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Matt watched as the ball rolled towards the girl and settled at the heel of her shoe. He could almost hear the voices of his two best friends teasing and making their opinions known.

Tobias would have cringed, reminded him that girls have cooties, and that the ball would need to be disinfected. Mackenzie, on the other hand, would have laughed, said something like “[color=f7941d]smooth,[/color]” and then told him to go talk to the girl, maybe ask her out.

Matt knew everything was changing in his world. He wasn’t like either of his friends. Mack, who was exactly four months older than Matt, was always talking about girls now, especially Kelly Kapowski from Saved by the Bell. He wanted to watch MTV all the time and kept talking about going to the mall to check out the girls who worked at Orange Julius. 

Tobias wasn’t ready for any of that. He only wanted to play sports. Girls still had cooties and definitely germs. When Melissa Jameson told him she liked him, he stayed home from school for three days, five if you include the weekend, and he didn’t want anything to do with her after that.

Matt was somewhere in the middle, he figured girls were... well... just girls. He wasn’t afraid of girls like Tobias, but he wasn’t like Mackenzie, ready to have a girlfriend and hoping every birthday party would be a boy-girl party and include seven minutes in heaven.

When the red-haired girl turned around and picked up the ball, Matt was ready to apologize, but when the girl asked if he had lost the ball, he only nodded, and before he could say sorry, she tossed it back with an easy underhand throw, and it landed in his glove.

He was surprised when she asked if he was the new kid. It wasn’t the question that surprised him, but that she had noticed him. He looked at her again and nodded. [color=00aeef]“Yeah, I just got here today. I’m going to be here all summer.”[/color]

When Piper laughed about the chaos in the recreation cabin, Matt let out a small breath and chuckled back. [color=00aeef]“There was a lot of blood. When that one kid fainted, I…”[/color] He stopped, realizing how silly it probably sounded, but he saw the red-haired girl was still waiting for him to finish. [color=00aeef]“I thought we were going to need an ambulance or something.”[/color]

As soon as she introduced herself, Matt answered back. [color=00aeef]“I’m Matt ... and I’m sorry about the baseball. I didn’t mean to hit you with it.”[/color]

Before Piper had a chance to reply, he looked at her and then bit his lip. After a second, he asked, [color=00aeef]"I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do now. Do I need to find a counsellor, or do people just grab a canoe?"[/color]