The acrylic odor of the outdated art classroom was already beginning to tickle Peter’s sinuses, forcing him to stifle a few low coughs as he stood on the table stained with the sticky remnants of improperly cleansed watercolor from the last class, but not even this could’ve pulled him out of his dreamy state of elation.

                Biology couldn’t have gone better. He’d wondered if things would somehow feel different once he finally had the chance to speak to Lisa again for the first time after their date, feared it even, and in a way he was right. Things had gone far more smoothly than ever before, consistent stuttering on the part of both shy teens notwithstanding. Breaking the ice like they had over the weekend, it seemed, had opened up a few avenues, most delightfully for Peter being Lisa’s willingness to offer up a hand to hold him during their conversations. Taking a seat in the creamy, stock-still altar of the redhead’s tender palm made the tiny freshman feel an almost overwhelming sense of security. The fact that Lisa seemed to feel similarly about holding him was quietly phenomenal.

                Of course, perhaps even better than this was the ease of their chitchatting. It occurred to the boy that he’d opened up to Lisa about his unfortunate weekend exploits inside Stella’s sock far easier than he once would have, and better still, their relationship, or whatever it was, would soon be given an even bigger boost after his family had a chance to observe them together firsthand for their reassurance, especially where Jessie and his mother were concerned.

                The bell rang signaling the start of the period as Mr. Jameson lumbered creakily out of his office. Peter glanced across the expanse of the table, expecting Alita to appear with seconds to spare like she usually did to take her seat near him as an anti-Mandy watchdog. His dark-haired classmate, soft-spoken and charmingly helpful over the course of these introductory two weeks of high school, was capable of transforming into a protective spitfire if Peter’s finger-twirling admirer gave him a few too many greedy glances. In fact, Alita’s presence had allowed Peter to have quite a peaceful classes where he was free to create without fear of having his leg snatched up in Mandy’s grubby fingertips and utilized for some nefariously artistic purpose.

                Today, though, she didn’t appear. Slightly troubling, Peter realized, given how he’d been taking her guard duty across the table for granted, but it shouldn’t be an issue. Just so long as-

                “Heyyyy, tiny boy.”

                Peter nearly toppled onto his side as the warm, saliva-drenched words sifted out of Mandy’s lips a mere inch from his body and into his ear drums as though her entire massive tongue had wormed its way into his skull in abject defiance of all physical laws. The girl had crept into the seat right next to him with silent but deadly footsteps, no longer kept at bay across the room by Alita’s narrowed eyes and sneering grimace. That light brown hair was swept over her shoulders, out of its usual ponytail, and wavy after so much regulated constriction.

                Recovering as quickly as possible so as not to appear weak, Peter grasped his knuckles and pretended to fiddle with his thumbs as he looked as calmly as possible into the broad hazel eyes staring into his very soul from so close he was becoming lost every few seconds in her warm exhalations flavored of morning breath and waffle syrup. He gulped, gnawing the corner of his lip.

                “Hi,” he said stiffly. Peter shuffled back but sensed Mandy just adjusted too, sliding in a few more inches across the surface of the table as she leaned in to make her face his entire world. Hoping for aid without having to make a scene, the boy peered in the direction of Mr. Jameson at the front of the room, but Mandy’s shoulder was strategically blocking his view. Worse still, the world-weary educator had already started droning on with the day’s instructions, apparently having long ago learned to leave the whisperers to their own point-deductible devices rather than shushing, meaning this unwanted conversation wouldn’t be ended under the old man’s jurisdiction.

                Swallowing again, the lump in Peter’s throat took a little more effort to force down his throat.

                “Well?” the girl groaned under her breath, her brow furrowing with genuine disdain. Apparently Peter was already not keeping up with the pace of this chat to her liking.

                “Y-Yeah?”

                “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

                “Tell you… what?”

                “How your date with your girlfriend went.”

                Peter blinked, fighting back a fresh round of hacking thanks to Mandy’s hot, sugary breath, and buried his fingers into his pockets. “She’s not, uh… well, what I mean is, it went well. Thanks.”

                “She’s not what?”

                “Never mind.”

                “No. I want to know,” Mandy pressed. Her fingers drummed at the surface of the table, casually inching in closer until her index finger could poke at the rubber tip of the freshman’s miniscule shoe.

                Once again, her brashness had rendered the boy speechless, and the feeling of her thick digit prodding at his footwear wasn’t helping, especially because the finger was steadily beginning to nudge at his ankles and calves, working its way up. Action was needed soon before she traveled much higher.

                “It really… doesn’t matter, we, uh- we should probably pay attention to what’s… happening,” Peter mumbled, steadily growing in confidence and taking another step back, though as he expected, Mandy’s finger followed, this time applying pressure at his knee. He finally swatted the pale fingertip away with his own hand, harder than he intended, and to his surprise she relented.

                “She’s not your girlfriend? Is that what you’re trying to say?” the uninvited tablemate continued, ignoring the request. Her lips pursed together, shifting from one side of her mouth to the other as though she was swishing the next response around between her cheeks.

                “Uh, yeah. Sure,” Peter said. The sooner this topic was shut down, the better.

                “So why couldn’t you come watch the movie with me, then?”

                It took a moment for the freshman to decide if the question was a serious one, though as usual Mandy appeared fully convinced of every bizarre non-sequitur spat out from those lips of hers.

                “Look, I don’t, um…”

                “I thought we were friends. That what you said on our first day of school. You wanted to be friends. You asked me to be. You remember that, don’t you, little guy?”

                “Yes, I remember that,” Peter grunted, deciding to brush over her incorrect vision of the past. Then, recalling the conversation he’d had with Lisa just a period before, re-inflated his lungs with a deep sigh and puffed up his chest. “Listen, I… don’t like being called that.”

                “Called what?”

                “Little guy. I have a name,” Peter responded rigidly, regaining his feeble mojo after remembering the sensation of sitting in Lisa’s hand. “Please call me Peter.”

                Mandy’s eyes widened, the gray speckles in her irises stretching back with surprise. It was a look the boy was unaccustomed to seeing in a girl who clearly wasn’t often fazed by obstacles placed in the way of getting what she wanted.

                “Ooooh, Mr. Big Shot. Okay, then. Didn’t mean to hit a nerve. Petey,” Mandy said, quickly recovering and taking on a goofily playful tune. The smooth pad of her thumb squeezed into her middle finger, idly making rotations against the spiraled flesh as she studied her tiny challenger, before the digits sprang forth again, this time aiming for Peter’s torso. Before the boy even had a chance to flinch her fingernails were edging their way into the fabric, bunching it up and giving Peter a tug closer toward her creased palm.

                “Um, Mandy?”

                “What’s up, Petey?”

                “Can you please let go of me?” The freshman’s fingers dug uselessly at Mandy’s tightly compressed digits, feeling the uneven grooves of her nails as a result of chewing them, and had no luck in removing them. He cleared his throat, gathering up another dose of emotional strength. “I want you to let go of me.”

                “Sure thing,” she shrugged, releasing him with a flick of her fingers that knocked Peter square on his rear end. She cupped her chin into the palm of her hand, resting her elbow on the table, and gazed down at him with a renewed glint in her hazel eyes. “Just having a little fun with you. Since you’re apparently not off the market yet.”

                “Are you-” Peter gawked.

                “Maybe I am.”

                “Uh…”

                “So maybe we can do something about it, huh? If you’re too scared to go see a horror movie out in public, then we can see one at my house. Alone. On my basement TV.”

                Still trying and failing to chew over this unfolding proposal, Peter attempted to hypothesize a way in which Mandy could’ve stated any of this with even more spine-crimping creepiness, and finally concluded that, no, she absolutely could not.

                “I’m not, um, real interested in-”

                “That’s because you haven’t given it a try, Petey. Watching horror movies is good for you. It can teach you how to handle real things. I bet you must be scared of a lot of things in your life. Especially because of-”

                “Mandy, that’s nice, but I’m not-”

                “-because you’re so tiny. So much tinier than all the normal people. But I can help you get over that.”

                “I’m… not afraid,” Peter gulped hesitantly, remarking to himself how costly it was the last time he uttered those infamously foolhardy words to someone as equally unbalanced as Mandy, but somehow in this moment, he didn’t care. He clenched his fists, noting that he was rather strangely able to avoid paralysis by this standoffish teen for perhaps the very first time. Suddenly, over the low horizon of Mandy’s shoulder, he spied the narrow frame not of Alita coming to his rescue, but Calvin, tall only by direct comparison to Peter. Even standing across the table from Mandy, the theatre enthusiast appeared dwarfed by the overconfident hellion, but his face was all business.

                “Hey. Mandy. You’re not bugging Peter, are you?” the blonde fourteen-year-old said, tapping her on the shoulder with a bony fingertip that instantly snapped the girl out of her semi-power-drunken persuasion. She flashed that telltale look of pure cold steel at Calvin, but apparently realized the value in giving up her attempt before there was a repeat of the first class.

                “Nope. Not at all. We’re just talking. Cuz we’re friends. Aren’t we, Petey?”
                “Well, all the same, you don’t mind if I join you two, do you?” Calvin simpered back, pulling himself into a chair. Despite his unimposingly boyish build, the teen was evidently able to command at least a modicum of respect from Mandy, who was now on the verge of snarling, but at last wordlessly scooped her notebooks up and swept over to another table with unoccupied seats, leaving Peter and his substitute back-up alone.

                “She, uh, was bugging you, wasn’t she?” Calvin asked, scratching the back of his neck and sinking lower in his chair to help close the height differential of their eye levels.

                “A little, yeah,” Peter said, at last easing the tension in his muscles as he padded across the table toward Calvin. “Thanks for that.”

                “No problem. I saw Alita wasn’t here. I didn’t know if that was the reason Mandy hadn’t tried talking to you in here since… well…”

                “Yeah. I think it was,” Peter laughed uncomfortably. “I appreciate it.”

                “Hey, I felt kinda bad anyway after that first class when I didn’t really do anything to help. You should be able to sit in class without her breathing in your face.”

                The tiny freshman couldn’t help but let out a quiet snort. “Oh, so it’s not just me?”

                Calvin rolled his eyes, lowering his voice so that only his miniature audience could make it out and leaning his face in nearer to the tabletop, though Peter found himself able to stand still without the normal bodily mandated wince. “I don’t think she’s used a toothbrush since she lost her first tooth.”

                Peter stifled another guilty chuckle, stuffing a fist against his mouth, and struggled not to double over at the same time as his stage peer.

                “God, that’s awful, sorry,” Calvin snickered. “I’m not a jerk. I swear.”

                “I believe you,” Peter coughed, finally managing to restrict his mirth to a broad grin before notice was taken.

                “She’s just… well, you know. A little bit… like that. So I gotcha next time, especially if Alita’s not here.”

                “Uh, yeah, yeah. Thanks,” Peter said, unable to help himself from wondering. “But, I mean…”

                “Yeah?”

                “Why?”

                Calvin frowned now, obviously puzzled by the question. “Cuz… you seem cool. I don’t know. Plus we’re gonna be in the play together. If you can’t count on your people everywhere else besides the stage, it would make us kind of crappy, you know?”

                Feeling oddly empowered by the exchange, then, the boy awkwardly attempted what he’d only ever seen in movies depicting high schoolers played by twenty-five-year-olds and extended his fist. Without hesitation, Calvin put out his own tightly balled hand, nudging it against the tiny nub of Peter’s enthusiastically offered bump and not even knocking the five-inch boy off balance.

                At last rooting through his backpack for supplies once Mr. Jameson’s craggy eyelids were squinted in his direction, Peter happily set to work on this period’s project, having long forgotten Mandy’s leering presence thanks to what he sensed was his life’s first-ever bromance with a kid remarkably like himself who just happened to have a few extra inches on him.