How It All Goes Down
Fit to be Tied
- In her first class, Luce tries to determine how she is going to fit in at this new school, and she's immediately greeted by Cam, another student with bad-boy vibes and startling green eyes.
- Cam gives Luce a guitar pick with his room number on it and offers that she should come by any time so they can get to know each other better.
- As the students settle into their seats and the teacher, Mr. Cole, barges into the classroom with a freshly stapled syllabus for her, Luce learns that her first subject at her new school is "History of the World: Circumventing the Doom of Mankind" (2.33).
- What, "History of the World: Plague, Pestilence, and bad Pizza" was covered last year?
- After three staggering hours of "Circumventing the Doom of Mankind," it's time for lunch.
- Luce and Arriane head to the cafeteria for lunch, where Luce eagerly seeks out both Daniel and Cam so that she can enjoy the rest of her lunch by pretending she doesn't notice either of them.
- While Luce is scoping out the scene in the cafeteria, Arriane gives her the run-down of what not to eat. Luce tells her that she's a vegetarian.
- Like any good friend, Arriane of course makes fun of Luce by asking if her vegetarianism extends to Daniel as well, which mortifies Luce.
- Yep, Arriane is definitely friend material.
- In line, Luce stumbles into the lunch tray of another student, Molly, who Luce describes as "the angriest pixie she'd ever seen" (2.64). She gets into a fight with Arriane after Luce falls.
- Arriane throws a punch at Molly, but then the shock bracelet on her wrist goes off. Randy appears to break up the fight and to cart Arriane to the nurse.
- Once Randy leaves, Molly, who's not done looking for a fight, crumples meatloaf into Luce's hair and then takes a picture of the whole situation.
- Clearly, Luce is really good at making first impressions.
- Fleeing the cafeteria in shame, Luce stumbles into the bathroom to clean herself up and meets Pennyweather van Syckle-Lockwood—who goes by Penn.
- Penn brings Luce shampoo and conditioner and offers her an extra sweater to change into so she can spend the rest of the day not smelling like someone else's lunch.
- Finally, someone in this school who's actually nice.
- After Penn reveals that she's at this school because she's the daughter of the groundskeeper and knows pretty much everything about everybody, Luce considers asking Penn about Daniel, but not before they have to suffer through another block of classes.
- So what's up for the afternoon? Another class focusing on death and destruction?
- No, worse: French.