Peter sat cross-legged on his sister’s lunch tray on a table in the cafeteria, munching idly on a tip of a french fry from the paper carton.  As he chewed, he allowed himself to soak in the scene.  The cafeteria was easily the largest room he had ever been in, and the sheer, overwhelming magnitude of the space was starting to make him feel light-headed.  There were at least four hundred kids in the hall, most of them occupying the circular tables, but many as well walking in between the tables, carrying trays full of hotdogs, chips, and other assorted processed drivel that Peter wasn’t particularly fond of, but this wasn’t even on his mental docket as he took it all in.  His jaw hung open.  It was a sight to behold: like an aircraft hangar, or a space station.  Peter had nothing to compare it to.

                Many students that walked by slowed down to get a better look at Peter, but he was close enough to the center of the table that anyone who stopped by to stare was easily shooed away by Erica and her friends.

                “Erica?” asked Peter quietly, looking over his shoulder and up at his sister, who was resting her chin on her upturned forearm and giving her attention to one of her friends, giggling at what was being said.  “Erica!”

                “What?” she asked with a sigh, sounding bored, as she diverted her attention to her brother.  “I know the food sucks, but get used to it.  It’s pretty much what they have everyday.”

                “No, no, I wasn’t going to say that,” answered Peter, standing up and sidling in between the french fry carton and a sloppy, half-eaten chicken salad sandwich that rested next to it.  “I was just going to ask what’s down that way,” he said, pointing toward a long hallway jutting off from the side of the cafeteria.  Erica sighed.

                “That’s the music wing.  Neither of us ever has to go down there though…”

                Peter smiled to himself.  Not too long ago, Lisa had been down that hallway, playing her clarinet.  “Can we go down there?”

                Erica raised an eyebrow at him, a bite of mulched food making one of her cheeks puff up a little as she mulled it over confusedly.  “Really?”

                “Yeah!”

                “Uh sure, just make sure you’re back soon,” said Erica at last, starting to turn back to her friends.  Unlike Erica, her friends all had their rapt attentions on Peter, wondering smiles spread over their lips.  No matter how many times they saw him, they could never get over the thrill of watching him move and speak.

                “Wha… you mean, go by myself?” gulped Peter.

                Erica shrugged.  “What’s the prob?”

                “I… I don’t think I can do that.”

                “Well, I guess you’re hanging with me, then,” said Erica, clearly never intending for Peter to volunteer to go on his own expedition.

                “I’ll take you, Peter,” said Lena with a grin, leaning forward and brushing a few black bangs out of her eyes.

                “Thanks!”

                “Lena, seriously?” said Erica, raising her upper lip in slight disgust.  “You don’t have to do that, he’s being ridiculous.”

                “I have my next class down there anyway.  I can show it to you!” said Lena, slowly extending a hand and laying her fingers and palm flat on the table, just off of Erica’s tray.  “It’s no problem, really.”

                “Okay, but hurry up… next period starts in like fifteen minutes,” groaned Erica, surrendering.

                Peter clambered off his sister’s lunch try and gingerly stepped onto Lena’s fingertips.  As he did, though, he slipped onto his side.

                “Sorry.  I had french fries…” said Lena sheepishly, eyeing the glistening layer of grease coating the upper halves of her fingers.

                “It’s… fine, it’s cool,” said Peter quickly, hiding his marginal irritation as he wiped fatty grease from his hands and pant legs while pushing himself up against the long, plush fingertips.

                “On?” asked Lena sweetly, cupping her other hand around Peter to ensure his safe boarding.

                “Yep!” piped Peter as the warm, wide platform of flesh rose into the air, Lena’s fingers curling in slowly for added protection.  As he rose higher into the air while the seventeen-year-old teen girl pushed out of her chair and stood up, Peter gawked brightly at the entire room, which he suddenly had a much better view of.  The boy couldn’t help but want to fly over the room, watching it zip by like a countryside from up above.

                “Okay, okay, I’m coming too… Mom will kill me if you get out of my sight,” groaned Erica, popping another fry in between her teeth and chewing slowly.  “I don’t think you want to be late on your first day, anyway.”

                “It won’t take long, will it, Peter?” chimed Lena, bringing her face closer to Peter again and tapping her pink tongue playfully against the roof of her mouth.  The boy coughed lightly as a rush of boiling, runny french fry breath clouded around him in a warm haze, and as he stared in between the girl’s jaws, he felt a little off-put to see tiny flecks of crunched yellow fry littering her wet, sticky tongue from every angle, a few overly greasy strands of saliva dangling loosely from her upper molars.  At times like this, Peter wished his tiny eyes didn’t allow him the ability of seeing such minute detail in the world.

                “Nope!” grimaced Peter as he covered the cough quickly with a fist, turning away from the massive open mouth that had parted so near to him like the gaping jowls of a whale.  Nodding excitedly, Lena began strutting off toward the music wing, keeping her long, tan fingers walled softly around Peter’s gently vibrating body as she took hard footfalls on the ground, with the begrudging Erica following behind.

                Peter could tell Lena wasn’t accustomed to carrying him as, despite her best efforts, her hand began bobbing slightly and making the boy feel a little queasy, but he forced himself to hold it together.

                “The band room is at the end of the hall, I can show you where they we keep the instruments!” said Lena, looking back down at Peter.  As they passed by another door, though, it swung open and Mandy came trudging out, nearly knocking into Lena, who stopped to ensure she wasn’t jostled and put at risk of losing her miniscule hand passenger.

                Peter locked eyes with Mandy.  For an instant, he saw the same dark clouds brewing in her irises, but they parted almost instantly.  The girl raised a hand, twirling at her pigtails again with a dreamily spinning fingertip, a smile of gentle truce seeming to appear on her face.

                “Hey… it’s you again!  The tiny little kid!” grinned Mandy as girlishly as she had at their first meeting.  “Remember me?”

                How could I forget, thought Peter bitterly.  “Uh-huh,” he answered as neutrally as possible.

                “Who are you?” asked Erica calmly to the freshman girl.

                “I’m his new friend,” piped Mandy quickly.  “We met each other in art class.”

                “Oh, that’s cool!” said Lena cheerfully.  “You guys should date each other, you’d both be so…”

                “Oh, God, Lena, why do you always have to…” moaned Erica, rolling her eyes, clearly disgusted at the very idea.

                “It was a JOKE!  Gee!” laughed Lena, looking down at Peter.  “Sorry, Peter.  You knew it was a joke, right?”

                “Yeah.  Yeah, I did,” said Peter, trying to hide his discomfort as he locked subtle eyes with Mandy again.  Again, he saw it.  The flash.  A glint in the young girl’s eye, a tensing of her fingertip as she so calculatingly twirled her pigtail.

                It ended as soon as it had begun, the look of adorable joy returning to Mandy’s cheeks and lips.  “I have band next, little guy.  What do you have?”

                “Err… math, I think.  Yeah, math, with Ms. Tritter,” said Peter, who had slowly started to learn his schedule by this point.  Mandy nodded almost knowingly, as if her thoughts were elsewhere at that moment.

                “Math.  I hate math,” she said, shrugging.  “I hope you have fun.  I’ll see you soon!” she giggled, heading off in the other direction and rippling her fingers in a dramatic wave.  With that, Lena looked up at a clock on the wall.

                “Oooh… I just remembered, I have to sign the check sheet for an instrument locker, I haven’t done that yet.  I think we’re gonna need to postpone the tour, Peter.  I’m sorry,” said Lena, flattening her palm and moving her hand closer to her friend.

                “Okay, let’s move it along.  The math department is right down this way, we can get there pretty quickly if we go now,” said Erica, extending her flattened hand and laying it across Lena’s greasy fingertips for Peter, who quickly climbed over the bump of feminine skin and found himself in his sister’s own palm again, which was lightly touched with french fry grease as well.  The stuff was thick enough that it started to soak into the seat of Peter’s pants, but he quickly resolved to not make a big deal out of it.

                “I’ll see you next period, Erica,” said Lena with a wave before allowing her eyes to fall down to Erica’s opened hand, where Peter was nestled comfortably.  A baby grin spread over her lips and she made her voice softer and more high-pitched.  “I’ll see YOU later, too, Peter.”

                “Uh-huh.  Thanks, Lena!” smiled Peter as Erica started walking off in the other direction.

                “That freshman seemed a little… off,” said Erica out of the corner of her mouth as she skillfully turned a corner in the hallway without shaking Peter around her palm.

                “Um… yeah, she kind of is,” shrugged Peter.  He had resolved not to divulge to his sister the fact that Mandy had nearly drowned him in the previous period, for fear of consequence from his mother of being pulled from the school.  “All kinds to make a world, right?”

                “Yeah, guess so,” said Erica, arriving in the math department.  “Which room?”

                “112, I think.”

                “All right, sounds good,” said Erica, heading into the second closest classroom.  No one was there yet, and Erica began hesitantly backing up before seeing a note on the door.

                “Went to go grab lunch.  Be back in five minutes,” the note had hastily scrawled on it.  Erica shrugged, looking down at her pint-sized sibling, biting her lip in thought.

                “It’s fine, just set me down on one of the desks.  It’ll only be a couple more minutes, probably.”

                “Thanks,” said Erica gratefully, heading for the closest desk and setting Peter down gently.  “I reeeeeally need to go talk to my physics teacher before class starts…”

                “No problem.  Have fun doing… whatever you do in there.”

                “Yeah.  Right,” snorted Erica, heading back toward the door again and slipping out.

                Peter began marveling at the classroom, becoming lost in his thoughts again.  Colorful posters with math equations, jokes, and helpful life tips to be encouraging to the students.  A giant novelty meter stick hanging from a wall like a trophy.  A slide rule chart hanging above the chalkboard.  It was all so new to the boy, and all he could do was stare, letting all his other senses all but take a break.

                No sooner had he slipped fully into his near-dream state, though, and Peter felt a piece of cloth dropping down over him, bathing him in darkness, before feeling firm, constricting fingers wrapping themselves around the cloth and his body as well, roughly pulling him off his desk and into the air in the precarious pocket of blackness.

                Peter opened his mouth, but no sound came out.