Ally effortlessly finished the last quadratic equation. She closed her book, put her pen down and stretched — she had been here for the last hour, getting a head start on her senior math. Some might call it being "nerdy" or "swotty" or whatever it is they're calling it these days, but if that was true, how come she had good grades and they didn't? Answer that, Marino High School.

She cracked her fingers and glanced at the clock. Did she have time to start up on Biology?

A nose downstairs made Ally jump, though she calmed down when she realized it was just the front door opening. It had been so quiet these past few days she hadn't even—

Wait.

It was supposed to be quiet. Her dad had gone to some convention at Some-Place-Or-Other. She figured he would've called if he was coming home early.

So then who was downstairs, making themselves comfortable in her home?

She decided to embrace the possibility that someone had just snuck into her house. And since normal, good people knocked, that certain someone was a strange, bad person. And strange, bad people did not sneak into people's houses to do normal, good people stuff.

This was not good.

First things first, said the rational part of Ally's mind. You need to call 911. She decided to listen to that part, since the crazed, frantic part of her mind was screaming "AAAAAAHHHHH!" and insisting she jump out the window and keep running.

Where was her cell phone? She sifted through the immaculately neat yet somehow messy sea of books and papers on her desk before identifying the phone and pressing the "on" button.

It was dead.

Okay, the house had a landline right? She could use that. But the only working one was downstairs in the living room where her burglar was at.

By this time, she started listening to the crazed part of her mind, because the rational part wasn't getting her anywhere. But now the crazed part was starting to make sense, telling her it was not safe to be in here, that wasn't her room the perfect place to be kidnapped or killed, that she had to get out, now. But she couldn't get out there unarmed; after all, she couldn't exactly say she could take on a burglar who was probably twice her size. No, she needed a weapon.

She looked around her room. Not pink, mostly with pinks and purples. Wasn't quite small, but wasn't really big either. Did she have any lethal weapons she could use for self-defense if the occasion called for it?

Were pillows considered lethal?

Okay, so maybe she had no weapons, but maybe she could use a substitute?

She spotted a lamp on her bedside table and nodded in approval. That would do.

She stood up carefully; trying not to make a sound to alert that human life was present here. Tiptoeing to her bedside, keeping her footsteps few and far between, she reached her destination and carefully, oh-so-carefully removed the plug from its socket and held the lamp with both hands above her shoulder, poised to bring it down on attack.

She was ready.

She still tried to keep all sound to a minimum, though — she didn't want to alert her attacker of her presence just yet, then she would have the element of surprise on her side.

That's right. No one, no one, snuck into Ally Dawson's home.

She turned the knob on her knob — it didn't squeak once — and tiptoed into the hallway, just enough to see over the railing to get an idea of her opponent.

Her burglar was still looking around; examining the place, with what she imagined would be a greedy look on his face if his hood wasn't masking his features.

Ally's mind shorted.

She forgot to be quiet. She forgot the element of surprise. She forgot the element of surprise. She forgot the plan. All that was running through her mind was oh my gosh there's actually a burglar in my house oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh OH MY GOSH

Reflexes kicked in.

"STOP, YOU FIEND!" yelled Ally. She threw the lamp as hard as she could, through the air, right at burglar's head. The burglar turned at the sudden shout, right in time to see an electrical appliance being thrown at him. He shrieked — much too high for a burglar, Ally noted, if he lived through this he would have to work on that — and ducked. Ally watched in dismay as her beloved crashed into the wall behind him and shattered into a million pieces.

"Aww," she pouted. "My lamp."

The burglar put down his hood and stared at her in disbelief/fear. "What the heck?!"

She started to speak when she realized her "burglar" had blonde hair and brown eyes.

Oh.

A handful of emotions washed over her.

At first, she was relieved that it wasn't a burglar. Then she was annoyed — what person just strolled in your house? Hasn't he heard of a bell? Then, she realized she had basically thrown a lamp at his head and went red from embarrassment. Then she went even redder from more embarrassment because her hair was being rebellious and Austin was starting to eye it with an amused look on his face.

"Oh," she laughed nervously, in a fruitless attempt to smooth down her disaster hair. Was she really going to fight with that? "Hey, Austin. What's up?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Uh, good. Why did you throw a lamp at my head?"

She removed her hands from her hair — Austin had seen her in worse — and raised them in defense. "I thought you were a burglar! It's not like you knocked or anything!" She narrowed her eyes at him. "How did you get in anyway?"

He shrugged. "Your door was unlocked."

She sighed, running her hand down her face. "Alright, next time you come to my house, knock, okay?"

She watched endearingly as a grin spread across Austin's face. "Okay."

"So about the lamp . . . ?"

He shrugged again, walking to the living room, his shoes making weird squeak squeak sounds. "We'll say it was a burglar."

Ally couldn't help but grin at that.

Normal, good people knocked. Strange, bad people robbed. But special people — people, like Austin — just walked right in with a grin on their face.

So! 1,071 words! That's cool, I guess.

I'm gonna keep this short, so if you have any ideas you want to offer for future chapters, do not hesitate to offer them. Do not.

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