DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters here that I didn't make up myself. I don't own Lizzie McGuire, but she's not actually born yet at the time of this story, anyway.

Hillridge, California

Monday, September 8, 1975

7:25 AM

"This is so great! You're going off to your first day at high school! You'll make so many new friends…"

Sam McGuire grimaced. "Mom… I don't even have any old friends. When we moved here two years ago, I started middle school with a whole bunch of people who had known one another since kindergarten, but I was the stranger, the outsider. The most anybody does is tolerate me. I don't expect high school to be any different."

"But there are lots of new, different people there! I'm sure you'll find somebody you like!", said his mother.

"Yeah, sure there are lots of new people… Hillridge High School has a bigger district than Hillridge Junior High, so they've got all the kids from Jefferson Middle School too… bunch of stuck up snobs, far as I can see. Great improvement that'll be. And, oh yeah, there's also all the seniors and juniors, and even sophomores, all of whom think they're superior to us lowly freshmen. They even stuck flyers on our lockers in the last week of middle school to warn us of all the rules they expect us to follow. Most of the hallways are off limits. High school will be a blast, all right."

"Don't be so negative all the time! You'll adjust… OK, middle school might have been a little hard, being in a new town and all, but you should do just fine now."

"Mom, I didn't even have friends back in Michigan! Face it… I'm a nerd. Nerds don't have friends. I'm not even all that friendly with the other nerds… I'm just not into the right things even for them. Like, I'm a sports fan… most nerds don't care about that stuff. I'd get along better with the jocks with that interest, except that none of them can stand me enough to even care what I'm interested in. So I think I'm just best off keeping to myself like I've always done."

"But what about that guy… what was his name? Gordon something? You went to that Jewish ceremony of his… what do they call it?"

"A Bar Mitzvah, Mom. And his name is Howard Gordon, but people call him Howie. And he's not my friend… he's just another one of the nerds at school, who's desperate enough to find people to invite to his parties and ceremonies and stuff, that he picks anybody he thinks can stand him. I don't get desperate like that; that's why I haven't even wanted to have a birthday party except within the family. But I even have to remind you to do that, because you're the only mother I know who can't even remember her own kid's birthday!"

"I know your birthday… August 10th, isn't it?"

"August 11th. You're only one day off this time… better than usual. I'd think you'd know it, since after all, you were around for my birth …"

"I was completely knocked out… in those days they used lots of anaesthesia. I don't remember anything."

"You don't have to be under anesthesia to not remember things, Mom… like, we've been out of milk for two days and you still haven't gotten any. I had to eat my cereal dry."

"I'll get it today, I promise… now go! You'll miss your bus!"

"Jo, hurry up! You don't want to be late for your first day of school, do you?", said another mother across town.

"Coming, Mom," said Jo. "But I'm really nervous about going to high school… it's going to be way different from middle school. In middle school, I was, well, in the middle. Not part of the 'A-list' of the popular crowd, but not over with the dorks either. People respected me, well, most of the time anyway, and most of them got along with me even if they didn't ask me to sit at the cheerleaders' table. But at high school, I'm going to be thrown in with a whole bunch of strangers who might have very different ideas of social order. Along with the people I know from Jefferson Middle School, there's the crowd from Hillridge Junior High, and they've got quite a reputation for being wild and rowdy, and very mean to anybody they don't think deserves to be on the top of the hill. They're more interesting people than the dull, boring, 'respectable' Jefferson gang, but they're scary at the same time."

"Oh, you'll adjust to it. Maybe you'll even find a boy you like… I'm sure that's what you're really thinking about. Or are you still crushing on the lifeguard from the city pool?"

"MOM… I got over that a year ago! That guy isn't even in high school any more; I think he either went away to college or is living in his mother's basement or something… I don't see him around any more, and don't want to. Yes, I'd like to find a guy to date, but I don't know if any of the people I'm likely to meet around here are going to be at all right for me. This is a pretty shallow, superficial suburb we live in. I tried for a while to be shallow just like everybody else, to see if I could get into the popular crowd myself, but it just didn't work… being phony is not what I do best. Unfortunately, this place seems to reward phoniness more than honesty."

"Honesty will win out in the end… just be patient, and be yourself, and don't worry if a few shallow idiots don't appreciate it. In the long run, you'll win and they'll lose."

"Thanks, Mom, but I'm not sure I can wait for the long run to arrive."

"Well, you'd better not wait too long now… you've got to get to school now! It's a quarter to eight already!"

Jo rushed out the door and just barely caught the school bus.