"Miss Moon?"

"Mun," Cindy corrected, a hint of annoyance in her voice, and a few people giggled behind her. This was the reason she hated subs and it only reminded her that her nickname had been Sailor throughout the whole of middle school. Her regular teachers had learned to pronounce it correctly by now which meant that she finally didn't sound like a cartoon character any more, but then Mrs. Connor had gone and caught the flu so here they were.

God, she hated her name. Or rather, she hated that the fact that her parents had thought Moon was so much better instead of Miller. As if they wanted to make her life harder than it was. But her mom was Korean, which meant Cindy was Korean, which meant she had to be proud of her ancestry or something.

"Right," the woman smiled and checked Cindy's name before moving on to the next name on the list. She was annoying, way too perky and way too young to be their teacher – she couldn't be much older than twenty.

A piece of white paper landed in front of her and she quickly snatched it and read it under the table.

"It's only for today, stop sulking."

Cindy smirked at her friend seated at the table next to hers but Sally was too busy writing her another one.

"Are we still doing biology during lunch?"

Cindy swore softly under her breath before quickly scribbling back.

"I forgot lunch, have to go to the cafeteria, sorry. My cello's at 4, and we have the dinner tonight, how about tomorrow before school?" She folded it a few times and threw it over to Sally.

"Ooh dinner with Pretty Parker! I totally forgot it was today why haven't you mentioned it?," she replied – at which Cindy rolled her eyes – before throwing another note. "Or you just hurry out of here and buy food before everyone else and then meet me in the library? Or you can share my tuna sandwich."

Cindy stuck her tongue out in a grimache. Sally knew exactly how she felt about tuna, especially cold tuna spread out on mushy bread. "Sprint to the cafeteria it is. Can you take my-"

"Miss Moon?" Cindy's head snapped up and she cringed – once again – at the mispronunciation of her surname. "Anything you'd like to share with the class?"

"Uh- no." She swallowed a small lump in her throat as she noticed how the lesson had already started. The sub raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat a little before continuing.

"No? Then maybe you can enlighten us when the civil war began?" She was looking at Cindy with a very smug expression painted on her face and the girl nearly rolled her eyes at the high-pitched voiced.

"1860," she replied with a nod.

"That's not what I said," the sub began and turned toward the board where she had scribbled 1861 but Cindy chipped in before she could continue.

"Well the physical war started in 1861, but the political war began when president Lincoln won the election. Mrs. Connor said so last tuesday and it mentions it in the book, page 204." She looked at the sub with a sugary sweet smile and for a moment the woman by the board seemed lost. The woman in question glanced down at the course book and flipped the pages for a few seconds before looking up, the smug look wiped off her face.

"Very well then," the sub exhaled and continued on with the lesson. Cindy looked back at Sally, who mouthed "cheating" at her – hey, she couldn't control the photographic memory thing – and shook her head with a smile before continuing her note.

"Sprint to the cafeteria it is. Can you take my books so I don't do a Titanic in the middle of the hallway?" That was what they called it when she passed out, since the incident in seventh grade... She folded it twice and waited for miss Whatever to turn her back on them before slipping it to her friend, who nodded in reply.

The rest of the lesson went by slowly and most things the sub said were either not quite correct or had already been covered in earlier lessons. Most of the kids seemed relieved by the revision but Cindy wasn't, she didn't need one. Instead she chewed on her lip nervously, going over multiple versions of the dinner party at their house later that evening, with Peter Parker and his aunt. It was more or less the only thing she had thought about for the last two weeks. Her mom and his aunt – May – had been roommates in college and ever since they found out that Peter and Cindy went to the same school they had started arranging dinners a once or twice a year.

When the bell rang she practically jumped to her feet and threw her biology, physics, and history books on Sallys bench before hurrying off.

Even without the heaviest books her bag felt like it was dragging on the ground. She was completely out of breath and hadn't even gotten halfways yet, and the hallway was starting to fill up.

"I can't do this," she breathed quietly, feeling her throat starting to close. Before she had time to do anything – however – something came from the left and she bumped into it, or rather, him.

"Oh, Cindy," Peter said and pulled up her bag that had fallen to the ground. He handed it over to her and pushed up his glasses that had slid down his nose a little. He smiled at her but his eyes were tired, probably due to snoozing a little too long this morning…

'Stop thinking of him in bed!' a voice screamed at her and she shook her head a little.

"Gee thanks," she wheezed, swearing to herself about how lame she sounded, and pushed a few strands of hair behind her ear that had loosened from her usual ponytail.

"No worries," he grinned. "Hey tonight's the dinner, right? May-" he lost his words as his eyes focused on someone behind her and his jaw went a little slack. She knew exactly who it was before even turning.

"Hey Peter!" Liz Allan greeted as she passed them, not even noticing Cindy, before continuing her chat with Betty Brant.

"Hey," he breathed out far to low for her to hear as his eyes followed her down the hall. A few seconds passed before he stirred back to life again. "Yeah- I- I guess I'll see you tonight," he nodded and disappeared toward his locker, forgetting to continue his precious sentence.

As soon as she was sure he wouldn't turn around she practically fell onto the wall, digging desperately in her bag until she found her inhaler and taking two big puffs. She groaned, hitting her head back on the wall before continuing on her journey for food.

"Well that took you ages," Sally's rich voice remarked when she saw her friend slumping down in the chair opposite to her. "I was afraid we had a Titanic on our hands, I almost sent a lifeboat."

She was really witty – cocky even – when it was just the two of them and she didn't have to worry about being judged by other people. Since about sixth grade she had started putting on a little weight and the more she gained the less confident she became, which was sad since no one – besides Cindy at least – got to see how awesome and funny she actually was.

"Yeah all but," Cindy muttered as she unwrapped her to-go bowl of salad. "I was nearly knocked to my bum by Peter." Sally giggled and she glared at her. "It's not funny."

"At least Pretty Parker would have been there to catch you," she noted before taking another bite of tuna sandwich.

"Ugh, don't say that." Cindy's forehead was now resting on the table, thinking back a few years to the time she had fainted on him in P.E. when doing a duo-exercise. He had laid flat on his back with his hands stretched up into the air, in which her hands rested as she was supposed to do push-ups over him, her feet on each sides of his legs. In the middle of her fifth one a wave of dizziness had washed over her and she fell onto his chest without a chance to do anything about it, accidentally hitting him in the crotch with her knee. "And don't call him that, people can hear! Not cool, Sal."

"Okay, okay. McCutie it is then."

Cindy laughed a little louder than she should have and was shushed by someone a few tables away. She placed her hands under her chin and looked up at her friend with big, pleading eyes.

"I don't want tonight to happen. It's just going to be awkward and I'm going to be awkward and my parents are going to be awkward, not to speak of A.J." She heaved a sigh.

"Hey, people love kiddoes," Sally tried but just received a glare.

"Not kiddoes who put peas in their nose and then snorts them out on the table." She groaned again, thinking of her baby brother's latest favorite habit. "And he'll probably just wanna talk about Liz all the time, like he did last time. Geez, I can't believe he's still crushing on her."

"It's so sad, seeing her take them down one by one. Poor boys." Sal placed a grape on her tongue and chewed it carefully. "I swear I saw Lisa Trevor's tongue fall out of her mouth the other day when Liz passed by. I think she's planning to take down all of us one by one."

Cindy frowned at her and Sally gave her a look.

"Of course Peter's gonna see that she's nothing more than a pretty girl at the top of the high school hierarchy and bam! He's all yours." Cindy started digging in on her food, not convinced at all by her friend's words. She was quiet for a minute before speaking up.

"Perfect Liz who doesn't have acne, perfect Liz who's tall, perfect Liz who doesn't have to take a puff of asthma spray every time she stands up," she muttered, stabbing at a cherry tomato with her fork. "Can we please talk about something else now? Shouldn't we continue our biology assignment?"

Biology was Sally's strongest subject and she was determined to become a surgeon. It had been her dream since they had gotten out of that "I wanna be a unicorn keeper"-stage everyone went through and plowing through Grey's Anatomy for the past year had only made her more determined.

They managed to finish two more pages before having to pack down their stuff and head toward class again, physics this time, deciding to take the weekend off and finish the last pages on monday. Physics pretty much flew by and before the final period they made a stop by their lockers to drop off some books before parting ways and heading towards the english classroom.

They hadn't as much as stepped into the classroom before Mr. Herman pushed a hat – yes, a proper black top hat – filled with notes into their faces.

"We're switching seats. Sit down at the number you receive." The girls looked at each other and sighed, knowing that they wouldn't be sitting together any more. Cindy just hoped she didn't have to sit next to Flash, that kid was an idiot. A few weeks ago she had overheard him go on and on about how stupid the Frankenstein book was because "the dude who wrote it totally copied The Hulk!". She was surprised he could even write his own name.

Cindy took a note and quickly skimmed the benches for number fourteen and found it three rows from the front. She pouted a little, frustrated to have been moved backwards and she watched as Sally fell into her own seat another few rows back. No way they could send notes to each other now.

"Kong!" a guy at the table in front of her called and greeted the boulder of a man that was Kenny McFarlane with a fist bump, before the latter one took the seat right in front of Cindy. The man was gigantic! She could barely see the board if she peeked over his shoulder. Not fair.

The guys in front of her started chatting loudly about an upcoming game and she tried to block them out by skimming through her notes from the previous lesson. Not that she needed to, but it was a great way to focus on something else.

"Hey," a voice said and she looked up. Peter Parker pulled out the chair next to her and started pulling out his notebook and pencils, all while Cindy tried to swallow down her heart that had decided to leap up into her throat without permission.

"Hi," she replied and smiled sheepishly as her heart raced. She was overly curious why he had come over to her, perhaps he wanted to ask about the dinner tonight. "What can I help you with?"

The right corner of his mouth twitched into a wry smile as his brows furrowed a little in confusion, clearing his throat before replying. "This is my seat." He showed her a piece of paper with the number "#15" written on it and suddenly all she wanted was to disappear through the floor.

"Yeah, of course," she mumbled a little as she peeked over her shoulder. Sally shot her a wide eyed look along with side-nod of her head that told her to go ahead and talk to him. Seated next to her was Peter's friend, Ned, but he was too busy looking at his phone to notice the two girls' staring contest.

She turned back and cleared her throat a little. "Thanks for earlier," she began, flashing him a quick smile. "For my bag."

"Oh no, it was my fault completely, don't apologize," he replied, shaking off the compliment. "Hey by the way, May wondered if she should bring something over tonight? I mean, she asked me to ask you, just in case."

She blinked at him. For a second she was completely stunned, lost in his rich, chocolatey eyes and the dimple hiding on his cheek. His glasses had slid down a few millimeters from its usual place and she almost reached out to push them back, drawing her fingers through his soft hair in the process. Almost.

"Uh-" she replied cleverly and blinked, catching herself in the distraction. "I think we're good. My parents are making lasagna for dinner."

Peter flashed her a smile. "Yeah that sounds good."

There was an awkward silence between them as the last students dropped in. Pretty much everyone else in the classroom were talking except for them. She fiddled on her chipped nail polish – making a mental note to repaint them when she got home – and swallowed a dry lump.

"I like your shirt," she blurted out. Gosh, could she be any less smooth? He grinned at her, looking down at the white t-shirt under his hoodie, which had a picture of a tea bag on it with the text "this is a tea-shirt". He didn't have time to express his thanks as Mr. Herman cleared his throat.

"I don't wanna hear any complaints, we're switching again in a few months so everyone has a chance to sit in the front rows. Take the opportunity and get to know your neighbour, who you hopefully don't know that well." He stared at Kong and his friend as he said this, discovering that the boys already had managed to lose interest and started chatting with each other. "You'll have a large group project together in a few weeks so you might as well get to know each other a little better outside of class," Cindy's heart raced at this, "but not right now! Today we'll start working on Shakespeare's plays and poems, can anyone mention any of his plays?"

A few people grunted while others listed his most common works: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, Midsummer night's dream, Othello. However, Mr. Herman was not quite satisfied.

"Come on, we went through them in the beginning of the semester. No one?" A girl in the front row mentioned Much ado about nothing, but apart from that the classroom was silent. Mr. Herman looked directly at Cindy. "Maybe miss Moon can enlighten us further?"

Oh God.

Cindy wanted to sink to the floor and end up in a ditch somewhere. Anywhere but that classroom. She hated when teachers did this, she hated Mr. Herman for it. Furrowing her brows for a second she recalled the lesson he was referring to, which was quite simple since he had been wearing a mustard yellow shirt that day that she and Sally had made fun of for weeks.

"A few lesser known works are Troilus and Cressida, Titus Andronicus, Henry the sixth and eighth, Two gentlemen of verona." Her voice was dry and her cheeks a flushed pink.

"Terrific!" He clapped his hands together and moved on to speak about poems.

"He's lucky he's got his little camera," a guy behind her whispered to his neighbour – the voice of Flash she quickly realized – and the girl next to him giggled. She looked down at her notebook and scratched behind her ear, a numb lump appearing behind her ribcage.

"Hey," a familiar voice mumbled and when she looked up Peter had turned around to face Flash. "Cut it out, okay?"

Flash's smile faded and his eyes grew darker.

"Protecting your girlfriend, four-eyes?"

Now Cindy's cheeks were close to a burning red as she buried them in her hands and focused all she could on Mr. Herman over Kong's shoulder.

"Just, leave her alone," she heard Peter mutter before returning his focus to the class.

The rest of the hour Cindy tried the best she could to focus on poems and syllables but she couldn't quite shake off the unpleasant feeling. Most of the time she didn't even bother to peek up over Kong's shoulder but just stared at his back until the bell rang.

"Now don't forget the poems, their due next lesson and I want to see real creativity!" Mr. Harrington called over the sound of chairs pulling out. She quickly gathered her stuff, avoiding to look at both Peter and Flash, before heading towards the door where Sally was waiting. They began walking towards their lockers as the corridor started to fill up with tired teens that were calling and cheering on each other in the spirit of the weekend.

"You must be overjoyed," Sally stated more than asked as she poked Cindy in the ribs with her elbow. "You and McCutie – he's gonna forget about Liz in no time. Did you hear how he stood up against Flash for you?"

She rolled her eyes at her as she kicked something invisible off the ground. "He does that for anyone who needs it, I don't think he can help it," she muttered. "I bet he thinks he has to do that every time Flash opens his mouth in my direction and Sal, I don't think he likes that. It probably just makes him feel like a babysitter."

She turned to her friend and shrugged, scratching the sole of her shoe on the ground. Sally scoffed.

"Well, my friend, then I'm afraid you have to stand up for yourself. No boy wants to date the kid they're watching." She gave Cindy a pointed look as she opened her locker, straightforward as always. "But at least now you have a chance to really get to know him and show him who you are, you know. Like that your favorite food is nutella! Who doesn't like nutella? Mr. Herman said that we'll have a major group project so that ought to give you plenty of time to win him over."

"Yeah," Cindy laughed, shaking her head. "Hey, how was Ned?"

Sally stopped for a minute in the middle of putting on her coat and furrowed her brows as she thought for a minute. "Yeah he's cool. Talks a bit too much but seems sharp. We talked a bit about movies and stuff." The girls packed down the last stuff for the weekend, leaving their biology books behind as promised, before heading towards the exit doors. They chatted a little about the decathlon team – still surprised over how many freshmen that had gotten into the team – and parted with a quick hug as Cindy promised that she would call later that evening to update her on how the dinner went, before hurrying off towards her cello lesson.

Author's note:

First chapter done!

I really love Cindy and Sally's friendship, it warms my heart. Sal's gonna be a pretty big part of the story since she's a big part of Cindy's life and I hope you're as excited as I am to see their friendship grow even further. And there's gonna be a lot more Cindy and Pete in the upcoming chapters, for those who are here for that! Just letting you know that this is Cindy's story, which means that everything isn't always gonna be about Peter and his powers and what he's doing, but I think this gal really deserves it and I'm planing a pretty cool story for her, so hope you're up for that!

Feel free to write a little something about how you like it so far, I live off of comments.
Until next time!