A/N: Thank you to Heidi Erickson for betaing this for me. :) Love you, Wills.

Greetings, world. It's 10/10/10, and that means it is my dear friend Carma's (Arie Jay's) fifteenth birthday. This story is dedicated to her…so if you don't want to read my gushy birthday note, skip the next paragraph and go straight to the bolded title. xP Enjoy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CARMA! *hugs* I love you so very much. :) I hope you have a lovely birthday and year following, because you deserve it. :D What can I say about you that hasn't been declared by your legions of fans here on FF already? :P You're loving, and talented, and beautiful, and friendly, and simply all those things we all wish we were. XD Here's to you, darling. Happy birthday.

Crayons

"Do you remember in kindergarten, how you'd meet a kid, and know nothing about them, then 10 seconds later you're playing like you're best friends, because you didn't have to be anything but yourself?"

"But Mommy, why do I have to go to public school?" Chad frowned; grimacing in disgust at the prospect as he gazed up at his beautiful mother, dressed as well as any woman could hope to dress.

"Because your father and I are still looking for your perfect tutor, sweetie, and all five-year-olds have to go to school if they don't have a private tutor yet. And since you won't be staying for more than a few weeks, we didn't want you to get too attached to your school. That's why we picked public instead of private," explained Mrs. Goldfarb calmly, as she had done yesterday and every day for the past two weeks.

"But this isn't fair, Mommy." Chad's eyes filled with persuasive tears on command, the mark of a true actor. "I'm Chad Dylan Goldfarb, I'm on TV!"

Chad's mother had just opened her mouth to gently console and encourage her son when she was interrupted by another young voice.

"You're on TV?"

Both Goldfarbs turned around instantly at the sound, Chad dropping his mother's hand immediately when he realized it was a girl. A rather pretty girl, too.

"Yes, I am," he declared proudly, holding out the hand that had recently been grasping his mother's. "Chad Dylan Goldfarb, star of The Goody Gang, the number one children's television program."

The girl stepped forward with a bright smile, and Chad marveled that he had never seen anyone with hair as pretty as hers.

"That's so cool! I'm Sonny Munroe. New kindergartner," she introduced herself sweetly, taking his hand and shaking it twice.

"You mean...you're not famous?" Chad furrowed his eyebrows, confused. Never had he met someone who didn't introduce themselves as Someone, star of Something, the number one Something. He had practically been forced to memorize his long and complicated tagline the first day of filming.

"Nope!" replied Sonny happily. "But can I tell you a secret?"

Chad's eyes grew wide, and he leaned in closer automatically. Famous or not, a girl with a secret to tell always made for someone interesting.

"Tell me!" he demanded eagerly.

"I already know who my teacher's going to be," Sonny replied matter-of-factly, shrugging her shoulders in a self-satisfied manner. "And no one else knows their teacher yet." Chad frowned at this, realizing that he himself was among those others who weren't privy to such knowledge.

"Mommy—I mean, Mother," he corrected himself, glancing quickly at the cute girl across from him and trying to make himself look more grown-up than the average five-year-old. "Who's my teacher?"

"Let me check." Mrs. Goldfarb pulled a piece of paper out of her Louis Vuitton purse as she walked the few steps over to the young couple and handed the paper to her son.

"Well, who do you have?" asked Sonny impatiently as Chad's eyes scanned the page.

Name: Chad Dylan Goldfarb. Age: 5. Gender: M. Classroom: 13. Teacher: Mrs. Hayes.

"I've got Mrs. Hayes," he said uncertainly, unsure if this was good or bad news.

"Mrs. Hayes? Really? Then you're in my class!"

Chad tried to suppress a grin at this news, not wanting to seem too eager, but Sonny had no such qualms. She grabbed his hand, beaming, and began pulling him away immediately. "Come on then, let's go to class! We're going to have so much fun, I just know it!"

Chad nodded as he was dragged along, a grin creeping onto his face as he realized that he didn't have to be "professional" around Sonny like he always had to be in company. She hardly even seemed to care that he was famous! Not like that was a good thing, though. He would have to tell her to watch his show later.

"Bye, sweetie!" called out Mrs. Goldfarb from behind them, waving in a properly reserved yet affectionate manner, as she did all things. "Love you!"

He shot an anxious look at his mother, tilting his head meaningfully at the girl whose hand was still grasping his. "Goodbye, Mother," Chad replied more formally, tugging on his sweater vest to make it a bit straighter.

"Have a nice day, son," she returned, suppressing her laughter and watching as her darling turned the corner and ran away with his "date," vanishing out of sight.

"Isn't this exciting? I'm so excited, I'm even excited about how excited I am!" gushed Sonny as she tripped up the few stairs, pulling a tousled Chad with her.

"Exciting? I—I guess so!" he agreed after pondering the idea for a moment. Meeting Sonny was certainly rather exciting so far.

"I mean, I bet our teacher will be really nice, and she'll let us color outside the lines if we want to, and there'll be lots of kids just like us! Then there'll be recess and swings and slides and even monkey bars! I love monkey bars, they're so—" Sonny stopped short as they stepped through the open doorway of classroom 13, their teacher suddenly standing before them.

"Hello," she greeted the children in the sugary voice that Chad hated, the one that meant people were trying to be nice when they really weren't. "I'm Mrs. Hayes."

"I'm Sonny Munroe!" chirped Sonny, letting go of Chad's hand to hold hers out to the teacher.

"And I'm Chad Dylan Cooper, star of The Goody Gang, the number one's children program," recited Chad with somewhat less enthusiasm than he had used when saying the same thing to Sonny fifteen minutes ago, holding out his hand as well.

Mrs. Hayes smiled in that awful way, the way that matched the sugary voice, and Chad wrinkled his nose in disgust. The teacher, noticing this, smiled even wider and more falsely.

"Why don't you two run and wash your hands before I shake them?" she suggested, gesturing to the sink a few feet away.

Sonny's genuine grin fell instantly as her hand did, her entire body slumping with a quiet kind of rejection as she trudged over to the sink, Chad close behind.

"Don't mind her," assured Chad softly, making sure Mrs. Hayes couldn't hear him. "She's a fat old lady with a squashed nose and clothes that don't match. We're so much better than her."

"Are we, Chad?" Sonny's lower lip trembled slightly as she turned the water on. "Are we really?"

"Of course we are," he replied indignantly, a pout creasing his forehead. "I'm Chad Dylan Goldfarb! Come on, let's show her who's boss." Grabbing Sonny's hand boldly, he began to pull her towards one of the tables nearby. Sonny reached out and turned the water off before following him willingly.

"Crayons!" she exclaimed happily when she saw the 64-crayon pack sitting on the table with the cover open, each gleaming one perfectly sharpened to a colorful point. "New ones, too!"

"And guess what we're going to do with them?" Chad's eyes lit up as a genius idea came to him. Recognizing the look of a mischievous prankster, Sonny began to grin.

"You don't mean..."

"Exactly." He looked over at the teacher, who was busy terrifying some other new student and conversing "pleasantly" with the parents. "She won't notice until it's too late."

Sonny beamed, reaching out and clutching a scarlet crayon in her hand. Chad followed suit, armed with a navy blue crayon.

"I'm going to draw a rainbow," whispered Sonny furtively as they crept over to the blank wall, meant to be filled throughout the year with their artistic projects. Little did Mrs. Hayes know that it would be filled with such art extremely soon.

"I think I'll draw the sun." Chad smiled shyly as he glanced sideways at Sonny, hoping she understood the unspoken message.

"I love the sun!" she agreed enthusiastically, a little too loudly.

"Shhhh!" Chad clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Mrs. Hayes turned her head instantly, her eyes narrowing as she noticed Sonny's fearful expression and Chad's hand on her mouth.

"What's going on over there?" the teacher called out, suspicious. Chad removed his hand and shot Sonny a glance that quickly communicated that she was to keep silent.

"I'm sowwy, Mrs. Hayes," Chad began contritely, tucking the corners of his mouth into a regretful frown as he faked the childish voice to gain sympathy. "Sonny and I weawwy wike the sun. Sowwy for intewwupting." He looked down at the floor and slipped his hands into his pockets, moving his foot back and forth against the carpet in an apologetic and guilty attitude.

"Well, Mr. Goldfarb, I don't think that—" Mrs. Hayes began to reprimand him harshly before remembering that parents of a student were still standing next to her and hearing her every word.

"—That it's a problem for you two to like the sun so much." Her tone changed completely and she smiled again, showing her teeth this time, and Chad had to hold himself back from shuddering. "Do just try to keep it down."

"Yes, Mrs. Hayes. Sowwy, Mrs. Hayes." As he spoke, the teacher turned her attention back to the parents whose presence had saved Chad's life.

"That was close," breathed Sonny softly, letting out a relieved sigh.

"It definitely was," Chad agreed, returning to his perfectly spoken English (or rather, as perfectly as it could be by a five-year-old).

"You speak nice," Sonny complimented, her scarlet crayon poised on the blank wall. "How did you make yourself sound little?"

Chad shrugged. "I'm an actor. It's what we do." Using his blue crayon, he drew a slightly asymmetrical circle on the wall, hoping Mrs. Hayes was sufficiently engaged in her conversation.

"I'm going to be on TV too one day," Sonny told him matter-of-factly as she drew something that slightly resembled a rainbow (if the audience had been told that it was meant to be a rainbow). "I'm going to make people laugh."

"You should!" Chad kept his voice quiet while still letting a smile grow on his face. "We could work together!" Having finished the rays on his misshapen sun, he began to draw a smiley face.

"Do you make people laugh?" Sonny's eyes grew wide at the thought of someone she knew living her dream. She began to draw a clumsy-looking flower.

"I can make people laugh, cry, scream, hug, anything I want to," declared Chad proudly, starting to carefully trace the letters of his name.

"That's so cool." Sonny sighed contentedly as she thought about being on TV and spreading laughter around the world. Noticing what Chad was doing, she also began to write the letters of her name, all of them bent at odd angles.

"Yup. And if you were my leading lady, you'd fall in love with me." He smirked as he finished his name, flourishing his hand dramatically as he wrote the last R.

"WHAT?" Sonny exclaimed, shocked. Chad rushed to shush her, but the damage had been done. Mrs. Hayes whirled around and gasped at the sight of her once-pristine wall now decorated with abstract art and the names of the culprits.

"Both of you. To the principal's office. Now," she ordered, fuming. The parents she had been speaking to backed away slowly with their child, exiting out the door and leaving the classroom. Mrs. Hayes pointed a finger at them, demonstrating that Chad and Sonny were to follow them out of the class.

"You're a stupid teacher," Chad pronounced clearly as he walked past her, his head held high as his hand clutched Sonny's.

"And I still love the sun!" added Sonny, frowning as they marched out the door and towards the office. Once they were out of sight of the classroom, Sonny bit her lip anxiously and let her proud shoulders fall.

"What is it?" Chad unconsciously held her hand tighter, concerned.

"Will we get in trouble, Chad?" Her eyes looked up at him with all the trust in the world, and he couldn't bring himself to tell her no when they quite possibly could.

"Why didn't you want to fall in love with me?" Chad asked instead, countering her question. Sonny looked down with a hint of bashfulness.

"Well…I thought love was for grown-ups."

"Love is for everyone," he stated matter-of-factly. "I've seen it all the time on TV. It's not just for grown-ups."

"Speaking of grown-ups." Both five-year-olds looked up immediately, Chad bit his lip as his mother looked down at him, shaking her head. "I was still in the cafeteria, explaining your special dietary needs to them when my cell phone rang. I hadn't even left the campus, and Mrs. Hayes was already calling me to her room! What did you do, Chad Dylan Goldfarb?"

"…I wrote on the wall with crayons, Mommy," Chad said sweetly, a persuasive smile spreading across his face.

"So did I!" seconded Sonny with a genuine grin. "It was so much fun!" Her expression fell slightly as she remembered that Mrs. Goldfarb was most likely displeased with their behavior. "Until we got in trouble."

"You wrote on the wall with crayons?" Mrs. Goldfarb pursed her perfect lips slightly. "How did she not notice that?"

"Mommy, the teacher's terrible," Chad immediately began, as though he were beginning a long list of faults. "She smiles in that way that gives me cavities! And she has no manners at all; she wouldn't shake Sonny's hand!"

"That's rather rude." She frowned, concerned by this first encounter with a public school teacher. "Is it true, Miss…?"

"Munroe," Sonny said shyly, rather in awe of the lovely, poised woman before her. "Sonny Munroe. And yes, it is."

"Well, Miss Munroe," Mrs. Goldfarb began, smiling kindly at her and taking the hand of hers that was not being held by Chad, "how would you like a sandwich?"

"Sammiches?" Chad's eyes lit up as his mom began to escort them toward the office.

"With the crust cut off?" continued Sonny, beaming.

"Of course. Let's see if your mother is here yet, Miss Munroe, and perhaps she'll agree to have you over at our house for the rest of the day once I explain the situation to her." Mrs. Goldfarb left the two of them to speak with the front office lady, and Sonny turned to Chad with excitement written all over her face.

"Your mommy is beautiful. And so nice!"

"Thank you." Chad smiled, pleased that she approved (not that he had ever met anyone who had not). "Do you think you'll come over?" he asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"I think I will." Without any hesitation, Sonny threw her arms around him in a hug. "We're going to be best friends, Chad Dylan Goldfarb."

And at that moment, Chad couldn't imagine that it would be any other way.

"Like kindergarten."

A/N: LOL. So I know that my five-year-olds aren't very…child-like at all, but oh well. xP I give up. I simply have to write my main character(s) as being intellectual. ;) So my young Chad and Sonny are pretty much prodigies. :P Forgive their highly developed level of thinking and speech. XD I couldn't stand misspelling everything just for the sake of pronunciation. ;) I'm a grammar stickler, what can I say?

Anyway. I hope you all enjoyed it. :) The quotes in italics are from High School Musical, yes, I'm horribly cheesy. ;P Please, please, please review. I'm begging now. I'm dangerously close to sending everyone PMs and pleading all of them to review. xP Review? :)

P.S. I love you. Happy birthday, Carma. ;) *hugs*