Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer - it is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy (?). I do not own the song 'Bring Me To Life' - It belongs to Evanescence and, most likely, Wind-Up Records. I do own the words to this maths-version that I wrote and created with help of Radical Princess.

A/N: I just went back and corrected grammar. This is not a songfic. If you want to sing the song to the tune of 'Bring Me To Life' then go ahead! Otherwise, just flashback to whatever year you did statistics in, and shudder.

I Need More Help

Teachers droning, students snoring and a mischievous demon making time pass at a slower rate. It was another typical afternoon at Sunnydale High. Dawn’s math class was quiet. And not just because their teacher had just sprung an assignment on them; they were afraid of bursting into song.

Dawn stared blankly at the first question. What? Were they supposed to know this? She wondered if her teacher was demonic, possessed or just plain sadistic. Or perhaps all of the above, she thought as she turned over the page to see another six hundred questions. Whatever. She would con Giles into doing it for her if she had to. She was not going to open her mouth.

Two desks to the left and three further up sat Ella Jones. Ella Jones was quiet. Ella Jones was introverted. Ella Jones was proud that she had managed to make it through High School this far without any embarrassing incidents to haunt her dreams, or any mortal enemies to make her life like living on the mouth of hell.

Ella Jones needed help.

It wasn’t that the assignment was that hard, she just needed to draw a pie graph and she needed to find the centre. Her glue stick wasn't big enough. Her protractor was broken. She racked her brains trying to remember the way to do it - there was something to do with subsecting, or transecting... It involved lines. She sighed. She had forgotten. Slowly, shakily, she raised her hand.

The rest of the class started and groaned. They were not disappointed.

“How do you find the centre of the circle?” Ella sang, a sound louder than anyone had heard her utter ever before, “‘Cause I really need to know how; to draw a good pie graph...”

Dawn found herself moving in time to the piano melody that had started up, Here we go again.

“My slipping grades,” Ella’s eyes widened, she hadn’t meant to say… sing that!

“Ahhh,” Julia and Daphne supplied.

“I need to, make them go away!” The explosion of sound seemed to lift her to her feet, her chair hitting the ground only adding to the sinister bass. She flung out her hand. “So teacher please show me how. So, I… don’t fail!”

The class stood and twirled in unison. “Teach me how,” a deep voice shouted.

“Help me make some sense,” Ella belted.

“I don’t know how!”

“Help me make some sense!”

“Save me!”

“Draw a graph and show. me. how. it’s done...”

“Teach me how!”

“Plots of stem and leaf.”

“I don’t know how!”

“Finding frequency.”

“SAVE ME!”

“Histograms are giving me the creeps!” Ella fell to the floor, exhausted. The class was pirouetting again. Dawn was growing uncomfortably hot. Was it just the fog that had appeared at some time during the chorus or were some of her classmates… smoking?

“Noow that you’ve talked about ogives-” Dawn was brought to a halt, facing Linda who had taken Ella’s place, “You can’t just think I’ll-“

“Understand what the hell you just said-” Daphne was on a desk in the middle of the room “-I need more help.”

Dawn would have grimaced if her face wasn’t stuck in a mournful, inquisitive expression – it was an odd feeling – she was getting sick of spinning every time the singing stopped.

“Teach me how!” the whole class yelled it now,.

"Help me make some sense!” three girls in the choir turned it into a harmony.

“I don’t know how!”

“Help me make some sense!”

“Save me!”

“Draw a graph and show. me. how. it’s done...”

“Teach me how!”

“Plots of stem and leaf.”

“I don’t know how!”

“Finding frequency.”

“SAVE ME!”

“Histograms are giving me the CREEPS!” The note rose sharply, as did Dawn’s arms.

“I need more help,” the same three choir girls sang softly.

“I haven’t listened to a word!” a computer nerd yelled frantically, “FOR THE WHOLE TERM!”

“I need more help.”

Suddenly everyone was in a line under a blue light, moving to the four abrupt beats. “Imprisoned inside this stupid room, don’t understand, darling-” a girl sang pleadingly to her boyfriend.

"Only, ten minutes more’ve this torturous hell!”

The rapper from before came into the spotlight, “All of this time I can’t believe she doesn’t see; none of this crap, means any little thing to me!”

“I’ve been stuck in this class for years it seems-” Dawn sang, inwardly horrified.

“Only did it ‘cause it was compulsory!” Julia finished, giving her a knowing smile.

“Without a hope, of getting through this year un-failed,” the rapper was surrounded by break-dancers now.

“Don’t let me die here!” the girl with the boyfriend sobbed.

“I WANT TO DROP MATH!” the hostile punk rocker screamed.

“I NEED MORE HELP!” Ella was back, standing on a desk in the centre of the room, her voice rising above the chaos. Everyone was dancing frantically to the rhythm - the guitars were making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She felt like laughing. This was... fun.

“Teach me how!”

“Help me make some sense!”

“I don’t know how!”

“Help me make some sense!”

“Save me!”

“Draw a graph and SHOW ME HOW IT’S DONE!”

“Teach me how!”

“Plots of stem and leaf.”

“I don’t know how!”

“Finding frequency.”

“SAVE ME!”

“Histograms are giving me the CREEPS!”

“I need more help,” the three girls, bathed in pale light, seemed ghostly.

“We haven’t listened to a word! FOR THE WHOLE TERM!” The computer nerd had found some friends and they shouted it with positive glee.

“I need more-” One choir girl - a soprano - sang above the rest.

“I need more help,” the other two kept the original tune going.

“-help.”

“I need more HELP!” The word seemed to stretch into oblivion, the classroom slowly and gracefully returning to normal as the bell for the end of the day rang. Dawn sighed; she had just remembered that she needed to go to the Magic Box.

“Bye, Dawn!” Julia called after her. She smiled in return, waiting by the door for Tim – the computer nerd – and his friends to leave.

Ella sat at her desk in shock. She had just led the entire class in a rock song… about Math. She barely registered the smiles or the ‘Bye Ella’s’ and the ‘See you’s. Gathering her things, she stood in a daze, only waking up when something fell on her foot.

Her compass.

End

A/N: The song ‘I Need More Help’ was penned in a maths class when I needed to find the centre of a circle, and didn’t have a compass. I asked my friend (Radical Princess, who co-wrote the song) the opening line to the song, and it came out strangely, and sort of to the tune of Bring Me to Life. Which got me thinking and got my maths assignment thoroughly forgotten. I passed, by the way.