I had the sudden urge to write this scene from "Love, Stargirl", only in Perry's point of view. There's something about this certain Perry Delloplane that attracts me to his "bad boy" nature, and I couldn't help but write about him when the idea popped into my head. It just so happened to pop into my head at 1 in the morning.

I don't own the amazing works of Jerry Spinelli.

This is just the scene where Stargirl sneaks off to the roof with Perry, only in Perry's point of view.

--

I yawned loudly, stretching my arms carelessly. Flapping an old blanket onto the hard concrete roof, I straightened out the wrinkles, finally spreading my limbs out, staring into the sky. It was dark out, but the moon lit the way; a soft glow, illuminating the dark night. I closed my eyes, letting the silence overtake me. Not yet asleep, but not completely awake, I dozed, still alert to the sounds of night.

"Hi, Perry."

A soft voice crept up behind me. I flinched slightly, but didn't move. Surely the sound was my imagination.

"Hi, Perry."

The voice came louder now, more confident. I was sure this wasn't the works of my mind this time. I lifted my head slowly, blinking. "Who's that?" I asked, my voice croaky and loud. The night was silent once more, and I lay back to doze, when the voice came again.

"I'm the girl you spat at."

The voice I was hearing seemed familiar now; it was definitely a girl. Suddenly, the afternoon at the library flowed its way back into my mind; I let out a chuckle, remembering my frustration at the girl who was lecturing me about eating in libraries. "What do you want?" I asked, flopping back down onto my soft blanket. I closed my eyes, but kept my ears open to the girl's voice.

"Dootsie said you sleep on your roof on hot nights." She said plainly. I could sense her slight discomfort. Dootsie; oh, I remembered her. The talkative 5-year old.

I grinned, remembering her rambunctious ramblings. "Didn't answer the question." I reminded.

"I guess I don't know what I want. I woke up. It was hot. I couldn't sleep. I remembered what Dootsie said. And here I am." She told me, and I could hear her voice getting louder, as though she were inching closer and closer.

"You don't have your own roof?" I smirked, trying to get the girl to come closer. Why wasn't she sitting beside me if she wanted to talk?

"Well, sure," She explained, "but it's not flat like this. Besides, you're not on my roof. You're on this one." I grinned; she'd practically admitted she wanted to be with me.

"You want to sleep here?" I teased, and I could practically see a blush creeping upon her cheeks as she responded sheepishly.

"No, no, I don't mean that."

"What do you mean?" I asked finally, rubbing my sleepy eyes open.

"I don't know." She sighed. "I do things without thinking." I could hear her standing up, her soft footsteps across the cold pavement. "I'll go. I'm sorry I woke you up."

I rolled my eyes, letting out a breath of air. I beckoned to her, and she sat back down on the ground. "It's okay. I'm awake now. You got a name?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Stargirl." I gawked; what kind of name is that?

"What?"

"Stargirl."

"What?" I still couldn't believe this -- this "Stargirl".

"Star-girl." She said again, an annoyed, but self-conscious tone to her soft voice, putting emphasis on the "girl".

"Okay." I finally accepted, closing my eyes again.

The silence engulfed us again, and I could sense more discomfort radiating from "Stargirl". I heard a single bird chirping, and there were still lights on around the road below, despite the later hour.

"How can you stand to suck on lemons?" Stargirl asked suddenly, and I bit my lip to keep from chuckling.

"Juice is juice." I said simply, and she seemed to accept my answer.

"Are you going to the Blobfest?" She asked another question.

I shrugged. "Don't know."

"I'm going with Dootsie." She told me, feeling the need for useless smalltalk.

"Good for you." I answered back, glancing at her before closing my eyes again.

"You sneak into the pool a lot?" She asked, and I remembered the other afternoon at the local pool.

"When I feel like it." I said, trying to seem indifferent about it.

"You're braver than me." She sighed, and I smiled. "I've never gone off a high dive."

"No big deal." I grinned, making the task sound easy. I opened my eyes again, watching her own dark green eyes wander towards the night sky above us, blotches of light, the stars, littering it.

"It is if you're afraid to do it." She said shyly, and I shrugged again.

"So, you're a coward." I spat suddenly, mentally kicking myself for making it sound meaner than I had meant.

"Perry, I really am sorry. I -- " She began to apologize, and I suddenly felt angry.

I sat up on my blanket, finally taking the time to look straight into her eyes. She had light freckles that crossed the bridge of her nose, and her skin was just in the middle of tan and pale, while her eyes seemed to stare straight into your soul. "You came over to my house and climbed up here and woke me up. And now I'm wide awake. Is that what you wanted, to wake me up?"

"No." She squeaked timidly, and I struggled to resist the urge to laugh.

"Well, what do you want? You just want to watch me sleep?" I demanded, my tone softer.

"No." She said, blushing.

"You want to talk?" I offered, watching her trembling frame.

"I think so." She mumbled unsurely.

"So talk." I told her. "You did enough talking before. You follow me home and call me a thief. You lecture me in the library. Who do you think you are, some chief nun or something?"

"No." She whispered, her lips turning down into a small frown.

"So open your big mouth and talk." My words seemed rude, even to me, but I was getting annoyed.

Stargirl simply sat, as though comprhending my words. I sat cross-legged on my blanket, while she lay a few feet away, clad in a light sundress and sandals. The moon's glow was dulling, and it floated behind her, illuminating her thin figure. I watched her for a moment, occasionally glancing back down at the house we were sitting on, or taking a peek at the quiet road below us. Suddenly, I sensed a movement, and looked back at Stargirl to watch her step closer and closer to me, until she loomed over me. I looked up at her, my expression blank. She flopped down, crossing her own legs, still a foot or two away. She finally pulled off her sandals, throwing them aside, and talking again.

"I dreamed about you one night."

I was taken by surprise -- no one had ever dreamt about me, and if they had, they had never told me, straight to my face, just as Stargirl, strange, interesting, fascinating Stargirl did. Her words were true -- she did act without thinking.

"Yeah?" I egged her on, trying to seem careless.

"Well, sort of you." My shoulders slumped back down. "You were swimming in the canal. Dootsie said you do that -- "

"Once, I did." I told her, interrupting.

" -- and I was watching you under the water. You were a dark, shadowy figure, but I knew it was you -- and then it wasn't you, it was Ondine, and then you again, and Ondine, back and forth... " She rambled, glancing back at me cautiously, as if asking my opinion.

"Ondine." I said simply.

"The book you were reading in the library that day." Stargirl reminded, as if I were that clueless. I didn't respond. "I got my own copy and read it in one sitting. I loved it. Don't you love it?"

"No." I sighed. The story seemed much too happy for such an unhappy world.

"Really? Why not?" She asked curiously, scooting closer.

"She's stupid." I shrugged, and she gave me a strange look.

"How so?"

"She thinks everything is wonderful." I grumbled, and she raised an eyebrow. "Everybody's beautiful."

"Don't you?" She asked, as though everyone were skipping around cheerfully, and no one was suffering from poverty, there was no pain, nothing bad, no greed, lies, vanity...

I snorted. "She's always singing. She's too happy."

"Too happy?!" She exclaimed incredilously. "Is that possible? Happy is happy, isn't it? How can you be too happy?"

I groaned softly; who did this girl think she was? Did she really think that everyone was as happy as she obviously was? She stared into me with her deep green eyes, and I couldn't help but become mesmerized. "When you're living in a fairy tale. When the world you're living in is bogus." I sighed, frustrated, remembering the troubles my own family was suffering through.

"But it's not all peaches and cream for Ondine." She pointed out, and I tried to remember the parts of the story that I had finished while I was there at the library. "She gets sad."

"Not sad enough." I declared. "She's stupid. She's not real." I told her, and she shrugged, her tiny shoulders moving upwards, then sinking back down to their rightful place, supporting her skinny neck.

She suddenly leaned closer, grinning, as though she figured out a secret. "Perry, you never finished reading it, did you?"

It suddenly occured to me that she'd known my name before she had given me her own strange name. "It sucked." I said, trying to ignore the sheepish feeling that was crawling across my skin.

"Did you?"

"No."

"Well, I have news for you. In the end, Ondine's beloved knight -- Hans, remember? -- he dies." She told me, as though it were some kind of surprise twist that would shock me forever. It did seem surprising, though, that the fairytale hadn't ended with a "Happily Ever After". Nothing in my world ever seemed to end with "Happily Ever After", it seemed.

"Good." I said simply, and she gave me another strange look.

"And Ondine forgets everything about her time on Earth with people and returns to the water." She explained, trying to get a rise out of me. I resisted her urges.

"Good."

"Forever."

"Good."

She stared at me strangely, then gave me a soft, warm smile. I couldn't help but smirk back at her, and I watched as she looked away, then her green eyes came back to meet my own icy blue ones.

"So, why did you read any of it, then?" She asked curiously, and I shrugged.

"It was right in front of my nose."

I settled back onto my blanket, leaning my head against my calloused hands. I stared into the moon, letting its bright lights hypnotize me, taking me into its spell. Suddenly, Stargirl's voice brought me back to my dreaded Earth.

"You know, this is the second time this week that I've been up all night talking to somebody." She smiled, as though knowing, once again, another secret that I held inside me.

"That so?" I smirked, talking to her as I would one of my younger, curious, talkative cousins.

"That's so." She grinned proudly. "And you're dying for me to tell you about the other time, aren't you?" Her voice took on a teasing tone, but I couldn't help but admit that I was wondering about the other time.

"Can't wait." I rolled my eyes, then closed them, listening to Stargirl babble on about Betty Lou and cereus' and backyards and donuts and some girl named Alvina who I remembered had come chasing me up the street while I was eating a donut.

"Who?" I asked, opening my eyes, blinking a few times, watching Stargirl's blurred image become clearer over time.

"Alvina Klecko. The girl who chased you. Who dumped the bucket of water on you at the pool." She explained, and I remembered the events.

"The girl with the fingernail." I grinned, remembering the unusual sight of 4 plain fingernails and a single, elegant one.

"That's the one." She chuckled softly. "She says you come into Margie's."

"Once in a while.

"To steal donuts?" She teased, and I smiled.

"She gives'em to me." I shrugged, licking my chapped lips.

"I think she has a crush on you." She told me, and I raised an eyebrow.

"Sure." I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes again.

"Really." She insisted.

"She's a little kid." I whined.

"She's a growing kid." Stargirl corrected.

"She's a tomboy." I complained.

"She's a tomboy becoming a girl." Stargirl reasoned. "Look: She's gives you donuts. She chased you halfway across town. She threw a bucketful of water on you. That, my dear Perry," She nudged my shin with her pale toe, and I couldn't help but laugh at the silly action. "is love."

Silence unfolded once more, but it was a comfortable silence, not the many awkward ones we had suffered. I occasionally sent a teasing grin towards Stargirl, who responded by nudging me again with her big toe.

"Alvina told me about boot camp." Stargirl said suddenly. "Is it okay for me to know?"

I sighed softly, shrugging. "Everybody else does."

I looked back at the moon, watching the light cast a shadow among the darkness. Stargirl inched closer, and I felt my heart flutter with every scoot.

"I don't know what else to ask." She admitted, looking into the sky.

"Try: Why did they send you there?" I offered, and she smiled.

"Why did they send you there?"

"Stealing." I grinned, and she laughed. I loved the way she laughed; it was melodic, almost musical. She threw her head back, exposing a neck littered with light freckles that seemed to disappear in a bright light, letting her hair flow back and she would open her mouth and laugh.

"Well, they sure knocked that out of you, didn't they?" She teased sarcastically.

"They tried." I smirked.

"Was it hard?"

"What?"

"Boot camp. Was it hard on you?" She asked, a truly concerned look drowning her features.

"Yeah, I guess." I shrugged, trying not to make it a bit deal. "Up at four o'clock. Run five miles. Yes, sir. No, sir. Socks on washline. Classes. Marching. Stand at attention."

We talked more about my adventures at boot camp, chatting about stealing and Blobfests and Dootsie and Mrs. Blob.

"I meditate." Stargirl told me suddenly.

"I don't." I smirked.

"Didn't think so." She smiled. "You're not exactly the self-reflective type, are you?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Afraid to be alone with yourself?" She asked, a teasing tone to her voice.

"Terrified." I said, but this time, there wasn't sarcasm to my words.

We chatted more about ourselves. Stargirl talked about Dootsie and lemonade, and I asked her about her old boyfriend. Something, I don't know how domininant or small that part was, glowed with just a hint of jealousy, as Stargirl told me about Leo and Arizona and love and nosiness. I told her about Stephanie and she explained to me about her plan to build a Stonehenge, and before I knew it, Stargirl was standing up to leave.

"Well... " She sighed, a reluctancy coating her voice. "'Night."

"'Night." I murmured back, watching her start back down the ladder, then flopping back onto my blanket. I was slightly relieved to get back to sleep, but the image of Stargirl was imbedded into my mind.

"And I am not a typical girl." Stargirl called back over the walls that seperated us, her voice faint.

"No, you are not." I chuckled softly, my eyes half-open. "You certainly aren't, Stargirl." I whispered to no one in particular, then drifted back on into my own world.

--

What do you think? Was it bad? That was actually my first Stargirl fic. It probably had a million typos; I'm typing this up at 1:42 AM.