Jon let the subject drop after that. Karyn was a perfectly nice person under normal circumstances, but any mention of Sarah McMillan made her pretty touchy. It was understandable, considering their history, but Karyn did tend to take it a bit more seriously than she probably should have. Not that she'd ever actually wish harm on the former school queen, but she was far less sympathetic than she would be towards anyone else. The two of them continued with normal lunchtime discussions - the book Karyn was reading and Jon had been meaning to start for about a month, the continuing good-natured debate over each other's musical tastes, and so on - until it was time for class.
The period after lunch was one of the few Karyn and Jon didn't share, so they went their separate ways. As Jon was flitting her way towards math class, still trying to decide what to do, she ran into Carrie Logan in the hall.
"Hey!" the bunny-girl greeted her. "You look kinda down. Something wrong?"
Jon hadn't realized her state of dilemma was that outwardly evident. "Um..." Should she tell Carrie? Oh heck, why not. She explained all about the issue with Sarah and the jocks. Carrie nodded thoughtfully. "I figured something like this was going to happen," she said. "After the word got out about Sarah's change, most of the male student body that wasn't busy scrubbing out its mind's eye was pretty worked up about the fact that she ever was popular. Of course, most of them aren't the types to turn violent about it, but I guess every school has to have a few people like that."
Jon nodded. "I'm not sure all of them are as bad as Steve, though," she said. "Biff in particular almost seemed kind of regretful to be involved in it."
Carrie nodded as they made their way down the hall. "Well, the farther up you go in the social hierarchy around here, the stronger the peer pressure gets. I'd guess he really does feel bad about it, he just can't bring himself to put a stop to it. I'm really surprised Sarah hasn't told anyone about this, though."
Jon shrugged. "I've talked with him a couple times. He's in a pretty deep funk; he thinks he deserves this, and he doesn't want to draw attention to himself by raising a fuss."
Carrie sighed. "Not healthy behavior, not by a long shot. But I've seen this kind of thing before. Are you going to tell the administration about this?"
Jon sighed. "I know I should. And I really do want to make sure this ends before it gets out of hand. But Sarah asked me not to, and...well, I don't bear him that much ill-will personally, but my best friend...she didn't get on too well with Sarah back before the change. I dunno, that's kind of a poor excuse, isn't it?"
Carrie shrugged. "I've heard worse. Balancing relationships is complicated, after all. But I'll tell you what. I've seen those guys racing down the hall before, I just didn't realize it was Sarah they were after. I'll tell the principal about it, portraying it as solely my account. That way you won't have told the administration, but it will get dealt with. I can't promise you either Sarah or your catgirl friend will buy it, but you'll have done the right thing, and hopefully they'll see that eventually, even if they don't realize it immediately."
