“And… I think that’s the last one!” announced Lisa, still keeping her voice soft enough to keep Peter’s eardrums from popping, as she closed the biology book with a snap.  “Hydrogen peroxide, right?”

                “Yeah, looks like it,” replied Peter, scratching at his chin in thought as he observed the clear liquid in the tube.

                “I don’t know what else it could be, anyway,” sighed Lisa, grasping at the cap and unscrewing it, sniffing lightly at the air.  “I mean, that smell packs a real-”

                “I know!” coughed Peter loudly, covering his nose and backing away.

                “Oh my God!” gasped Lisa softly, instantly snapping the cap back on, her jaw dropping.  She reached out a hand, as if she wanted to comfort Peter, who had entered into a hacking frenzy, by giving him a light touch on the shoulder, but suddenly remembered how difficult it would be to keep it from being awkward.  “I’m sorry!  I just… I wasn’t thinking, I…”

                “It’s… it’s okay, just maybe a warning next time,” laughed Peter as he wiped his watering eyes.

                “Everything okay over here, you two?” asked Mrs. Baker sternly as she strolled by the table.  “Mr. Clark?  You keeping it together there?”

                “Yep.  Sure am, Mrs. Baker,” he said with the same grin, giving an enthusiastic thumbs up at her as she nodded and walked to the next table.

                “Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Lisa breathlessly, placing her hands over her mouth.  “Please?  Seriously, tell me you’re okay.”

                “Nope.  I’m… I’m dying…” moaned Peter dramatically, collapsing to the tabletop on purpose and clutching his hand over his forehead in show.

                “What?” squealed Lisa with fear, barely making a sound, clenching her fingers into a fist and pressing hard against her lips.

                “Kidding!  Kidding!  Sorry,” said Peter sheepishly, leaping up to his feet.  Reminding himself that Lisa was entirely unaccustomed to dealing with boys that happened to be less than half a foot tall, he decided that joking sarcasm, however evident to him, was probably best to save until after she wasn’t so anxious around him.

                “Don’t DO that to me!” whined Lisa with a soft, slightly irritated smile.  “You’re making me nervous already…”

                “Sorry.  I don’t mean to,” said Peter with another smile, taking a few steps closer to Lisa’s hand, which was resting calmly on the desk next to the closed biology book.  “This is just… how I try to fit in.  I don’t know, I guess I’m not too good at it yet.”

                “Believe me, I’m not either,” said Lisa with a quiet snort.  “You’re the first new person I’ve talked to at this school.”

                “Really?” asked Peter, sounding a little more eager than he would have preferred to let on, as his cheeks flushed a little.

                “And… that’s kind of saying something, because I… don’t really talk to people all that much.”

                “Sounds like we’ve got something in common,” said Peter, taking another few steps, and stopping right next to Lisa’s calmly resting pinky finger.

                “Thanks for making me feel better about talking to you.  When I saw you in class this morning, I thought you just looked so… so…”

                At this, Peter felt a little déjà vu coming on to the treatment he had received in the morning from Sharon and her cronies.

                “Out of place?” chuckled Peter uneasily.

                “No!” gasped Lisa.  “No, no, not at all.  Actually, I thought it was… pretty cool of you.  You said you’ve been homeschooled for your whole life, right?”

                “Yeah.”

                “I mean, to come to a school like this?  When you’ve never been to one before?  I don’t think I could have done it.”

                “Hey, who knows?  Maybe you would have surprised yourself,” winked Peter, giving her pinky finger a gentle pat with his hand to show his support.

                At the touch, Lisa’s whole hand flinched, and her eyes darted down to Peter, who jolted back immediately upon feeling the vibrations in her soft and previously unmoving flesh.

                “I’m sorry!” exclaimed Peter.  “Really, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to…”

                “No…” breathed Lisa.  “I’m just… on edge, I don’t know.  Please don’t think I did that because…”

                “I surprised you.”

                “No, I… I saw you…” continued the young redhead, breathing more steadily.  “I guess it was just…”

                “What?”

                “Oh, nothing, really.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you think you’d surprised me.”

                “Hey, c’mon, it’s fine, really.”

                “You’re gonna think I’m a creeper…”

                “You’re not a creeper.  Believe me.  I’ve met creepers.  You’re not one of them,” said Peter with a playful roll of his eyes.

                Lisa swallowed.  “I guess… just, the feeling of your hand.  I don’t know, I… had wondered what it would feel like, to have someone… like you touch me,” she said uneasily, sidestepping the awkward phrasings that might easily have been substituted in.  “It was just different for me.  And… God, I am starting to sound like a creeper...”

                “I… think I get it,” said Peter as reassuringly as possible, doing his best to sympathize with her plight.  He imagined that, to him, the equivalent of having a thumb tack come alive and touch his own finger with a hand about the size of his own thumbprint would be pretty unnerving, and yet at the same time shocking.

                Besides, Peter’s heart was fluttering so much into an unhealthy overdrive at this moment that he wasn’t inclined to hold any kind of grudge for Lisa’s wording.

                Lisa herself was beginning to blush.  Blinking a few times, she turned back to the worksheet she had been filling out for the both of them containing their findings from the biology book glossary, and began hastily scribbling the final few sentences required before they could turn in their work, using a pencil about as long as Peter himself.

                “Class is almost up, guys!  Start wrapping it up!” called out Mrs. Baker from the other side of the room as she continued patrolling around, the buzz of chattered conversations between lab partners filling the room, and effectively drowning out the nearly whispered exchange between Peter and Lisa.

                “Sorry I can’t help more on the writing,” said Peter, trying to break the silence that had settled over himself and his comparatively gargantuan fifteen-year-old lab partner.  “But I’m pretty sure the teacher can’t read anything I put down to paper.”

                “How do you even… do homework, or tests, or anything?  I mean…” said Lisa curiously, suddenly realizing how it could have been interpreted as insensitive. “Sorry.  But, really, how do you…”

                “Pretty much how I’ve done it my whole life for my mom,” said Peter with a little snicker.  “I write it out, then give it to my mom, and she blows it up on the scanner.  Except now, we have to email that stuff to all my teachers.”

                “Sounds like a pain,” said Lisa with a little grin, picking up the completed page and beginning to slide her chair out of the desk.  “Wait here a minute, okay?  I’m gonna go turn this in.”

                “Uh… sure.  Where could I possibly have gone, anyway?” said Peter with a completely serious face.  He held his stone expression for a second, causing Lisa to look concerned that she had made another social error, but Peter quickly cracked a smile, and Lisa followed suit, shaking her head that she had fallen for it again as she headed for the front desk of the classroom to turn in their work.

                With a moment alone to collect his thoughts, Peter sighed to himself with a grin.  He had done it; he had made what he perceived as a real, live friend.  It practically made goose bumps run along his skin.

                As Lisa came striding back from the front of the classroom, Peter couldn’t help but notice that her chin seemed a little more pointed upward, and her squeaky old sneakers didn’t trudge across the ground; she took actual steps.

                As Lisa sat down again and began repacking her backpack, she turned back to Peter.

                “What class have you got next?” she asked gently.

                “Uh… Art 1, I think.  Just the basics.”

                “Oh…” sighed Lisa, sounding a little disappointed.  “Cool.  I’m in the band, so I think that’s what I’ve got next.”

                “Really?  What instrument do you play?”

                “Clarinet.  Since I was ten.”

                “Wow,” said Peter, blowing a little whistle sound effect to show his impressment. “You must rock on that thing.”

                “Yeah, right.  Rock.  Me,” she said, shaking her head again with a shy grin.

                “I’ll bet you do.  I want to hear it sometime.”

                “What?” she asked with a giggle.  “No, you really, really don’t.”

                “I do,” said Peter adamantly.  “I want a concert.”

                “Well, then, Mr. Clark,” she said, trying to sound prim and proper, keeping a falsely stiff upper lip.  “You shall have your concert, from a boxed seat, of course.”

                “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Peter in a similarly dry tone, and both of them snorted with laughter, trying to keep straight faces.  As they continued chuckling, the bell rang, causing the mass of students to practically leap from their desks and sprint for the escape route.

                “Woah.  Okay, I guess I better get to band… make sure I’m ready for this little concert thing,” said Lisa, standing up and pulling her backpack strap over her arm.  “Hey!  How do you…”

                “My sister,” said Peter.  “She comes by and gives me a lift in between every class.”

                “Sounds like a great gig.”

                “Yeah, but only when she’s not cranky,” said Peter sarcastically in a hushed tone.

                “I’ll see you around, all right?” said Lisa with a tiny, rippling wave of her fingers before heading for the door, looking over her shoulder at Peter one final time before exiting.  Erica dashed in seconds later, rushing back to the table and staring down at her brother as she caught her breath.

                “I think this job is going to kill me,” said Erica with slight irritation, laying her palm flat on the table, fingers straight together, for Peter to load up.

                “Hey, it’s just two more years, then you’re gone to college, and I’m somebody else’s problem, right?” said Peter with a sly smile, clambering over his sister’s soft fingers into the center of her hand.

                “Two YEARS?  I don’t think I’ll make it through the WEEK,” she said, her hazel eyes widening for effect as she raised her arm away from the table and headed back for the door with her brother cupped into her warm hand.