After two weeks without school for Christmas Break, school was back in session at Eastside High. Unfortunately, Lanie had developed a habit of sleeping in over the break, so she wasn't ready to start waking up early again.

Fortunately, she had her roommate Rachel to help her out. "Lanie," Rachel said. "Lanie, wake up!"

"Mmph."

"Come on, Lanie!" said Rachel. "We've gotta get ready for school!"

"Ugh." Lanie brushed her hair out of her face and looked up at her best friend. "Why do we have to wake up so early?"

"Yeah, I don't like it either," Rachel admitted, "But we've gotta get up."

Lanie sighed. "You want to shower first?"

"No, you can go."

So Lanie got up, undressed, showered, wrapped a towel around herself, and went to the bathroom sink to brush her teeth. "Okay, Rachel," she said. "The shower's all yours!"

"Great," said Rachel. She walked into the bathroom, and Lanie saw that she'd already taken off her shirt and her bra. "We've gotta get all cleaned up for job fair today."

"What-job fair?"

"Yeah, you know, job fair. Remember?"

"Oh that's right." Lanie remembered now. Right before Christmas Break, Eastside High had announced that there'd be a job fair on the first day of the next semester. The job fair would have representatives from various companies looking for students they could hire for internships-or, in some cases, full-on jobs.

"Yeah," said Rachel. "Maybe we'll find something we can look into getting a career in!"

After Lanie finished brushing her teeth, she went back into her dorm's main room and started picking out clothes to wear. It took ten minutes of sifting through her drawers, but she settled on a black pleated skirt and light gray blouse, along with a pair of high-heeled shoes. When Rachel came out of the shower, she picked out dark blue jeans and a long-sleeved green shirt for her outfit.

"Alright," said Lanie, "You got everything?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's go."

***

The first two periods at school were pretty uneventful, but Third Period was when the job fair started. Lanie and Rachel both met up with Lanie's boyfriend Conner and went down to the gym where the job fair was being held.

"Whoa," Conner said when they entered the gym. The whole room was filled with tables and poster boards advertising various careers. There were booths for ordinary jobs like clerks, bank tellers, and fast food workers, but there were booths representing Amazon, Scholastic, and even Apple.

"Where are we even gonna start?" Rachel asked.

"How about here?" Lanie suggested. She, Conner, and Rachel approached a table that advertised a job at Red Ruby Games. "Hey," Lanie said, "What have you got here?"

"We're here on behalf of Red Ruby Games," one of the men at the table said. "You might've heard of us. We design and manufacture tabletop games. And we're hiring people who can help design and test our games before we send them into production."

"That sounds fun," said Conner. He wrote his name, phone number, and email address on the table's signup sheet.

"Thank you so much," the man said. "We'll let you know if we wish to hire you."

The next table Lanie, Rachel, and Conner went to was for a company called Genetical Engineering. This table was hosted by a woman in her late thirties clad in a black suit coat and matching pants. Right above her left breast was a name tag that identified her as Lauren.

"Hello, young ladies!" Lauren said at the sight of Lanie and Rachel. "And young man."

"Genetical Engineering," Lanie read aloud. "What's this all about?"

"I'm glad you asked," said Lauren. "Genetical Engineering is a corporation that specializes in animal genetics. We study the genomes of mammals, reptiles, insects, and other animals. We are developing cloning technology we can use to create a living, breathing animal just from a few strands of DNA."

"So you're, like, a real-life Jurassic Park," said Lanie.

Lauren tilted her head to one side, then nodded slightly. "In a sense, yes," she said. "But we are only attempting to clone living animals."

"Scientists have already cloned living animals," said Conner.

"With very poor results," said Lauren. "Genetical Engineering aspires to clone healthy, fully functional organisms that are devoid of any birth defects. Our CEO Circe Reyna believes that when we have perfected our technology, we will be able to save all of the world's endangered species from extinction."

Rachel looked at the board behind Lauren. "And you're hiring interns for your company?"

"Yes, we are," said Lauren. "Our internship offers a year-long program and a five-thousand-dollar scholarship. If you perform exceptionally well, we could even pull some strings to help you get into college."

"Well, I've always had a thing for genetical science," said Rachel. She went up to the signup sheet and wrote her name and contact information on it."

"Excellent," said Lauren. "What about you?" she asked Lanie.

"Me?"

"Yes, you." Lauren said in a would-be inviting voice. But from her tone, and the way she was smiling and eyeing Lanie...there was something behind it, some kind of wanting. But why would this woman want Lanie? It couldn't mean that anymore, could it?

"I'll think about it," said Lanie.

Lauren shrugged. "That's okay," she said. She handed Lanie a business card and said "You can let me know if you change your mind."

"Thank you," said Lanie.

"And you," Lauren said to Rachel, "If we accept you for our internship, we will get back to you by the end of the week."

"I'll be watching my phone," said Rachel. "And my email, too."

***

Unfortunately, Lanie, Conner, and Rachel did not find anything else at the job fair that interested them. But the next day, Lanie had sat down at the lunch table with Diana Jackson and her friends Penelope and Nicole when Rachel came running. "Lanie!" Rachel exclaimed. "Lanie, you'll never believe what I just got!"

"What?" Lanie asked.

"Lauren emailed me!" Rachel exclaimed. "She said I got accepted for the internship at Genetical Engineering!"

"Holy shit," said Diana, "You're getting an internship with Genetical Engineering?"

"Yes!" Rachel held out her phone for Lanie, Diana, Nicole, and Penelope to see. And they saw that the email was very much legit.

"Wow," said Lanie. "What are you gonna be doing with this internship?"

"That's what I'll find out today," said Rachel. "Lauren wants me to come in for a working interview today so I can get a sense of what the internship's gonna be like."

"You're so lucky," Diana said with envy. "When I applied to work at Subway, it took them two weeks to hire me."

"Lanie, do you want to come with me?" Rachel asked.

"Oh, I can't," Lanie answered. "I'm going over to Conner's for dinner."

"Oh, okay," said Rachel. "I'll let you know how it goes!"

***

As it turned out, Lanie was at Conner's house much longer than she intended. After she ate dinner with Conner's family, Conner offered Lanie to stick around a little longer to watch TV, so Lanie accepted. They ended up binge-watching New Girl with Conner's parents. Lanie enjoyed cuddling up with Conner on the couch (and maybe even making out with him a bit), but before she knew it, it was 11:30. "Oh," said Lanie, "I should probably go soon."

Conner looked at the episode runtime and saw there were only ten minutes left. "Want to finish this before you go?"

"Sure, I guess."

So once the last episode of New Girl for the night was done, Lanie wished Conner goodnight and left. She went back to her orphanage and went upstairs to her dorm room. She knew Rachel was probably already in bed, so she quietly opened the door and tiptoed her way inside. But when she was putting down her purse, she noticed the presence in Rachel's bed. Or, rather, the lack thereof.

"Rachel?" Lanie asked. She flicked on the light, but Rachel was nowhere to be seen. "Rachel, where are you?" Lanie poked her head into the bathroom and in the shower, but still no Rachel. Lanie pulled out her phone and opened her Messenger app, but she didn't see any texts from Rachel.

"What happened?" Lanie wondered. Lauren hadn't mentioned anything about an overnight job, had she? Lanie didn't think so. But then she remembered their meeting with Lauren yesterday, and the funny way she'd looked at Lanie. Lanie had put it out of her mind at first, but now it was coming back to haunt her. It reminded her a lot of that witch from her old foster home, who'd turned out to be her absentee mother. Lanie's mother Angelina had hunted down Lanie and Rachel after they escaped her foster home, and she'd nearly killed them when they crossed paths again. Lanie, Rachel, Conner, and their friends had defeated Angelina and her minions-and awakened Lanie's magical powers in the process. Lanie had thought their days of battling witches were behind them. But that weird look Lauren had given her, and Rachel's apparent disappearance...those things couldn't be connected, could they?

It was a long time before Lanie got to sleep that night.

To be continued...