Walking to school that dreaded first day, Zuko thought about his life so far.  What had happened to him.  How he had possibly coped.  

Here’s the deal.  I was born on the day of a solar eclipse, in the middle of summer.  What a big fat fucking coincidence.  

When I was 14 Mom disappeared.  

Also at 14, but later in the year, I got my scar.  If it wasn’t mine, I would have loved it at the time I’d gotten it.  I would have thought it looked like a superhero’s scar.  I’ve only got one eyebrow now (how hot is that?), but I can see.  Whoop dee do.  It’s so ugly I’d rather not be able to.  

Now I’m 16 and a junior at the only school in town.  

Within the past year he had had three girlfriends (Song, Jin, Mai)… one of which he was still with and was running towards him right now.  

“Hey, Zuko!” her rough voice called out.  He turned his head, his shaggy mop of black hair spinning with it. He didn’t really need to look.  He would have known her heels anywhere.  His sophomore girlfriend Mai was bounding up to him, in her black denim hip-huggers and skull tummy-top.  Quickly, he wrapped her in a tight squeeze, lifting her off her feet, and kissed her.  

“Azula told me about your guys’ summer,” Mai said sympathetically.  “Ohio.  God, I pity you!”

“Thank you for that,” Zuko said.  “I can’t believe I had to go with them.  Where did you go?  You never tell me these things.”

“Worst vacation ever!” she groaned.  “Guess.”  

“Where?”

Mai grimaced.  “Wyoming.  We went to Wyoming, staying at some ranch that smells like horse shit.  My vacation was far worse than yours.”

Zuko nodded in affirmation.  “Yeah, Wyoming’s pretty bad.”  They started towards the brick school building.  He felt someone brush past him – Jin, his second ex-girlfriend.  She walked quickly, silently ahead of him, her head down, her books hugged to her chest.  He felt a sudden stab of guilt.  That relationship had ended so awkwardly.  

They walked inside and Zuko almost tripped on a loose tile in the floor.  The building wasn’t well taken care of, to put it very kindly.  Many of the once-black tiles were scrawled over in silver Sharpie or with lime green spray paint.  The wall of lockers was splatter-painted in random colors like burnt orange and neon yellow.  Very cool from an artistic point of view, but for a school?  Not so much.  

The shrill bell screamed for the start of classes.  Zuko jumped.  Mai didn’t.  “Well, see you after school,” she said disinterestedly in her scratchy voice, and started walking down the left hallway.  Zuko headed down the right for African Lit.  
-----------------------
“Now, high is a rough place, Katara, so I just want you to know–”

“Sokka, I didn’t go to a prep school, but I’m prepared for the homework load!”

“I know, I know,” Sokka sighed. “It’s not about that.  Just make sure to stay away from Jun, or anyone you’ve ever seen around her, and don’t go near their brownie stand, get it?  Nowhere near them!”  

“–Do you know how paranoid you are?–” Katara cut in.  

“–You know why to stay away from them?–”

“–I’ve never even seen a brownie stand!–”

“Tell me,” Sokka said slowly, “if you know why to stay away from the brownie stands.”  

Katara sighed sarcastically.  “You mean the ones that don’t even exist?”  

“Answer the question, woman!”  

The freshman sighed.  “You told me once, I think.”

“Crack brownies,” her brother said, pleased that he could finally recite meaningless shit to someone, in a low voice so no one in the packed school hallway would overhear.  “One-dollar addictions, Katara.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in three-going-on-four years of high school is to stay away from Jun.”  

“I get it, Sokka.  You know, the whole school system is in the same building, I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”

“Jun doesn’t target kids.  Now, you’ll be vulnerable.  Okay, moving on.  Rule #2: Establish your reputation as soon as you get into school. If, for the first few days, you’re drifting around, trying just to get a table at lunch, then you’ll be an easy target for bullies.  They will make your life hell.”  

“Fantastic.  I’ve just stepped into The Hills!”  

“I’m serious!” Sokka insisted.  

“Oh look, it’s 8:15!  I’d better get to class,” Katara said loudly.  “I’m going to the library after school,” she added over her shoulder.  

“Hey, Katara!” Aang said, just having caught up with her.  

“Aang!” she cried, and hugged him.  From the corner of her eye, she saw Sokka making the ‘cut’ sign.  

“How was your summer?” asked the seventh grader.  

“Oh, Hawai’i was awesome!”  

“Awesome!” Aang repeated.  “I stayed here with Jet, Smellerbee, Duke, Pipsqueak, Li and Longshot.  Played a lot of basketball. You know, the usual.”  He shrugged.  “Meng was being annoying, also as usual.”  

“Sounds fun,” Katara lied.  “How’s Smellerbee?”

“Huh? Oh, she’s good.  Song’s mom decided not to take her home, though. Not enough cash, you know how it is.”
Katara nodded understandingly.   

“And how’s… Longshot?” she continued, keeping up her stride to her Spanish class.  

“He’s good.  Quiet.  Won’t say a word to anyone but Bee.  As usual.”  Another shrug.  

Katara reached the Spanish 3 door.  Aang was preparing to follow her absentmindedly into her class.  “Uh, Aang?” she reminded him.  

“Oh, right!  See you at lunch, Katara!” he chirped.  

“Bye, Aang!” She smiled at the absentminded 12-year-old and pushed open the door stepping quietly into the half-full room.  There were a few other high school kids slouching at desks, finishing summer homework or gazing at the clock.  She looked around for a spot, simultaneously self-conscious of her blue-and-white striped tank top and denim capris.  

She found a seat between a sad-looking sophomore girl – what was her name?  Or was she the new girl? – and one of her neighbors, Azula.  Katara sighed, waiting for class to start.  

The Spanish teacher, Mister Yu, walked in his clipped manner through the door.  He took his seat in his barf-y-green swivel chair, his fingers laced. “Holá, clase,” he began.  

“Holá,” the class murmured in response.  

Mister Yu stood up with a stack of paper in his hands.  “Class, I want this packet done in ten minutes.  You may begin when you receive it.  Remember the accents!”  

Even Katara, a freshman, found the Spanish 3 quiz easy.  Mister Yu was notorious for not caring what his pupils were told to do or whether Spanish 1 was getting Spanish 3’s assignment (or, in this case, vise-versa).  Katara aced the test in five minutes.  But she noted with dissatisfaction that when she looked up from her test, Azula, her rich, bratty neighbor, was smirking at her.  Her test sat, completed, in front of her.  

Five more minutes passed.  Katara sat fuming in Azula’s direction.  

“Time is up, class,” Mister Yu squeaked.  “Hand your papers to me when I come to collect them.”   The rather short man came around the room again.  The rest of the class was the same boring cycle, liberally punctuated by bursts of oral questions.  Azula and Katara always raised their hands, shooting each other ‘I’m way too good for you’ looks, competing for the attention.  Mr. Yu basically took turns calling on them.  

At last it was time for American History with Gyatso, who was faintly more interesting.  Gyatso was a seventy-odd man, with a white, shaggy handlebar moustache, and was very bald.  He was the kind of man that was probably a hippy leader in his past life (or forty years back – he was definitely old enough to have done that) or maybe a Buddhist monk.  He abhorred ‘Mr.,’ and almost forced his students not to address him with ‘that detestable phrase’.  He had a collage of Bob Dylan posters (“Ah, yes, I remember that concert…”) Blu-Tac’d on the back of his desk.  He usually wore a normal teacher outfit, plus a hat (today: a White Sox cap).  He always wore a hat of some kind, but most people knew that it was because when he was younger he had gotten a montage of tattoos on his egg-bald head.  

“Hello,” Gyatso said in his slightly accented, old-man voice.  “My name is Gyatso.  As you know, I will be your history teacher this year.”  

“Good morning, Gyatso.”

“Well, I don’t really believe in long classes of boring introductions, so let’s get started!”  He gave a short breathy laugh.  “Our first topic will be the past American wars.  The first assignment will be a short dramatic production of a famous battle in an American war.”  He quickly wrote on the blackboard:
The Alamo
Gettysburg
The Battle of Trenton
Iwo Jima
Bunker Hill
Okinawa

“I will divide you up into groups of two, and you and your partner will act out your assigned battle.”

Katara looked around the room hopefully.  She saw Song, Suki, and that new girl – chances were she would be paired up with one of them.  Hopefully, she could avoid Ty Lee, Ronjon, Zuko…

“You will have… about six weeks with this assignment. I think that will be sufficient.  And when they’re finished, I don’t want to see any wham-blam-I-killed-you mumbo-jumbo.  I want the details captured.  Did anyone famous die in this battle?  Why SPECIFICALLY is this battle remembered? I want a good, dramatic piece!  This affects your report card, people!  Make it good!”

Katara, despite herself, found she was excited for her first real assignment.  As Gyatso came around the room, pairing up as he went, she was visualizing her piece in her head.

“…Song, you can be with this young man here, and… let’s see, what’s your name again?” Gyatso asked when he got to Katara.  

“I’m Katara,” she said promptly.  

“Katara… you’re Sokka’s sister, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, embarrassedly scratching her cheek.  She did that whenever she was nervous or in an awkward situation.  It was a bad habit which usually embarrassed her further and left her with a raw streak on her face.  She felt herself flushing instantly.  

“Well, Katara, you can be with Zuko here.  You two know each other, right?  Ty Lee, you can have… Suki…”

Katara scowled at Zuko, who was next to her.  He looked at her thoughtfully, and sighed.  “I kind of forgot about you.  We don’t have much in common, do we?”  

“We have more in common than you might remember, Zuko.”  She contrived to keep cool.  “And I think you do remember me.  You should.”  

“Oh,” said Zuko with false sincerity.  “I guess I forgot that part.  What is this evasive ‘thing’ we have in common?”  

Katara shook her head, looking pained.  

“Isn’t Sokka that basketball… kid?” he mocked.  

“Sokka is not a kid,” Katara burst out, “he is a senior!  What are you, a… what, a freshman, possibly a sophomore?”

“I,” he said with a fully maddening smirk, “am a junior.  And look at you, Miss Spitfire.  It’s been a while since seventh grade, hasn’t it?”

“Sure it has.  I can still call you short stuff, though.  Look around!  Jet’s in your year, and he must be a foot taller than you!”

“Yeah, how funny you can call me that, especially because I’m about a foot taller than you.  And” – he chuckled briefly – “there you go again, off about your boy-friend!”

She spluttered.  “Jet – he’s – how dare you – Jet is not my boyfriend, you asshole!” He may be my ex, but not current boyfriend!  I’m single.  So there.  Pbbbbth!  

“That proves it.”

“Proves what?” Katara was, honestly, confused.  

“Are you deaf?”  Zuko sounded amused, in a bored, ‘I-don’t-care’ sort of fashion.  “He IS your boyfriend.”

Katara’s face turned as red as a tomato.  Zuko widened his crooked grin.  “I win.”  

She forced herself under control.  Calm it down, Katara.  We’ve got to do a report together.  We might as well start out on the right foot.  Calm down.  Be nice.  

“Sure you won.  So… about this thing we have to do…”

“Right.  That.”  He hoisted himself up from his slouch.  “I don’t really care what grade we get, as long as I don’t have to, you know, do too much.”

“Then you obviously don’t ‘care’ about your report card, because you obviously weren’t ‘listening’ to Gyatso’s spiel!  This will go on our permanent records!”   

“Well, there’ll be a whole year to correct it,” Zuko griped.  

“A whole trimester.  And this project is supposed to last for, like, six week
s!”

Zuko raised his eyebrow, sighed, and rolled his amber eyes.  

Katara’s face grew hot. “Prepare to flunk!” she nearly yelled.  “Because I – am NOT – going to DO this – MYSELF!”

“Suit yourself,” Zuko shrugged, smiling at her absurd stress level, but he drew himself up taller and tensed his jaw all the same.  

“Then you,” she said through gritted teeth, “get your ass started on your part of the project!”  The bell rang.  Katara stood up, thrusting books into her messenger bag.  Did we really spend that long arguing?  

“Wait, wait, wait,” Zuko said with a mirthless laugh.  “Don’t we have to do some sort of collaboration or something?”

“Well,” Katara said sarcastically, “since you obviously don’t want to, I figured we might as well get an early start on our flunk.  Peace out, short stuff.”  

It apparently took a moment for Zuko to process this.  Katara walked quickly toward the door.  He stood up hastily and ran after her, dodging around the other students walking leisurely toward their next class.  “Hey!... Katara!” he called.  She didn’t stop walking.  “Where’re you going?”  He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.  

She gave a frustrated sigh.  “Geometry.”  She picked up his hand roughly threw it down to his side.  “Where I might not actually flunk because some asshole won’t do his work!” She started off again at a run, leaving Zuko standing in the locker hallway.  

The rest of the morning went by in a blur.  Everything seemed so boring compared to the drama in American History.  She kept a foul face on through geometry, through art, through Comp.  

At last, lunch arrived.  She sat at a table in the far corner with Aang and Toph, their customary spot since last Christmas.  She acted too bright and happy for them not to suspect anything.  

“Dude, Katara,” Toph interrupted her.  “What REALLY happened in class today? I don’t care what shade of puce your clay model was!”  

Katara suddenly realized that she had, in fact, been boring them shitless for the past 15 minutes.  “Sorry,” she muttered, then slouched down, furiously stabbing at KFC with a plastic spoon.  

Aang gave her an inquisitive look.  “Seriously, Toph’s right.  What happened today?”  

“Nothing.”  

“Call me later,” Toph commanded.  “Since you obviously aren’t about to tell me in the here and now, you’d better be able to on the phone.”  

“Don’t count on it,” Katara warned, her voice still low and angry.  “I’ll still be pissed off by then.”  

“Why are you so pissed?”  Aang asked, his voice soothing rather than sounding as playful as it usually did.  

“It’s Zuko,” Katara gave in.  “He’s being an asshole.”  

Aang seemed to tense up at Zuko’s name.  

“What?”  Katara asked.  “You okay, Aang?”  

“Fine,” he shrugged.  

“You don’t look fine.”  

“I’ll be okay,” he reassured her.  “Just… um.  Yeah, what about – Zuko?”  

“Oh, yeah – HE IS SUCH AN ASSHOLE!”

Toph snorted.  “So what else is new!”

Katara glared at her.  “Anyway, yeah.  He’s about to flunk us on American History.”  

“That hurts,” Aang stated, then added hopefully, “Want me to egg his house for you?”  

“His dad’s a lawyer,” Katara groaned.  “I would have you do it, but I can’t.”  
------------------------------------------
“How was school today, Azula?  Zuko?” Ozai, Zuko and Azula’s dad, poured himself a cup of coffee as Zuko worked on his homework and Azula read a PEOPLE magazine.  
“Great,” she said perkily, looking up from SPECIAL FASHION ISSUE! “I liked Mister Yu, the Spanish teacher.  He was careful not to pick favorites yet – but he kept calling on that Goody-Two-Shoes, Katara.  What does her dad do again?”  Zuko inadvertently snapped to attention at Katara’s name.

“I believe Hakoda is now in Iraq,” Ozai said matter-of-factly.  “Say it with respect, Azula.”  Azula ignored her father and took out a pocket touch-up set.  “And although you have reasons for feeling like you do about Katara, I know her father personally, and he is a very… honorable… man.”  

Azula suppressed a scoff.  “Honorable,” she muttered into her makeup.  

“Then, who does she live with?”  Zuko interrupted.  

Ozai’s voice was cool and silky, as usual.  “They live with their mother’s mother.  I believe you both have met Kanna.”  

Zuko let it drop.  There was a silence.  Azula glanced from her father to her brother
to her makeup, waiting for someone to say something.  She cleared her throat.  “Anyway, Mister Yu is so my favorite dude.  Finally, a classy teacher!  None of this ‘chalkboard’ shit.”  

Zuko nodded disinterestedly, letting his pencil roam aimlessly over World History.  

“And you, Zuko? How was your day?”  Ozai sounded as if he had just remembered that his son was there also.  

His eyes turned to his dad.   “Um… great,” he mumbled.  “Great start of the year.” His pencil resumed its wandering.  

There was another silence, punctuated only by Ozai sipping his joe and Azula flipping her magazine pages.  

“Hey, can Mai and Ty Lee come over?” she said suddenly.  

“If you do your homework,” Ozai said, using his one ‘typical dad’ line.  Azula and Zuko both stood up.  

Azula glared at her brother.  “Um, a little privacy while I make a phone call?”  

Zuko quickly shook his head.  “Sorry.  But I hope you realize that Mai isn’t only your friend.”

“Well, you two have made enough of a scene about it.  How could I not know, Zu-zu?  You, like, make out every day before school!”

“Fine, fine,” Zuko relented.  “So we don’t keep it a big fat secret.  And don’t call me Zu-zu!”

Azula punched a few numbers into her dark red Razr.  “Hey, Ty?  Yeah.  Wanna come over?  Yeah, right now.  Bring your ‘homework’.”  

Zuko went upstairs to his room.  It wouldn’t be interesting - ‘homework’ would be Ty Lee’s five-million-ton Saks Fifth Avenue eye shadow kit.  Mai would bring her excessive black eyeliner and mascara, and Azula had enough lip gloss, foundation, et cetera to sink a ship.  

A few moments later, the doorbell rang.  Ozai answered it.  “Hi there, Mr. Ozai,” came Ty Lee’s bubbly voice from the kitchen.  

“Hey,” Mai said.  “Is Zuko in?”

Zuko smiled triumphantly to himself (or an imaginary Azula).  “I’m in here, Mai,” he called proudly.  She walked in and closed the door half-way.  
“How’s it going?”

“If you must know, I feel like my brain is chunky soup sloshing around inside my skull.”  

“Tell me about it!  I hate calc homework!” Mai flopped down over Zuko’s legs.  “I did it during Study Hall.  I wrote down the answers.  We’re having a test on it tomorrow.” She crawled next to him and showed him the palm of her right hand.  

As Zuko scribbled down the answers, Mai started talking about Jet, who she had just met in the free period.  “His eyebrows are so intense,” she yammered.  Zuko bit his lip in an effort to stop a blooming smile as he remembered Katara in American History.  “He was always moving them up and down, like this,” she said, using her fingers to move her severely-plucked black eyebrows in crazy directions.  He could only make himself laugh at Mai’s humor-attempt.  

They were silent for a while, the only sound Zuko’s pencil scratching against the cursed pages of calc.  

Mai’s eyes assumed a darkly playful expression.  Her hand slowly, slowly reached up to Zuko’s scarred left eye.  

Zuko panicked.  “Don’t!” he yelled.  His arm snapped out and caught her wrist with his full strength.  “Don’t touch it!”

Mai drew back, petrified.  “Ai!”

“You do that every time!” Zuko fumed.  “And every time, it’s the same thing!  Do NOT touch it!”

“Whatever you say, sir.”  Mai lay back down, satisfied with her own sarcasm.  

“You NEVER touch it.”  

“Sure!  Whatever.  Just don’t blow a hissy-fit on me!”  

Zuko leaned back to his mattress, twisting his head around so it buried the scar in a black Sqüsh pillow.  “I don’t… I…”

“What?” Mai tested.  “Don’t you trust me enough?”  

Zuko just didn’t want to admit that that was exactly what it was.  
--------------------------------------------------
Slam.

“Katara, ‘s that you?”  

Katara stomped through the small living room where Sokka was parked with his homework.  She went right past him to her room.  Her door shut loudly.

Sokka stood up purposefully.  “Katara?”  He made his voice sound shrill.  He did that without thinking whenever he was annoyed.  “I saw something in the school hallway today that I didn’t like!  Can you find an explanation?”  He pounded on her bedroom door.  

“Go away!”  

“No!  What happened with him?”  

There was a silence from inside.  Katara opened her door with a sigh.  “You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”  

“What were you doing with Zuko?” Sokka said whiningly.  

Katara paused to contemplate.  I could tell him I was yelling at him heatedly.  Then he’d get pissed and beat Zuko up for me.  Or I could tell him it was nothing.  Then he would keep asking, get annoyed, go away, and be completely blessedly silent through dinner.  

“Nothing,” she said coldly.  “Now, I’ve got some homework.  Piss off.”  She shut the entry resoundingly.  

Sokka stared at her closed door furiously.  “Gran-Gran!  Katara got at the crack brownies!”

Katara had whipped out her blue Pebble phone and was very quickly stabbing at buttons.  

“Hello?”

“Hey, Toph?  Here I am, calling you.  You would not believe my day.  So, in American History, we got our first big project. …Yeah!  The first day of school!  Anyway, Gyatso assigned us to act out a famous battle in American History.  He paired us all up.  Now, I get to spend six weeks with Zuko!  Lucky me, right?  He says he doesn’t care what grade we get, as long as he doesn’t have to do too much work.  He acted like he wanted me to do it all.  Then when I ditched, he’s all like, ‘Oh, where’re you going, don’t go, Katara, blah, blah, blah,’ like he actually wanted me to stay there!”

“Ouch,” Toph confirmed.  

“Why ‘ouch’?  I’d say it’s more of a… ‘Oh, you should totally kill Gyatso, for pairing me with my past’… it’s like opening a scab!  Ugh!”  Katara paused to take a breath.  

“Katara, why are you making such a big deal out of this?  It’s one project.  I think the answer is right in front of your face.  For this little project, you can get yourself an A, and together, you and Zuko can get a C on this project – his D- - or F, plus your A, and for all the other things, you can get yourself an A.  OK?”  

“Not OK, Toph!  Do you know–” She made sure no one was walking past her door or anything.  “Do you know what my grandmother is like?  B- on anything – POW.  Right in the kisser.  I’m telling you, Cs are BAD in my house!”  

“Didn’t know your grandma abused you,” Toph said hinting sarcasm.  

“Well, she doesn’t really – I have to get good grades.  Otherwise, I won’t get into a good college.  And for an old lady, she hurts like hell!”  

“Then talk to Zuko.  Slap some sense into him.  Of all the people I know, you are the best at bitch-slaps, if that makes you feel any better.”  

“Thanks,” Katara said.  “I think there was a compliment in there somewhere.”  

“Whatever.  So, are you done venting yet?”

“Ha!  Wait till I get started!”  

Toph was expectantly silent.  Katara forgot what she had been about to say.  “Oh… never mind.  I guess I’m already done.”

“Well, Katara, that was special.  All I can say is that you do your part of the project, and let Zuko flunk himself.  Buzz.”

“Bye, Toph.  See you tomorrow!”

Katara turned off her phone; not sure what to do next, she pulled out her journal.

Zuko is an asshole, she began.  I’m about to flunk my first project because he’s too much of a lazy-ass to step up to the plate and actually do something good.  Then she wasn’t sure what to write, either.