It was Math class the next day, the period before lunch when everyone's stomach was just beginning to growl vengefully. Caroline and Ren were talking, loudly, like popular people do because they like everyone to hear.

"Are you coming out with us this weekend?" Caroline asked. "Michael Perkin's parents are out of town and he told me that they leave the liquor cabin stocked.

"Huh?" Ren gazed up. She was trying to do her math homework that she hadn't done the night before. Chris had distracted her and she forgot all about her work. He had only stayed for about an hour, but even when he had left, her homework was the last thing on her mind so it never got done.

"Hello, have you gotten a brain transplant or something?"

"Me?" Ren smiled and shook her head. "Nah. Um, anyway, I don't think I can go out this weekend, sorry."

"Why?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Caroline it was because she couldn't stand her or any of the other people she pretended to like. But she didn't. Having everything delivered to her on a silver platter had made Ren a coward, and she knew that. She was trying though. "Because I'm, um, grounded."

"For doing what?"

"Why are you asking so many questions this morning?" Ren asked, laughing nervously.

"Because I can." Caroline looked up and followed a girl named Beth with her eyes as she entered the room and took her seat. She snickered. "Check out Bethie's hair. I think she used a weed whacker to cut it. Oh my God, I can't even look at her."

Chris looked up at this exchange, having been eavesdropping on the entire thing even though he was supposed to be listening to his friend Rory talk about something. While he wasn't really suspicious of Ren anymore, he was still unconvinced that she would change when she was around her friends.

Ren glanced at Beth, who was sitting in her desk, looking down at her books shyly. She probably knew she'd gotten a bad hair cut, and it looked like she just wanted to be invisible. "Remember that time you got gum stuck in your hair and tried to cut it out? The hair on one half of your head was one length and then the other side was like six inches shorter. Remember that, Caroline?" She smiled at her, a pointed look on her face.

"I remember," Caroline murmured.

"Yeah, and Beth's hair is going to grow back just like yours did. So you could probably try leaving her alone till it does. 'Try' being the operative word."

Caroline glared at Ren in confusion. Ren grinned and shrugged.

When Caroline looked away, Chris hurled a crumpled piece of paper at the back of Ren's head. She glanced back at him expectantly.

"That was exceptional," he laughed softly and appreciatively.

Ren had a smile that she could win anyone over with, one that lit up the room and made you feel sunny, but she rarely used it because she rarely had a reason to. She used that smile on Chris, and it was infectious. "Thanks."

Maybe Ren wasn't what he thought she was. Maybe she was what she tried not to be.

"You are seriously creeping me out man," Gordie told Chris at lunch in the cafeteria. He peeled the sticker off of his apple and took a generous bite.

"Me?" Chris laughed. "Why?"

"Because you like one of THEM!" he hissed, pointing to the crowded table of preps. "What is WRONG with you?"

"Nothing, I'm just being open minded."

"Open minded? Open minded! Open minded? Try crazy!"

"I don't like her," Chris muttered. "But she's not that bad. I wouldn't mind having her as a friend, that's all."

"Yeah, until her and her friends do something mean to you. You know what they're capable of."

"I would sic my dog on them if that happened."

"You don't have a dog."

"I would get a dog."

"Can I get a dog?" Elizabeth called, approaching the table. She caught her foot on the leg of someone's chair and went sprawling. Luckily she just had a bag lunch, and the brown paper bag just skidded across the floor and hit Gordie in the foot. Unluckily, however, she fell in Caroline's path.

Looking up, Elizabeth scolded herself for not making a will. She had enough trouble with the popular girls in her own grade. She would rather be struck by lightening and then trampled by electrified wildebeests than piss off the ringleader of the popular crowd by default, Caroline Jennings. To make matters worse, Ren and Ryder Rasmussen were right behind her.

"Get the fuck out of my way, loser," she barked.

"Hey!" Gordie yelled, jumping to his feet.

"You have something to say, Lachance?"

"You don't have to talk to her like that," he said.

"No, but I felt like it."

Ren stuck her hand out.

Elizabeth gazed up at her cluelessly but grabbed Ren's hand and allowed her to hoist her to her feet.

"Oh my GOD, are you going into sainthood?" Caroline screeched.

"She only fell, Caroline," she muttered.

"I don't have to put up with you acting like this," Caroline snapped. "You're trying to make me feel bad, but it's not working. I don't know what the hell your fucking problem is, but if you're trying to make people think you're better than everyone else, you're going to have to try a lot harder because you never will be. Come on, Ryder." She scoffed as they walked away. "I can't believe you have to be her brother."

Ryder laughed. "That's what I've been saying all along."

"Are you okay?" Gordie asked Elizabeth, holding her elbow protectively. "Here, I saved your lunch."

"Thanks," she said, smiling at him. "My knee got all owwed."

"Ohh, you skinned it," he muttered, looking down at her knee, which was bleeding a little.

Ren smiled softly at Elizabeth. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Elizabeth asked, following her blindly.

They ended up in the girls' room. Elizabeth propped her leg up on the counter while Ren rinsed the blood away with a wet paper towel. "So, uh…what's your name?" she asked.

Watching her knee as the blood soaked into the paper towel and a tiny abrasion appeared under the mess, she replied, "Elizabeth."

Nodding silently, Ren tossed the paper towel into the garbage. "I'm really sorry about Caroline. She's such a bitch."

"I know. What I don't get is it's called the popular group, then why does everyone hate them?" Blushing, Elizabeth stammered, "I mean, no, I mean, no, I mean, I don't hate you!"

"It's okay." Ren shrugged. "I know that there's not a whole lot of people who exactly enjoy me. But you know what? If I have to become the biggest loser in the school, I'm through with those people."

"That's easier said than done I think," Elizabeth told her, poking her in the shoulder playfully, then scolding herself for touching someone of such high stature without permission. "I remember when I was little, and I didn't want to eat the play dough anymore in kindergarten, but that's what all the cool kids were doing but I didn't want to, so they all tried to beat me up."

"That's sad."

"Yeah, but I'm feisty." She giggled. "Actually, I just ran and hid behind the teacher. It sure taught them."

"So you're saying if I had someone to hide behind, I wouldn't have to worry about the cool kids anymore?"

"Hehe!" Elizabeth squeaked excitedly. "I know who you want to hide behind!"

Raising her eyebrows, Ren asked, "How? I've never even talked to you before."

"No, but I know everything, and I know that you like Chris."

"Chris Chambers?" Ren said, trying to sound incredulous and appalled, but it wasn't convincing. Her face reddened at an alarming rate. "Um, no? How could you say that, that's ridiculous and absurd?"

Elizabeth giggled delightedly and made up a little song, the main words being 'Ren,' 'likes,' and 'Chris.'

"Shut up, what if someone hears you?" she hissed.

"Like who, the toilet bowl monsters?"

"You believe in the toilet bowl monster too?" Ren cried.

"Actually, that was a joke, as in I was aiming for some appreciative laughs." Elizabeth frowned. "You believe in the toilet bowl monster?"

"No…I wanted you to laugh?"

"You're funny!" Elizabeth giggled. "That's good! Chris likes to laugh."

"I'll get the toilet bowl monster to smite you if you don't shut up," Ren warned.

"Ooh, scary toilet--"

Someone flushed the toilet in the far stall. Elizabeth and Ren screamed and ran away.