At the end of Whispering Lane, the last on the block before a small thicket of trees and shrubbery separated the neighborhood from a wilderness trail that was the site of many a Woodsboro teen's nocturnal romantic endeavors, was a charming yellow house—two stories, four bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths. The walls were off-white, the floors were hard-wood throughout, save for the bedrooms, which were carpeted with a neutral beige; a true modern colonial.

It was certainly bigger and lovelier than any of the apartments or small houses they had rented in the southern half of the state. She knew her father was especially proud, being barely a generation removed from farm workers of modest means—though her mother, cut from the same mold, asserted that was something to be embraced, not hidden.

Still, Woodsboro was decidedly not a town of poor farmers. Every road was impeccably maintained, every house large and impressive. How could its residents be so casually affluent, so unassumingly upper middle-class? And the trees…so many of them! Even the painted sign they had read when arriving only several days ago—Welcome to Woodsboro. Population 8,715 —seemed to emerge from the branch of an old oak. Maybe that's why it's called Woods-boro, Christina laughed to herself at her own lame little joke.

As her mother pulled in to the garage, Christina's mind wandered to her new friend, Judy, who had given her an earful during lunch about the ins and outs of Woodsboro, starting with the fact that they were only a few blocks away from one another. Indeed, it was becoming evident that from almost anywhere in Woodsboro, California, one was only "a few blocks" or "a short drive" away from any other point in the small town.

It did strike Christina as odd that no one else joined them during the lunch period. Was Judy without a friend group before Christina had come that very day? That didn't make any sense. Judy was nice, and helpful…but perhaps overwhelmingly so.

"Do you know who lived in my house before me?" Christina had asked. "This seems like the kind of town where people only leave when they die."

"The Thompsons," Judy had answered with a tinge of melancholy. "Mrs. Thompson passed away last year and their grandson came to take Mr. Thompson to Ohio with him. Mrs. Thompson was really old. One hundred and eight. It was in the paper."

"Damn."

Christina's room was on the second floor, on the opposite end of the hall as the master bedroom. Outside her window was a rose trellis, sturdy and beautiful. Moving day had been productive: her bed was already set up, fitted with her favorite pink sheets and white floral comforter, her dresser, bookshelf, and television in place. Content that her teachers had not assigned her much homework on her first day, she busied herself with unpacking the few boxes she had left, mainly books. She arranged her beloved stuffed animals on her bed, organized her small writing desk, and hung up her Selena poster, gazing at the latter wistfully. What was her favorite decoration a year ago now made her sad to look at.

Finally, at the bottom of the box from which she had retrieved the last of her books, she found, to her surprise, a long-forgotten remnant of her childhood: a pink diary, lovingly decorated with flower and mermaid stickers. She flipped though it; there were only half a dozen scattered entries on the lined paper. The most recent one read, in an elongated, childish script:

November 20, 1989

Dear Diary,

Today Mom and Dad took me to see The Little Mermaid. I loved it, even if they changed the ending. I've read the original fairy tale. After that, we got McDonald's for dinner as a special treat. We hardly ever eat fast food because Mom says it's not good for you. She's probably right, but boy did those chicken nuggets taste good! Mom's cooking will always be better though. Wouldn't it be cool to be a mermaid?

Christina chuckled to herself again. So she was a little book snob even back then. But that's what she was going to with her life. She had decided that when she was quite young too, when her mother had spent the better part of a month reading a few pages of Anne of Green Gables to her every night before bed. She was going to read and write for a living. Become a published author. Then a literary editor. Maybe even start her own publishing agency. Then, finally, she would travel to some faraway land—in her fantasies it was always London—and share her ideas with the other great writers of the world, and live happily ever after. That was her future, and not even the tempting small town charm of Woodsboro was going to stop her from achieving it. It only made sense that she was inclined to write from the youngest of ages.

So, newly inspired, Christina sat at her desk, flipped to the first unmarked page in the diary, and wrote:

March 4, 1996

Dear Diary,

It appears I have neglected you for some time! The pre-adolescent mind can only focus on so many things, I suppose. A diary is too much commitment. But you'll be relieved to hear that not much has changed since the last time I have paid you any attention. Except now I am in a new town. Woodsboro. It is not objectionable so far. I did leave behind some casual friends in Los Angeles, but admittedly none that I will miss very much. Does that sound bad? It's not that I was a loser at my old school or anything, but I don't know, I never fit in much with the L.A. lifestyle. I'm too introverted. And besides, I have already made a friend, Judy Hicks, and perhaps even an admirer? I'll have to let you know. But I'm not going to make a fool of myself over any boy, no matter how cute he is. Or how kind his eyes are.

Mom is downstairs wrapping up one of her delicious one-pot wonders for dinner. That is enough to get me to conclude this entry for now. I hope to commit to writing in you more often, diary, though I doubt my last year and a half of high school in this small town will prove to yield anything worth documenting.


John sat next to her again in homeroom the following morning, and greeted her with a warm smile.

"Looks like you survived your first day."

"Are you that surprised?"

"No," he laughed, "not much happens in Woodsboro. Except…" He paused for the briefest of moments, his eyes flashing with a look that Christina could not pinpoint, a sort of indiscernible concern or disturbance. "Well, yeah, not much happens here. I was disappointed to see I don't have any other classes with you, though."

She opened her mouth to respond, flustered, when Mr. Campbell called the class to his attention to begin taking attendance.

In drama, her classmates began their recitals of three to six minute film or stage monologues of their choosing that they had begun practicing the previous week. Christina's alternative assignment was simply to write a one-page summary and analysis of whichever monologue was her favorite. Judy went with a classic: Juliet's speech before she drinks the potion that would give her the appearance of death. Her memorization and diction was impeccable, though Christina feared that her friend may have been too focused on being technically perfect to really let herself live in the moment, to let the words flow as if they were truly her own. A tall boy named Stu recited the already famous "gold watch" monologue from Pulp Fiction. Due to the smothered laughter his charismatic performance elicited from their peers, Christina wondered if he had chosen it just so he could get away with saying the words "up his ass" several times in the presence of a teacher.

The last girl to perform that day rose and prepared herself.

"What will you be performing for us today, Ms. Prescott?" the drama teacher, Mrs. McGowan, asked.

"This is from The Bad Seed," the girl replied confidently, centering herself on the stage. "When Christine Penmark realizes who her real mother was."

Suddenly and inexplicably entranced with the girl before she had even begun, Christina leaned forward. Her classmate carried herself with a sureness and maturity that seemed out of place for a high school girl. She tucked her medium-length brown hair behind her ears, closed her eyes for a moment, and then stared at the audience of her classmates, now fully immersed in her character.

Her performance came to a close shortly before the bell rang, which was almost drowned out by the class erupting in applause. The trance broken, Christina stuffed her belongings into her backpack, flung it over one shoulder, and followed Judy.

"We will spend the rest of the week finishing your monologue performances," said Ms. McGowan as her class filed out of the theater classroom. "Next week we begin two to three person scenes!"

Christina was preparing to inquire to Judy about the girl, when, suddenly, she ran into a boy who had been waiting too closely on the other side of the door. She stumbled and dropped her backpack.

"Oh, crap," she spluttered. "I'm sorry, didn't see you there."

"Hey, no worries," the boy replied nonchalantly, and bent down to retrieve her backpack at the same time Christina did. He reached it first. When she stood up to thank him, she realized that she could not place a name to his face—although, being that it was only her second day at Woodsboro High, that wasn't saying much.

He was good-looking, to say the least. Tall, leanly built, an angular face with intense, dark eyes. His brown hair hung in limp strands around his face. Too much product. But she supposed that was a style in itself, like Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby.

"Here you go," he said, handing her the backpack.

"Uh—thanks."

Ahead of them, Judy had stopped walking and leaned against the wall, waiting impatiently.

"I think you're in my study hall," the boy said, eyeing her.

"Oh—uh—am I? That is where I'm headed."

He smirked. "See you there, then."

"See you."

Judy gave Christina a disapproving look as she caught up to her.

"Why were you talking to Billy Loomis?"

Billy Loomis. It was a fitting name. He was certainly…looming.

"Didn't you see? I ran into him on the way out. Why was standing there, anyway?"

"Probably waiting on Sidney."

Judy glanced behind them, prompting Christina to follow suit, and they saw Billy kissing the cheek of the girl who had last performed. Stu walked at their side, laughing boisterously about some joke they had not overheard.

"That's Sidney?"

"Sidney Prescott, yeah," Judy supplied. "They've been a thing since the beginning of sophomore year."

"Oh. They're cute."

Judy snorted.

"Why, what do you think?"

"You wanna know what I think?" she said in a lower tone, her words biting with an air of judgment that Christina had not thought her capable of. "I think Billy Loomis is a scumbag and a no-good cheater."

"Really?"

"Maybe not when they first starting dating," Judy clarified. "But there's been plenty of talk."

"Why would he cheat? Sidney's really pretty!"

"Because he's a greasy little creep. Did you take a good look at him? I'm just saying, don't go getting friendly with him, Christina."

"I wasn't. He only handed my backpack to me." Christina studied Judy's suddenly heated demeanor, wondering if and when the intimidatingly attractive Billy Loomis had turned down her advances. It would explain a lot. "But if there's gossip that he's a cheater, how does Sidney not know?"

At her question, Judy's expression softened visibly.

"Sidney…well, Sidney's had a lot on her plate lately. If anyone close to her does know, they probably choose not to tell her. If it's true, that is."

By this time they had arrived in the library for study hall. Intrigued, Christina watched carefully, and saw the boy named Billy Loomis slip in carrying nothing but a folder and a pencil a moment before the bell. He caught Christina's gaze for a fraction of a second, causing her to look away immediately, before seating himself at a table on the other end of the room.

"What do you mean by 'a lot on her plate'?" Christina whispered. "Did something happen to her?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Tell me now," Christina insisted.

"Lay-TER," Judy declined.

The librarian shushed them. Judy turned away from her and, unsatisfied, Christina opened her book.