Cassandra sat cross legged on her bed and stared at the small envelope, trying to pick up the courage to open it. It was ridiculous, she thought, he had given it to her, given her permission to read it and yet she still felt guilty. What was it going to be anyway? A scrap of paper with a clumsily scrawled "Deer Broock, will yew goe two the danz with me? From Jakob," most likely. So why should it unnerve her so. Muttering angrily to herself, the Sandshrew-girl tore open the envelope and pulled out the folded piece of paper. It was greenish-blue and smelt a little of must, as though it had been left under a bed or some place for a period of time. Gently, still feeling the guilt gnaw at her, she unfolded it. The writing was clumsy, but then again, Jakob’s large hands would have trouble with a pencil, Cassandra’s were not a great deal better. Manual dexterity was something lacking in most of the Pookamon, since in their past they had never used their hands as hands, merely as feet.

"Deer Brooke," she read to herself, "your eyez are like the sun, shinning up on the waters off my hart. Your beuty is timeliss and wanderous and eye would luv to make it mine, to hold you in my arms untill the night washes over us with its gentel caress. Plis goto the dance with me, Jakob."

Cassandra paled. He might stutter in his voice but he definitely did not stutter on paper! Certainly, his spelling left something to be desired, but that was hardly the point. She could not read Brooke this, Brooke would either be completely confused or deeply upset. During the brief time she had known Brooke, Cassandra knew that she had no desire to become involved with a man, had been too deeply hurt by one in the past (that assassin that had tried to kill her, she had surmised), or if not really a man, then a male of the Pokemon persuasion. But what was she supposed to do? The note had given her an idea however…

"Hey there Miss armour-skin!" Brooke slammed the door open so wide the walls shook. She was wearing nothing but a long t-shirt with a Rapidash head print on it. Bits of flower and leaves were tangled in her hair. She must have been wandering in the woods again, probably chasing Rattata or something. "What’s the piece of paper telling you to do?"

Cassandra hastily hid it away, forgetting that Brooke could never understand it anyway. "Just a note from someone," she replied, hoping Brooke would get bored. Unfortunately, Brooke was not entirely predictable at all.

"Who’s sending you notes?" She asked, climbing onto the bed beside her roommate, "is it that Mr Plenty-tails you told me about?"

"No," Cassandra answered hurriedly, "its for you actually, from Jakob."

"A letter, for me?!" Brooke sounded entirely surprised, "a little-wittle piece of paper that’ll tell me something, lemme see, lemme see!" She grabbed out for it eagerly and Cassandra handed it to her with a sigh.

Brooke peered at it, pointing to each word at a time, but being unable to read could not actually tell what they were. Finally she handed it back to Cassandra. "It tell’s me only Brooke," she said, "the other words are all a hurdey gurdy of mystery.

It looked like she was going to have to face the fact sooner or later. "He’s asking you to the dance," Cassandra informed her. "Will you go with him?"

The Vaporeon girl scowled. "I was going to go with Mr Weedy," she replied. "But, do you, perhaps, you know, think maybe I should go with Jakob?"

Cassandra shrugged. "It’s up to you." She replied, a little sulkedly. It was okay for Brooke, she could get a date, but the Sandshrew girl knew that she would not. She wrapped her arms around her knees, unconsciously constructing a safe area about her. Brooke held the piece of paper upside down and tried to read it, before giving up. She rolled off the bed and picked up her potplant.

"Mr Weedy," she said, "would you like mind if I went to the dance-a-long with quiet Jakob?" She stared at it for a length of time. Then pouted. "Okay fine then, but I think he must dance better then you."

The Sandshrew girl sighed and clambered off her bed. "We have to get to Human Studies," she said, sounding almost dismal. "You want to come, Brooke?"

Human Studies was a compulsory evening subject where everyone sat around a big screen and watched moving pictures made by humans. Sounds fun? Well, it was not all that entertaining. For one thing, the pictures shown were generally family movies, portraying humanity in a good light, and for another thing, every ten minutes or so the teacher would stop the picture and ask questions about it. It was intended to encourage Pookamon to stop acting like Pokemon and start acting more like people.

And the love stories were so cheesy it was ridiculous.

Brooke shrugged, "can fish fly?" She asked.

"I’ll assume that’s a yes," Cassandra replied, although in all honesty, she had no idea. She scrambled off her bed and collected her books together. "Come on, we better not be late, you know how cranky Doctor Knoel can get."

"Do I?" Brooke queried innocently.

"Right now class, today we shall be watching "The Princess Bride"."

Talk about a lame title. Cassandra groaned, this promised to be another feel good movie about some princess who was in love with someone that wasn’t of high standing.

The Raticate-morph beside her groaned too. His name was Rastis and he sat beside Cassandra every week. She did not know why, but she figured it was probably so he could copy her notes. "Why can’t they play a proper flick?" He groaned, "something with things going bang and fighting and aliens. Like "The Matrix"."

The Sandshrew girl had no idea what he was talking about, she simply shrugged.

The teacher fussed around handing out pieces of paper. Brooke immediately turned hers over and began drawing Doctor Knoel in surprising detail. Cassandra skimmed through the questions.

"How did Wesley show his love to Buttercup initially?" She read. And sighed. What was the picture about anyway? Mirutanku? She noticed Rastis leaning over her and peering at her paper. "The film hasn’t even started yet," she snapped, "read your own damned paper!"

The Raticate muttered something and sat back in his seat, arrogantly resting his hands behind his head.

Doctor Knoel set the film rolling.

The first few minutes confused some on the Pookamon a bit, but Cassandra, being well-read could easily get the idea that it was a story with a story, so to speak, that the kid’s grandfather was reading him a tale. Once she got used to it, she found herself sitting back and enjoying the film.

Until Doctor Knoel stopped it again. Rastis was gagging at the fact that there was romance at the beginning.

"Not another kissing movie," he muttered.

Cassandra elbowed him in retalliation.

"Ow," he muttered, rubbing his side, "you’re one feisty woman you know that?"

"Now class," the gangly Noctowl snapped, adjusting his glasses, "how did Wesley show his love for Buttercup?"

Cassandra sighed. Talk about ruining what could be a decent film…

Half an hour later, and most of the class were engrossed as the heroine was kidnapped, then rescued by a masked man, who turned out to be her love she had thought was dead. Even the usually obnoxious Rastis seemed somewhat quieted by this particular film, and Doctor Knoel, after a time, stopped pausing the film every five minutes and slunk outside for a quiet cigarette.

Oddly enough, noone, not even Jasper or Rastis, took advantage of the absence of teacher.

"I wanna learn to swordfight," Rastis declared after Doctor Knoel had returned and switched off the film. He jumped up on the desk and swished around an invisible blade.

"Rastis, sit down!" Doctor Knoel snapped, "and you can write a 400 word essay on romance and true love for punishement!"

"Aww man," the Raticate grumbled, and glanced up at Cassandra. "You’ll help me, won’t you babe?"

Cassandra growled at him.

"Now, can anyway tell me what you learnt from this film?" The Noctowl teacher asked.

A dozen hands flicked into the air.

"That sword fighting is really cool!" One of the boys announced.

"Revenge is a worthy cause!"

"That its possible to come back from the dead!"

"Never start a land war in Asia."

"That masks are quite comfortable and everyone should wear them."

"When engaged in a poison-drinking challenge, don’t let the other person chose the poison."

The teacher sighed. "Yes, all very valid points, except the bit about returning from the dead – that is what we call fantasy. Cassandra?" He asked, knowing she would have the right answer.

"Um," she stumbled, aware that everyone was looking at her. Rastis snatched her piece of paper from her desk and read out the final answer for her.

"True love conquers all," he read out. "Yuck, mushy!"

"Very good Cassandra, and thank you Rastis."

"Does this mean I can get out of writing that essay?"

"No."

*

"Do you really think its true?" Cassandra asked Brooke later, when they were seated in the cafeteria enjoying a meal of spaghetti and shrunken sausages.

"No," Brooke said shaking her head, "I don’t think that the cook, you know, chases Rattata’s with her broom, cuts them up into teensy weensy wee pieces and adds them to the sauce."

She paused, whilst Cassandra stared at her, a little confused and a little bemused.

"I think she actually uses the bits of meat that have sunk down-down-down to the bottom of the deep fryer, where they’ve got all crispy brown and soaked with grease."

"I was actually talking about love conquering all," Cassandra replied, moving her sausages to the side of her plate.

Brooke went suddenly rather quiet. "Love conquers nothing," she snapped, "it opens up a world of pain that’s like, you know, having a hand plunge deep into your chest and twisting and pushing and probing until it closes around you heart with claws of steel and rips it from your chest. Oh look," she added, delight in her voice, "there’s a pretty flicking water falling from the sky!"

The Sandshrew girl found her appetite diminishing. "I’m going to my room," she replied, standing up.

Brooke watched her go, then twirled Cassandra’s left over spaghetti around her fork as much as she could, until half the fork was wrapped in pasta, and dripping sauce onto the table. "Someone doesn’t like the rain!" She said happily, and tried to eat the spaghetti, making a horrendous mess of it all.