Peter was a bundle of neuroses and optimism as he sat in his sister’s hand on the way to the gym.  Sure, things were smoothed over with Lisa, but it seemed the pair of them might well have bigger problems.

                The uncomfortable realization he and Lisa had made about Sharon’s attempt to separate them had at least concluded with the promise to never get the full story about one another from anyone other than the source.

                Still, the freshman was troubled.  They were only a week into school, and already this queen bee was trying to lay waste to friendships she didn’t approve of.  It certainly was clear that people did, indeed, “listen to her,” in the sense that doomed sailors might follow a song onto a cliff’s side.

                As nervous as it made him to potentially inspire conflict with her, Peter was tempted to try broaching the subject with Sharon in English class that afternoon.  However, at Lisa’s insistence that they needn’t involve the silver-haired vixen further than she’d already involved herself, Peter relented and promised not to say anything.

                It was just as well.  His stomach was churning enough as it was when Ms. Tritter transferred him over from Algebra class, and not just from his haunting admirer.  He’d held Lisa’s fingertip in his hand, and he’d been swelling with barely muted joy for the intervening periods.  The anxiety over Sharon was combatting this emotion handily inside him, and Peter’s awkward silence hadn’t gone unnoticed by his kindly math teacher, who’d questioned him on his state.  Not wanting to make a scene or involve Ms. Tritter more than was necessary, he passed it off as nothing to a clearly disbelieving but nonetheless reluctantly accepting curly-haired educator.  It was a complicated day, to be sure.

                English passed quietly and without incident, much to Peter’s relief.  Sharon hadn’t taken a single opportunity to scare him by putting her lips mere inches away from his back, and she seemingly hadn’t caught onto his and Lisa’s unraveling of her deception.

                Erica arrived earlier than normal, before most of the class had filed out, and as Peter climbed aboard his sibling’s hand, he caught Sharon’s lunar eyes narrowing into slits at the sight, her hands folding tightly together atop the desk, but somehow there wasn’t a need to be made nervous.  His sister had him now.

                Conversation was kept to a minimum as Erica power-walked her brother to P.E. with her backpack slung over one shoulder.  This was fine by Peter, as it gave him plenty of time to stew about the upcoming period, where he, Lisa, and the trio would all be in close enough proximity for some probable social inelegance.

                Minutes after arriving, he was changed in Ms. Watson’s office and then bussed back out to the east gym in his teacher’s workout-weathered palm.  It was as though the universe was conspiring to maximize the time for Peter to be put on the line with his peers.  The burly gym instructor had rushed along her tiny student’s outfit transition, where she ordinarily would’ve languished for several minutes by casually dropping some cheesy jokes while Peter stood vulnerably in his underwear.  Ordinarily the five-inch freshman dreaded these encounters where he was all but forced to give a personalized strip tease to his teacher, but on this particular day he would’ve done just about anything to avoid going out there and facing the music.

                Well, almost anything.

                Today began the bowling unit for the week.  Peter was dismayed to discover it was yet another activity that he couldn’t take part in, though he did have benefit of knowing how to score keep.  This was his job on the occasions Suzanne wasn’t feeling too paranoid to take all her kids out for fun.  Such an event hadn’t happened in a while, though, and he was eager to be involved some way.  Bowling didn’t particularly strike him as a contest well-suited to a physical education class, but after a few bemused groans from the group, Ms. Watson had barked out some comments about hand-eye coordination improving with the sport, and most had shut up or at least learned to keep their mouths shut.

                Peter, as usual, was perched on a folding table to view all the action from a safe distance.  He was well-behind the lines of the masking tape-demarcated lanes Ms. Watson had set up on the gym floor with pins arranged at the end.  None of the bowling balls were any heavier than ten pounds to prevent serious injury in case one of the more testosterone-fueled students tried to practice some shot-put.  All the same, it was reassuring for the freshman to know that the legs of his table couldn’t be easily slammed out from under him by a loose lime-green cannonball.

                Lisa appeared first out of the locker room and, spying her friend on the table already, made her way over with noticeably more spring in her step than she’d had that morning.  It alleviated the freshman’s nerves to see that things were, as he’d hoped, more or less back to normal.

                “Feeling a perfect three hundred today?” Peter asked her as he tilted a half-sized pencil against his chest like a battle-hardened lance, letting his smile show.

                “Is that the best score?  I don’t think I’ve tried this since I was maybe six years old,” Lisa said timidly, biting her lip and twiddling idly with her thumb.

                “Oh, you’ll pick it up fast.  It’s a ball,” Peter chuckled.

                “You’ve… I mean, not to imply, but…”

                “Of course I’ve played it!” he said seriously, earning a pair of flared and concerned emerald irises from his friend, before cracking another grin.  “Okay, maybe just not with a ball that would make me into jelly.  But my family used to go to alleys on the weekends, and when we’d get home my sisters would set up a lane on the table and I’d use a golf ball to hit packing peanuts.”

                “That’s…” Lisa said warmly.  “…that’s really cute.”

                As usual, she seemed to second-guess her word choice, and looked like she wanted to backtrack, but for once Peter wasn’t troubled by the use of the adjective.  Often he’d hear the word “cute” uttered in his regard, spoken with the tone someone might use to identify an especially rambunctious gerbil.  The way his family used it, though, and now Lisa, simply implied admiration, even adoration.  Even something more.

                Though the latter couldn’t possibly have been in the sense Lisa meant it.

                Could it?

                Peter swallowed and gave her a reassuring nod.  “Thanks.  Maybe it’s not as impressive as, you know, knocking the actual pins down, but I’m pretty darn good at it.”

                “Maybe you can show me sometime,” Lisa said, curling her thumb between her red tresses like a nervous little kid.  “After I give you that personal clarinet concert, obviously.”

                “Absolutely,” Peter said.  His fingertips tingled.

                God, was this how every person felt at moments like this: simultaneously exposed, elated, and terrified, the emotions all engaged in chemical warfare, or was it just those that were small enough to fit in someone’s hand?  In spite of himself, Peter had to guess he wasn’t a special case, because Lisa’s finger was still twirling in her hair with greater speed.

                “Make sure you don’t get off this table, shrimp,” Amy directed imperiously, her toned and tanned figure suddenly looming behind Lisa’s considerably more meager stature.  “We like you best when you’re not flat as a tiny pancake.”

                Peter’s eyes couldn’t help but be yanked up to the face of the most imposing member of the trio at the peak of her nearly six-foot frame.

                “Not under any bowling balls,” Kimmy said, a goofy smile on her lips as her freckled dimples deepened increasingly.  She appeared next to the towering Amy, shorter and a little plumper than her fellow redhead Lisa, almost impish with her pinchable cheeks.

                The doll-sized freshman willed himself not to be nervous.  His lips were dry.

                This was silly to be intimidated.  What could they possibly do, now that everything had been cleared up with Lisa?  They were untouchable.

                “You two don’t have to be so gross, he already knows what’ll happen if he goes on the floor,” Sharon said, rolling her silvery eyes as she appeared last from behind her two cronies.  “Don’t you, shortstuff?”

                “Ha.  Yeah, I’ll watch it,” Peter said as casually as possible, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his shorts.  “I’m playing it safe.”

                “Well, there’s a surprise,” Sharon drawled under her breath, her eyes flashing to Lisa, who still hadn’t turned to face her triple threat of opponents yet.               

                “How’s the face, sweetie?” Amy asked of her quieter classmate, clasping her enormous hand to Lisa’s shoulder.  Her tone was sugary, almost like an aunt checking up on a shy niece, and given the difference in their heights, this wasn’t difficult to imagine.  Lisa flinched at the familiar contact as Amy’s tanned fingers clenched so close to the nape of her neck, and Peter’s esophagus knotted up.

                “It’s… okay.  Thanks,” Lisa said, swallowing hard enough that Peter could see the lump forming in her throat.

                “Maybe next time just try ducking, you know?” Amy continued.  She patted Lisa on the shoulder hard enough that it almost knocked the latter off balance, then let her arm fall back to her side again.

                “All right, let’s line up, pick your lanes.  Don’t care which, just so long as we only have four to a lane so you’re not waiting up,” Ms. Watson bellowed over the expanse of the gym as she re-entered the space with clipboard in hand.  Eyeing the five-inch freshman’s table, she raised an eyebrow.  “Peter, you’ve got this lane’s scores?”

                “Uh-huh,” he affirmed with a gulp as Sharon, Amy, Kimmy, and Lisa filed next to the lane directly aligned with Peter’s table.

                “Let’s get the ball rolling, then,” the gym teacher said dryly.  “Try to have fun and don’t make fun of your neighbors if they keep getting gutterballs.  And if I see any balls flying up in the air and then slamming down into my gymnasium floor, the people responsible will be spending their afternoon with me in detention.  Clear?”

                “Clear,” the class mumbled in high-volume unison.  Drawing the brightly colored balls from the cage on wheels Watson had rolled out of the closet for use, they plucked small scorecards from their pockets and took turns winding up to aim for the pins pressed to the nearest brick walls.

                Peter, meanwhile, dutifully scooped up his pencil, draping it over his shoulder like a bayonet, and sighed as he watched the trio glancing over their shoulders at Lisa, who almost seemed to shrink herself at their gaze.

                At least it wasn’t rugby they were playing today.