High school was rough enough as it was, so having to move right in the middle of senior year was even worse. Penelope struggled for the first few weeks, wanting nothing more than to blend into the wallpaper or fly away like the birds outside the window. She kept consoling herself with the fact that she didn't have to like it here for long. Soon she would graduate and get to live and direct her own life. To keep the loneliness at bay, Penelope carried around a notebook. Writing became the friend she so desperately craved, taking her as far away from the school as her imagination would let her get.

Penelope thought her writing mattered only to her and her alone all until that one day when everything changed.

- - -

"Um...excuse me..."

Penelope's words were currently being ignored by the small gaggle of girls that had gathered near her locker. One of them was lounging up against the side of her locker while they laughed and chatted with the girl who was the leader of them all a few lockers down named Cassie. Penelope recognized them all from class. Shifting her books in her hands, Penelope revealed the watch on her wrist. She had two more minutes to get her things, or she'd be late to class. She didn't have time for this.

"Excuse me," she said a bit louder, managing to finally get their attention. All four heads turned to look at her, their gazes like daggers right to her soul as she took a breath.

"I need to get to my locker," she said, nodding at her blocked locker since her arms were currently full.

"How is that our problem?" asked the girl currently leaning against it.

'Just a few more months of this,' Penelope internally coached herself as she nodded her head towards her locker again. "I kind of can't get to it because you're leaning on it."

"Oh, my bad," said the girl as she popped off the locker, walking towards Penelope before "accidentally" shoving her backwards.

With a small yelp, Penelope was caught off guard and landed on her butt on the hallway floor. Cassie and her friends started to laugh at her as she quickly scrambled to pick things up. She kept her head trained towards the ground as she worked, caught off guard when another hand suddenly came into her line of vision. Lifting her head slightly, she locked eyes with the boy crouched in front of her. He was dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt under his blue and white letterman's jacket sporting the number '08'. His raven black hair hung down over his face as a smile lit it up.

"Are you okay?" asked the boy.

Before Penelope could answer, Cassie came over to crouch by Penelope and started to help her out too.

"I'm sorry. My friend is so klutzy," Cassie said as she practically shoved the items at Penelope and almost made her topple off balance again.

The boy looked from Penelope to Cassie as all three of them rose to their feet. Penelope looked at Cassie too as she seemed to become all bashful all of a sudden.

'Of course she changes around a cute boy,' thought Penelope with a tsk as her attention was drawn back to said boy as he asked her once more, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thank you," she said.

"You're Penelope, right?" asked the boy, smiling again as she nodded. "I thought so. We share a few classes together."

"Ah right..."

"My name is Chris," he said as he held out a hand in greeting.

"Nice to meet you," said Penelope as she attempted to shift her stuff to reveal a hand to shake his.

The bell ringing pierced the air then as it signaled the start of the next class.

"Well, I'll see you around then," said Chris as he half jogged off down the hall, the squeak of his converse sneakers round the corner the last she heard before she was gripped by the shoulder by Cassie.

"Stay away from Chris," said Cassie. "You hear me?"

"Yeah, he's going to be her future boyfriend," said the girl that had been lounging against her locker, "Then future husband."

"She has it on her dream board," spoke up the other girl, her platinum blonde braids festooned with more charms than a charm bracelet.

"So, stay away from him. A girl like you could never compete anyway," said Cassie as Penelope looked at her. "You hear me?"

"Loud and clear," said Penelope just as a teacher poked their head out of a classroom door to see the four of them in the hall.

"GIRLS! Why aren't we in class?"

- - -

Later that afternoon, Penelope found herself clustered in the humid feeling gym as the school readied for a pep rally. She felt like she had gotten shoved into a sardine can as students buzzing with anticipation found their seats in the bleachers amongst their friends. Penelope kept her head tucked down as she sat in one of the middle rows, writing a poem in her notebook to try to find some solace. As she wrote, she felt someone plop down beside her, looking off to her left to see that it was none other than Cassie.

"What are you writing?"

Penelope tried to ignore her, but Cassie wasn't taking silence as an acceptable answer. Reaching over, she yanked the notebook from Penelope's grasp to give it a read herself.

"Ugh, you're such a nerd!" she said with a small snort, ripping the poem that Penelope wrote out of the notebook.

Penelope's cry was drowned out as all the students rose to their feet then as the sports team filed into the gym. Tossing both the notebook and torn out poem carelessly aside as Cassie started to cheer and holler for the team, Penelope scoured about for them. She found the notebook right off, but the poem seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Sitting down in defeat, Penelope tried not to be distraught as the pep rally continued. Her eyes focused on all the boys lined up along the middle of the court. They all wore matching blue and white letterman's jackets with their team numbers on them. Penelope couldn't help but to pick out Chris as he stood there with that beaming smile on his face again that made his eyes look like crescent moons.

She listened as the principal — who stood in the middle of them — introduced all the members of the boy's basketball team, announcing how they were going for the main title for the first time in twenty-five years. As they started to show off their hoop skills, Penelope kept trying to scan about for her lost poem to no avail. When they were finally all dismissed to go home for the day, Penelope tried one last time to look for it, but in fear that she'd miss her ride home, she ultimately had to leave the gym with the vow to return tomorrow to find her poem.

Cassie watched Penelope leave and was about to file out of the gym too when she noticed Chris standing off to the side near the bleachers with a piece of paper in his hands.

'That's her poem,' Cassie thought as Chris looked up. It was then that Cassie saw an awe on his face that she had never seen before.

Deciding to approach him, Cassie cleared her throat and caused Chris to look towards her.

"I think you might have found my poem," said Cassie as Chris' eyebrows rose.

"You wrote this?" he asked as Cassie nodded.

"Wow...I never knew you were this talented," said Chris. "I'm impressed."

Smiling, the wheels started to turn in Cassie's head. The start of a wicked idea started to form in her mind. Her dream board might happen yet.