Hello everyone! I'm glad to see you reading my story. This will be a Teddy/OC story, but I'll give equal face-time to all the boys. Because they're all so awesome.

Also, as a general note: this chapter happens just where the movie leaves off (everyone's 12/13 and they're just starting junior high). But the next chapters will be 5 or 6 years in the future, when everyone's 17/18 and seniors in high school.

Check out my profile for PICTURES of Anet. As well as updates. And send me some reviews, ok?

Tell me what you think, and enjoy!

Gordie scaled the ladder to the treehouse trap door and pounded his fist against it with the appropriate secret knock, which proved difficult with a stack of books in his arms. The door being pulled open to admit him, Gordie first pushed up his school things before entering the preferred hangout for him and his three closest friends.

"C'mon Gordo, get your ass up here already." Teddy Duchamp complained behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Go screw." Gordie told him as he flopped down on a bench, immediately reopening a book.

"How was your group work?" Chris Chambers asked his studious best friend with a smirk, dealing him, Teddy, and Vern a new hand. Gordie nodded and said something noncommittal.

"You gonna play?" Vern asked him, even though Gordie was already starting his homework.

"Does it look like he's gonna play, you retard?" Teddy said boisterously, rolling his eyes, "Damn, that one's done." He threw the smoldering end of his Winston out the window.

"Don't do that man! What if you set the field on fire? Then we'll have to build a new treehouse, which means we have to go back to the junkyard to scam more 2-by-4s. I don't want to do that, sincerely." Vern rambled on.

"Ooh, 'Chopper sick balls.'" Chris joked, laughing as Teddy begged for another cigarette, "No way man, I'm cutting you off. You'll smoke my whole pack!" Teddy whined and Vern continued to go on about stealing more wood for the new treehouse they'd have to build once Teddy caught the field on fire.

"Alright, I can't concentrate." Gordie sighed, giving up on his history.

"Hey man, you want us to get quiet?" Chris asked him; Gordie just shook his head.

"That's right, Gordo man! We can work when we're dead." Teddy said, slapping him on the back. The others just laughed, "What?"

"That doesn't even make sense." Gordie said, shaking his head. For a while the only sounds in the treehouse were of Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock" and the slapping of cards on the make-shift table.

"I was actually thinking…" Gordie started, wondering if he should continue. The guys gave him their attention, "Nevermind, it's dumb." He said, feeling nervous.

"Nah man, what's up?" Chris prompted him, resting a hand on Gordie's shoulder.

"Well, I was thinking, now that we're in junior high," Gordie continued after a breath, "That we really oughta get a girl."

There was a thick silence, everybody staring at Gordie. Was it a bad idea, or the best idea? Did he mean one for each of them, or one to share? And how does one "get" a girl anyway? Do you have to ask them to be your friend, or did it just happen like with guys? And where to find a girl they all could get along with? Did girls still have cooties, and if they did, were cooties so bad? Teddy was the first to speak.

"Yeah! I mean, we don't want people thinkin' we're a bunch of homos." He said, apparently agreeing with Gordie, who relaxed. Vern nodded eagerly, saying something about "not being no homo."

"But girls are so lame." Chris said with a shrug. Gordie had an answer prepared.

"Well I met this girl in my history group! She's on the level, real different, ya know?" He said, growing more excited.

"What's she like?" Vern asked, sounding interested.

"Well, she's funny… and smart." He continued, laughing at a memory, "Sarcastic even."

"Oh come on. Funny?" Chris tested whether Gordie was exaggerating.

"Oh yeah." Gordie assured the leader of the group. He paused, again debating if he should add what he was thinking, "And she's pretty." There was another stretch of silence.

"Pretty like how?" Teddy broke the tension again.

"Well I don't know." Gordie shrugged, "She's got nice hair." The others laughed, causing Gordie to flush.

"'Nice hair'? Gordie, you're a faggot." Teddy said, shaking his head. His screeching laugh was the last to drop off.

"Can it, Teddy." Chris said, "Ok Gordie, so she's pretty. What's our gal's name?"

"Anet Lafaith." I whispered in the still air of the cemetery, "That's who shoulda been buried next to you, Ray."

I sat on the raw earth of Ray Brower's grave, staring at the sleek marble headstone marking the head of my best friend's body. It had only been a few days since his funeral, and only about a week since the anonymous call that had led to the discovery of his body down by the back Harlow road. Ten whole days I'd known about his body's location before someone else found Ray.

I can still see that train hitting him, my best friend. I had been walking along the train tracks, balancing on the rail. It was so dark that I didn't even see the train coming, and I was too distracted to hear it; I was too busy recounting my most recent crazed thoughts about this and that as Ray picked blueberries for us to eat on our way home. The next thing I knew, Ray was yelling my name and pushing me squarely in the back. I fell into the ivy on the other side of the tracks and whipped my head around just fast enough to see Ray take the full force of the train. That was like Ray to sacrifice himself.

Waiting for the train to pass felt like hours. I just remember calling to him over and over, thinking he was on the other side waiting for me, and he just couldn't hear me over the freight. I blocked the image of the train hitting him from my mind in that moment. He had dodged it at the last second, just like he always had before. It took a lot of reflection to finally extract what I'd seen from my mental block. And I wish I could forget it all over again.

When the train finally passed, I felt ten years older. And as I saw his crumpled body at the base of the hill, I felt as though I'd aged even more. I tripped in my haste to get to him and I fell right beside him. Looking up through my reddish brown bangs, I stared into his bloodied face. I said his name, no longer calling to him; he was dead and couldn't hear me. I just laid my head on his chest, still warm, and closed my eyes.

Something snapped in me after I fell asleep against the dead body of my best friend. I had always been a little off, my sister made sure to tell me how weird I was; but now it was different. I felt how crazy I was. It was like being aware of my breathing, and how Ray no longer did. It was an epiphany. I was insane. My best friend Ray Brower was dead beside me. I had slept beside his body quiet peacefully for several hours. I was insane.

I didn't leave until I heard a car drive down the back Harlow road towards the tracks. I left silently, looking and smelling like death. And for as much as I felt, I could have been as dead as Ray. I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone about him.

"Anet?" I heard behind me. Turning my head away from the headstone I saw Gordie Lachance with three boys I vaguely recognized from the hallways.

"That's your Anet? The crazy-" One started to say before being cut off by another.

"Hello Gordie." I greeted the skinny boy from my history group, "Can I help you?"

"Actually yeah." He said, smiling and walking over to me. The others followed him. I stood and brushed the dirt off my denim shorts.

"These are my friends." He said, and introduced them, "We were just going to our treehouse. Did you want to come along?"