Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews! In this installment, where the characters are thinking things, you might imagine them being spoken by "toon" versions of them, if that makes this more "Lizzie-ish" for you!

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.

As Sam and Jo raced into the hallway to try to reach their lockers before anybody spotted them, they literally ran into one another, collapsing onto the floor.

"Sorry!", said Sam. "I'm such a klutz!"

"No, I'm sorry," said Jo. "I really should have been watching where I was going."

"Well," said Sam, "at least I've found my locker now; it's this one."

"And this is mine… right next to yours," said Jo. "So we're neighbors!"

Sam thought: "The last thing I'm in the mood for right now is to deal with girls... OK, I need to be polite, but not look in any way like I'm interested in her, or she'll probably dump me in some embarrassing way, without me even having to actually ask her out or anything!"

"Hi… I'm Sam," said Sam.

Jo thought: "Oh, great… he kind of looks like another nerd… haven't I met enough of those already? Oh, well… better be nice to him anyway, since I'm probably going to have to meet him every day, with his locker right next to mine…"

"Hi, Sam… I'm Joann, but everybody calls me Jo."

"Nice to meet you," said Sam.

"Nice to meet you, too," said Jo.

They both thought, "OK, got the small talk out of the way… now just get my stuff into the locker and get to class!"

But just then, some other people came around the corner. It was Steve Sanders and his gang.

"…and this is the championship trophy my dad won in 1951," said Steve.

"Umm, it looks like it's got the names of all the team members, not just your dad's," said another kid.

"But my dad was the most important… he was the quarterback, and he was the one who threw the 22-yard touchdown pass with one second left to win the championship," said Steve. "And… hey, who's that over there? Do I see some freshmen trespassing on our territory?" He walked over to Sam and Jo, who crouched nervously by their lockers.

"What do you think you're doing?", said Steve.

"Uh, well, this is the locker that was assigned me," said Sam, holding up the assignment slip.

"And do I look like I care what's on that assignment slip?", said Steve.

"But it's not fair to attack us for trying to use the lockers that the school assigned us!", said Jo.

"Looks like we've got some uppity freshmen who don't know their proper place," said Steve. "Hey, guys, you all know how to deal with troublemakers like that," he said to his friends.

"Yeah, we know… umm… how do we deal with them?", asked one of the other kids.

"Do I have to spell out everything for you?", said Steve. "Oh, I guess so… You two, Dave and Randy, go find two big trash cans and bring them here."

A minute later, Dave and Randy were back with trash cans. Then, at Steve's instructions, they and several other kids grabbed Sam and Jo, and stuffed them firmly into the trash cans, packing garbage tightly around them. Then, they stood around and laughed hard for a minute, then all went away, leaving Sam and Jo, in their trash cans, all alone in the hallway.

"This is an embarrassing situation," said Jo.

"Well, for me, it's not actually the first time I've been stuffed in a trash can at school," said Sam. "There was the time in grade school when I was the hall monitor…"

"Then, do you know anything about how to get out of the trash can?", said Jo. "I'm stuffed so tightly I can barely move."

"I'll help you," said another voice, with a Latin American accent, coming from a girl who just walked into the hallway.