Peter stood uncomfortably, his arms crossed behind him, back on the shaggy wooden plank that made up the front bleacher seat, as he tried to focus on the instructions given by Ms. Watson about the first day’s work while ignoring the multitude of eyes from his gigantic classmates falling upon him with interest.

                “..and that will finish up the preliminary fitness test once we begin th- EYES UP HERE! -is set as a class.  Anyway, I hope you were all paying better attention to that than it looked like you were.  Eyes front, guys, you’re not in middle school anymore.  That crap doesn’t fly here,” the gym teacher barked monotonously, obviously having gone over these steps countless times before with new classes.  A few students that had been gazing in wonderment at the five-inch-tall anomaly of a classmate were snapped back to reality by Ms. Watson’s outburst, but Peter could feel their eyes shifting back to him soon after.

                He swallowed.  Ignore them.  Ignore them.  Once they see there’s nothing here to stare at, they’ll stop staring.

                “All right, there’s a lot of you, so in order to keep some kind of order around here, I need you all to get into groups of at least two and a max of five.  Count ‘em, five.  Not six because you have to squeeze your best buddy in.  FIVE.  Let’s get a move on,” Ms. Watson drawled loudly onward.

                Peter gulped.  How was this possibly going to work.  Sure, people were curious about him, but it seemed for most of the class at least to be in the way you’d be curious about a poisonous snake.  Awestruck, perhaps even wondering if it’s really right there or if your eyes are lying, but you’re afraid if you get to close the simple exterior will betray its true nature of malevolence.  As he stared around, he could tell that the eyes that had fallen upon him previously in a studious manner were all diligently avoiding him, clearly not wanting to deal with that burden in these tests.  His heart began to sink.

                Peter’s dread, however, suddenly turned to a warm wave of relief as he looked into the clump of students before him hastily finding their friends and jumping into groups, and saw the face of Lisa from his biology class that morning, her fiery red hair tied back into a silky ponytail.

                Almost immediately, she caught his eyes as well, smiled nervously, seemingly wanting to start walking toward him, but hesitant, as if she might be rejected.  Peter smiled back and waved his hands wildly in greeting, a sign which seemed to relax her as she gingerly made her way through the bustling crowd of students toward Peter.

                The short, skinny teen stopped just short of the bleacher and crouched down on her haunches, very nearly at eye level with Peter but still having about half a foot of height on him, brushing a few bright ginger locks off her pale forehead.  Her pretty emerald eyes sparkled in that same way they had in the morning, and for a moment, Peter felt the odd sense of joy you get when seeing a long-lost friend after years have gone by.  He grinned back at her.

                “Hi, Peter,” Lisa whispered simply and softly, leaning in closer, but doing so carefully, as if afraid a sudden move would spook her little classmate.

                “Good to see you again.  I’m glad I recognized a face,” Peter responded calmly, feeling at peace once again with the soft-spoken, trustworthy redhead nearby.

                “Same.  I… I haven’t really met anyone else today… or, I mean, haven’t met anyone I think I’d want to be partners with.”

                “Neither have I,” Peter shrugged.

                “You okay with being partners, then?” Lisa whispered hopefully.  Even with the raucous chatter echoing through the stone and rubber canyon of the gym, Lisa’s gentle voice managed to cut through it, significant but not forceful.  To Peter’s small ears, it was like hearing a song.

                “Of course,” the boy smiled.  “Maybe I’ll get through this day in one piece, hmm?”

                “Well, well, well…” called out a familiar voice from a few feet away, a note of harsh imperiousness inherent despite the snarky feminine tone.  “Look who it is again.”

                Peter frowned slightly to himself and turned to watch the triad of young women he had met in his very first class, reunited once again, marching toward him practically as a unit.  The dimpled, freckled Kimmy on the right, picking idly at one of her braces on her front teeth.  The tall and bronzed Amy running long, slender fingers vigorously through her luscious chocolate hair on the left.  The center was occupied by the owner of the voice: Sharon, her riveting blue eyes already locked obsessively on Peter, her tantalizing silvery blonde streaks bouncing against her narrow shoulders.  A siren who had been mistaken for a fifteen-year-old freshman and placed into a gym outfit that was woefully underprepared to contain the personality inside.

                Peter swallowed hard again in his throat, although once again he wasn’t sure why exactly it was as he stared up at the trio of gleeful, glistening smiles.

                “Hiiiiiii, Peter!” Kimmy peeped excitedly, waving her hand over and over as fast as she could.

                “Relax, Kimmy, we don’t want to freak him out again.  Do we, shortstuff?” Sharon hissed quickly to Kimmy and winking cutely at Peter.

                “Look, it wasn’t my fault!” Amy gasped defensively.  “I didn’t know he didn’t like to be picked up.  And… and I was gentle!  Wasn’t I, little guy?”

                “Uh… yeah, yeah, you were,” Peter interjected quickly, although his voice obviously didn’t register terribly clearly among the girls, who now were standing directly over Peter and the crouching Lisa, who remained motionless as well next to her tiny friend.

                “Don’t try to get out of it, Amy!  Can’t you just apologize for once in your life?” Kimmy groaned with annoyance.  “He didn’t like it!  And he’s nice!  I want him to be our friend!”

                “Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, we went over all that stuff this morning, I’m done with it,” Amy responded, waving a disinterested hand at her considerably shorter and less physically developed friend, sliding her fingers back around her athletically curvy hips with attitude.

                “So, shortstuff.  Who’s your friend here?” Sharon asked, her voice steady, although Peter thought he could sense the slightest twinge of venom in her deceptively lyrical words as she glanced judgmentally at Lisa, who quickly leapt to her feet again.

                “This is Lisa.  Lisa Carol.  We’re in the same bio class.  Lisa, this is Sharon, Amy, and Kimmy, and…” Peter coughed quietly.

                “Hi,” Lisa said, smiling hesitantly and waving gently.

                “Okay, cool, awesome,” Sharon butted back in, for once not even staring at Peter as her eyes worked up and down the body of Lisa, as if she were a computer scanning for weaknesses.  “So we’re a couple short, and you two look like you need someone to adopt you.”

                “Yeah… yeah, that’d be… fine,” Peter said slowly, feeling a curious wave of doubt once again, but he put it aside.  He knew not every friendship here he formed was going to go smoothly at first, so he needed to just learn to live with this.  With any luck, he’d have some friends by the time this year was over.

                “Sweetness!” Sharon piped with a huge smile and enough artificial sugar in her voice to give everyone in earshot diabetes.

                “All right, everyone, you know what we talked about earlier… or, at least, I HOPE you do!” Ms. Watson called loudly out to everyone from the center of the gym, all of whom by now had bunched into their individual groups.  “Take the sheet and pencils I passed out, fill in the numbers for everyone in your group.  I’ll help keep time, but I need you all to stay on task, we have to get this done before we play a single round of kickball next week.  Ready?”

                “Who wants to go first?” Sharon smarmed.

                “Oh, I totally got this,” Amy chuckled piously, catching Peter’s glance again and grinning proudly down at him.  “You cool with that, little dude?”

                “Yeah, that’s fine with me,” Peter shrugged, trying to smile good-naturedly.

                “All right, let’s start the pull-up round!” Ms. Watson barked.  “Approach one of the bars positioned around the room, you may have to take turns, but there’s enough for every group to have at least one, and let’s get going.  Someone take notes and keep track of the numbers, I don’t want to have to do this all again with you!”

                “I’ll count them for you, Amy!” Kimmy chimed eagerly.

                “What?  Noooo, I want our new friend to do it,” Amy grinned happily while turning away from the dejected expression of the short, strawberry blonde freshman.  She stepped forward, twiddling a freshly sharpened pencil between her thumb and forefinger, then leaned over and offered it in Peter’s direction.

                Flinching a little, Peter was reminded of his odd encounter with Sharon in English, and stared at the large, tan fist before him gripping the massive lead utensil.

                “Don’t be a jerk to him, Amy, you need to make it him-sized,” Sharon offered, helpfully crossing her arms and fighting back a satisfied smile.

                “I was gonna, I just didn’t want to take it away from him if he thought he could handle the whole thing…” Amy snapped back, sliding her fingers around the pencil, ready to snap it.  “Watch this, little guy,” she winked.

                Peter couldn’t help but stare in awe as the girl’s strong, firm fingers fastened around the thin, woody structure of the pencil and began bending slowly.  He could hear the softest sound of tearing material, straining against the weight of her soft flesh and muscle beneath snapping the spear-like object like the twig that it was.  Her tanned knuckles slowly were drained of some color as more splinters from within the pencil were shattered until the whole thing seemed to explode with tiny, soft shards of the bright yellow painted coating and dry wood chips.

                Hesitantly, Peter looked up at the magnificent smirk of Amy before she set the pencil halves down, and turned to walk toward the metal pull-up bar screwed to the wall a few feet from the edge of the bleachers, her fingers running quickly back through her hair and tie it up into a messy ponytail with a scrunchie she had wrapped around her thin wrist.

                “Ready… GO!” Ms. Watson called out.

                Without wasting another second, Amy leapt up toward the bar, wrapped her palms around it, and began heaving herself up.  Once.  Twice.  Again and again, with perfect form, her chin passing just over the top of the bar before she allowed herself to lower back down again, her legs remaining perpendicular with the ground, just as the gym instructor had showed them earlier on.  Finally, with a tiny, strained grunt, she let go, landing lithely back on the ground, huffing and puffing quietly a few times to catch her breath.

                “Well?” she giggled, her breathing slowly returning to normal, sauntering back over toward her chosen scribe.

                “Wow…” Peter said cautiously, raising his eyebrows, too impressed to manage much else.  “Um, you got… sixteen.”  Gulping, he hugged the half-pencil to his person and awkwardly began filling in the graphite inscriptions on the sheet, recording the rather impressive achievement of Amy.  The numbers were slightly crooked, but he didn’t think there would be complaint.  Somehow, he had a feeling Amy had already gotten what she wanted just by having him pick up the pencil in the first place.

                “Yeah!” Amy laughed, punching the air in victory and giving a high-five to Kimmy, who was quietly waiting with her hand extended.

                “Those arms of yours, Amy… I don’t know how you manage to get yourself to keep them like that.  Nice and strong,” Sharon encouraged with pearly whites showing brightly, tightening her fists and clenching her very small but nonetheless visible biceps in an act of subtle mocking.

                Amy stopped celebrating for a moment and her smile disappeared, obviously detecting the insinuations in Sharon’s voice.  There was an awkward silence as the pair locked eyes, both with hands on their hips, their lips pursed, a tiny smile on Sharon’s mouth.

                “I think…” Amy continued slowly through gritted teeth, ceaselessly staring into her friend’s coldly ocean blue irises with an unblinking zeal.  “…that Lisa should go next.”

                “Abso-lutely,” Sharon drawled, finally breaking her optical gridlock with her friend as all three girls instantly looked to Lisa with eager grins.  “Sound good to you, girl?  We don’t want to be rude and go first everytime.”

                “I… I… well…” Lisa stuttered, frowning and taken aback at the suddenness of the moment.

                “What, nervous about the lil’ ol bar?  It’s not so bad.  You just saw Amy do it,” Sharon mused, giving a little half-smile, her subtle efforts of momentary, emotional derailment now focused squarely on the unfortunate Lisa.  “I bet you could do just that many, or… or maybe almost as many, but that’s okay.  Nobody’s good at everything.”

                “I… sure, I… okay, okay,” Lisa stammered, blinking uncertainly and looking back down at Peter, who gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up and an assuring smile.  This seemed to perk up the anxious young girl, who was only about as tall as Kimmy, but was even thinner and lacking in the slightly chubby, tomboyish build of the latter.  Uncertainly, she approached the bar and climbed up onto the stone step that had been placed for people not quite tall enough to jump up and grab the bar.  Taking a deep breath, she took one last look at the group.

                The intimidating and beautiful trio of Sharon, Amy, and Kimmy all had their arms crossed, the weight shifted to one leg, a single eyebrow raised to compliment a seemingly positive smile that belied an obvious hope for failure.

                Peter tried to focus on grinning at his friend with encouragement, but couldn’t help but be troubled by the sight of the three young women towering like gorgeous, effeminate monoliths beside him, all frozen in the same position of power and dominance to the nervous redhead, who carefully extended her hands up to the bar and grasped the cold metal against her palms.  It was like the three operated under a sacred, feminine hive mind, and Peter had no doubt as to who was in utter control of that particular hive mind.

                Lisa let her feet slide from the step as she supported her weight on the bar and began pulling herself up.  Already, Peter could see her struggling.  Despite her lightweight and narrow shoulders, her arms were thin and lacked any definition, even as she strained to pull herself up.  Peter watched hopefully, quietly praying that she’d get one and show up her silent detractors.

                Lisa breathed heavily, grunting, as the top of her head passed the bar and her chin neared, but then she stopped, her frail biceps giving out as her arms trembled violently, and she let go, rubbing her pale palms together, her fingers sore and slightly numbed.  She hung her head as she approached the group again in silent shame.

                “Awww… it’s okay, Lisa,” Sharon cooed in a sugary, comforting voice.  “Like I said… nobody’s good at everything.  Maybe you’re just not quite the type for this sort of thing.  The physical stuff, I mean.”

                “Yeah… I guess not,” Lisa chuckled uncomfortably, unsuccessfully trying to hide her sadness, not so much at her failure to deliver, but at the overpowering feeling of being shown up by the other girls.

                “Although I’d be careful with her, Peter,” Sharon warned, only half-joking, her terrifying, mythical gaze once again locking to the tiny lad.  “I wouldn’t trust her to carry you around anywhere.  Might drop you right on your head, and… conk… there goes math and your ability to breathe without a tube.”

                “It’s okay, Lisa, it was a good shot.  You were almost there,” Peter offered quickly and quietly, unsure of exactly what to say to cheer her up as he attempted to ignore Sharon’s snide remarks.  “It’s just the first test.”

                “I know,” Lisa sighed, crouching down again to be nearer to Peter’s face.  “Thanks.”

                “Hey, Peter!” Kimmy quipped, clambering past her friends.  “How are YOU gonna do that, huh?  I bet your little hands can’t fit around the bar!”

                “Oh, don’t worry about that, shortstuff,” Sharon offered throatily, her eyes shimmering as she raised a hand closer to chest level and extending a pointer finger from a tight fist, holding it perfectly straight in simulation of the metal bar.  “You can just pull-up on me,” she cooed with more transparently angelic sweetness than Peter assumed he could stand for the time being.