Hysterics

Chapter One

IT'S RAINING INCREDIBLY hard this afternoon and it does nothing to help the slow trudging up the hill that Penelope does to the school gates. She sighs as she can see the remainder of the hill in front of her and consciously thinks to turn around, and return home, but thinks better of it because she has theater club this afternoon, and she does not want to miss this particular one because it is the start of the fall play.

She groggily swipes her hand across her bottom lip to rid herself of the wetness before readjusting her backpack and lifting her legs up the next mile and a half or so to the academy. Before reaching the gates, Penelope can catch slight glimpses of grey irises which could only belong to Toby (her overly excited gay of a best friend) leaning up against a pole, casually texting as the rain pours harder.

"What are you doing, you idiot? It's raining, and you're gonna get sick," Penelope acknowledges when she finally reaches his place and grasps his attention by smacking the back of his head harshly.

Looking up, Toby briefly gives her an annoyed side glance, too engrossed in his morning dose of celebrity gossip to give her any more attention.

He smiles slightly at her huff of annoyance before falling into step right next to her, as they travel up the rest of the way to the main doors of the academy. He squeals lightly to himself (most likely because it involves Beyonce) as they reach Penelope's locker.

"How was your weekend, babe?" Toby says, finally tucking his phone into his insanely tight skinny jeans

"He speaks!" she says dramatically, grinning at his not so impressed glance in return which then turns to be directed at Aaron Ryder across the hall (a hot lacrosse player that Toby denies he doesn't have a thing for).

"Stop drooling," she sighs, turning away from him, and slamming her locker in the process. Toby smirks before following Penelope's figure down the hall but not before blushing at a quick wave from Aaron (who might have been waving at his girlfriend in front of them as well), and pushing Penelope's lower back in the direction of Astronomy.

"Did you know that Selena might have gotten a boob job? Which isn't that surprising because they have been extra perk-"

Penelope drones out of the conversation then, (mostly because her interest in hollywood stars and boob jobs are slim to none) slightly pulling her coat tighter around her petite figure, and pushing away a few pieces of stringy hair from her face. Upon entering the classroom she can faintly hear the plops of rain against the windows made of stainless glass, and on those windows were multiple coordinates for stars, galaxies, planets, moons, and nebulae.

Toby moves to the back of the classroom, where the students who couldn't care less about what Ms. Chester could be droning about sat, while Penelope moved to the front where the kids of intellectual curiosity sat perching off their chairs as the words of Ms. Chester poured out into the atmosphere.

Granted, even though Toby and Penelope were clearly on opposite sides of an imaginary societal scale, they managed to make a great friendship out of it. As soon as the bell rang with an incredible amount of annoyance, Ms. Chester enters the room clacking her stilettos against the smooth granite of the floor.

Once she reaches the whiteboard, she picks up a semi-dried out expo marker and prints STELLAR in her neat penmanship, turning around with a curious glance perched upon her brown orbs.

"Someone give me a guess on what this means in this classroom, or even what the significance is to you personally, whatever you think of, just shout it out," she says, not directing her attention to anyone in particular.

Because of Penelope's lack of restraint for blurting, she shouts, "Star formation!" out of impulse and giddiness without a single sound of surprise from her fellow classmates, since this was the norm of how the class period usually ended up (her loud shouts and Ms. Chester's questioning).