So for some reason I’ve been doing this a lot lately. Looking at my characters’ pasts. Here’s where you get to find out what happened to the characters and so on and so forth. Enjoy! Oh, and I may also put in bits from the future as well. MAYBE. It’s not a guarantee, but keep your eyes open. You never know. But in any case, this’ll be a series of one-shots. So enjoy.

A Non-Prep’s Complete Guide to Pissing Off a Prep

Over One Shoulder: A Look At the Past or Future

“Who’re You?”

Ten Years Ago (Ages of Characters — Seven)

“Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five! I’m gonna get you, Holly!”

The little girl crouching in the bushes with her black hair streaming down her back giggled, then clamped her lips shut. James wouldn’t find her, didn’t stand a chance of finding her. She knew how to hide, and hide well; but then, he almost always managed to find her.

That was why she’d hidden in the bushes around the park, instead of on one of the swing sets like she usually did. He’d get confused and give up.

She waited, biting on her lip to keep back the laugh, to hear her friend give up. As it was his voice blended with those of other kids, but she could hear him making threats that were a little too inventive for a seven-year-old boy, could hear him laughing when he’d found Brayden.

Holly fidgeted anxiously, bit harder on her lip. Any second now, James’d give up. She couldn’t wait to rub it in his face.

“What are you doing?”

She jumped and turned her head, mad that she hadn’t heard this other person arriving. It was a girl like her, but she was taller, with light-coloured hair bound behind her in a long braid. Her blue eyes were lighter than her own dark ones, and friendly and interested, but her presence made Holly’s heart jump.

“Get down!” she hissed, and yanked the girl’s hand so that she tumbled to her knees in the bushes beside her.

The other girl let out a snicker. “What are we doing?” she asked, this time in a whisper.

“Hiding,” Holly breathed back. “My friend James is looking for me.” She peeked cautiously out of the bush, recognized James’s black-and-red shoes as he ran all around the playground. Choking back another giggle, she withdrew, crouched on her haunches. “I’m Holly,” she told the other girl, and nodded her head at her as she asked, “Who’re you?”

“Lena,” she answered. “So we’re playing hide-and-seek?”

Holly nodded. “Yeah. We have to keep our voices down, or James’ll find me. The swing set is the safe spot, so if we get there he loses.” The last was said with brilliant relish, dark blue eyes twinkling.

Lena blinked. “You’re weird.”

Holly shrugged, grabbed Lena’s cool, clean hand in her own grimy one. “Let’s run for it!” she hissed, and bolted from the bushes.

The two girls flew across the park, Holly giggling madly when she heard James and Brayden shout. Before the boys could reach them, the two girls had snagged a hold of the swings and were each sitting on one, with Holly crowing triumphantly, “We win! Ha! You lose, James!”

The boy called James frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “No fair. There’re two of you.”

Holly pointed first at him, then at her brother as she counted, “One... two. Funny, there’re two of you guys, too.”

Brayden smiled, shook his head. “They won, James. We’ll get them next time.” He turned all of his seven-year-old attention span on Lena now and asked much as his sister had, “Who’re you?”

“Lena. You’re Holly’s brother? But you’re the same age.”

James shrugged, pushed a bit of dark brown hair from his eyes and then ignored it when it fell forward again. “They’re twins.”

“But... one’s a boy, one’s a girl.”

“Fraternal.” Holly and Brayden said the word together, enunciating carefully to make sure they got it right. Then Brayden explained, “It means we were born at the same time, but we don’t look the same. But we’re still twins.”

“Oh. That’s cool. I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” said Lena sorrowfully.

“You can have mine,” grinned Holly, and danced nimbly away from her brother’s attempt at a swat.

“Or mine,” suggested James. “His name’s Seth, and he’s four years older than us. He thinks he’s all amazing just ‘cause he’s in grade six. Big whoopee-do.” James rolled his eyes, then called cheerfully and with a big grin and wave, “Hey, Seth!”

Holly looked up, grinned. “Ice cream!” she shouted, and raced over to Seth, wrenching the hand that held a chocolate cone towards herself to steal a bite.

“Hey!” Seth shouted in protest, then looked at James. “I came to tell you Mom wants you home. Supper’ll be soon.”

“Then why do you have ice cream?”

“Don’t tell her,” Seth warned, and James grinned shrewdly.

“Gimme some of that ice cream and I won’t,” he told his brother glibly.

Seth rolled his eyes with the disdain only an older sibling could muster and extended the cone to his little brother. James eagerly snatched a few licks, then grinned.

“You’re stupid,” Holly told him around a mouthful of ice cream. “You hafta bite into it to get a lot of ice cream from him.”

“Yeah, but then you get a brain freeze,” Lena felt compelled to point out.

“James doesn’t have a brain, so he’s okay,” Holly replied calmly, again moving away fast enough to avoid a swat.

“You coming back with me, Brayden?” questioned James, and Brayden nodded.

“Yeah, I guess.” He started to follow after James and Seth, then looked back at Lena and smiled. “Nice meeting you. Don’t let her scare you,” he added, pointing at his sister.

She smiled back. “I won’t.”

As the boys hurried off, Holly grinned and kicked at the air below her feet, trying to get the swing moving as she settled onto it. “So, are we friends now?”

Lena pushed off slowly, her legs long enough to reach the ground.

“Guess so,” she answered.

End of “Who’re You?”

Yeah, so... I don’t know why, but for some reason lately I’ve been compelled to explain the pasts of characters. So you may get hints about what happened between Holly and James, or Lena and James (although I think we’ve already got a fair idea), or any of their parents. (Keep in mind, no main character in the story — not James, not Holly and Brayden, and certainly not Lena — has a father figure in the house. Therefore we may learn more about THAT here.

Enjoy, and please review!