"I–I've heard some rumors!" Pamela Pearl was out of breath when she arrived at the corner of the huge schoolyard where she and her two best friends, Gabrielle Garnet and Amanda Amethyst, were usually getting together.
They were best friends since kindergarten. Their gang even had a name. They called themselves the "Crystal Gems" because of their last names with which they were also addressed.
Gabrielle was just Garnet, Amanda was Amethyst and Pamela was Pearl. They liked it that way. It was their distinctive mark.
"What is it?" Garnet wanted to know.
"Yeah, spit it out!" That was Amethyst.
"We–", Pearl was still trying to catch her breath. "We are going to –". But before she was able to finish her sentence she was interrupted.
"We are going to get a new student, wasn't that what you wanted to say, Pearl?" The three of them spun around.
"PERIDOT!" Pearl called out. "It's you. I should have seen that coming. Is it possible for you to just let me finish my sentence once?" Peridot, whose first name was Peter, grinned.
"Well, you were to slow like always."
Peridot was also part of a gang. A gang he founded together with his best friend Jasper Jas. They called themselves the "Homeworld Gems" and they were the Crystal Gem's biggest enemies.
Peridot also preferred his last name over his first only Jasper was just Jasper. Everything else would sound weird.
But the Homeworld Gems were not only a gang. They were the school's official security guard and were supposed to keep an eye on students who caused trouble. And since the school was called Homeworld High they just based their gang name on the name of their school.
Of course they saw the Crystal Gems as the biggest troublemakers of the whole school. Well, they maybe even WERE troublemakers but only because they tried to protect the younger students from Jasper's brutal methods.
Jasper was indeed violent. He solved problems always by beating up the participants. And that's what the Crystal Gems were trying to prevent.
Their principal, Mrs. Yasmine Diamond, who was only called Yellow Diamond because she loved the colour yellow and preferred to wear yellow clothes, had given them the job because she was a close friend to Peridot's parents.
And Peridot was not only member of the Crystal Gem's nemeses but also Pearl's personal archenemy.
The girl would love to be the class's best student. She was intelligent and though she sometimes had to work through nights to keep her A's. Pearl was using all her spare time to study and she thought that was enough to claim the title of the class's best student.
But she was still outdone. Outdone by Peridot who seemed to never even pay attention to the class or study anything. And still he was better than her.
Pearl didn't understand how that could be. He seemed to always know the right answer, always find the mistake in every calculation and always leave comments that no one their grade usually understand.
The truth was, Pearl was only studying so hard to once be able to beat Peridot. But she never was no matter how hard she tried.
Pearl growled. "I am not to slow! You just..." But Garnet didn't let her finish her sentence.
"Keep calm, Pearl." Pearl shot up and glared at Peridot angrily. The boy grinned. He was such a braggart.
Later when the bell already rang the three of them were sitting on their chairs and waiting for the teacher to come in. But when their English teacher finally arrived she was not alone but followed by a girl. A girl with brown hair and big blue eyes. Her clothes were different shades of blue and she looked at the class shyly.
The rumors had been true, they were getting a new student.