An American Muggle High School! Suffering Succotash!

"Oakland Mills High School?" Ron said skeptically as the trio gazed upon the building. "What's a high school?"

"Where Muggle teenagers go to school," Hermione explained to him.

"Why does it have to start so early? Seven thirty!" Ron started to whine.. "And why did you make us take that stupid Muggle Studies class? You didn't say we would be going to a Muggle school. And in America at that!"

"Well, I think it will do us some good. Especially you," Hermione answered him.

"You always think that."

Harry sensed an argument coming on.

"Well, look on the bright side--no Snape," he pointed out.

"Valid point." Ron smiled, "And all these unsuspecting Muggles to-"

"Ron, no! We're not supposed to use magic on them!"

"Calm down, Hermione. I was only joking."

**Ring**

"Well, that's the bell. I guess we better go in." Hermione pulled out their schedule. "It says our first class is in room 408. Mr. Matters, Algebra one. Well, I've always been good at math so this shouldn't be to tough."

"Math? And what do they mean, 'mister'? Shouldn't it be Professor Matters?" Ron wondered out loud. He was ignored.

They walked inside to pure chaos. Just walking down the one hallway they were shoved into the wall three times. They finally saw a girl with semi- baggy green pants, a white t-shirt, and really long hair.

"She looks nice." Harry pointed her out. "Why don't we ask her where to go?"

They worked their way over to her.

"Can you tell us where Mr. Matters room is?" Hermione asked the girl.

"Yeah, I have to go there as well," she answered. "Just follow me."

They walked through a series of hallways.

"I'm never going to remember all of this!" exclaimed Ron.

"You'll get used to it. They never said we're going to have a foreign exchange student coming. Or three of them at that." She eyed them.

"It was a last minute thing," Hermione answered hastily.

As they neared the classroom they could here a chair being thrown across the room. Extremely loud yelling soon followed.

"Oh, no! It's Voldemort!" Ron screamed.

Hermione shot him a warning look.

"Uh...no...that's just Matters," the girl said. "He must be having a bad day."

They walked into the room and looked around. The desks were in rows of threes in three sections. On the board were things such as 'Mr. Matters is a mean old man. (Who's balding)' and 'Turtle is in a drug-induced haze and will be absent from your class.' On the side bored was 'Join SAMM: Students Against Mr. Matters'. The lights flickered.

"Hey look at the ceiling. Ekeltricity. Cool," Ron observed.

"Who are you?" a mean voice yelled in their faces.

"Leave them alone, Matters," the girl said to him. "They're the exchange students."

"What exchange students, Becky?"

"Those ones." Becky pointed to them. "I thought you were losing hair, not brain cells."

"Everyone sit down and shut up!" Matters yelled at the class.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione chose three seats together, right behind Becky and her two friends Allison and Maylin. Matters passed out the warm-up and told them they had fifteen minutes to complete it.

"Hermione, pssst, Hermione, I don't know how to do this. What are all these numbers for? What am I supposed to do?" said Ron in a distressed voice.

"Well, I've spent the last five years at Hogwarts. I haven't learned this yet."

Becky turned around and asked if they needed help. As she was explaining about exponents Allison turned around and wrote on Hermione's paper 'Allison is smert'. Giggling like mad, she turned back around.

"Sorry about her. She's a little special," Becky told them.

"Hey!"

She finished telling them how to do the problem (not that it helped Ron any). And then turned back around.

"I need help too," Allison said.

"I told you, Allison, we just can't afford the help you need," Becky answered her.

"Ha ha ha, very funny."

For the rest of the class they did problems out of the book and then put them on the board, with Ron, of course, complaining very loudly that he couldn't do the problems. Just before the bell rang Becky got up and walked over to Mr. Matters desk.

"Hey, everybody, it's a yearbook from 1980," she exclaimed. " How about we see if we can find Matters."

The class got up and went over to the desk. At first nobody could find him. They looked in the index and were on the right page, but they still didn't know where he was.

"That sort of looks like him." Hermione pointed.

"Wow! He got to be twenty years younger!" Ron yelled.

"Look at the date, smart one. 1980," Allison said sarcastically.

"What's wrong with them?" Ron asked.

"Nothing. Other than the fact they're wearing horrible clothes. But then again, it was the eighties." Maylin sighed.

"No, I mean why aren't they moving?"

"Excuse me?" came the reply of about five people.

"Oh, that's right. Didn't you say something about that Harry? About how Muggles-"

"Shhhh!" Harry and Hermione yelled together.

Of course that caused half the class to look at them.

"Ron, can't you be a little more tactful!?" Hermione whispered impatiently.

**Ring**

"Finally! The bell!" Ron exclaimed. "What do we have next, Hermione?"

"Gym."

"What's that?"

***