This chapter did not disappoint in the least and opens up some interesting storylines.

One question has long simmered in my mind is what gives with the ex-girlfriend, the cheerleader? I can see her shamelessly *trading-up* in the social scene at school but why the hostility at Amanda? She is no rival, no threat unless she sees her ex having found a new girlfriend weakens her credibility as having dumped him, IE she fears it makes it look like he dumped her? And if he's so happy with another woman soon after their breakup then she doesn't come off as so hot, so sexy and all that.

I can see her playing up the jealously angle with the Neanderthal for a while to keep his interest but why sound reasonable, almost friendly now? What's in it for her? Was Neanderthal not the catch she thought he was? Is she privately apologetic for picking on Amanda, IE she's not a total gold digging creep? is she catching heat for having picked on Amanda so cruelly and is trying to find a way out of it? Or is it a nasty set-up for a beating/some humiliation of Amanda or Ken to keep her Neanderthal man interested in her? She doesn' want to meet him in a public place. Odd, maybe ominous that.

What of Amanda and art? And what of her rebuffed attempt to restart a broken friendship?

Very good chapter.

John in Wauwatosa