Mr. Sikowitz's students sat nervously in their chairs. The bell was about to ring and their teacher hadn't even shown up yet. Robbie, Andre, and Beck all sat next to each other. Robbie spotted Cat sitting across the room, whose face lit up when she saw him. She eagerly waved. Robbie waved back, then blushed and looked down at his lap.

The bell rang, and Mr. Sikowitz was still not there. A few murmurs and whispers started as kids wondered where he was.

Suddenly, the door in the back of the classroom banged open and a man ran into the room. "RAAAGHHHHH!" he yelled. Everyone screamed.

The man laughed crazily. He was barefoot and wore pants that were too big and a multitude of patterned sweaters and scarves. Was this Mr. Sikowitz?

"I love doing that to my freshman classes on the first day of school!" the man said, still laughing. "Did I get your blood pumping?"

The students finally calmed down. No one said anything.

"Ah, I see you're all still scared of me, aren't you? Well, let me introduce myself. I am Sikowitz, your acting teacher for the rest of your years here at Hollywood Arts. Now that you know me, I must get to know you. How many of you like acting?"

Most kids slowly raised their hands.

"And how many of you are good at acting?" This time, no one moved, afraid of appearing full of themselves. "That's what I thought. And that's good because my job is to make mold you all into fantastic actors and actresses!"

Sikowitz walked onto the small stage in the front of the room and to the whiteboard. He picked up a blue marker and wrote "Acting is:" in larger letters.

"Now," he said, "who can finish this statement for me?"

Everyone was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then Cat called out, "Fun!"

"Right it is." Sikowitz wrote "fun" underneath his first words. "Now can anyone give me a better answer?" Cat sat back in her chair and pouted.

"A creative way to express yourself," volunteered Beck.

Sikowitz smiled. "Yes, yes, good one! I like it!" He wrote it on the board, and everyone turned to look at Beck, studying him. He smiled bashfully, glancing around the room. He caught the eye of a girl with pale skin and dark hair, sitting near the back. She didn't move, just watched him. Beck turned away.

"Anyone else?" Sikowitz asked. Nobody said a word. He sighed. "Oh, come on kids! Give me something to work with here! Nobody has anything to say about acting at all?" He looked eagerly at his students, who simply stared at his with dazed expressions.

"Well, alright. We have approximately," he looked at his wrist, though there was no watch on it, "twenty five minutes left in class. How about I put you in groups so you can get to know each other. How does that sound? Shall I treat you all like little fourth graders? Hm?"

The students looked around uncertainly.

"This is high school now, kids! It's time to wake up and smell the coconut milk! You'll be expected to work harder than you ever have in your short little lives, because not only are you older, but you are attending a highly respected performing arts school. So everyone needs to step up and take on more responsibility, because I will not tolerate this lack of participation in my class! Does everyone hear me?" Sikowitz paused and stared at his class. Then he burst out laughing.

"Ohh, ha ha ha! Oh man! Wow! You should all see the looks on your faces! Ha ha ha ha ha!" He doubled over, clutching his stomach. "Oh man, I got you guys good! Ha!"

Slowly, the class smiled and began to laugh, too.

"You guys are too easy!" Their teacher continued. "I didn't mean any of that stuff I just said. Go on, talk with your friends, the rest of the class is a free period. Ha ha ha…" Sikowitz sat down on the stage, leaning against the back wall, and pulled out a book. He looked like he was reading it, though the book was upside down.

Just a few minutes later, the bell rang, signaling the end of first period. The classroom erupted into a flurry of bags and students, as the kids talked amongst themselves and compared schedules.

Robbie, Andre, and Beck didn't have second period together, which was history for Robbie, music for Andre, and English for Beck. Cat walked up to the boys.

"Hi Robbie! What's your next class?" she asked cheerfully.

Andre and Beck raised their eyebrows at Robbie, as if to say, who's the cute chick?

"Um, I have history class."

"Oh my gosh, so do me and my friend Jade!" Cat exclaimed happily.

"J-jade?"

"Yeah, that girl over there!" She pointed to the girl who had stared at Beck earlier; she was walking towards the door. "Come one, we'll all walk there together!"

"Oh, uh, well, that's okay…" Robbie started to protest, but Cat was already pulling him away. His friends waved goodbye.

Robbie tried not to shake. He barely talked to girls and had always walked to class alone, unless Andre was going the same way he was.

Robbie had pretty much no friends except Andre. He and Andre became friends when they were in second grade, and nobody would talk to Andre except Robbie, who was also shunned by his classmates for being "weird". Everyone was too jealous of Andre because of his musical talent, and they thought he was stuck up. Eventually, Andre made more friends, but he stuck by Robbie for the next six years at their school.

Andre was even the one who convinced Robbie to apply to Hollywood Arts so they could continue going to school together. Robbie had never considered performing before, but found out that he liked acting and wasn't half bad at it. It even made him somewhat more confident.

But girls. Girls were still hard to talk to. And now Robbie was alone with two attractive girls, one who seemed to really like him and one who looked slightly terrifying. Robbie swallowed nervously.

"Uhh, hi, I'm Robbie," he said, holding out his hand, trying to introduce himself to Jade.

She glanced at his hand before turning away. "Hi. Jade."

The whole way there Jade stared straight ahead, occasionally sipping from a coffee cup, and Cat babbled about everything in the world; her brother, cats, Wahoo Punch, and old ladies. Robbie was only half listening. He was too nervous to speak.

The rest of the day passed by like a blur. Andre and Robbie only had one other class together, which made Robbie wonder if he and Andre would grow apart this year. It was different at this school—if you had a cool talent, you were respected, not made fun of like in grade school. Robbie was afraid Andre might make more friends and forget about him.

Robbie met Andre and Beck by Andre's locker. "Hey man, where ya been?" Andre asked, grinning. "Meet any girls?"

"Oh, nahh…they tried talking to me, but I turned 'em down. Too many ladies." In reality, it was Beck who got all the girls—or rather, was followed by them. By the end of the day, many were begging him for his number, but all were turned down.

Andre laughed. "Well Beck and I were talking, and there's this great place a few blocks over called The Groovy Smoothie. Apparently it's moving to a different location soon, somewhere in Seattle…anyway their smoothies are half off for the rest of the year until they close down!"

"Wanna come with us?" Beck asked.

"Sure," Robbie replied. He wasn't used to hanging out with people except Andre, but he figured this could be fun. Besides, Beck seemed nice, and if no one else was going, it wouldn't be too awkward.

While Beck grabbed some books from his locker, Cat skipped up to Robbie. "Hiiiii!" she sang.

"Hi, Cat."

Beck and Andre looked at Robbie expectantly, who jumped a little when he realized they were staring him down. "Oh! Guys, this is Cat. Cat, this is Andre and that's Beck."

"'Sup," said Andre.

"Hey," Beck said, "do you want to come with us to The Groovy Smoothie?"

Robbie froze.

"Yeah, we're just gonna grab a smoothie, chill a little, it'll be fun!" Andre added.

"Sure, I'd love to go! Can Jade come?"

"Jade?"

"Yeah, my friend. We went to grade school together. She's in Sikowitz's class, too."

"Oh, her. Well, Jade seems kind of…scary," said Beck as he crossed his arms. He didn't sound accusing or judgmental, but stated it as if it were a simple fact.

"I know." Cat looked down. "She doesn't have many friends. Right before 7th grade she started dating this guy, and all the girls got really jealous and hated her. Then we met and became friends, really close. She seems scary because she thinks no one will like her ever again, but at the same time….she does want friends. So can she please please please just come with us?"

The group was silent. Andre looked from Robbie to Beck. "I don't care," he said, shrugging.

Cat then turned her attention to Beck. "What do you say? Pleeeeaase?"

"Sure. Sounds good."

"Robbie?"

Robbie didn't know what to say. He was nervous about hanging out with girls, but he liked Cat so much, he decided he didn't mind. "Okay."

"Yay!" Cat cheered, jumped up and down, and gave him a hug. "I'll get Jade and meet you guys there!" She ran off.