This story is dedicated to Alp Woman, who is an A+ teacher and an A+ friend.

Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.  This work of fan fiction is offered free of charge, and no copyright infringement is intended.

     Maria Jackson leaned over her BlackBerry, and her long, curly hair fell forward like curtains on either side of her face.  Her fingers, manicured with burgundy polish, danced over the keypad.  Notification of a message from Sarah Jane popped up on the screen, and Maria smiled.  The subject line read "HUGS!!!"  For a moment, Maria's loneliness disappeared, and she forgot that she was crouching inside a very short tunnel.

     While there were a few nice things about her new American school--for one thing, she could wear makeup and street clothes--Maria had been terribly lonely for the last few days.  Thank goodness her dad had given her this BlackBerry.  While she wasn't technically supposed to leave the school grounds during her free period, she hadn't had any problems simply walking out the door with the older students.  The teachers kept telling Maria how sophisticated her British accent sounded; she supposed they thought her older than she actually was.  So, Maria had been sneaking out every day.  She had only to walk out the side door by the science wing and cut across the football field, and then she was in the playground that was adjacent to the high school.  Even young children were in school at this time of day, so Maria usually had the park to herself.  The tunnel at the top of the slide made the perfect hiding place for a lonely teenager who just wanted to check her e-mail.  No one had caught her yet.

     Maria was about to open the message from Sarah Jane, when the air around her began to shimmer.  Maria raised her head and pulled her knees closer to her chest.  The half-circle of the outside world that was visible from the mouth of her tunnel was swimming and sparkling, and Maria grew dizzy and disoriented.  "Remember what Sarah Jane would say,"  Maria murmured to herself.  "Try to remain calm." 

*     *     *

     As Yer Xiong walked into her Advanced ESL class, a hand fell on her shoulder, stopping her.  She hoped she wasn't in trouble again.  Her dad was going to go ballistic if he got another call from school.

     The hand belonged to Ms. Bermann, the ESL teacher.   Yer breathed a sigh of relieve when she saw that the teacher  was smiling, not glowering.  "Yer," Ms. Bermann asked, "have you met Ayaan Mire yet?  This is her first day at our school."

     A dark, willowy girl stood next to Ms. Bermann.  She wore a denim skirt whose fringed bottom grazed her silver sandals.  Her top was a simple long-sleeved black tunic, but her hijab was amazing.  It was made of a silky black material covered in an abstract iridescent silver pattern.  The girl looked cool, Yer thought.  "Hey!" Yer said, by way of greeting.

     "Nice to meet you," Ayaan murmured demurely, casting her eyes down.  In the split second before Ayaan broke eye contact, Yer detected a well-hidden glint of mischief in the girl's eye.  Yer thought she recognized a kindred spirit in her new classmate.

     Ms. Bermann continued,  "It's time for Ayaan to pray, but there aren't any other Muslim girls in this class.  Yer, could you show her to the teachers' workroom near the science wing?  That's where the girls pray in the afternoon.  You can wait outside until she's done.  Then bring her back to class."

     Yer was always eager to miss a few minutes of class.  "No problem, Ms. Bermann!" she said over her shoulder, already halfway out the door.  Ayaan was right at her heels.  Yer had a feeling she'd been right about Ayaan...

     "Well, there might be a problem," Ms. Bermann said, although the two speeding girls were already out of earshot.  "You forgot to take the hall pass."  A tolerant smile played about the corners of the ESL teacher's mouth, as she shook her head slowly.  Yer never tried to get in trouble, but trouble seemed to find Yer.

*     *     *

     Maria tried to focus her eyes.  Blue and green swirled together as if a giant spoon were trying to mix the sky with the grass.  Finally her eyes adjusted, and Maria began to make sense of the images that careened about her.  Squinting, she could make out a pile of orange cones, and the brown tamarack tree to the right of the field, and the chain link fence that surrounded the bleachers, and...and some sort of egg-shaped, white contraption that was descending from the sky!  As the world continue to wobble around her, Maria kept her sight focused on the egg-shaped contraption. It landed in the center of the football field.  Maria thought the three-foot-tall egg looked very much like a small spaceship--an escape pod, perhaps.  "Here we go again!" she sighed under her breath.

*     *     *

     "There, found it!" the Doctor exclaimed, looking up from a panel in the TARDIS console.

     "Read me the coordinates, and I'll set our course," said Nyssa.  Her tulle skirt made swishing noises as she trotted back and forth between instrument panels, expertly pressing switches on the complicated machinery.

     Tegan paced back and forth between the Doctor and Nyssa, her purple high heels tapping out an impatient tattoo on the TARDIS floor.  "Oh, do hurry!" she urged her friends.  "We've just got to save Mishek!  I can't bear the thought of that sweet little creature dying at the hands of the Orug Defense Robot!"

     "Never fear, Tegan!" cried the Doctor, pushing back an unruly lock of his sandy hair.  "Mishek's escape pod has landed, so it's no trouble at all to pinpoint his position now."  He grinned merrily at Tegan, looking boyishly handsome despite his strange outfit, a red-trimmed cricket uniform with a stalk of celery pinned to the lapel.

     Tegan's frown only deepened.  "But Doctor," she said, "if we can pinpoint Mishek's position, then so can the robot!"

     "Ah, yes, there is that," the Doctor said, deflated.

     "Listen," Nyssa cried, in an uncharacteristic moment of impatience, "if you don't tell me those coordinates, then the robot will make it to Mishek before we do!"

     The Doctor bent toward the console, studying a screen of rapidly scrolling data and calling out figures to Nyssa. 

      When Nyssa finished inputting the coordinates into the TARDIS guidance program she said, "But Doctor, that means that we're headed for --"

     "Earth!"  the Doctor cried, completing her sentence. 

     "Your favorite planet, and mine!" Tegan agreed, lighting up.  "Which part are we going to?  Not Australia by any chance?"

     "No, sorry," Nyssa said.  "From these calculations, it looks as though we'll land"--she paused to consult a map--"somewhere in a country called the USA.  It's rather large.  Do you know it, Tegan?"

     "America!   I've always wanted to go see where those crazy Yanks live!" Tegan said, her lavender-shadowed eyes sparkling with excitement.

     "Just don't forget, Tegan," warned the Doctor,  "we're not going to America to go sight-seeing.  We've got a job to do!"  

   *     *     *

     Ayaan was having fun walking with Yer, who chattered nonstop.  Without adults around, they could both let their guards down.

     "Do you like ESL classes at this school?" Ayaan asked.

     "Yeah," Yer said.  "I've been here for three years now, so I can speak English.  But it's so hard to write in English.  I mean, why is it that practically no English word is spelled the way that it sounds?!"

     "Oh, I know exactly what you mean!" Ayaan agreed.  "This morning in my environmental studies class the teacher said that we're going to have to write an essay this month.  I am so scared to write something that long in English!"

     "Yuck!  I'm taking that class next semester.  Now I'm scared too," Yer said.

     Although Ayaan trusted Yer's opinions about the school and its classes, she was beginning to lose trust in the girl's sense of direction.  Ayaan studied the pea-green colored bank of lockers lining the nearest wall and definitely recognized one that was vandalized with the words "A.K. LUVS T.W."  This was at least the second time that Ayaan and Yer had passed that locker.  "Um, no offense, Yer," Ayaan said, "but do you actually know where we're going?"

     Yer glanced up at her new friend with an embarrassed look, "Well, I'm not exactly sure where the teachers' workroom is.  But it's got to be around here somewhere.  This is the science wing."

     "That's okay," Ayaan said.  "My name means "lucky" in Somali, and lucky is what I usually am.  I'm sure we'll find the workroom soon."

     "Well, let's hope so," Yer smiled.

     "While we look, tell me about your name," Ayaan invited.

     "The meaning of my name isn't as interesting as yours, " Yer said.  "But there is this one Hmong folktale about a girl named Yer who defeats a ghost tiger.  That's pretty cool."

     "Yeah, totally,"  Ayaan agreed.  "So, you're Hmong?  I lived in California before we came here, and I had lots of Hmong kids in my class."

     "Wow, you actually know Hmong people!"  Yer was impressed.  "Usually," she explained, "people just assume I'm Chinese.  I hate it when total strangers come up to me and ask me if I can do kung-fu like Jackie Chan."

     "Well, at least total strangers don't call you a terrorist," Ayaan pointed out.

     "Oh, yeah, that would suck big time," Yer said.  She patted Ayaan's shoulder sympathetically.

     Just then, something at the end of the hallway caught Ayaan's eye.  "Hey, look at this!" she said.

     Ayaan had discovered two sets of doors tucked into a small alcove.  "I think one of these must lead to the workroom. They both look too dark to be regular classrooms." 

     Yer looked at the two sets of doors.  The first set was wooden, battered, and painted blue.  The other set was metal, scuffed, and  gray.  Both sets of doors had small, high-set windows that were too grimy to be useful.

     "Ayaan," Yer said, "Are you sure you really want to pray?  I'm think we could get away with just walking around chatting for at least ten more minutes."

     "Girl, you so bad!" Ayaan laughed, her eyes shining with amusement.  "But yes, I really do want to pray.  I don't know how to explain it.  It's just, like, if you're Somali, then praying is what you do."

     Yer said conspiratorially, "Hey, I know what you mean.  Don't tell anyone, but I'm religious too.  See this string?"  Yer pulled up the cuff of her pink Southpole hoodie and showed Ayaan a collection of  white strings tied around her wrist.  "A shaman put these on me.  They're, like, for protection and healing.  I don't usually talk about it, but I believe in spirits and that kind of thing."  

     Yer didn't usually open up to outsiders about her culture, but once more she had the feeling that Ayaan was somehow a kindred spirit.  Even though she had only known her for a few minutes, she felt like she could trust her.  She was about to ask Ayaan whether she too believed in ghosts and spirits, but then she caught sight of two adults approaching from the other end of the hallway.  "Oh crap!" she swore under her breath.  "Those are two of the vice principals!"

     "What's the problem?" Ayaan asked.  "Just show them our hall pass.  You have a hall pass for us, don't you?"

     "I forgot to grab it from Ms. Bermann," Yer groaned.  "I'm gonna be in huge trouble if I get caught without a pass again.  This would be the third time.  Don't let them see us!  Quick, get in there!"  Without thinking Yer threw open the nearest set of doors--the blue doors--and ran through, dragging Ayaan with her.

*     *     *

     Maria was getting used to the way the world was wobbling around her.  She watched with interest as a hatch opened on the egg-shaped craft and a small creature emerged.  His body was rotund.  Large, intelligent eyes nearly filled his moon-shaped head.  He looked rather like a chubby hedgehog, for his skin was grayish-white and covered with quills.  The quills rested against his body like fur, until he looked up into the sky and saw something that brought a look of panic to his great  eyes.  Then, all of his spikes bristled up, and Maria felt herself tensing up too, just watching him.  She followed his gaze skyward and, though the air around her continued to swirl madly, she could make out the shape of a second object descending toward the football field.  This was no diminutive escape pod; it was a ferocious-looking robot, twice the size of the egg, armed with a dozen or so guns.

 *     *     *

     "Ayaan, I don't think this is the teachers' workroom," Yer said, gazing about in amazement.  She and Ayaan stood rooted to a spot just beyond the blue doors, which Yer had hurriedly slammed shut behind them.  With eyes wide in amazement, the two girls took in their incredible surroundings--a large white room whose luminous walls pulsed with power.  The room housed a central console covered in computers and scientific equipment, and--incongruously--a wooden hat rack.  Set in the far wall was a viewing screen which displayed a wobbling, poor-quality image of the high school football field.

     Three strangers stood near the central console, agape and frozen as Yer and Ayaan.  Yer thought that the male in the group had a young, friendly looking face.  He wore a soft brown suit with touches of red, and for some inexplicable reason he had a stalk of celery in his buttonhole.  The elder of his two young companions wore an all-purple outfit, sparkling eyeshadow, heavy lipstick, and a teased hairdo.  Yer thought she looked very 1980's.  The younger companion was not much taller than Yer and appeared high-school-aged herself.  Unlike a typical high-schooler, though, she had the look of a fairy princess, with long, thick, curling hair; large, dewy eyes; a floating tulle skirt; and a delicate tiara atop her head. 

     "Yer," Ayaan said wryly, "are these people some of the magical spirits that you believe in?"

     Ayaan's question broke the spell of silence, and the celery-wearing man raked his fingers through his hair manically, muttering, "Oh, no!  I don't have time for this!"

     "Well, it's your fault for leaving the doors unlocked again," his purple-clad companion admonished him tartly.  "Look, these girls are here now.  Maybe they can help us."

     "I don't know..." the fairy-girl said.  "They don't look as if they can handle it."  She studied the two girls, taking in the way that the sleeves of Yer's oversized hoodie hung almost to the fingertips of her small hands, and the way that Ayaan's hijab and skirt modestly hid her body.

     Yer didn't have any idea what the three strangers were talking about, but she wasn't going to let any delicate fairy-girl "dis" her.  "Hey, Fairy Princess, whatever you and Eighties Woman can handle, my friend and I can handle too!"  Normally Yer wouldn't indulge in that kind of outburst with elders present.  This time, though, her spirit, toughened by years spent in a refugee camp, emboldened her.  She refused to be belittled.  

     "My friend is right," growled Ayaan, who had also spent years in a refugee camp.

     The purple-clad "Eighties Woman" smiled and said, "I like your style!  Look, my friend didn't mean to imply you aren't tough.  It's just that the work we do is...well, unusual."  Turning toward the man, who was now  pressing buttons on the console fervently, she asked him, "Shall I explain everything?"

     "Go on, then," the man nodded.  "Just hurry.  My readings indicate that Mishek is using a  short-range space-warping device, but that won't confuse the robot for long.  Nyssa and I can hack into the robot's computer system and disable him from here, but it's going to take time.  You've got to get out there and help distract the robot, just like we planned."

*     *     *

     Maria watched in horror as the small alien fled across the football field.  The descending robot, bristling with weaponry, hovered just above the egg-shaped ship.  Sweat broke out on Maria's palms as a gun barrel, aimed directly at the egg-shaped craft, telescoped forward, then glowed red-hot.  The tiny, hedgehog-like alien barely had time to duck for cover beneath the bleachers as the gun blasted the egg out of existence.  

     Once the egg-ship was destroyed, the world suddenly snapped back to normal.  No longer did the air around the football field seem to waver and bend.  Now Maria could see the hostile robot clearly.  And she clearly heard the metallic voice that emanated it.  "Localized space-warping phenomenon neutralized.  Beginning pursuit of escaped alien."

     The robot, still hovering a foot or so above the football field, began to rotate on the spot.  Maria assumed it was using some sort of scanning device to search for the creature she knew to be hunkering under the bleachers.

     Suddenly, a series of sharp clangs rang through the air.  Maria's BlackBerry, which had slipped out of her sweaty hands, was bouncing down the slide.  

     The robot stopped its methodical rotation, swung round, and homed in on Maria's hiding place.  "Investigating source of noise," it droned.

     The ray gun that had annihilated the egg-shaped ship was now pointed directly at the slide, and a cold wave of fear rippled through Maria's stomach.

*     *     *

     The purple-clad woman was trying to explain things to Ayaan and Yer.  "An alien friend of ours is being attacked out there on your sport pitch," she said, gesturing over her shoulder at the image of the football field now clearly visible on the wall monitor.  "He's been pursued to this planet by an armed robot.  That robot is programmed to adapt to any perceived threat and find a way to neutralize it."

     "Oh," Yer interrupted, "kind of like the Borg."

     "The what?" asked the purple-clad woman.

     "Dude, don't you ever watch re-runs?" Yer said.  "This is like something out of Star Trek.  Except weirder."  

     "I don't know what you're talking about," the woman snapped.  "But this is all beside the point!  We've got to get out there and help the alien.  The plan is to confuse the robot as much as possible.  Just delay it until my friends," she indicated the two would-be hackers with a jerk of her head, "can shut the robot down from here.  What do you think?"

     "I think y'all be trippin'," Yer said, a look of doubt on her face.  "But at least this will be more interesting than going back to class.  What do you think, Ayaan?"

     Grinning, Ayaan said, "I think there is a workroom next door where we could get some supplies.  The workroom where I prayed at my old school was full of all sorts of crazy things that the teachers were keeping in storage..."

*     *     *

     The little alien, spikes bristling, burst from his hiding place under the bleachers and charged the robot.  The robot swung its ray gun away from the slide and toward the source of the motion that it sensed. 

     The hedgehog-like creature glanced toward the slide.  In broken English he shouted, "Hiding child, you run!  I, Mishek, will save you!"

     Maria appreciated the creature's good intentions.  But she too had a strong sense of chivalry.  "No!" she shouted back.  "Save yourself!  I'll think of something!"

     The robot trained one of its guns on Mishek, while another gun remained aimed at Maria's hiding place.

     Just as Maria wondered what exactly she could do to save herself and Mishek, a small group of people ran onto the football field.  The group was made up of a woman dressed in purple and two high school girls, all running at top speed despite being burdened by armfuls of paraphernalia.  The woman (who Maria thought might be a Spanish teacher, because of the oversized sombrero on her head) shouted to Mishek, "we're here to help you!  Grab this!" and thrust a donkey-shaped pinata at him.

     The woman then tore off her sombrero and tossed it at the robotic warrior.  The hat landed on its largest ray gun.  Enraged, the robot shrilled, "Weaponry impaired!  Must neutralize item covering blaster!"  The robot began to vibrate wildly in an attempt to throw off the hat.

     Meanwhile, the two high school girls began draping polyester choir robes over the robot's other guns, further enraging it.  This did not, however, stop the robot from noticing Mishek, who had placed the donkey pinata on an open patch of grass and was running away from it.  With one of its few uncovered ray guns, the robot blasted the donkey.

     "Unknown beast eliminated," the robot intoned. It swung about, assessing its situation, and focussed on the taller of the two high school girls, who was shaking up a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew.  She set the bottle on the ground, uncapped it, and fled as the fizzy liquid erupted from the bottle.  Her billowing skirt was singed as the robot blasted the bottle, proclaiming, "Explosive device eliminated!"

     The other high school girl was pulling tennis balls out of the capacious pockets of her pink hoodie and tossing them at the robot.  While the robot was distracted by the barrage of tennis balls, Maria slid down the slide and rushed onto the football field. 

     This was the craziest way to battle aliens that Maria had ever seen.  Crazy or not, though, it was a battle that Maria was determined to join.  "What do I do?" she asked, panting, as she rushed to Mishek's side.  

     "You distract robot," Mishek whispered urgently.  "Just act crazy.  Maybe nice ladies from school bring something what you can use."

     Maria turned to the two girls and the woman, but their hands were empty.  The robot had managed to shake off all the choir robes and the sombrero, and it was blasting the last of the tennis balls.

     "Just do something!  Anything!" the purple-clad woman urged Maria.

     Maria searched her memory desperately for some sort of alien-thwarting technique.  "What would Sarah Jane do at a time like this?" she asked herself.

     Suddenly, an idea came to Maria.  With much more confidence than she actually felt, she whipped her new Clinique lipstick out of her jeans pocket.  She dramatically removed the cap and rolled the lipstick up just enough to reveal its vivid burgundy tip.  "Oi, robot!" she called.  "Fear my sonic lipstick!"

     The robot paused, then it gave the slightest of shudders.  Mishek and the four humans stared at the robot, waiting to see what it would do.  After an agonizingly long pause, during which Maria's arm grew tired from holding aloft the lipstick, the robot shuddered convulsively, then dropped from the air like a rock.  It hit the ground and burst into strange green flames, quickly burning itself up until nothing remained on the ground but a patch of scorched grass.

     "Blimey!" Maria cried.  "Did it actually believe my bluff?"

     No one heard Maria's question, though, because Mishek was whooping and jumping up and down for joy.  His anxiety replaced by elation, Mishek relaxed his quills until they once again lay flat against his body.   "Your friends!" he cried, turning toward the purple-clad woman.  "Your friends' plan work! They hack into robot's control system!  They trigger self-destruct!"

     "Yes, they did!" the woman agreed.  "And thanks to the way these girls stalled the robot, my friends had enough time to do their hacking."  Smiling so widely that her eyes crinkled, the woman drew Maria, the two other girls, and Mishek into a group hug.

     Suddenly, the sound of a bell rang forth from the school, and the taller of Maria's schoolmates groaned, "Oh, no, this period is already over!  We missed our whole ESL class!"

     The shorter girl grabbed the taller girl's hand and said, "Maybe if I do some fast talking to Ms. Bermann we won't get in trouble!"  She dashed toward the school, pulling her friend behind her.

     "We've got to hurry, too," the purple-clad woman said to Mishek.  "We've got to get you out of here before any more humans see you.  And before the school director notices that we've damaged school property," she said, nodding significantly at the scorch marks the robot had left on the football field.  She scooped little Mishek into her arms and ran toward the school.

     "Wait!" cried Maria.  "Isn't anyone going to tell me what's going on?  Who are you people, anyway?

     "Sorry, no time for introductions," the purple-clad woman shouted from across the field.  "Find those two girls after school.  They can explain things to you!"  She ran a few steps farther, then called over her shoulder one last time: "By the way, that bit with the lipstick was brilliant, mate!"

*     *     *

     Maria was not able to find the girls from the football field until the next day.  During lunchtime she finally spotted them at a table in the cafeteria.  They were absorbed in conversation, their lunches untouched. 

     As Maria drew closer, she heard the taller girl say, "I hated the part with the guns.  It reminded me too much of the war in my country."

     "Yeah, but the rest of it was so cool," the shorter girl said.  "It was like some kind of wild dream.  If you hadn't been there with me, I probably would think it really was just a dream."

     "Oh, it was real," Maria said, plunking her lunch tray down at the girls' table.  "The part with the guns was super-scary.  But the rest of it was great.  By the way, my name is Maria Jackson, and I've got a lot of questions for you.  First of all, I want to know who that Spanish teacher with the Australian accent was." 

     It was a strange way to begin a friendship.  Maria was beginning to get used to this sort of thing, though.  After all, if it weren't for aliens, she never would have met her dearest friends back in London. 

*     *     *

     Once Tegan had smuggled Mishek into the TARDIS, the Doctor and his crew returned him safely to his home planet.  After that, the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa finally had some down time in which to discuss their latest adventure.

     "Doctor," Tegan asked, "Is there really such a thing as sonic lipstick?"

     "Why, Tegan," Nyssa teased, "do you need a little sonic lipstick to complete your "Eighties Woman" look?"

     "Watch it, "Fairy Girl,"" Tegan said, as she swatted playfully at Nyssa.

     The Doctor, however, was taking Tegan's question seriously.  "You know," he said, "it's not a bad idea to disguise a sonic device as an everyday object.  That's a plan to file away for a rainy day!"  Then a boyish smile broke across his face, and he activated the TARDIS dematerialization circuit, eager to see where his next journey would lead him. 

     Thank you for reading "Welcome to School."  If you have any feedback for me, please leave your comments in the guestbook.  Be sure to type "Welcome to School" in the subject line.