"I think I would like to kick your ass now," Gordie announced, barging into the bathroom where I was getting ready for the first day of school.

"What?" I demanded. As he advanced, I discovered that he had not been joking. "Fuck off!" I squealed. I jumped up onto the toilet.

"You have a crush on my best friend!" he yelled.

My jaw dropped. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, don't even deny it," he said. "I CAN read."

I gawked disbelievingly at him. "Oh my GOD, you read my diary."

"Why, yes I did, I also know that you lied to my mom about not stealing Vincent's Beatles eight-track. Admit it, you like Chris."

Jumping down from the toilet, I poked him in the chest with my hairbrush. "If you dare tell ANYONE about this, I will personally castrate you using a blunt butter knife."

"Okay, okay," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "I won't tell anyone."

"Including Chris."

"Including Chris." He glared at me. "I will never forgive you for this."

I shrugged. "I'm not hurting anything, screw you." Glaring at him significantly, I said, "I now would like to finish getting ready."

"Are you wearing that?"

I looked down at my faded jeans and blue striped short-sleeve shirt. "Yes…why?"

He smiled. "Oh…nothing."

"What's wrong with my clothes?" I demanded.

"Oh, just…you know."

"Gordie!" I whined.

"I'm kidding," he teased, mussing up my hair. "You look good. Hurry the hell up though."

Walking side by side with Gordie, I felt the butterflies in my tummy go nuts. I was nervous beyond belief. I didn't know what these people were going to think of me. Would they like me because I was Gordie's cousin, or hate me because I was Chris' friend?

"Stop cracking your knuckles," Gordie barked. "It's disturbing."

"I'm nervous, I can't help it," I whined. "I don't want to go."

"Neither do I, Toby," he reminded me impatiently. "And as long as you don't do anything stupid, you'll be fine."

"Everything I do is stupid."

Gordie smiled. "That's true."

"Oh crap."

Castle Rock Junior High came into view and it was an awful, looming sight. I wanted to go home right at that moment and curl into my mother's lap and have her read something to me. I just wanted to be little again.

"Fuck," I groaned.

"Toby, you'll be okay," Gordie reassured me, putting his hand on my head and leading me inside.

No one really noticed me, and that gladdened me. So far, everything looked pretty small and uncomplicated. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't have much trouble getting around.

"This is the floor," Gordie informed me helpfully. "Those are the walls. That's a row of lockers. You'll get one of those."

"Thank you, O Great Tour Guide Zen Master."

"Loosen up, you freak," he told me, nudging me playfully.

"Gordie, I'm nervous, all right?" I snapped. "Leave me alone."

"Okay." He began to walk away.

I clutched onto his arm. "DON'T LEAVE ME!" I cried frantically. He just smiled. "Oh, you frighten me sometimes, Gordie. I need some moral support."

"Well, then, let's go seek Chris," Gordie suggested. "He would provide great support."

"I hate you." I shook my head. "Go find a moving vehicle. Play under it."

Later, in the stuffy, cramped gymnasium, we found Chris standing by himself. We all sat on the freshly waxed hardwood floors, listening half- heartedly to the principal's speech about a new start in a new school year, yadda, yadda, yadda, so on and so forth.

"Hey," Chris poked me in the leg. "How scared shitless are you?"

I rolled my eyes significantly. "Quite a lot."

"Do you have your schedule yet?" he asked.

Nodding, I handed him mine, as I examined his. "We have homeroom, math class and English class together. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Oh, and physical education with you and Gordie."

He whistled appreciatively. "You got Mr. West for Social Studies. Good luck there. He cooks little girls like you for breakfast."

"Chris, dammit," Gordie hissed. "Are you scaring my cousin? She's incredibly impressionable. Don't talk to her."

Discreetly, Chris gave him the finger. "Toby, your cousin is a fudge packer. He likes other male body parts."

"I've known this for many years," I whispered back.

"And you know, this one time--"

"Christopher Chambers, do you have something worth saying?" the principal, Mr. Kilgore, boomed.

Chris paled, but he stood up straighter. The kids around us turned to look at him, many of them smirking and snickering, others just staring with bored looks on their faces. "No, Sir," he called. "Not at the moment."

I smiled and exchanged looks with Gordie. I saw that Gordie didn't look amused, he just looked down at the floor.

"I'd love to see the day when you come up with something that does happen to be worth saying, Chambers." Mr. Kilgore cleared his throat and continued on with his great spiel.

I was given a map of the school, and had no major problems finding my classes. I ate with Chris, Gordie, and their friend Adrian. Mostly, people didn't notice me much because I never said anything unless I was spoken to.

A few days into the next week, I was paired with a girl named Melissa for group work in Social class.

With long, blond hair and sapphire blue eyes, Melissa had about every boy's full attention on her at all time. But she didn't seem to care. I figured she was a snob or something. "Do you want to do the research or the writing?" I asked her after the fifth time she'd snapped her gum.

"Well, I don't know," she replied. "I don't really understand what this whole assignment is about."

"We research a Soviet Union leader and then we write about him."

"You're Gordie Lachance's cousin, right?" she asked suddenly.

"Yeah, do you want me to do the research?"

"He's a cutie." She smiled. "You live with him, right?"

Drumming my pencil against the desktop, I sighed. "Yeah, I live with him. I've lived with him since my parents died."

"I'm really sorry about that," she said sympathetically. "It must be really tough for you."

"My brother's more affected."

"Is he younger?"

"No. He's in Grade 12 at the High School."

"Hey, which guy do you want to do?"

"What?" I shrilled.

"Russia guy. Which of the leaders? There's this list here of the people we can pick."

"I don't care," I said tiredly. "Pick someone with a cool name."

"They're all Russian names."

"Yeah, that's because they're from Russia," I reminded her. "Pick one of them."

"Joseph Stalin."

"He was an asshole, I don't want to write about him."

Her mouth gaped open.

"What?" I demanded.

"You cussed."

I raised my eyebrows and looked around, confused. "Um…it's not really a cuss word…it's a body part."

"My gosh," she said in her obnoxious little Southern Belle drawl, which I don't know where she acquired in Oregon. "My mother washes my brothers' mouths out with soap like you wouldn't believe when she hears them swear."

"Sorry," I said impatiently. "I'll try to keep my language clean from now on. How about Vladimir Lenin?"

"Who's that?"

"A Russian."

"Don't we hate the Russians?"

"Yeah, they hate us too, so we're even."

"Okay. So…Lenin it is then." She smiled contently. "How about we both do the research and we both do the writing? It would get pretty dull the other way. Hey, do you want to eat lunch with me and my friends?"

I groaned inwardly as my shoulders sagged. Little Miss Poodle Puff was wearing down my last nerve at a seriously rapid rate. "I eat lunch with some other people."

"Like who?"

"Gordie and Chris," I replied. "Does it matter?"

"You eat lunch with Chris?" she cried. "Chris Chambers?"

"Yeah, I do," I snapped. "So far he hasn't stolen my lunch money, so I guess he's okay." I rolled my eyes.

"His big brother…you know…he did some real bad stuff to a girl and now he's in jail. And his other brother is in a gang with Ace Merrill, and you know, his daddy beats them all because he's a drunk."

"I know." I nodded slowly. "But you never said anything in that one or two sentences that said anything about what Chris did himself that's so awful."

"He stole milk money a couple years back."

I'd never heard about that, and I told her so.

"Well, what happened was--"

"I don't want to know what happened," I interrupted. "Chris is nice. He's not like his family."

"Oh, I wouldn't get too close to him," she warned me. "You never can be too sure about what one of those Chambers's are gonna do."

"I'll keep that in mind," I muttered.