Peter had his eye on the prize. He’d accepted mother’s mandate not to participate in any way in Phys Ed today, instead forcing him by way of compromise to observe some jogging drills and obstacle course work from afar, on the bleachers beside the secretary from the front office. But he’d been weathering the boredom and embarrassment of being babysat with a determined smile.

                After all, there were bigger things to work himself up for. His questionable standing as a continuing student aside, he had two shows to perform tonight and tomorrow, and likely that one chance to prove to his mother with surefire evidence that he belonged in the halls of this school. Without high spirits, such a task was going to be all the more difficult.

                Tom Thumb was a spritely lad, after all.

                So, he watched his peers leap and sprint their way around the colorful obstacles that obscured the path across the gleaming plain of the gymnasium floor. He hardly even felt the usual envy for their ability to act with strength and reach he could only fantasize about; today, there was so much more on the line. If anything, he was better off reminding his mother how secure he was in the one room truly liable to inflict injury by generally not being allowed to participate.

                The boy watched Lisa, struggling somewhat due in part to lacking in the muscle mass of some of her similar-sized classmates, most of whom still towered above her. However, it also wasn’t helping her effectiveness to be shooting glances his way on the bleachers every six seconds or so, diverting her attention away from the task at hand. Whenever this happened, Peter only smiled, waving away at her in attempt to shift her attention off his miniscule form.

                Not that he minded the glances. Those green eyes peering so directly at him across the expanse, picking him out amidst the grandeur of the space despite his scale, was a useful reminder of his significance, to himself and to her. It was a source of strength for Peter, when he was so devoid of the actual, physically useful variety of strength. For his own part, he couldn’t help but blush whenever he let his gaze linger for especially long on Lisa’s pale, slender legs pumping as she ran.

                “OhmyGod… Peter!”

                He didn’t need to look in the direction of the shriek to know who’d originated its shrill note. The pattering of inexpertly placed rubber heels sounded after Kimmy’s call, followed by the heavier footfalls of an athletic body intentionally pounding the earth to make her presence known, and finally an almost silent punctuation mark of shoes stealthily bringing up the rear.

                “I couldn’t believe it when Sharon told us!” Kimmy squealed. She wrung her hands she stood over the bleacher seat upon which Peter was camped. Behind her, Amy made a skyscraper of herself as usual, crossing her toned arms over her chest while a thin smile creased into her lips. Peter couldn’t see Sharon behind her, but he knew she was there.

                His heart fluttered to find himself suddenly in the presence of the three crones who’d likely orchestrated his commode plunge this morning; however, Peter peeked back over his shoulder as he stood up to lessen the height differential between them, looking to the middle-aged secretary, who’d folded her phone back into her lap in favor of casting a stern eye on the newcomers. So there was that at least.

                Peter allowed himself to relax as he looked up toward the towering form of the short, pudgy strawberry-blonde. If she in fact was privy to the outcome of that hallway conversation with Mandy, she was putting on a good act. The broad wall formed by her soft thighs jiggled in her shorts just beyond. Her fingers, with nails painted a chipped glitter-silver, trembled as they hovered a few inches over him, clearly desiring more than anything to snatch him up for the first time, but well-aware of the quietly authoritative woman beyond. Peter was willing to bet Kimmy hadn’t been granted full security clearance on whatever it was Sharon said to Mandy.

                “Peter, is everything all right?” the secretary questioned dryly. She raised an eyebrow.

                He held back a smirk. Nervous as he had reason to be today, and embarrassed as it made him to require such protection, there was a certain satisfaction to having such absolute security seated watchfully behind him. At least he could count on getting through this hour without another pair of unwanted hands plucking him into dizzying air.

                “I guess so,” Peter sighed. Guilty as the trio might well have been, it still wouldn’t do to demonize them completely when he was at such a critical juncture in his education. Not when he already had so many eyes both parental and administrative on him. And not when his mother might have some new pressing questions about the silver-eyed girl who once, circumstantially, saved him on a field trip.

                “It must’ve been so scary!” Kimmy croaked. She seemed to be unconsciously re-enacting a rough visualization of drowning in an invisible body of water by holding her hands above her shoulders with worming fingers, either for Peter’s benefit or for her own sense of compassion. “Stuck in the gross water like that! I’d hate it.”

                “I don’t want to do it again,” Peter said flatly. He folded his hands at the level of his waist.

                “Maybe you just haven’t had enough practice,” Amy offered, her voice a deep and mocking contrast to Kimmy’s bird-like cawing. Her fingers drummed over her crossed arms, the light sheen of sweat which glossed her skin glinting under the harsh gym lights.

                “Um…” Peter coughed.

                “At swimming,” Amy corrected, though behind the fist she positioned conveniently over her lips, Peter could see her sly smile curling higher. “Practice at swimming. It’s a good thing to be able to do. Whether you’re a shrimp or not.”

                “Thanks for the tip,” Peter said, not bothering to conceal his distaste for the conversation. He felt the sneer palpably shape his face as he answered.

                Amy’s dark eyes widened, an amused grin broadening. “Ooohhh. Looks like you’ve grown some teeth finally. I like it.”

                “Don’t make fun of him!” Kimmy defended, her milky-orange curls whipping around as she craned to address her friend. Her hands still anxiously loitered above Peter’s head, her sweaty palms and uneasy fingers giving him only the slightest cause for discomfort at the unavoidable thought of becoming trapped in them. He hoped the office secretary didn’t return to her phone.

                “I wasn’t. It’s cute,” Amy smirked. She gave her ponytail a carefree toss. Her gaze shifted with conviction from Kimmy to Peter below.

                Great. Cute. There was something else he needed. His self-assertion being taken as the winging of a hapless baby animal by this amazon of a teenager who probably still harbored no moral gray area with the idea of snatching him up from where he stood. He’d have to work on that, assuming he was even given the chance to, after this week was finished out.

                “Hi.”

                Both Kimmy and even Amy parted ways from where they’d cloistered themselves so claustrophobically above Peter, turning around to see the petite redhead standing behind them, still thoroughly dwarfed as ever by the volleyball star, but the look of determination in Lisa’s face and two curled fists made up for it.

                She looked instantly to Peter as she stepped forward. Silently Lisa confirmed his safety with a shared nod, though her shoulders truly seemed to relax somewhat only as she looked to the secretary seated nearby and made sure someone else was monitoring the exchange. The girl shouldered past Amy, who had no intention of relocating any further from where she’d planted the boat-sized masses of her tennis shoes.

                “Is this time-out?” Peter questioned pleasantly to Lisa, intent on maintaining a cheerful air for the rest of the day.

                “Yeah. Or I just took one,” Lisa shrugged. Her voice was lower in tone but certainly more present than normal in volume, ensuring the trio could hear her response as she took a seat on the bench beside her miniature boyfriend.

                Peter watched his protector’s palm flatten against the surface of the bleacher, fingers curved around the lip of the metal seat. Knuckles turning white. Her lip stiffened upward, as did her chin, as Lisa eyed Amy with unblinking ardor. The fifteen-year-old titaness, for her part, seemed to relish the wordless challenge, and planted her hands on her hips, staring down the ginger with predatory entertainment. Which at least gave Peter a break from having her hungrily eye him, though it made him just as nervous to have that same energy focused on Lisa.

                “I guess everyone’s growing some teeth today.” The chilly whisper emanated from behind her friends, at last confirming Sharon’s presence to Peter despite his inability to see her past the mountain that was Amy’s body.

                “Shouldn’t you girls be running through the obstacle course?” the secretary prodded in the same deadpan tone.

                “Maybe we should,” Amy smarmed, still not yet breaking focus on Lisa, though she reversed several steps backward, every move intentioned and steady, planting her full weight into the ball of her foot through the tightly laced pink-mesh shoe before shifting to her other leg.

                “We only wanted to make sure Peter was okay,” Kimmy insisted to the secretary with a sniffle. Which, for all the ghostly guilt he was attempting to place, made the boy feel a twinge of appreciation. It certainly sounded genuine.

                “Well, that’s very nice. As long as he’s comfortable,” the woman responded.

                “And we wanted to remind him that he’s got friends, whenever he needs us. Friends who he can trust,” Sharon said with such venom knitted into the syllables that it sounded as though she were condemning the murderer of a cherished loved one. At last she inched forward with silent footsteps, putting herself between Amy and Lisa, simultaneously ending the pair’s estrogen-fueled staring contest and re-centering everyone’s attention squarely down at the five-inch freshman. The platinum teen-queen seemed to draw all light in the room toward her body, at least in Peter’s sight, such that a humbling glow shone from around her hands and eyes. She cocked her head, demanding a vocal bow through sheer force of will.

                Peter folded his arms behind his back now, emboldened by his proximity to the edge of losing his dreams in one fell swoop. There was no quaking in his knees. No tongue-tying. Not a hair standing up on his neck. He smiled, daring himself to stare directly into the eclipse that was Sharon’s gaze.

                “Thanks,” he said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I think I can trust myself to know who my friends are.”

                Amy raised an eyebrow, the muscles in her forearms rippling as she stepped back. Kimmy cupped a hand over her pouted lips, clearly affronted and dismayed at this unforeseen reaction, her eyes widened to tea saucers. Lisa nodded, extending a finger, the tip of which she lightly placed on Peter’s shoulder in a show of support.

                Sharon’s nostrils flared. No other part of her body flinched at first.

                “It’s your life,” Sharon uttered with distilled chaotic neutrality, the words practically lost to the comparatively deafening click of her tongue. The sentence was so low, so constricted by the space between them and the distant pounding of feet beyond and echoing shouts around the gym, that somehow Peter was confident he and only he could make out Sharon’s quicksilver voice.

                But he still didn’t shake.

                “Go on, girls. Run along,” the secretary suggested in an increasingly stern tone. “Do I need to start taking down some names?”

                “No!” Kimmy gulped, darting back toward the rest of the class near the center of the gym. Amy followed behind her at a comfortable pace, unbothered by the thinly veiled threat of office persecution. Even Sharon responded without further prompt, though not without bestowing one last glower down upon Peter, the very essence of her gaze looped invisibly around his body like a silver halo.

                Not a warning. A vow.

                Unknown as it was, even to him, Peter understood then that he’d made a choice for himself. One he was going to have to answer for someday.

                Lisa didn’t offer any further comment, but kept her fingertip draped over Peter’s shoulder as the remaining minutes of the class waned by. The secretary returned to her phone in her lap just as soon as the trio had distanced themselves past a stone’s throw.

                The boy, still confident in his choice of words despite the sick feeling of foreboding the trio had left in their wake, placed a hand upon his girlfriend’s comforting fingernail.