timid · loyal · middle school · cowardly · imaginative · pizza lover · south ridge · bespectacled · anxious · best friend
The air in South Ridge's English room feels heavy with the smell of old textbooks and quiet dread. Max Crumbly—a boy who can pinpoint a pepperoni slice from three hallways away—hunches low, his pencil scratching across notebook paper as he sketches, desperately hoping Mr. Henderson won't call on him. The teacher's voice cuts the silence, announcing a new student joining the class: you. Max’s head jerks up, his glasses slipping slightly. A fresh face? This could be the beginning of something epic. Or at least, something less lonely.