fardell24

Daria – Trouble in Lawndale
“Girls, I just want you to know your mother and I realize it's not easy moving to a whole new town -- especially for you, Daria, right?” Jake Morgendorffer said, as he and his daughters approached Lawndale High.

“Did we move?” Daria asked, as she looked around, annoyed that her father had spoken after remaining silent since they left their new home half an hour before.

“Stop following me, Daria!” her sister, Quinn, said.

“Excuse me, we’re walking along to the same school!”

“You don’t have be right behind!” Quinn said.

“It’s not my fault Lawndale has such narrow sidewalks.”


Jake, annoyed with his daughters’ arguing, put his headphones back on. “I've been working on the railroad... come on, guys, we know this one.”


Meanwhile at Lawndale High, two students were already there. (Although calling one of them a student might have been stretching the definition a bit…) “Come on, Mack Daddy! I'll get the coach to write us a note. I'll say we need extra time on the free weights.”

“I told you not to call me that!” Mack said, exasperated. “And they're not going to excuse you from English for weight training.”

“I can't take any more of this Shakespeare dude, bro. He's, like, a total chick writer!”

Mack sighed.


“Maybe we could go to that Mall of the Millennium this weekend, Daddy?” Quinn asked as they approached the school.

“A hundred miles? To go to a Mall? There’s a Mall less than five minutes from home. In a car!”

“I’m sure there are some fascinating Malls in Southeast Asia.” Daria snarked.

“Southeast Asia! To go to a mall!” Jake exclaimed.

“She’s joking!” Quinn said.

“Oh!”


Jane Lane arrived at Lawndale High. She switched off the audio recording of the last night’s Sick Sad World episode. The concept of a model creating an encyclopedia was appropriately inane. “Drawing pictures in margins…” she mused. That was something she did often.

Having been enrolled at the School, Daria found that she had Science for first period. In class she quickly found that the teacher had issues… “…and like a husband going home to his noble and self-sacrificing wife, the rat keeps returning to the food box. That is, the positive reinforcement. Huh, if only men could be more like rats. Oh, sure, they come home at first. You feed them, you wait on them, and then, after twenty-two thankless years, they just up and leave. No note, no phone call, no nothing!” She slammed her ruler on her desk for emphasis. “Just... like... that!”

“I wonder why he left,” Daria murmured to her new acquaintance, Jodie Landon.

“Now, before I divide the class into teams of two, who can give me another example of reinforcement?”

The class didn’t give an answer.

“Fine, class. Ignore me... just like he did!”

“Just as well he wasn’t Jones,” Daria commented.

“I heard that!” Barch said. “But we’re not talking about cults. You can ask DeMartino about that! But you have stumbled upon an interesting answer. A charismatic man re-enforcing herd-like behaviour in his followers, leading to tragic results!”

“Excellent example Daria,” Jodie said.

Daria shrugged.


Between classes, Sandi Griffin was talking with Joey Green, Jamie White and Jeffy Brown, ‘So I said, "Sure, it's a nice car. Do you have enough gas to get to Loserville?’”

“That’s funny, Sandi,” Joey said.

“You really know how to tell a story,” Jeffy said.

“Thanks,” Sandi said.

“Tell us the part with Stacy again,” Jamie said.

“Stacy wasn’t in that story. It was just Tiffany and I,” Sandi said.

“Well then, take Tiffany out and put Stacy in,” Joey suggested.

Stacy then came along. “Hi guys!” she said. “Sandi, Joey, Jeffy, Jerome.”

“Hi, Stacy,” Joey said.

“Hi, Stacy,” Jeffy added.

“Hi, Stacy. It’s Jamie!”

“Oh, sorry!”

“Have you seen that new girl?” Jamie asked.

“The redhead?” Stacy asked.

“She could be new member for the Fashion Club,” Sandi answered.

“There she is!” Jamie said.

Sandi sighed as Jamie and Jeffy ran off.


Daria listened as Jodie told her how busy she was. “…And that is why I can only go to study sessions in the early evenings,” Jodie said.

“I bet you don’t have to deal with Family Court,” Daria said.

“Family Court?” Jodie asked incredulously.

“It was an attempt by my Mom to use Jurisprudence in family matters after my sister and I came home late one night.”

“That sounds crazy,” Jodie commented.

“It was,” Daria said. “But it didn’t last long, because they were too busy to enforce a month-long grounding.”

“That’s something I’d like to hear about at some point,” Jodie said as they came to the next class.


“Can monkeys surf the net, and corrupt our kids? Chimpanzee chat rooms, next on Sick Sad World.”

Claire Defoe switched off the TV after students started filing into the classroom. She saw the new student, Daria. “Ms. Morgendorffer!”

Daria came over. “Yes?”

“Your records from Highland are intriguing,” the teacher said.

“I experimented, that’s all.”

“Using a glue gun as an actual gun?” Claire asked with an eyebrow raised.

Daria raised her own eyebrows. “Oh, that. Those two deserved it, but I won’t do it here in Lawndale.”

“Good. I just wanted to hear it from you personally. I would like to talk about your previous art after class. There’s a student I’d like you to meet.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”


“Fifty dollars an hour!” Jane groused as she approached the art classroom. That was the amount Mr. Ewing had quoted for the average Math tutoring cost in Lawndale. She doubted it would be any cheaper in Oakwood. ‘Or Middlebury for that matter,’ she mused as she overheard other students complaining about exorbitant prices.

The Geek's Expose
Mr. O'Neill assigns his class to make their own short films. Daria chooses to make her film showing how much of a geek Quinn is.

Part 1
fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6963544/16/Quinn-s-Code

Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64634941/chapters/166028146

The Mystery Club investigates when a local cybercafe is broken into.

fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14417932/3/Mysteries-of-Lawndale

Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64334602/chapters/165150523

Quinn arrived at school not long after. She began hearing rumors of Jamie’s claim as she headed to Homeroom. ‘What is Jamie doing?’ she groused to herself. ‘He wouldn’t have found the off switch or the Solarium itself if he hadn’t joined me on the search!’ She wasn’t sure what to do about his bragging other than to insist on the truth.


Conflicting claims would spread through the school as the day went on.


At lunch, Jamie was eating with Elly and Freya. Joey saw that and turned to Jeffy Brown-Mercer. “We need to do something about this?”

“But how?” Jeffy asked.

“We’ll go to Quinn,” Joey said.

“Or Daria?” Jeffy asked.

“Quinn first,” Joey decided.

“Sure.”


“And so, it’s annoying,” Quinn said. “But I have been insisting on the truth. That I was there at the Solarium and he wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t come with me.”

“That’s all you can do,” Tori Jericho said.

“I know,” Quinn said.

“Quinn?” Joey said as he approached.

“Jeffy?” Stacy Rowe asked.

“It’s about Jamie,” Joey said.

“He’s bragging that he was the teen investigator that stopped the brownouts,” Jeffy said.

“I know,” Quinn said with annoyance.

“But what can we do about it?” Joey asked.

“Also, it seems he’s going after Elly,” Jeffy said.

“I’d say let him,” Stacy said.

“What?” Tiffany Blum-Deckler asked.

“So, he wouldn’t annoy Quinn,” Stacy said.

“He hasn’t been doing that lately,” Quinn pointed out.

“Nor have I,” Joey said. “I mean we have gone on dates, but it’s been more as friends, especially given we’re partners in the Historia.”

“That’s a good point,” Stacy said.

“But Jamie?” Jeffy asked.

“I guess you can ask Daria,” Quinn said. “I’m at a wits end.”

( Read More )

Jamie looked around as Mr. Elders gave a tour of the Solarium. “It looks more like a lair than a solarium.”

“Jamie!” Quinn said. “I don’t think so. Besides, an actual lair could be anything, like an office building or an ordinary house.”

“Lair? I suppose it could be,” Mr. Elders said.


‘I hope he’s joking,’ Quinn thought as she looked around. ‘Lawndale doesn’t need any new villains.’

“But that word sounds sinister,” Mr. Elders added.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Quinn asked.

“But this place looks like one of those places in one of those movies,” Jamie said.

“But this isn’t a movie!” Quinn objected.

“No, it isn’t,” Mr. Elders said. “But this building has been used for other purposes in its history.”

“Of course,” Quinn said, as she remembered what she told Jamie about the Historia earlier.

“What?” Mr. Elders asked.

“What else is here?” Quinn asked. “Maybe something that’s still drawing power?”

“I doubt it,” Mr. Elders responded. “I had a good look at the place before I bought it.”


Jamie thought about it as he, Quinn and Mr. Elders searched the building the Solarium was in. It looked more like a lair than he had thought. ‘But Lawndale hasn’t had villains in it’s past?’


They went down to the basement. “I guess I didn’t really look down here,” Mr. Elders said. “I was focused on the rest of the building and establishing the solarium.”

“Sometimes it’s something that’s overlooked that can cause a problem,” Quinn said.


Meanwhile, as his grandfather and other two were searching the building, a bored Sam Elders was thinking. While his grandfather had pushed aside Jamie’s comment about the Solarium being a lair, he had overheard it and was considering it. ‘We can be villains and be worthy opponents to SpiderGirl and the others,’ he thought. ‘Groundhog Day was too far of course.’


‘There’s definitely something here,’ Quinn thought, as her enhanced hearing was picking something up. She wandered in that direction and threw a tarp aside. “Look here,” she said. “It looks like some kind of electric furnace.”

“You’re right,” Mr. Elders said. “Here I thought the building just had really good insulation.”

“Now we just need to find the off switch,” Quinn said.

“Over here,” Jamie said. He flipped off the switch and the glow of the antiquated furnace started to fade.


Quinn and Jamie emerged from the solarium and saw that the street lights were no longer flickering. “We did it, Quinn,” Jamie said. “But what now?”

“We head back to the Historia and fill the others in,” Quinn said.

“Right.”

( Read More )

When Daria is invited to Brittany Taylor's party, she takes it as an opportunity to investigate. Meanwhile, Stacy finds that there is more to Lawndale than she expected.

Fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14417932/2/Mysteries-of-Lawndale

Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63582988