“Diane.”  Diane nodded politely at Sam, stabbing a few more potatoes and trying to scarf them down in between breaths.  The girl ate like she was in boot camp. Misfit?  Was she?  Mmm .. maybe.  Okay, it was fair enough.  She looked down.  Mom cooks great.  Me, I burn water.  Really.  I set off all the smoke alarms in the house, turned the bottom of the pan literally glowing red hot and the meat I was preheating to ash.

Then in came Ash.  “Video?”  Diane looked confused.  “Which one?  Oh wait, you must mean Sarah’s thing.  Yes, she started that.  She made an alt account thinking she can’t get caught.  I haven’t … handled it yet.  Karma is a bitch.  Her boyfriend, Martin, he and his friend are the ones who dumped the garbage in my guitar.  I can prove it.  Sarah knows it.  I sort of blackmailed her before we went to see the Dean. I’m not done with any of them.  But Karma takes time.  Patience is everything.”

She paused.  “Uhm … names … “ she pointed at Sam .. “Ssss .. don’t tell me.  Sammm.  Wait … Sam.  I’m really bad with names.  She looked at Ash.  She shook her head trying to strain her memory.  Finally she gave up.  Truth was, Ash hadn’t said her name yet.

She turned to Jessica.  “Jessica.  You just said it.  I need to write these down or I will never remember them.”  She flipped her laptop open and booted it up in seconds.  But unlocking it too a dual biometric security - thumbprint and retinal.  She pulled a small digital camera out of her purse and stood up and snapped a quick shot, sat down and the image popped up on her screen.  She tapped at the screen and the images separated.  What looked like torn pieces of paper appeared at the bottom of each photo.  Then she pulled out a stylus and started writing in calligraphy each name below the image.

“There, now I’ll never forget.”

She closed the photos down and the desktop came back up with a scene from the new Heather Daniels movie.  Heather Daniels was the next JK Rowling and had written two out of three books of a trilogy.  The first book had become a major hit.  It was a fantasy tale about Earth being invaded by a fantasy realm in 1870.  Earth began the war with no comprehension of real magic or how to fight it.  In book one they were losing badly.

She shut the laptop down and put it away so she could finish eating.  She glanced up between bites.  “So .. St-t-t .. Keeler something.  What happened?”