Daria Morgenpotter & The New Same-Old, Same-Old

Daria sat in the back of the flying carpet with her all-too-cute younger sister Quinn as they sped along the countryside on their way to a new school. In front, her mother, Helen, was telling her father, Jake, where to turn.

“It's left at the old stump, Jake. It says that quite clearly on the directions. Although why they can't just tell us what roads to follow I don't know.”

“Secrecy, honey!” smiled Jake, far too cheerfully. “That's so no one knows about us witches and wizards!”

“You're not a wizard, Dad,” Daria piped in. “You're a squib.”

“Yeah, well I could'a been a wizard, dammit!” shouted Jakes, jerking the carpet violently into the next lane. “But my father said that only sissies became witches, not like HE ever had a drop of wizarding talent in his body, lousy, jealous, overbearing --!!”

“Jake!” cried Helen, jerking the carpet out of the way of a witch on a broom (who made a certain hand gesture toward them as they passed). “Be careful or you'll kill somebody!”

“Yeah!” cried Quinn. “And if Daria gets sick on me before the first day of school, I might as well be dead!”

“Hmmm,” said Daria. “That last turn did make me feel queasy.”

Quinn edged quickly toward the edge of the carpet.

“Now girls!” Helen said. “That's not the way to start you first day at Hogdale High. You want to start off by making the right impression.” She turned toward Daria and added, “Don't we?”

“If by that you mean that you don't want to Phy. Ed. teacher to end each class quacking like a duck, I'm more than willing to comply.”

“Good!” she said, turning around.

“As long as we don't have to play volleyball,” Daria added, not quite under her breath.

“Daria!” Helen and Jake shouted at once. “That's not the attitude you need at school, kiddo!” Jake continued. “You need to have discipline! You need to have respect for the rules that make our magical society what it is!”

“Does that include the law that outlaws the use of magic carpets?” Daria asked.

The front of the carpet suddenly became silent.

* * *

Daria and Quinn were ushered into the gymnasium with the other new Hogdale students. They found themselves standing between two large tables on either side, with a table of teachers in the front. Up on a dias was a tool with a dirty, yellow “Cat” cap sitting on top of it.

“What's going on, Daria?” asked Quinn nervously.

“I think that Hogdale isn't so much as a school as a front for slave-traders. On the first day, the sell us wholesale and we are forced to serve as minions in a third-world country, or worse, we become gladiators and engage in endless duels to the death.”

“Oh Daria, you think you're so smart!” Quinn retorted. “You know full well no one would make me duel with hair like mine.”

“What if your new master was bald and jealous?” Daria asked.

Before Quinn could respond, the Headmistress of Hogdale, Prunella Li, stood from her place at the teacher's table.

“Quiet, everyone, quiet!” she said in a sing-song voice. No one appeared to have noticed. She raised her wand and thunder pealed across the room. “Quiet!!”

The room fell silent.

“As you know, this begins yet another wonderful year of education here at Hogdale High!” Headmistress Li continued in her former sing-song voice. “I'm sure you'll join me in a round of welcome to our new Hogdale High students.” She pointed to Daria and the rest. Someone at one of the tables began clapping, then stopped.

Headmistress Li cleared her throat and continued. “Now we begin the sorting! Each student will come forward, sit on this stool, and place the Sorting Cap on her or her head. The Cap will then place you into one of two equally wonderful sections of Hogdale student society.”

“What's she talking about?” Daria asked.

Before anyone could answer, Headmistress Li produced a list. “As I call off your name, come forward. (ahem!) Daria Morgenpotter!”

Daria felt all eyes fall on her. “Um, do I have to?” she asked.

She felt the force of Headmistress Li's frown, and so forward she went.

She could smell the Cap before she reached the stool. Carefully, she picked it up and sat down.

“Well, put it on!” said Headmistress Li.

“I can't,” said Daria. “It's so moldy that it'll fall to bits if I do, and then I'll be liable for damage to school property.”

There was some annoying snuffling from the left-hand table that sounded somewhat like laughter.

“Nothing will happen to it. That Cap is over a thousand years old,” said Headmistress Li in short, staccato tones.

“And I'll bet it hasn't been washed in over eight hundred,” Daria said, holding her breath and placing it on her head. Then she heard a voice:

“Ooohhh, back to school already, huh? Well, I guess I gotta sort ya.”

“Who's that speaking?” Daria asked.

“I'm the Sorting Cap. It's my job to put you lazy kids in the right group. 'Course, I get 401K and dental for this, so that helps.”

“Uh huh,” Daria said. “So, what are my choices here?”

“We have two social divisions: popular or unpopular.”

Daria blinked and looked at the two tables. The table on the right was filled with jocks, cheerleaders, and the well-dressed. The table on the left had students with Star Trek t-shirts, acne, and barely formed mustaches.

“Oh no,” Daria muttered.

“You got it, kid,” said the Cap. And then aloud to everybody, it announced: “Unpopular!”

The table on the let out a cheer, following by a few woots, and one Romulan victory dance. Daria sighed and headed for the table. She found an empty spot next to a taller girl with straight black hair.

“Have a seat, O Unpopular One,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Daria. “I'm delighted to be a new citizen of Hell.”

“Oh, I don't think you really wanted to be at that table, did you?” she said, pointing to the other table, where a football player and a cheerleader were locked in an over-fond embrace.

“Point taken,” said Daria.

“I'm Jane,” said the dark-haired girl.

“Daria.”

“Quiet please!” called Headmistress Li, “Next: Quinn Morganpotter.”

“Is that your sister?” asked Jane.

“Only by blood-ties too horrific to be told to the general population,” said Daria.

“I'm not wearing that hat!” cried Quinn. “Expel me or whatever, but I didn't spend thirty minutes soaking my hair in egg whites to have that thing on my head!”

The Cap, without being touched, cried, “Popular!”

Quinn was immediately elated, and welcomed with open arms by the Popular table.

“So,” said Daria, “that's how it works around here.”

“Pretty much,” said Jane. “Same old, same old.”

Daria put her forehead down on the table and heard a familiar song go through her head: a women singing, “La la la la, la la la la...!”