“I hope you’ve started to consider your ideas for the assignment.” Luna stared out over the class. “It is important to get an early idea for your book so you do not realize too late that you have no idea what to do. Do not wait until the last minute, or I can promise you that you’ll regret it.”

“You’ll make us regret it.” A boy in the back of the class grumbled.

“I heard that.” Luna snapped. “My rules are strict to prepare you for real life! People don’t bend to your needs, it’s best that you learn that now. Now, I’ll give you a little time to consider your books today before we start poetry.”

The class collectively groaned, but with a stern look from Luna, they got to work, chatting together about what books they could read.

Swift and Clyde made a special effort to turn to Rivet and engage him in the conversation they had. They really had no interest in thinking about what book they would read, but Rivet joined in, so they were making progress.

Rivet was still a bit on edge about talking with them. Even though he had only met them yesterday, they helped to break him in to the new environment. He couldn’t help but feel more comfortable around them than anyone else. Even when talking about mundane things like what book to read for an assignment.

“Oh, and class!” Luna called their attention back to the front. “Don’t forget. You only have until next week.”

The three of them met up again for lunch that day. The cafeteria was as it had been the days before. However, Rivet had become accustomed to the noise of people, now it was just white noise. All three of them sat at the lunch table and began to chat. It was small, but engaging. Even still, Rivet notices something odd.

Rivet caught himself looking over at the rainbow haired girl again. There was some strange fascination with her. He had no idea who she was, and no idea why she wouldn’t want people to know that she read so much. But somewhere inside, he still wanted to say hello. Maybe under different circumstances than carrying her books through the rain.

Today, she was sitting with a group of five other girls, each with an obvious difference in tastes, and practically making up a rainbow of their own. A girl with white skin and wavy purple hair. A girl with pink frizzy hair and matching skin. A pale yellow girl with long pink hair. A purple girl with dark purple hair, and a girl with orange skin and blonde hair. They all sat chattering amongst themselves, apparently having a great time.

“Hey, Romeo.” Clyde tapped Rivet on the shoulder.

“What?” Rivet turned to him quickly, pretending that he wasn’t looking.

Clyde smirked. “I saw you staring. Who’s the girl?”

“Girl?” Rivet coughed. “What girl?”

“I know that look from Swift over here. You see a girl, and you definitely have a crush on her.” Clyde smirked at Swift. “So, who’s the lucky girl?”

“You’ve been here over a month and already have a crush?” Swift smirked.

“And how long did yours take?” Clyde shot back.

Swift’s smirk dropped and he gave Clyde a dirty look.

Rivet looked timidly back over at the table of girls. He did not like staring, but something inside made him want to.

“Who’s…” Rivet thought for a moment. Then he whispered to them, “who’s the cute one over there.”

Clyde stuck his head up, looking over at the table Rivet was indicating. “That’s Rarity. She’s my Boo.”

Swift stood up, peering over at the same spot. “Nah. That’s Pinkie. She’s my girl. She just… Doesn’t know it yet…”

“No.” Rivet shook his head. “The girl with the… The rainbow hair.” As he said the words, he found himself stealing one more glance back at her.

“Her?” Swift did a double take. “That’s Rainbow Dash. She’s on almost every girls’ sports team. Whatever the girl equivalent of a jock is, she’s it.”

“She’s trying out for the boys’ teams too this year.” Clyde added. “Just because she can.”

“She’s pretty popular around here. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her already.”

Rivet leaned back. “Me too.”

“You’re like complete opposites.” Swift looked at Rivet.

“But so are me and Rarity.” Clyde shrugged. “And you and Pinkie.”

“I’m not looking for a girl.” Rivet shook his head.

“Then that is one weird looking guy.” Swift elbowed him.

“I mean,” Rivet sighed, “I’m not looking for a girlfriend.”

“It’s a crush, not a life commitment.” Clyde shrugged. “It might pass. But if it doesn’t, after talking to her a little. Maybe there’s something there.”

Rivet shook his head again. “I might as well abandon the idea.” Leaning further back, Rivet stared up at the tiles on the ceiling.

Clyde exchanged a glance with Swift for a moment before turning back to Rivet. “You never know.” He turned away from Rivet, grinning slightly.

“I guess…” Rivet shrugged.

On his spare that day, Rivet walked up to his locker. Turning the combination lock to the three digits, he yanked on the lock, but it was jammed. Groaning, he input the combination again and tugged, with the same result. One last time, Rivet slowly rolled his lock back to the numbers. This time, he was satisfied to feel the lock slide open.

Rivet leaned against his locker as he pulled the small metal piece away from his locker and pulled the door open. On the top two shelves, there were papers and books from his classes, not any pictures, like many others in the school had. Reaching in, Rivet pulled out his parlour guitar in its case and closed the locker back up, slapping the lock back on.

As soon as the lock clicked into place, Rivet let out a loud groan. He had just realized that he had forgotten the homework from the English class. If he had a chance, or if he got bored, he would look over the poetry they had been assigned. After leaning his guitar up against the locker next to his, he fought with his lock again to get it open.

Now that he had all that he needed, Rivet made his way back down to the cafeteria. Sitting down, he opened the case and pulled out the instrument. Rivet took one last look around him with the hopes that nobody was watching. When he saw the coast was clear, he laid the guitar across his lap and slid his left hand up the neck.

Starting slowly, he played one of his go-to songs; one of the songs he just started playing as soon as it was in his hands. It was a fairly simple song to play, though he hadn’t thought that when he was learning it. Now it was natural, easy. He closed his eyes, just letting his hands move over the guitar, producing the tune. At first, he just strummed out the same three chords of the song over and over, but eventually began picking them. Eventually, he let the song die out before moving on to the next one.

After the song had come to a close, Rivet took one more look around the room and pulled out the English paper with the poem on it. His eyes scanned the page, not taking in any of the meaning, only seeing words, phrases, grammar. The poem seemed meaningless to him. Without the words put together with feeling and emotion, the whole thing was just words. For some reason, he did not feel like reading it.

But he did force himself to read it, it came across literally. Rivet considered bleeding meaning out of the words. Instead, he dropped the paper back on the table and pulled the guitar back close to him. It was slow, and solemn, with a very bardic style to it.

He began to play an older song he knew, humming the lyrics to himself. As he did, he felt almost what could be described as a revelation. He knew lyrics were poetry, but something seemed odd about them now. He repeated the lyrics aloud to himself.

“Under lock and key, and no one can see me. Surrounded here by ice, away from heat, away from life.” Rivet now realized that they weren’t solely about being cut off from the world. It had a whole meaning to it. Locks and keys kept things safe, out of prying eyes. But they also kept things prisoner, away from everyone and everything. The ice itself was another double meaning. Being alone was sad and scary, but to this person it was also refreshing, like some cold on a hot day. Yet, even with the good things solitude bought him, he was still scared and alone.

Rivet ceased playing. How was that so easy? He started to wrack his brain about why he found the assignment to odd and bulky, but why he found the song so simple. There was something in there, but Rivet couldn’t put his finger on it.

He spent the remainder of the period staring into the poem, hoping that the meaning would come out of it. He forced a few random and ambiguous themes and deeper meaning onto a sheet of paper before giving up and stuffing it into his bag. As he did so, his bag fell from the seat next to him and onto the floor.

As he reached down after his bag, he noticed a book sticking out of it. As it happened, it was the second Daring Do book, which he had forgotten that he had packed. With what time he had left in the day, Rivet decided to read more of the adventure novel. He considered using this book for his assignment, but wasn’t sure. If he was having so much trouble finding meaning in a poem, finding meaning in a book packed with adventure and action would be insane.

Even without a reason, Rivet decided that as soon as he got home, he would start reading. If he did find some way to get deeper meaning from Daring Do, he would have been more than happy to use it for his assignment. But there was significant doubt in his mind of that ever happening.

The bell sounded for the final time that day, so Rivet collected his bag, slid the guitar back into the case and headed for home. His shoes tapped along the floor as he made his way through the cafeteria, when something caught his eye. In the middle of the cafeteria, there was a wall, perhaps for privacy on one side when it was used for study hall, or perhaps just as an aesthetic. On the other side of the wall, he noticed a girl with pale skin and purple hair sitting next to a girl in a cowboy hat with long blonde hair. Both girls had their eyes trained on their phones.

As soon as he saw them, Rivet’s cheeks flushed red. His mind and heart raced. Had they been there the entire time? Had they heard him playing guitar and singing to himself. It wasn’t that he was worried he had done a poor job, but rather just the idea of someone listening to him play. Someone he wasn’t related to, to make things worse. His pace faltered with his sudden realization, and he nearly tripped over himself.

The clatter was just enough to attract the attention of the two girls at the table, who looked over to him, making him blush even more.

“Hello.” The pale girl waved. “Your playing was delightful.”

Rivet’s eyes widened at the compliment. He smiled politely as best he could and acknowledged the compliment with a quiet ‘thank you.’ The girl offered him a smile, which didn’t help his situation at all. Rivet quickly remembered he had to meet up with his sister, perhaps just as an excuse, but regardless, he waved back and headed out of the cafeteria. As soon as he was through the door, his heart pounded with a mixture of excitement, embarrassment, and surprise.

As he navigated the halls to his exit, a thought occurred to him. The girl at the table was the girl he had seen with Clyde on the bridge those weeks ago. For some reason, she seemed like a completely different person than he recognized, but it was definitely her.

Rivet grinned to himself. “I guess that must be the Boo.”

“Boo to you too!” A peppy girl with blonde hair bounced up behind him, grabbing his shoulders. “Did I spook ya?”

“I’ll be honest,” Rivet sighed, “A little.”

“Did you have a good day?” First Light giggled.

“I think so.” Rivet nodded. “How about you?”

“Do you want the long version or short version?” She asked, taking her hands off of him.

“I’ll take the short.” Rivet smiled.

“It was good.” First Light winked. She had realized that Rivet wasn’t much one for listening to long explanations, so she tried to keep it short when she could. But there were still times when she was too excited or too happy to contain herself and let her words flow.

Today, she was wearing a purple jacket and blue pants, and a pin with a music note was in her hair. She also had her hair in a ponytail over one shoulder. Going through the school parking lot, she waved at everyone she knew, which by now was most of the school.

“How did you manage to meet everyone here?” Rivet shook his head.

“You know those things called ‘boundaries?’” First Light looked up at him.

“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently I don’t have those.” She shrugged. “Who knew?”

As they continued down the road towards home, First Light kept asking random questions about Rivet’s day. He tried his best to answer them, though some were rather odd. Lining the roads were well kept lawns and fine houses. The way the sun shone out over the bright colours almost made the city seem perfect. If not for the occasional cracks in the road, and the occasional angry person, it was perfect.

“Any girls you like?” First Light piped up.

Rivet tensed slightly. “What? No. Not yet.”

“Shame…” She looked down. “Any boys you like?”

“What!?” Rivet asked, extremely surprised at the question.

“I mean, like friends.” She rolled her eyes. “People keep saying that my phrasing of things needs work.”

“Yeah, I’ve made a couple friends.” Rivet sighed.

“Good!” First Light smiled. “Mom was worried for a while.”

“I know.” Rivet nodded slowly.

“She still is. But now that you’ve made friends,” she giggled, “we can all get back to normal now.”

“Normal?” Rivet raised an eyebrow again, stepping over a crack on the sidewalk.

She grinned widely. “Yeah. Like we never even moved.”

“I guess.” Rivet shrugged.

First Light was the first one to cross the threshold of the house. She dropped her bag on the tile floor and called out.

“Mom! We’re home.”

Their mother came into the room, smiling slightly. “Hey.”

“As it turns out,” First Light stated, “Rivet likes boys.”

“What!?” Rivet turned to her, his face contorted in surprise with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

“Pardon?” Their mother asked.

“Sorry, sorry. That’s not what I meant.” First Light shook her head around. “Rivet made some friends at school. But they’re not friends like that. And they’re boys.” She started messing with her hair with more than a twinge of embarrassment.

“I’m happy to hear that.” She smiled, still a little shaken by the surprise First Light had dropped.

“Can I go to my room.” First Light asked, still fiddling with her hair.

“Okay, Light.” Their mother smiled, giving First Light a quick hug before the blonde girl ran upstairs. As soon as they heard the door close, their mother turned to Rivet.

“I’m happy to hear that you made some friends.” She smiled. “To be honest, I was a little worried about you.”

“Yes, mom.” Rivet nodded. “I made friends. And I’m doing just fine.” He smiled weakly back.

“I know your father hasn’t been around a lot, and I know how much you want to spend time with him.” His mother sympathized. “And I was worried that you were boarding yourself in.”

“You don’t have to worry about it, mum.” Rivet shook his head slowly, his weak smile still present. “They’re a couple of good guys.” He shrugged. “I still wish dad was around more, but I understand why he has to be gone so much.”

He did understand, but he didn’t like it. Other kids got to go actually do things with their dad, but Rivet’s dad was on call twenty-four/seven, and sometimes it wore on him. He knew what his dad was doing was important, but he wanted to have some time with him too.

As those thoughts rolled through his mind, Rivet hung his jacket up and picked his bag back up. He gave his mother one more smile before retreating up to his room to fight with the poem and continue to think about what he could do for a book for the assignment. As he was pulling the worn book out of his bag, he kicked the door lightly shut behind him with his heel. The lock clicked into place as he dropped the bag onto the floor.

Rivet had tucked the poem into the front inside cover of the book. Now he tugged the slightly crumpled page out and returned to staring at it. Rivet lay back on his bed, holding the page over his head and looking over the words. He found himself completely incapable of coming up with the meanings. The words he had written in the margin of the page before were still staring back at him.

Rivet looked over at his guitar bag on the floor, longingly. He knew he needed to do his homework, but it was so boring to him. Just looking at his page would get him nowhere, but guitar was more fun to him, and at the very least he could improve with it.

Giving in, Rivet dragged the guitar over to him. He pulled the instrument out of the bag, and his face dropped. Instead of six strings pulled tight down the neck of the guitar, there were only five. The low E string had snapped, and now hung loosely down the side.

“Damn…” Rivet looked down at what to him was a mess. He pulled out a box of strings from his bag and peered inside. Within the box of strings was every string, except the one he needed. Dropping his head limply, Rivet slipped the box back into the bag, defeated, and put the guitar away.

“Looks like I need to go shopping.” Rivet stood up, but heard a crunch underfoot. He looked down at the page he had stepped on, the poetry. He groaned loudly and took it back up. “Dad would want me to finish my homework.” He slumped back down on the bed and stared at the little piece of paper again.

After dinner, Rivet had retired back to his room and tried his best to work out the problems. After hours locked away in his room, he had made absolutely no progress. He pulled out his phone and opened the messenger. He searched through his list for the right number, but soon slapped his forehead.

He dropped his phone on the bed. Rivet had just remembered that he had no one he could text. Before, he would have sent a text to one of his friends from the class for a little help, or just a push to get him moving forward on the work.

But now he had no one he could text. He did not have Clyde or Swift’s number, and he hadn’t made any other friends. Short of faking his way through it, there was nothing Rivet could do. He would just have to wait until the morning. He hated leaving homework unfinished, it made him feel antsy and worried about not getting it done at all.

Instead, Rivet just laid back in bed, dropping the poem to the floor. He shook his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

Reaching back to his phone, Rivet plugged his headphones in and pushed them lightly into his ears. He entered the password and turned on the song which seemed to speak to him at the moment. With the song drifting into his head, Rivet felt himself drift away to total darkness with the final words lulling in his ears.