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Elrod maneuvers Sammy over towards the Tasty Dog.  Once they're clear of the prying eyes of school staff he speaks up, "So, must be pretty srious if you're skipping out.  I'll buy you lunch and you can tell me about it."

Sam smiles weakly at Elrod.  "I snuck out because I don't want to talk about it, or about anything even close to it."

"Fair enough."  Elrod says, "Eating in silence is something I'm used to."

"You don't have to be quiet," she says. "Just don't talk about anything scary.  Stuff... stuff that's been happening around here is really freaking me out."

"Yeah."  Elrod orders lunch, then has Sam order hers and pays for it.  "I hear all the crazy gossip from my sister.  That and the guys in shop class."  they get their food and find a place to sit and eat.

Sam has to stop and think who Elrod's sister is, and it takes her a moment to make the connections.  "Your sister.  She's a cheerleader, right? Leeza, Leta... Lisa.  Yeah, I guess she would be all over the gossip.  My sister is too.  Its driving me nuts."

"Nah.  You gotta use it.  Gossip is like the life blood of a plce like this.  You get enough of it and it's like being the hea of the CIA or some crap like that.  They say knowledge is power.  I probably know more of what goes on in that place then the principal.  I'm a 'D' student too.  That's power."

"Hmm."  Sammy keeps eating.  At least I know why he wanted to talk to me.  He wants gossip and figures I must have something to tell.  I was the one who pulled the alarm in the locker room, and I saw the fight yesterday.  He just wants to know what I know.
"So what is going on at that place?  I'm gonna need something to trade when my sister finds out I cut out at lunch.  She has spies everywhere... at least it feels like it sometimes.  I'm going to have to make up something if I don't have anything real to say."

"Tell her you had lunch with a senior and let her wonder."  Elrod spends most of the time eating in silence and watching everyone in the place intently.

Sam notices him noticing people.  "Do you play that game too?  The one where you pick a person you don't know and make up a story about them?  Sometimes I even come up with their theme music."

Elrod looks at Sammy.  "Yeah.  I try to imagine what a music video of their life would be like.  Most people are just center frame dancing and singing though."

"Anybody in here who's not?"

"Nope."  he says, munching on some fries.

"I don't know about that.  Maybe you're not looking hard enough, or maybe you have the camera in the wrong place.  Maybe they're hiding, getting up their nerve to move away from the center.  Maybe its even worse; maybe they're fighting as hard as they can to stay in the center, but the stage is tilting and spinning and falling out from under them, and they aren't going to be able to hold on much longer."  She looks down at her hands in her lap, and very quietly adds, "Maybe they have to change, and they know it and are too scared to move, but they can't stay where they are, and they don't know where to go or even how to get there."  Her forehead drops to the table.  "And maybe I should just shut up now."

"I thought we weren't gonna talk about it?"  Elrod says softly.

Her forehead still planted firmly against the table, she says "We're not.  We're talking about music videos.  I'm just mad because you don't think the geek with the birth control glasses and the Aldomania tee shirt would have a good video.  I imagined him going all megalomaniac and taking over the world, but no, he's just another geek."

"Hey, not everyone is alone in the center.  He has a buch of hot dancers in short skirts like that Robert Palmer video.  That girl over there with the bizarro big pony tails has a football team with her.  And I have a band all playing air instruments."

She laughs, but her nose is a little snuffly and it comes out more like a snort.

(OOC:  sorry, real life demanded attention, and I'm off to reacquaint myself with a thing called "Bed" and another called "Pillow" after this.)

Eventually she lifts her head off the table.  "Thanks for not listening.  I mean, thanks for not making me talk so you could listen."