Jazz Fenton lies sprawled belly-down across her bed, staring out her window at the stars. A diary lies open in front of her, but she's not writing in it anymore, she's lost deep in thought, deep in memories. Her eyes momentarily drift back to her page, "What do you remember about the first boy you ever kissed?" she reads. She looks back to the starry sky outside her window and she sighs deeply, "Everything."
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Students milled restlessly in long lunch-lines at just another typical day at Casper High. Tables filled up with the various groups and cliques. Spike settled into his normal spot and nodded his "hellos" to the other punks and goths sharing the table. Jazz, fourteen year old Jazz, sat chatting with a few of her friends at a table across the room. Suddenly all eyes focused on a commotion as the latest star football player fresh from JV decided to test out his new Varsity "authority". Dash, followed closely by his pack of raucous cronies, made a beeline for the Spike's table. "Hey! Lookie what we got here, guys!", he shouted, pointing right at Spike. Spike didn't even turn around, "Piss off, jock." he muttered, just barely audibly. Totally incensed at the utter dismissal, Dash grabbed Spike's shoulder and pulled him out of his seat, "That's it, you freak! I'm gonna pound you!" The other jocks gathered in a tight ring around them, like sharks smelling blood on the water. Jazz jumped up from her table, not exactly sure of what she would do, but certain that someone should do something.
"Leave him alone, Dash-ass".
Shocked silence descended on the lunchroom. Dash froze, arm still cocked to deliver a punch, and took a long moment to process the insult. When it finally sunk in, he dropped Spike and swiveled to face the new arrival. "What did you call me?" Jazz, along with the rest of the room, turned to the source of the new voice: the school "bad boy". His freshman year he set a record for "most times sent to the principal's office", and it seemed he was well on his way to meeting or breaking that record in his sophomore year; rumor around the school had it he already owned a motorcycle, even though at 15 he still couldn't legally ride it for another year. "Drake," Dash growled. "It figures you'd stick up for this looser!" Drake continued to lean against the table, cold contempt plain all over his face and posture. He certainly looked the "bad boy" part with his black leather jacket, ratty old jeans, thick-soled biker's boots, and spiky iron-colored hair, not quite black, not quite gray. Drake raised one eyebrow and repeated himself, "Leave him alone." Dash's answer was simple enough: he balled up his fists and charged at Drake with a snarl.
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"And that was the first time I saw Drake." Jazz finished her entry. She gazed pensively at the end of her pencil for a few moments, then added "Dash spent the night in the hospital, and Drake got a week suspension. From that day on there was an uneasy truce of sorts between the jocks and the punks. The goths enjoyed the protection of the truce as well, but I really think that was just because the jocks were too stupid to tell the difference."
