Giggling, Elizabeth and Ren speed-walked down the hall back towards the cafeteria. Then they saw Chris and Gordie at the other end of the hallway, laughing together.

"Guah," Ren squawked.

"Guah!" Elizabeth cried, laughing. "How articulate!"

"Don't look, it's Chris."

"I'm not allowed to look at Chris?"

Sighing, Ren replied, "You can look, but just don't look look."

"Oh so I shouldn't look at him in a suggestive way with my eyebrows all waggley and flirtatiously and then point at you?" she asked innocently. "Because then he might catch on that you think he's yummy and you think he has kissable lips and--"

"Yes, that's what I meant!" Ren said.

"Ahh, gotcha."

"Elizzybeth!" Gordie called, seeing them. He dragged Chris over to meet them. "Are you going to live?"

Elizabeth painted on a tragic face and sighed, "Yes, but the sad news is that they cannot save my leg."

"Hahahahaha then you'll have to get a wooden leg and you'll be a pirate!" Gordie exclaimed.

"Yep!"

"Can you get an eye patch too? Because that would be cool."

"Yep!" She grinned, and with her eyes still locked on Gordie, she said, "Hello Chris."

"Umm, hey." Chris snickered. "I'm over here."

"Yes, I know that." She leaned over and whispered to Ren, "Can I look now?"

Ren growled.

"So did you two bond?" Chris asked.

"Yes!" Elizabeth chirped. "Mwahahahahaha."

Gordie grinned. "That was remotely evil."

"So guess what!" Elizabeth said cheerfully. "Will you walk me to my locker? Excellent. So anyway, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, guess what! Ren's decided to join our legion of the social outcasts!"

Gordie tripped up the stairs they were climbing up upon hearing this news. He gaped at Ren. "Maybe you should take a drug test."

"Yeah, right, Ren," Chris said softly.

"What?" Ren snapped.

"You can't just go from being one of the most enviable girls in school to being a reject." He let his hand skim over the railing and then drop to his side once the stairs ended and they reached the top level of Castle Rock High School. "No one's going to accept that."

"I guess they'll have to try," she muttered.

"So will you."

"Hey, Ren's quite nice, right Ren?" Elizabeth said. She spun the dial on her lock, but it didn't open. Laughing, she moved over to the next locker and tried to open that lock, and was successful. "I was bleeding profusely and she stopped it and, also, I have excellent intuition."

"Then why doesn't your intuition ever guide you to the right locker?" Gordie teased.

"It has a bad sense of direction," she said. "Anywho, I say if Ren wants to be a loser, she can be a loser with us."

"Me and Chris aren't losers," Gordie reminded her. "Only you are. You're like a loser parasite that we can't escape."

"Bite me." She smiled. "I know you never tire of my company."

Ren sighed, and they all noticed that her cheeks were pink. "I don't care, really. The bell's going to ring soon so I'm going to go to my locker. See you later."

They all watched as she descended down the stairs, her flawless black hair shimmering with every step she took. Then they started talking all at once.

"No way," Gordie said.

"I LIKE her," Elizabeth said defiantly.

"She's borderline nice, and I think she's kinda fucked up in some ways to be blunt, but I just don't really think she can leave behind her clique," Chris told them.

"Sure she can! She already did!" Elizabeth said.

"She's a SPY!" Gordie cried.

Chris smirked and stared at him oddly. "You don't say."

"I do say! Why the sudden interest, huh?" Gordie shook his head. "And spies are always beautiful like in James Bond."

"I am a spy!" Elizabeth said proudly.

"You're not a spy," he told her. "You're not cool enough. And you're underage."

"So?" She reached into her locker and found a baggie filled with grapes, so she ate one. "Ew, these grapes are syrupy."

"And how long have they been in your locker for, Elizabeth?" Gordie asked.

"The hell if I know, I don't even know how they got in here."

"Good God," he mumbled. "Anyway, back to Ren. Do you trust her, Chris?"

Chris looked at his best friend while he considered. He had wanted so badly to hate Ren for idly standing by while her friends treated everyone like shit. But there was something about her that he was starting to feel almost protective of. Glancing away, he said, "Yeah I do."

"So you're saying that we should forget about everything she's done and just accept her?"

"She never really did anything," Chris told him. "I can't think of a time when she did anything out right mean to anyone, she just didn't put a stop to anything. I want to be her friend."

Gordie still looked wary. "But she'll never change, Chris. She's so different from you, and she's just going to hurt you because she'll always be a snobby prep."

"Listen," Chris said. "If I hate her just because she's from whatever family she's from and she's got money and she's great looking and she's popular…that's exactly the same as her hating me for being a Chambers and for being dirt poor and only having two real friends in the world. But she doesn't hate me, she's trying to get to know me, and she's being sincere, so what gives me the right to not let her?"

Gordie shrugged. "I just don't want anyone to hurt you." He paused. "I didn't mean to sound so faggoty-ass. I apologize."

Elizabeth was chewing thoughtfully. "I think Chris is right. Good job, Chris, you're very smart." She held out the bag of grapes. "Grape?"