“Welcome to Unit 1.  Later this week we’ll have our first lab, which you can read about in the back of the syllabus.  Today, though, we start with plant cells, so I need everyone to open up their texts to page eighteen, please,” the freshmen biology teacher Mrs. Baker informed the class curtly, her beady eyes darting over the desks to ensure no one had their cell phones out before returning to the folder in her hands.  “I seem to have grabbed the notes for another class by mistake, though, so I’ll back in a couple minutes.  Go ahead and take a look at that first page.”

                A hum of chatter broke out as the kids began unzipping their backpacks and fishing out their notebooks and texts, while Mrs. Baker exited the room, leaving them to talk amongst themselves.

                Peter already had his supplies out, and his gaze shifted to his left up at Lisa.  He could tell she hadn’t scooted her chair to the furthest corner of her desk away from him like the previous day.  After a moment of waiting, her head tilted down toward him as well.

                “Hey,” she said awkwardly, folding her hands in her lap.

                “Hey,” he answered while swallowing with sudden inexplicable anxiety.  “It’s a bummer the groups didn’t work out in last period.”

                “Yeah, totally,” she agreed with a nod, her tone still a little somber.  She unclasped her right hand and brushed her fingers past her ear to comb over her radiant red tresses.

                “It’ll be cool.  You guys will make something awesome,” Peter insisted.

                “Uh-huh,” Lisa said disbelievingly, rolling her eyes.  “I went to middle school with a couple of them and we had a group project to do too.  I think they both called in sick the day we had to present it.”

                “Oh,” Peter answered quietly.

                “Hey, listen, I wanted to ask something else,” Lisa said suddenly, frowning and resting her arm on the back of her chair.  “Maybe it’s weird to ask, but Amy… you know, picked you up again in class and, um…”

                “What?”

                “I mean, doesn’t it… you know, bother you when that happens?  When people just do that?”

                “I guess it does, yeah,” Peter admitted with a shrug.  “I’m kind of used to it by now.”

                “Does it happen a lot?”

                “Not really,” he said.  “It’s happened more in the last couple days than usual, though.  Mostly it happened a long time ago when we’d go to family reunions and my little cousins wanted to play.  People still sometimes do it if they haven’t seen me before, like a few of my little sister’s friends.”

                “That sounds like it would get old pretty fast,” Lisa said.  “I don’t get why people are like that.”

                “I don’t really care, honestly,” Peter added, covering up the truth just a little.  “It’s the best way to get around for me until the world collectively agrees to build tiny ladders onto things.”

                “I guess,” she snickered sheepishly.  “So you don’t mind when people have to carry you?”

                “Not at all,” he said.  “I appreciate the lift.  It’s the suddenly picking me up part I’m not crazy about.”

                “I see,” she said, biting her lip nervously.  “Why didn’t you tell Amy to back off then?”

                “I didn’t think she meant badly by it,” Peter said, not really knowing the answer himself.  “I don’t really want to tell people to back off, anyway.  It seems like a bad move to make for someone who’s never been to real school and hardly knows anybody.”

                “Maybe,” Lisa said uncertainly, and her emerald eyes seemed to shimmer.  “If you change your mind about that, though, I’ve, uh… I’ve got your back, you know?”

                “Thanks, Lisa,” Peter responded firmly, and he could see the slightest pink hue flush into her cheeks at the mention of her name.  She must’ve felt it happening, too, because almost immediately she was propping her elbow on the desk and palming the side of her face to cover it.

                “No problem.  I’m sorry, I know it’s not any of my business, I just hate to see… um, I mean, it just doesn’t seem right.  People being able to just do whatever they want to you,” Lisa continued as the emotion began to rise in her voice with these final words before she stopped herself, laying her palm flat on the desk.  “Sorry.  I’m done.”

                “I appreciate it.  Really,” Peter reassured, and as he kept staring up into the face of this towering girl who stood at a below average height for her age, admiring her green eyes and pretty freckled face wreathed by her fiery mane, he realized something strange in himself.

                As sociable as Peter was, he had been conditioned by the risks of being around new people who didn’t know how much shouting hurt his ears or how scared it made him to be picked up by the back of his shirt.  His knees would quiver and his hands would shake.  The five-inch fifteen-year-old had had enough life experience to keep these nervous tics in check, but he always felt them bubbling up under the surface, especially when people like Amy scooped him up repeatedly without consent.  Around most of the people he had met in the last day, this trend had continued on as it had for most of his life, no different than he’d been expecting.

                But Lisa was different.  In her presence, sitting close enough that these same dangers were potential threats, Peter was calm now.  His heart rate was peacefully low.  His limbs were free of trembling.  His mind was an ocean.  He felt just as comfortable as he did sitting at home with his mother and sisters, the three people he trusted more than anyone else.

                He couldn’t help but feel warm as he and Lisa continued smiling timidly at one another.  He knew this feeling wasn’t something he could adequately express to someone who hadn’t hazardously lived their whole life at the size of an action figure, nor could he say it without feeling incredibly embarrassed, but it was there nonetheless, and he felt a sense of gratitude to this girl he hardly knew welling inside of him.

                He wanted so badly to return that feeling of simple human trust that he cherished so deeply.

                Then Peter remembered the day before, absentmindedly touching his hand to Lisa’s fingertip and her apprehensive admission that she had been curious about the feeling of someone so small touching her skin.  In her eyes she had that same glow of wonderment he witnessed almost every other day of his life in passerby.  The only difference was that most people looked at him like he was a winged piglet put in a carnival freak show, while Lisa’s gaze simply held the decent interpersonal respect he saw those same people exchange with others just because they happened to be the same height.  At that moment, he realized how he could express his friendship.

                “Lisa?” Peter asked suddenly, breaking their silence that was dulled only by the quiet roar of the rest of the class conversations going on around them.  “Would you pick me up?”

                The girl’s pupils dilated and she blinked a few times, wrinkling her nose cutely with confusion.  “What?”

                “You heard me.  I was just wondering if you wanted to try?”

                “I… I mean, I… w-why?” Lisa stammered, her mouth hanging open slightly.  Peter could hear in her tone that, yes, she very much wanted to try it, but was too shocked at the odd abruptness of his question.

                “Well, for one thing…” Peter began, “…if there’s a fire and we have to evacuate the building, I’m kind of toast if I have to run out on my own.”

                “Oh,” Lisa sighed, recomposing and nodding again.  “That’s true.”

                “I could use a helping hand if disaster strikes.  How about it?”

                “Um, all right,” Lisa said, swallowing hard and lifting her hand off the desk, her fingers quivering.  “You’re… you’re sure about this?”

                “It’s not a big deal.  You can just lift me off the desk.  My family does it all the time without even thinking about it.”

                “What if I drop you?” Lisa muttered worriedly, concern flooding her expression as she put her waiting hand flat back on the table.  “I… I mean, I… I wouldn’t, obviously.  I’d be super, super careful with you, Peter, it’s just…”

                “C’mon, I’ve got all the faith in the world.  I’m not a land mine about to go off,” Peter said earnestly, stepping closer to the edge of the desk and holding his arms out wide.  “I trust you.”

                Lisa’s cheeks flushed even rosier than before at this last statement.  She batted her eyelashes anxiously a few times and then nodded, silently bringing her hand to the edge of the desk, her pale palm upturned for Peter to climb in.

                The tiny freshman embarked more slowly than he would into the hands of his sisters or his mother, not out of a lack of confidence, but because he wanted Lisa to at least get a feel for his nearly unnoticeable weight before lifting up, just to boost her faith in herself.

                He could feel her fingers quiver beneath him at the novelty of it as he took a seat, and laid his hand on her thumb to steady himself.  Though he felt sure of Lisa’s abilities, he couldn’t help feeling bashful.  Her thumb was soft and being able to lay his hand on her skin again brought him comfort.

                “Going up,” she whispered with an entranced half-smile, and raised him a foot off the end of the desk with such delicacy and care that Peter hardly noticed the ascent, save for the cool breeze brushing past his cheeks.

                “You’re pretty good at this,” Peter remarked with surprise.  “At holding still, I mean.”

                “Am I?  I just didn’t want to make you sea sick,” Lisa said.  “Or air sick, I guess.”

                “You really are.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure my sisters can’t even hold me this straight, and they’ve been doing it for years.”

                “Thanks,” she answered simply, tilting her head away from him with embarrassment and clearly trying to hide some muted pride.  “It’s good to know there’s something I can actually do, after I totally flopped at those pull-ups yesterday.”

                “Hey, no sweat,” Peter said, crossing his legs and settling in to his friend’s tenderly cupped palm.  “I bet most people couldn’t get one either.”

                She shrugged, though her hand remained rock-steady.  “Sharon and Amy did.”

                “So what?  They probably practice ‘em on the weekends so they can be ready to show them off in class,” Peter chuckled.

                “They don’t like me, do they?” Lisa asked after a pause, grimacing.

                “They… well, they hardly know you,” he answered quickly, uncomfortable with her statement, as he’d been guessing the same thing.

                “They didn’t look happy that we were going to be in the same project group,” Lisa continued.  “Sharon was, um… well…”

                Peter nodded, even without needing to have an adjective applied to the blonde-haired siren that Lisa had mentioned.  “I think they’re just still getting over being weirded out at sitting near someone like me.  That’s all,” he insisted with a sigh.

                “Amy, too.  She was mad about the whole thing and she kept saying “you and I” about us, like we’re… we’re…” Lisa said, giggling good-naturedly at this last memory, before silencing herself and coughing softly.

                “Like we’re an item?” Peter answered back with the same uncertain snicker, his heart pounding a little faster in his chest now.

                “Yeah.  It’s just silly, I…” Lisa said with another false laugh, then bit her lip, retracing over obviously regretted words.  “I mean… I… she’s being silly.  About stuff.  Um…”

                The pair froze again, with Peter now hoisted to about chin level with Lisa.  Just as he found himself getting lost in the sparkling abyss of her green eyes at the closest he’d seen them yet, their gaze broke off uncomfortably, and Lisa’s hand began lowering back toward the desk instinctively.  Neither knew what to say next.

                “Sorry for the wait!” Mrs. Baker called as she re-entered the classroom with a controlled slam of the door to get everyone’s attention again.  “Got my notes, then a couple of my colleagues needed help getting the printer unjammed, then… well, never mind, not important.  I’m sure you’re all familiar enough with these first pages by now to teach the material to me instead of me to you.”

                Peter stepped lithely off the ends of Lisa’s slim, cushy fingers and hopped quickly back to his papers before his tactile encounter with his lab partner could be seen and misconstrued.  He glanced stealthily up at Lisa’s face as her hands rushed back to the text to turn the correct pages, but she was focused on the now-busily lecturing Mrs. Baker, almost obsessively so.  She was clearly avoiding looking directly at him, just as much as he was.

                His heart fluttering wildly in his chest, Peter began to realize that maybe it wasn’t just trust he was feeling around this girl.