Hey Punk, Don't Mess With Me (OPEN)

[Harmony Muller-Barton]

Harmony was in a terrible, awful, not nice, very bad mood. And of course it was everyone's fault but her own.

It had started this morning when one of her roommates had decided to be loud and annoying. Of course Harmony had been trying to sleep in (since she'd planned on cutting her first class) so anything above whispers and tip-toeing was considered loud and annoying. But by the time she'd gotten out of bed to yell at them, both of her roommates had already headed to class. She'd stuck her head in the hallway to see if she could still yell a few insults, only to be seen by one of the dorm monitors who told her to keep it down and get ready for class.

So grumbling to herself, she'd went to her first few classes. And the list of grievances just grew. She hated her teachers. She hated her peers. She hated this stupid school. Why couldn't everyone just stay out of her way for once? Was that too much to ask?

Apparently it was. As she was walking with her tray of food to find a place to sit during lunch. Someone bumped into her, causing her to spill her food all over herself. Letting loose a sound that was close to a growl, she dumped the remains of her lunch on the floor and swung out her empty food tray at the person who had bumped her, hoping to connect with their face. "You idiot!" she yelled, as she swung out the tray.

[Amos Freeman]

Amos's vision was mostly obscured by the stack of newspapers he was carrying, so it took him a few moments to register the fact that he had bumped into something.

Something short, apparently.

Wham!

Short and angry.

"Ow," he said instinctively. The massive stack of the latest edition of the Hammel Bugle, which had been scattered by the impact, was momentarily forgotten. Amos raised a hand to the side of his face where the lunch tray had hit him.

He surveyed the girl in stunned disbelief. She had to be twelve, maybe thirteen. Amos was eighteen and a senior. He was scrawny, sure, and he did write for the school paper... and he didn't really get out much... and, well, he stuttered.

He was used to ridicule, to be sure. Just not from people who didn't even reach his shoulders.

"Sorry," he said dryly. "I mean, you don't have to be a j-jerk about it, or anything."

He paused, pursing his lips a little.

"Th-that kind of hurt." He'd been nursing a sinus headache all day, too.

He looked down at the floor surrounding their feet. What Amos could only assume had been the girl's lunch was scattered and ruined. Some of it had spilled onto his papers. It clearly wasn't an ideal situation for either of them.

He squinted at her as though issuing a challenge.

"I would've, uh, bought you a new plate, but I mean," he began sarcastically. "Now I'll probably just let you eat it off the f-floor."

He bent down and began stacking up the papers that hadn't been tainted by spillage. He came to the cafeteria at the same time every week to hand them out at the table on the far side; hardly anybody read the Bugle, of course, even though it was free.

But it was his duty, and he took it very seriously.

"And I'm not an idiot," he added with building resentment, as though he'd just remembered the insult. "You're just so short I couldn't see you."