Okay, I hope you guys like this! Just remember, I did this in the freezing tundra, with my toes about to fall off (curse you, central air!) for you guys!

Disclaimer: Do I look like a sixty-four-year old thriller writer to you?

Have you ever had that feeling of deep foreboding so strongly that even if you were standing in front of the mouse from Chuck-E-Cheese holding a lolly-pop in your hand, you would still be crawling in your skin?

I have that every time I move to a new school, which is a lot. So as I stood in front of the overly mowed landscape of some elite-cookie-cutter-briar-patch-high-school, you can imagine my confusion when I felt...

Calm? Relaxed? This was unnatural, and I was beginning to suspect some sort of brain-washing to be going on here, when a brown blur ran past me and stopped dead in it's tracks.

"OMG! You must be the new girl, Max! Hi, my name is Nudge, well, not really, it's actually Monique, but everybody calls me Nudge cause-" A large, pale white hand reached out from behind the chatterbox and covered her mouth. While "Nudge" tried to pry off the hand, it's owner finished the sentence for her.

"Because we have to nudge her to get her to shut-up." The voice belonged to a tall boy, at least 6'3, with spiked platinum blond hair and bright blue eyes. He stretched out his free hand to me, and said, "Hey. My name's Iggy. Sorry about her," He nodded his head in Nudge's general direction. "She can go on forever." He smiled coyly at me, but missed my face by at least six inches.

"Excuse me, but my face is up here." I pointed to my face, and he raised his eyes to look at my neck. "A little bit farther, nimrod. What are you, blind?" I was beginning to get tired of this kid's antics.

"Actually, yes, I am. I have been since the age of five." he replied. I looked searchingly into his eyes, and began to notice a milky sky blue fog. Major face palm.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't know... Wow, I feel like an idiot now." I rubbed my forehead and made a small moaning noise somewhere in the back of my throat.

"Nah, it's fine. Most people can't tell anyway. It really makes clothes shopping awkward, though... Anyway, I gotta go, notes to take, tests to fail. Later." He smiled warmly at me and jogged off to his next class with surprising accuracy. Now that he had finally released his death grip on Nudge, she was over dramatically gasping for air. I was beginning to like this girl.

Wanna sit together at lunch? For the first time in my life, a note had been passed to me with positive contents. I looked over my shoulder to find three of my newly acquired friends smiling at my with varying levels of enthusiasm; Nudge was grinning shamelessly, Iggy kept dropping "subtle" hints about who passed it, and Ella was waving at me, still holding her fluffy pink pen. I turned my head from Iggy's wiggling eyebrows to scribble down my answer. Sure. I crumpled it up, and when the teacher wasn't looking, tossed it to the back of the room. Unfortunately, I forgot that Iggy was blind and couldn't catch it.

Here's an interesting fact: Students tend to notice when someone yells out crap in the middle of class. Let me tell you, the teacher sure did.

"I can't believe we have lunch detention! Ugh, I can still hear that snarky voice..." Ella complained. We had no problem reciting our teacher's lecture, but I could tell the others had more experience imitating Mrs. Johnson than I did.

"If you all want to sit with each other so badly, then I expect you'll have no problem finding yourselves a seat together in lunch detention." We all grimaced at the memory of the evil pink slips stuffed in our pockets.

"Well, on the the bright side, Fang will probably be there." Nudge said encouragingly. Fang? My thoughts automatically jumped to a large dog, then to a human with a similar likeness. We had finally made it to the detention room (my home away from home), and I placed my hand on the doorknob. I took a deep breath, getting ready to look as important as possible, and pushed the door open.

Inside was your ordinary detention room, with some out of the ordinary people. The walls were gray and the floor and ceiling tile were some variation of tan that did not look healthy. Home sweet home, I thought. As for the people, it contained the usual miscreants, a few students who looked like they were scared out of their wits, and...

A guy. Now, I don't usually notice boys, let alone their hotness, but this was unavoidable. His features were smooth and unmoving, and his skin was a perfect olive tone. His eyes were a deep black void, matching the color of his short hair, which reached down to the nape of his neck. His expression was cool, and I found it hard to imagine that I had ever thought him to be dog-like.

The man stood up and walked over, the side of his mouth lifting into a smile. "Hey guys. What are you in for this time?" His voice was smooth like velvet, which isn't always so smooth, but I didn't care. It was also really deep. And I mean, really deep.

"Passing notes in Mrs. Johnson's class. Got busted when Iggy here started screaming out vulgarities." Nudge smiled as she retold the story of meeting me and how it was ultimately my fault that they got in trouble.

"Hey! It is not my fault! It's Nudge's fault for talking to me in the first place!" I exclaimed. Fang, as I later learned his name was, was casually leaning against a wall, and calmly interjected.

"It's my fault." Everyone's head swiveled toward him. He hardly ever spoke, and when he did, he attracted attention. Even I couldn't help but stare.

"Oh yeah, that's right... You forced me into joining the Welcoming Committee at the beginning of the year, so that I could get club credits. If I wasn't in the club, I wouldn't have been looking for Max... I guess your right." Nudge's eyes widened with apprehension. Now that the blame was set on Fang, everyone was considerably calmer. He seemed to have no problem shouldering it, and lightly brushed it off; He was a peace keeper of sorts.

Detention went off without a hitch, and by the end we were having a fierce bottle war, including hockey, baseball, and a game of "darts" where we aimed for different parts of a poster on the wall. Fang managed to nail the Statue of Liberty on the nose exactly, earning him fifteen points. It was at this point, where we were all rolling on the floor laughing, and there were empty water bottles scattered across the room (Gatorade bottles work best),that the lady that was supposed to have been watching us walked in.

"Detention's over. Get to class." She said bluntly. She spun around and exited the room without another word, all the while her bun not moving an inch. The students collected their "trophies", and got ready to leave the room.

"Hey, Max! What class do you have next?" Ella called from the door. I glanced down at the paper with my new schedule.

"Um, Chem 1. Anybody else going there?" I looked around the room, my eyes scanning over Ella's disappointed face and Iggy "nursing his wounds". Let's just say that Nudge did not appreciate his gloating, and got a little violent with her Propel bottle...

"I've got Chemistry. I'll walk you there." A deep voice floated across the room, and I turned around to see Fang gathering his book bag.

"Oh, um, thanks." Everyone was a little surprised. Fang didn't talk, and seldom put himself into social situations unless absolutely necessary, that much I knew. It was unnatural for him to offer to walk anybody to class, especially some new girl that he barely knew.

"No problem." He said quietly, and walked through the doorway. I grabbed my bag and raced out the door after him. We then walked to Chemistry in comfortable silence, although we did turn a few heads in the hall.

We made it into the classroom in the nick of time. The bell rang just as we entered, and while Fang found his seat, I was once again forced to go through the painful process of introducing myself. "Maxine Batchelor?" The teacher asked.

"Sorry, sir, but that's not my name." I corrected. The teacher seemed a little confused, and slightly bewildered. If he wasn't corrected a lot before, he was in for a rude awakening.

"I'm sorry, Maxine, but in my class, we don't go by nicknames like, Max or Sam, especially not 'Fang' or 'Broseph'. We go by our entire legal names, and I will call you by your full name whether you like it or not." He said with finality. I found it surprisingly amusing to see his mustache hairs quivering, and nearly laughed a few times.

"Actually, sir, that's the thing. Max isn't short for Maxine, it's short for Maximum. My name is Maximum Batchelor, not Maxine Batchelor." I smiled politely at him, and he seemed furious at himself for being incorrect. I just hoped that he wouldn't vent that rage on me. My father would be mad enough already that I had a lunch detention on my first day, but not at all surprised. He would have expected it.

"Just take a seat."

Classes finally ended, and I rushed outside. I grabbed a ride with Ella, who drove me to my house a lot faster than I was comfortable with. "Thanks for the lift." I said. Ella looked over and grinned at me.

"No problem, Max." I was halfway out the car door when she suddenly grabbed my arm. "Oh, I almost forgot. We're having a sleep-over at my house. It's just me and a couple of friends. You wanna come?" She smiled hopefully at me.

"Sure. Can you pick me up after school? Five-ish?" I asked. Ella nodded her head, and I hopped all the way out this time, closing the car door behind me. I ran inside my house, waving to Ella before I entered, and stepped inside. I threw my bag down on the furniture, told my dad was home, and raced upstairs.

I hadn't finished setting up my room yet, but it was coming along well. The bed was in there, at least. I stepped out onto my balcony and sat on a little lawn chair. Directly across from me was another balcony from the neighboring house, the contents of the room hidden behind black curtains. My dad had told me that we were going over to the neighbors house later on that night, and the thought horrified me. Black curtains weren't a good sign, and the fact that I lived across from their balcony scared me half to death.

The only thought that I had as I walked back into my room was to get curtains set up as soon as possible.

A few parting thoughts:

The whole bottle wars thing? I've done that before at one of our most important Scholastic Bowl meets. It was awesome because our teacher almost joined us at one point, but in the end he told us to stop throwing bottles around. We did a foot hockey game, dodge ball (kind of), darts, and volleyball (with paper wads). Our teacher took out a bunch of coins later on and balanced them on his arm, then flipped it over and caught them. I tried with fifteen, and they went flying everywhere. Not much fun.

You'd be surprised how many times I had to resist the urge to write down gabberflasted. I even started to keep tally, and it added up to five total. I know, I'm pathetic.

Apparently Broseph is not a real word... Pity.

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys liked it! Free virtual platypuses to the first three reviewers.

Also, virtual Quivering Mustache Hairs to anybody who can tell me what elastodynamics means.

P.S. Central Air left me alone for a while, so my toes are still safe and intact. No worries. ;-)

R&R?