Max had been ten and in fifth grade when she missed a solid three months of school and was subsequently held back for a year. She'd always been one of the oldest in her class, and despite her tendency to doodle, whisper, and daydream in class instead of paying attention, she was a decent enough student, she'd more or less caught up by the time she reached high school, so not too many people knew it. Because Max loved people and loved talking, but there were some things she simply refused to talk about, and fifth grade -- the year she and her pregnant mother had left her lawyer father in the city and moved to Bradbury -- was one of them. 

But it wasn't unusual for Max to befriend kids in the grade behind her, since about half her classes were with them, anyway. In this case, the new batch of freshmen. And several of them were new.

Then again, it wasn't unusual for Max to befriend anyone. What was more unusual was for those people to stay friends with her. Truth be told, she'd been a little surprised Mario had opted to the GameStop with her, though she'd assumed his brother had something to do with that. 

Still, she was glad to see yet another familiar face when she turned. Her own expression brightened instantly, even before she could recall his name. And she did. 

It just took a few seconds. 

"Oh! Hi!" she exclaimed brightly, before immediately shrinking the distance between them to something any other person might have considered uncomfortable, but Max just considered hands-on mnemonics for name remembering. Not that peering at him up close really helped anything, but it was a useful stall, and Max hated to think she might hurt his poor feelings. He was taller than she was -- not a difficult task in the slightest -- but also younger, which immediately put Max in the mind of a puppy. 

Max [i]loved[/i] puppies. 

Finally, she straightened and turned to beam at Mario. 

"He's Theo," she announced victoriously. "We had a math class together earlier this year until I hadda drop it." She scowled. "Now I go to this tutoring center on Saturday mornings. Which is lame, because that's cartoon time with the boys, and now I don't even get home in time to see Sonic." She pouted for a moment, then immediately got over it. 

"Anyway, what about fences? Oh...there are fences? Oh, yeah, I guess there are...I forgot about that." Max looked crestfallen for a moment, then brightened again and grinned at Theo. "Hey, does that mean you wanna walk home with us?"