Arnez had only lived in Galveston, Texas for a month and she already despised everything it encompassed. She was 10, a native of Las Vegas, Nevada, and had a mind "like an old woman" as her mother said on multiple occasions. To Arnez, Galveston seemed to be chock full of irritating, religiously intolerant, bourgeois hicks who were much too busy concerning themselves with football and the word of the lord to consider the world outside of the island.

She believed there were no kids like her in all of Texas; kids who liked to read and listen to music like The Smiths. Her friends in Vegas, Nora and Charles, thought her glasses looked really cool, like Garth from the Wayne's World sketch on Saturday Night Live. But their reception in Galveston wasn't quite as heartwarming. Her classmates called her Coke Bottles and "Smarmy Arnie". The latter was a mystery to Arnez. Her name wasn't Arnie, nor did it rhyme with smarmy. She didn't think they quite understood the definition of smarmy either, which was excessively flattering or serville. After having read the dictionary, Arnez came to the conclusion that they actually meant something closer to haughty, meaning arrogant or superior. Of course, Arnez didn't believe she was any of these things. But if she were to tease a quiet, bespectacled girl with hair like Courtney Love, and who spent her lunch time reading comics instead of troughing two hamburgers, chocolate milk, and a can of Surge like the other students, she would probably use a word like haughty.

But she didn't have to worry about daily remarks from them. It was late June and Arnez usually didn't have to leave her room unless it was absolutely imperative. She listened to cassettes of The Cure and read Anne Rice novels. She called Nora and Charles at two in the morning - midnight in Vegas. She wasn't allowed to make three-way phone calls, especially not long distance ones, so she waited until she knew her parents and their parents would all be asleep. But keeping track of six sleeping adults proved to be tough every night. Their conversations were regularly perforated by silence while they listened for someone's parent to go back to bed.

However, this summer was different. Despite her wish for a CD player, Arnez's parents bought her a fixed speed bike for her last birthday months before, giving her no reason not to go outside, or not to run their errands while they were busy. Instead of hours of The Vampire Lestat by candlelight, Arnez was sent into ninety degree heat on a bicycle everyday with orders to fetch milk from the corner deli, or stamps from the post office. Her slight frame became toned from the effort used to pedal and her pale skin darkened to a healthy tan, contrasting against her bleached hair. Light brown freckles peppered her nose and she came to the annoying realization that the neighborhood children would find that a reason to pick on her even more.

"Speak of the devil," she whipered as she saw four boys off in the distance. She stopped at the curb, waiting for a car to pass so she could cross the street safely to the other side, hopefully avoiding the potential taunts they would throw her way.

"What's the matter, Smelly Shelly?" she heard.

"Idiot!"

She looked at the boys, finding one of them had been pushed to the ground and the other three were kicking him. Arnez instictively dropped her bike and ran to the group. She used the momentum she built up to push one of the boys down, but as she looked at the other two who still stood, she remembered that she didn't know exactly how to defend herself in a physical duel. Understanding the repurcussions that were to come if she pleaded forgiveness at that moment, she decided to pretend she knew what she was doing, holding her balled hands in front of her face and glaring at the boys.

"Knock it off or I'll…" She thought of what she'd do. "I'll kick you right in the gems, without a moment's hesitation."

"Whatever," one of the boys said. "Move it, little girl. We're busy."

He put his hand on Arnez's shoulder and shoved her away, stepping towards the boy on the gournd. She cocked her right leg back and swung it forward between the boy's legs, hitting her target right on. The boy turned loose a high-pitched scream that scratched at her ears as he fell to the ground, his hands tucked into his crotch.

"Jesus!" one exclaimed. The two bullies helped him up off the ground.

"Smelly Shelly needs a girl to fight for him," the one she had pushed sneered, spitting on "Smelly Shelly"'s shirt as they dragged away the wounded one.

Said bully still demeaned "Smelly Shelly" through his pain as if he were being paid by the comment.

"Shelly Cooper is a-" He gagged. "A smelly pooper!"

Arnez stooped beside the boy as he cried.

"Hey," she said. "Stop crying." It was a command, not a coo. "They're gone."

The boy sat up and wiped his wet face with a thin, lanky arm. The bully's spittle had set itself into his shirt, and below it was a brown patch of what seemed to be dog shit.

"You have, uh…" Arnez tried, pointing to his striped shirt. "A little… Excrement."

He followed her finger to his shirt and his blue eyes became wide, the left side of his face twitching beyond his control.

"Oh dear lord!" he shouted, pulling the shirt off of his skinny body and throwing it away from himself. He didn't have an undershirt, and even in the humid weather, Arnez had a feeling that being shirtless outside would only bring him more trouble from other children. She looked down at her shirt. She knew she was wearing a tank underneath, but it was her favorite Slaughter and The Dogs shirt. It was her big brother's before he left for college.

She sighed and pulled the shirt over her head, handing it to him. He looked at it and then at his shirt and then at his chest, as if her were weighing his options. Shit shirt, strange shirt, bare chest. As he thought, she went to her bike and took the six-pack of Coke she was sent to buy out of the plastic bag, then stashed his soiled shirt inside of it. He still seemed to be knocking his options around.

"Hey," she said again, and he looked up. "Just choose the least offensive option."

He looked at her shirt again before pulling it over his head and taking the plastic bag from her, wiping his face once again.

"I'm Arnez," she said. "Sort of like Dezi."

"What's Dezi?" he said, staring up at her.

"You know," she said. "Dezi Arnaz, from I Love Lucy. My mom wanted to combine Inez and Arnaz, i.e., Arnez."

He didn't respond.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Sheldon Cooper," he said.

"Where do you live, Sheldon Cooper?"

He pointed two streets down and Arnez could see his eyes welling up again.

She went to her bike and wheeled it to him, helping him up. She instructed him to sit on the metal tray above the back wheel and to hold on tightly. With the Coke cans in the front basket and Sheldon on the back, she pushed off and began to pedal. Sheldon yelped over every bump, and as Arnez turned down his road, he clutched onto her shirt.

"Don't fall," he said. "And don't ride in the street. If a car were to hit us, no matter the direction it's headed, I'd be substantially wounded."

"I would be, too," she said, glancing back at him.

A confused wrinkle appeared over his nose.

"That doesn't concern my well-being," he replied flatly.

"Either way, I believe injury comes with the territory of being hit by a car, whether you're on a bike or not. And if a driver is irresponsible enough to hit us in the street, they're probably irresponsible enough to run off the road and hit us on the sidewalk."

She pointed at the curve in the road ahead.

"They'd probably hit us right there."

He made an exasperated, anxious noise and held onto the tray tightly as he pointed at his house. She stopped her bike in his drive way and he hopped down. A woman came to the front door and Arnez smiled at her, waving her hand. The woman smiled back and opened the door for Sheldon as he climbed the steps with his head hung low and the bag at his side.

"Hey, Sheldon Cooper," Arnez said, climbing onto her bike again.

He looked back at her without saying anything.

"I live one street over," she said, pointing in the direction of her house. "Number 2083. If you ever need help, or you want a friend, I'm there."

He didn't respond as he climbed the stairs. The woman smiled again and laid a hand on his shoulder. Arnez felt, without having to hear, that she was thanking her for helping Sheldon.

A/N: This is a sort of beta test for this story. If you like it, please review and let me know! Hell, if you don't like it, please review and tell me off. Thanks for reading!