ball! Look at the ball!”
“I’m throwing
it now!” said Quinn nervously. “I’m throwing it to Tiffany!”
“Wanna bet?”
said Jane, still crouched.
“Nooo!” Tiffany
cried in panic, looking back at Jane again. “Throw it to Stacy, not me!”
“Don’t throw
it to me!” Stacy cried.
“Throw it,
Quinn,” said Daria, looking to one side. “Ms. Morris is coming.”
“Damn it!”
Quinn yelled, and she threw the ball.
“MINE!”
Jane shouted, bolting forward. Tiffany, Stacy, Sandi, and Quinn screamed and
ran from the court in an instant, crashing through the gym doors leading out to
the parking lot. Jane leaped up at the ball—and grabbed it, landing on her feet
on her own side of the net. She bounced the ball as she looked at the slowly
closing gym doors, the shrieks of the Fashion Club still audible outside, then
rolled the ball across the floor so that it went past Daria’s feet.
Daria stuck
out her hand two seconds later.
Ms. Morris ran
across the court and hit the doors going out. “THAT DOES IT!” she hollered as
she chased the retreating Fashionable Foursome. “IT’S LAP TIME FOR YOU! HIT THE
TRACK AND GET READY FOR REAL PAIN!”
“Our work here
is done,” said Jane.
Daria dropped
her hand. “Let’s go back behind the wrestling mats,” she said, and the two set
off across the gym together. “We haven’t finished deconstructing last night’s
‘Sick, Sad World’ episode.”
“It did
explain why you never again see anyone who loses on a game show.”
“And why the
winners always look so well fed.” Daria imagined Ms. Morris would have caught
the Fashion Club by now, and they would all be heading for the track. She smiled.
“I guess ‘Jeopardy’ was a good name for that show after all.”
Original: 07/29/04, modified 11/21/04, 09/04/06, 10/04/06,
11/05/09, 05/13/10
FINIS
