It was just a notebook. If you happened to look inside, you would notice filled pages, vague but detailed in their own way. There were dates, strange names, and crude drawings. The front bore no declaration of what was inside, no Math Notes written in a hasty scrawl, no name.

The first line read in messy print, Cowboy in Snoddy. Next was Blink and Dave. Mush, Itey. Snitch and Specs. Race and Skittery. Further on, some of the names repeated themselves, different pairs were made, a few new names were introduced. Some notes were made, like Careful, Race bites or Snoddy's rough!

But the very last written page was a little different. The writing had a desperate slant, a wild curl.

I can't do this anymore. I just can't. It hurts too much, I care too much, I'm out. I'd say sorry, but I'm not. Not for this, anyway. Mitch.

The rest of the pages in the notebook were blank.

---

"Damn, there's nowhere to sit," Mike muttered to me. "What're we going to do?" His baby face made him look even younger than he already was, which wasn't always a good thing. Okay, it was almost never a good thing. He, James, and I had all started together at this prep pre-school. Our parents wanted to get us ahead. As in, way ahead, ahead enough to jump ahead and skip a grade. Funny how they didn't wait to see if we'd want to; I was still four when they decided to throw us into kindergarten a year early.

James looked warily around. "Well," he said hesitantly. "There's some room over there…" We all shrugged helplessly at each other for a few more minutes before a big senior shoved me out of his way.

"Move, kid, you're blocking the whole damn aisle!"

We scurried over to the free seats.

"Hi," Mike started as soon as we sat down. The other kids all turned slowly to stare. "Um, I'm Mike, this is Mitch, and James. We're freshman, aren't you freshman, I recognize you from my math class. Or is it English?" Stop talking, I telepathically ordered him. Which he did, but so abruptly that everyone was still staring at him. He dropped his gaze to his brown paper bag, face on fire.

"Um…yeah, we're freshman, and actually, it's history that we have together." One of them said finally. He had shiny brown hair. Really shiny. Like, blindingly so. I almost wanted to ask him what shampoo he used, but decided I just wouldn't look as good with blindingly shiny hair. And anyway, I was too shy to ever ask a question like that.

"Oh, yep, thought so, yeah," Mike was babbling again, this time nodding his head right along with.

"Hey, aren't you those freaky smart kids who started kindergarten when you were like two?" A blond kid broke in. He had an eye patch. A tall, skinny boy poked him.

"Actually, we were all around five. But…yeah." James said quietly. He's always uncomfortable talking in front of new people—not to mention we'd just been called freaks. I still hadn't even made eye contact with anyone.

"So, you're all super smart, right?"

"Well…"

"I mean, aren't you taking like all the advanced classes?"

"Yeah…"

"Sweet!" Eye Patch said enthusiastically. "Wanna do my math homework for me? Algebra?"

I exchanged a look with James and Mike. Algebra? In high school? We'd all taken algebra in seventh grade. We were used to being hit up for homework help but…algebra?

Okay, so our intelligence tended to make us a little snobbish. Hence the lack of friends.

"Sam," the gangly one who'd poked the eye patch kid earlier elbowed him. "You can't just ask random people to do your homework for you." Eye Patch pouted for a minute and turned to a curly haired boy to his left.

"Dave?" He asked. The curly haired boy, Dave (who's curls really were no match for Mike's), rolled his eyes and shook his head. Thankfully, Shiny Hair decided to introduce everyone.

"I'm Jack," he said with a dramatic hair flip. "The curly haired one over there is David, he's basically a genius. The one with the eye patch is Sam, little Italian kid over there is Tony, the skinny one's Jacob, the one with the glasses is Amos, and the Hulk over there's Nick. He's so big because he got held back in fourth grade, when they realized he still couldn't read."

"Jack," David reprimanded. Nick—who really was about as wide as Mike, James, and I put together—didn't seem to care. All of the sudden, the gangly one, Jacob, was glaring at me.

"Aren't you that asshole who stole Kendra Smith's wallet last week?" Oh, God. See, I kind of have this klepto problem. Sometimes I'm grabbing at people's wallets or jewelry before I even realize what I'm doing. Well, last week I'd seen a real nice wallet, and I had it in my hands before I even thought about taking it. The reason this made me such a huge asshole instead of just a thief is because Kendra Smith had just been mugged and raped a month earlier.

"I really didn't mean to take it," I muttered.

"How could you not mean to take it? You're a freaking thief!" He had such a look of disgust on his face that I shrank back, and Mike stepped in.

"Hey, look, he's sorry about it. He tried to give it back, and he turned himself in. You don't need to get—"

"Oh, sure, he felt bad about it when he realized why Kendra was freaking out so much. But he didn't really care—"

"Shut up, you—"

"Hey, quit!" Jack bellowed over the two of them. They'd both half-risen, shouting, leaning in close. "Look, Jacob, Mitch said he felt bad about it, get off his case." Jacob opened his mouth to protest, but Jack held up a hand. "And Mitch, learn to keep your hands to yourself from now on." Everyone was quiet, but Jacob was still glaring knives in my direction. Later, I found out Kendra was Jacob's cousin, so he had extra reason to hate me for it.

"Hey, we can help you guys with homework and stuff if you need it," James broke the angry quiet. Mike immediately agreed with him, and when they looked to me, I nodded. I hated this. It was our way of groveling for friends, and it usually got us a spot at a lunch table for about a week, until the testwas over or eligibilitychecks were done, and no one needed to worry about their grade for a while.

"Oh, sure," Jack said, but David made an irritated noise beside him.

"I'm just as smart, if not smarter, than these guys, Jack, and I've got more social skills." Glad he was so tactful about it.

"Well, Davey, there's three of them. And you're always whining about how much we all depend on you for homework help, so this'll be good. You guys wanna sit with us at lunch from now on?" Sam and Nick didn't really seem to care, but everyone else looked mutinous. Jacob shook his head at me, disgusted. Well, this week or two will certainly be fun, I thought.

---

"Hey, Mitch, can you help me after school today?" Sam asked. I groaned inwardly. Sam was a nice guy, and he really wasn't stupid, the way he seemed. He was just so lazy. His work was sloppy, handwriting illegible, and if he didn't get a problem within the first two minutes, he happily gave up and moved on. I'd been helping him for almost three weeks, and it never got any better.

"Uh, sure." I said, too guilty to turn him down. I'd been trying my hardest to get these guys to like me. I'd given up on respect a while ago, because there was just no way I was going to get it while playing teacher whenever they needed some help. Just then, I heard Nick make a quiet complaint to Jack,

"Dude, I need to get laid so bad. It's been almost a month since I last got any. I'm going nuts." Jack laughed and swept his hand around the table.

"Have your way, Nick," he said, the two of them still laughing. Nick's eyes suddenly went wide.

"Holy shit, great idea!" he cried. Everyone looked at him. "Guys, I just got a great idea!"

"I thought it was my great idea," Jack muttered, but not really seriously, because he still had noclue what the idea was.

"I know no one else here is getting any, and I definitely know I'm not. So. I got a plan." After he outlined his plan, I felt a little squeamish. A glance to Mike and James told me they shared my hesitance. His idea was to…well, "pass each other around," to use his exact words. Basically, no-strings-attached sex. And he wanted to keep record of it all in a notebook he put proudly in the middle of the table.

Everyone was agreeing audibly, and I felt like I was suffocating. We were all guys here. Did this mean they were all gay? I had almost worked up the nerve to protest the whole thing when Jacob sneered at me,

"I bet you three little babies don't want in on this, huh? Too scared?"

"We're not scared!" I objected quickly, though my racing heart contradicted my words. "Of course we want in." Mike's eyes, wide and popping, screamed What the hell? at me.

"Okay then. Let's have some ground rules," Jack said. "First off, is everyone clean? I mean, like, you know…?" He was too embarrassed to ask about STDs, and he wanted us all to be sleeping together? Everyone was nodding, like this was a completely normal question.

"Good. Still, guys, let's be smart, and everyone has to use protection." He ignored the few snickers that flitted around the table. "What else? Oh, we should all use nicknames, so no one knows who we are, in case they get the notebook or something. So, what's it gonna be?"

"Blink," Sam shrugged.

"Specs," Amos said in a bored tone.

"Racetrack."

"What the hell can I be?" Nick asked. Jack squinted at him for a minute.

"Hm…Snoddy." He declared. The other guys laughed, but apparently Mike, James, and I were outside of the joke. I felt like I was going to throw up.

"What about you, Jack? What're you gonna be?"

"Um…" Jack's ears tipped red. Was he blushing? "I'll be Cowboy." He muttered. I saw Tony—I mean, Racetrack—roll his eyes wearily. Quickly changing the subject, Jack added, "And David'll be the Walking Mouth." Again, some of the other guys laughed.

"Well, we got Snitch here," Jacob leered at me. I didn't protest, so Nick wrote it down along with the others. I was afraid if I opened my mouth, I'd start screaming or crying, or possibly both.

"Jacob's gotta be Twitchy or something," Sam said, exasperated. "Your freaking leg's been bouncing for the last twenty minutes, and it's driving me nuts."

"Twitchy?" Tony asked incredulously, while Amos and Nick laughed at Sam.

"Well, I don't know!"

"Skittery," David said, and everyone agreed it fit.

"So, that just leaves you two." Jack looked thoughtfully at James and Mike, who both shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"Well, you can be Mush," Amos said to Mike. Everyone stared. "His skin's the same color as this oatmeal stuff my mom calls mush…" He trailed off, while Nick shrugged and wrote it down. Eight pairs of eyes and a single one focused on James. He flushed.

"Uh, Itey," he said, tongue-tied. "Just…yeah, Itey." I had to hold back my laughter. Itey was what I'd named my hamster in third grade.

"Okay, whatever. I thought of some more rules," Jack said. "First of all, we don't want people to know what we're up to, or else they'll think we're all queers or something." I noticed Sam laughed, but Jacob went a little red before dropping his eyes to the table. Interesting. "So, no one acts any different afterwards. Just pretend nothing happened."

"Do you think that's really a good idea?" David asked, and I appreciated him for the first time. "I mean, that's like…suppressing emotion, or something, and it's not good for you, and…" He stopped talking when he realized most of the guys were laughing at him.

"Anyway," Jack continued. "Before, you have to like…I don't know, get dinner or see a movie or something together. Like, a date first. I mean, yeah, it's all one-night stands, sort of, but…I don't know, we're still going to be friends, okay?" There was a small murmur of assent. I wanted to scream I'm not friends with you people! I'd only known these guys for three weeks, and now they were talking about everyone having sex together! I felt a little frantic, to say the least.

"…Only three times with one guy before you've had everyone else." Jack smiled cheekily. "We wanna share the love."

"Speaking of love," Nick said seriously. "Don't do that. I mean, like, for this to work, it's gotta be no emotion. Don't be, like, falling in love. You homos," he added for good measure. Again, Jacob looked a combination of angry and guilty. I didn't see why, since these guys were all obviously gay, too. I mean, they were planning random fucks between each other. I wondered if straight guys did that too. Then I wondered which I was, because although I was scared out of my mind, I couldn't shake the feeling of excited lust that followed Nick's bright idea.

---

A/N: Well, I don't know how I feel about that. I think it got a little boring when everyone was picking their names, but it was kind of necessary. Next will be the first night of the whole plan. And don't worry, the Newsie names are going to be used from here on out, so you don't have to worry about keeping track of the names I made up. (I mean, really, Amos? I couldn't think of anything else and I just re-read Goblet of Fire.)