DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters here that I didn't make up myself. I don't own Lizzie McGuire, but she's not actually born yet at the time of this story, anyway.

"Hey, where ya goin', freshman?", said a big boy with blonde hair and fashionable, expensive-looking clothing, with a whole "posse" of other kids trailing him.

"Ummm… I'm just looking for my locker… I thought it was down this way," said Sam, timidly, looking at the locker-assignment slip he had been handed during homeroom at the start of the first school day.

"Well, I don't know, or care, where it is, but you'd better not go that way if you know what's best for you. Didn't you read the Freshman Rules we gave all of you back in middle school? That's a Senior Hallway, off-limits to freshman scum. Hey… aren't you McGuire?"

"How do you know my name? I've never even met you!", said Sam.

"I have ways of knowing everyone and everything in this school, and don't you forget it. I especially keep track of all the geeks; don't want them getting out of line and thinking they're actually human or something," said the boy.

"I prefer 'nerd' myself… actually, a 'geek' is a carnival freak who bites the heads off chickens," said Sam.

"Wouldn't be surprised if you did a carnival freak act… but I don't really care. Geek, nerd, dork, whatever you call yourself… just stay out of my way. I'm Steve Sanders, but you can call me 'Sir'." With that, he walked away, taking his posse with him.

"You'd better listen to him… he rules this school. You don't want to get on his bad side," said another boy who was standing at the side of the hall, and had listened to the whole exchange. "Steve is a senior, and a rich kid… his family owns a big chunk of Hillridge. He's used to getting his way about everything. Oh, by the way, I'm Lawrence Tudgeman, Junior. I have to use the 'Junior' so I don't get confused with my dad, Lawrence Tudgeman, Senior. I'm also a junior this year in high school; next year, I'll be Lawrence Tudgeman, Junior, the senior. But you can call me 'Larry'; that's a bit shorter, I guess."

"Hi, Larry," said Sam. "I'm Sam McGuire."

"So, was Steve right about you being a nerd?", asked Larry. "It's a label I'm proud of myself. I've seen every episode of Star Trek at least three times."

"Uh, I watch that sometimes... when there isn't a ball game on," said Sam.

"I don't get into sports myself," said Larry. "When I'm not watching Star Trek or reading science fiction, I spend my time programming the computer I have at home."

"You have a computer at home? I thought those things took up a huge room and cost millions of dollars! Only the government and big companies have them… they use them to send astronauts to the moon and to process the cards in bills that say 'Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate'. People don't have them at home… or do they?", said Sam.

"Now they can," said Larry. "The Altair hobby kit computer came out this year, and electronics experimenters can put it together themselves or buy it fully assembled for a little more. I saved up for months, and used all my birthday money, and even dipped into the savings account that was supposed to be for my college education, to buy it. Eventually, maybe I'll be able to afford a display monitor – that's kind of like a TV set that attaches to the computer so you can see words and numbers on the screen. Right now, it just gives readout in flashing lights, so you have to speak binary to understand it."

"So what can you actually do with the computer? Are you going to launch a spaceship to the moon like NASA?", said Sam.

"That would be a neat project… but so far all I've gotten it to do is determine whether numbers are prime, and calculate pi to 200 digits," said Larry. "But someday, people are going to be using computers for all sorts of great things. I've read about a lot of it in Byte magazine; I'm a charter subscriber."

"Bite? That sounds like a magazine for orthodontists," said Sam.

"That's Byte with a 'y'. It's a computer word, meaning eight bits," said Larry.

"That would be a dollar, since two bits is a quarter?", said Sam.

"Actually, in computer-speak, a 'bit' is a binary digit… a one or a zero," said Larry. "All data that's processed by a computer is expressed as a whole series of ones and zeroes. The zeroes are very important; you may think a zero is 'nothing', but it's actually the basis of our whole number system, both the binary one used by computers and the decimal one used by humans. Why, the invention of the zero by the Arabs revolutionized mathematics in the middle ages… but I digress. Anyway, as I was saying, some day everybody is going to have a computer in their home, and they'll be used for all sorts of things. People will get news and information from all over through their computers."

"Somehow, I think I'd rather read a newspaper than try to get news from some flashing lights in binary," said Sam.

"You can connect display monitors to computers, so you can read text and graphics on them like on TV. People at universities are already sending messages to one another this way. They've got something called the 'Arpanet' that connects lots of computers together, and people on it can write articles and put them in 'text files' to send to another computer across the country at another university. It's a lot faster than sending it in the mail. And they're already talking about expanding the network to take on more computers in more places… sometimes they call the expanded network the 'Worldnet', because it will go all around the world, or the 'Internet', because it interconnects all the different networks into one big network. Then, a guy named Ted Nelson writes about a thing he calls 'Xanadu', that's based on 'hypertext', which is a bunch of articles that can all link together to one another so you can follow references to things that are related to whatever you're reading about. I sure wish my computer could connect to all of this stuff, but it's still stuck calculating digits of pi. Someday people will do all this stuff from their homes."

"Not in my lifetime, I don't think," said Sam. "Perhaps you've been reading a little too much science fiction."

"But, anyway, perhaps you'd like to come over to my place some time and see the computer," said Larry.

"OK… I think I will. Nice meeting you!", said Sam. The bell rang, and they all rushed to their next class.

Jo had gotten through the morning classes without major incident, and now headed into the cafeteria for lunch. The girl behind her in line saw her and yelled, "Hey, Jo Schmoe! So you made it into high school… I thought maybe you'd have flunked PhysEd and got held back in eighth grade."

"Nice to see you too, CoCo Puffs," said Jo.

"Hey, don't go addressing me with joke names… that's something for me to do to you and not the other way… or have you forgotten your proper place in the social order over the summer? Next you'll be thinking you can win 'Best Dressed' over me this year. I guess everybody can dream… Anyway, my proper name, as you are aware, is 'Coco Newbury'… it's Ms. Newbury to you."

"You may have ruled Jefferson Middle School, but you're in a bigger pond now… here, you're a freshman just like me," said Jo. "Those seniors will knock you down just as much as the rest of us."

"Oh, I have my connections… don't worry about me," said Coco. "And don't think about trying to sit in the same table as me… I've already got a space lined up on the cheerleaders' table!"

After being served her helping of mystery meat, Jo handed a dollar to the cashier. High school lunches were 35 cents, so she got 65 cents back in change. Looking at the change, she remarked, "This quarter looks funny."

A boy ahead of her looked back, and said "Oh, that's one of those new bicentennial quarters. It's a pretty neat concept, that they changed the design of the quarter temporarily as a commemorative. They should do it more often; coins are usually boring, all the same every year."

"OK, I guess," said Jo. "Hi, I'm Jo."

"I'm Howie Gordon. Nice to meet you."

Coco interjected from behind. "I wouldn't go hanging with this guy, Jo… he's a nerd. Hillridge Junior High dumps lots of nerds, geeks, and dweebs into this place. You start being friends with him and next thing that Tudgeman Junior guy will be coming up to you and inviting you to see his computer contraption … or there's the guy, McSomething, who's been boasting about his baseball card collection. Your social status will plunge even lower than it already is. Listen to me; this is the one piece of good advice I'm gonna give you before I go back to being mean to you again. Anyway, Gordon, were you about to show her your digital watch? Don't wanna interrupt you…"

"Uh, well, yeah, I have been showing it to people, because it's so neat," said Howie. "My parents got me this for my birthday. Here, look at it!"

"I think it's broken," said Jo. "Its face is blank."

"You have to push this button here," said Howie. "See… the red LEDs light up, and you see the time digitally, to the second."

"OK… interesting," said Jo.

"Digital watches are a great advance; now I can schedule my life precisely," said Howie.

"All right… well, I prefer to be a little more spontaneous," said Jo.

"Suit yourself… but time is the one thing in your life that you'll never have enough of… so you should never waste it," said Howie.

Jo sat down with some people she knew from Jefferson Middle School and ate her lunch without any further incidents, gadgets, or commemorative coinage coming up.