A/N: So this idea's been spinning around since I finished the first story. The Hillwood gang is coming to Springfield! This is just an introductory chapter, but can't do without it. Read "Being In Hillwood" first if you haven't already. This story takes place three years after it, so Bart is fourteen, Lisa is nearly twelve, and Stephanie is seventeen.

Disclaimer: Everything except Stephanie belongs to either Craig Bartlett or Matt Groening.

"Stephanie! Guess what!" My little sister Lisa tore down the stairs, where I was sitting, texting my best friend Tasha.

I shrugged. "What's up, little sis?"

"Remember our move three years ago?" Lisa asked.

I pretended to think. "Was that the move to Alaska, or the one to Hillwood?"

"Hillwood, duh!" Lisa replied. "Lila just emailed me. It's coming up to fall break and she and some of the others got permission from their parents to come here for a week. They're coming on Sunday!" It was Thursday night.

I remembered Hillwood, an urban city we'd stayed at when Dad was temporarily fired from the nuclear power plant. I was fourteen then (I'm seventeen now, and Lisa's nearly twelve). He got rehired a couple of months later and we came back home to Springfield, but we still kept in touch with our friends. Lisa became closest to sugar-sweet Lila Sawyer and nerdy Phoebe Heyerdahl.

"So...who's coming?" I asked.

Lisa thought for a moment. "Rhonda and Nadine, of course." she said. "Arnold and Gerald decided to join them...oh, and that meant Helga and Phoebe are coming, too."

I grinned. "Oh, I can't wait to see Helga and Arnold paired up!" Helga had been our neighbour, and I'd discovered that she had more than a major league crush on Arnold – she was more like obsessed. But about a year after we'd left, Helga had, as I'd requested, let me know when they finally started dating.

"Anyone else?" I said, giving Lisa a hard look.

Lisa shrugged. "Maybe."

"Lisa, you know who I'm asking about."

Lisa sighed. "Yes. Did you expect me to say no? Lila said that the minute Curly heard about it, he insisted on coming." She sounded a little bitter, but then she'd always had her doubts about Thaddeus "Curly" Gammelthorpe, who had been a good friend of mine, even though he was younger. Fine, so he had, at one point, harboured a totally creepy crush on me after a failed attempt to win Rhonda's heart, but luckily he soon realized that it wasn't going to work, and went back to chasing Rhonda. No luck so far, judging by his emails. He kept saying they were together, but Rhonda didn't know it yet, meaning she was still repulsed by him.

Bart, my younger brother (just turned fourteen), had been in the living room, watching TV, but I noticed him listening since Lisa mentioned Hillwood. "Where are they staying?" he asked now.

"Rhonda wanted to go to the Springfield Palace Hotel," Lisa said, "So she's going there. Everyone else got a couple of relatively normal rooms at the Aphrodite Inn, since it's the nicest."
"Why doesn't Rhonda just go there instead?" I asked. "I'm sure she could find a suite for her expectations. Isn't there a themed room for stuck up fashion victims?" I'd never liked Rhonda, and she'd made her feelings about me clear when she said she pitied Lisa for having a sister like me. The fact that I started hanging out with Curly didn't help – she couldn't see why anyone would choose to spend time around him.

Lisa narrowed her eyes at me. "OK, OK, so you think Rhonda's a good friend." I snapped. "I get it, you don't have to glare at me every time I say something about her!"

"Has Phoebe got a boyfriend?" Bart asked, a slight wistful tone to his voice. He'd had a little crush on Phoebe at the time, and his last girlfriend had been cheating on him – well, I told him not to get back with Jessica Lovejoy, but he thought she'd changed. Yes, she had changed – for the worse. Bart had eventually found out that she'd been just about ready to give her virginity to Dolph (who was, I should add, sixteen), so he pretty much had to dump her.

"I don't think so." Lisa answered. "She never mentioned it in her emails. She does still talk about Gerald frequently, though, so I think she still has a crush on him."

I'd heard enough, and so I raced upstairs to my laptop, and sure enough, there was an email waiting for me – from Curly. It read:

Hi, Steph!

Fall break is up, and so a few of us are paying you a visit! Expect us on the doorstep Sunday morning. Well, my angel might be a little late, since she's not staying in the same hotel as us (I'm about to give up any hope of knowing what kind of pyjamas she wears), but we'll all be there. I'll be staying with Arnold and Gerald in the Jazz Musician Suite (I was hoping for the jungle-themed one, but I was outvoted), then Lila and Nadine are in the Cute Mascots Suite, and Helga and Phoebe are in the Martial Arts room (Helga likes watching wrestling, and Phoebe likes fencing, so...).

Anyway, you want news, I guess...hmmm. Well, Helga and Arnold had another argument, but then Helga finds something to argue about nearly every week and five minutes after they walk away from each other, I only have to pass the makeout closet for a second to hear them making out. I think Helga can't break her habit of picking on Arnold a little bit, so she makes up for it by not being able to keep her hands off him for the rest of the day. If they argue while we're here, let them cool down in your house. You might be able to find them making out to make up.

Anyway, have fun until Sunday. Love ya, babycakes.

I rolled my eyes at the last line. Although Curly usually reserved his pet names for Rhonda, he'd started calling me 'babycakes' soon after we'd left Hillwood, and reasoned that just because he no longer had a crush on me didn't mean that he no longer thought I fitted that name. He claimed that besides "beautiful princess", it was his favourite of the names that he called me, and he felt that the other was too romantically implicated. I told him to stop calling me that, but so far, no luck.

But still, I couldn't help but look forward to seeing the now seventh-graders. I wondered how they'd changed. But no matter what, it was sure to be a wild week!

So there's my first chapter! I don't know how often I'll be updating, but I'll try to do it regularly. Please review!