TEENAGE KICKS

CHAPTER ONE: ANOTHER BOY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

SUMMER BREAK WAS the only thing that Rory Lawrence looked forward to after the impending doom her principal thrust upon her. And after the humiliating conversation with Cindy about how she would have to join the team, she was thrilled that her escape from the hell hole (or school as others call it) was just around the corner.

As the brunette skated down the road, rushing to the apartment block that her best friend lived at, she couldn't help but wish to toss the new cheerleading uniform in her backpack in the trash and be done with it.

But none-the-less, Rory skidded to a stop in the car park and kicked the skateboard up so that she could carry it through the gate. She rushed to run up the steps, pausing to stare at the old lady and her dog sitting in a lounge chair that always seemed to have something to say.

"Oh, it's you" Rory's breath hitched when she realized the old lady had "sensed" her presence or whatever voodoo shit she looks like she's into "here to see your friend?"

Rory nodded soundlessly before brushing past her, deciding that if she didn't say anything, the woman wouldn't continue talking to her.

Apartment 19 was the only polished door in the apartment block, probably because of Cindy's mother's OCD tendencies that made the whole place spotless. Rory knocked countless times, a bit impatient to get out of the hot summer sun.

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" A voice was heard from the other side, the door opening to reveal Cindy's mom dressed in a floral dress with a white apron over it and yellow latex gloves. "CINDYYYY, YOUR FRIENDS HERE!"

Rory refrained from covering her ears at the loud sound of her yelling but perked up when her best friend was seen to be grabbing her shades and hurrying to close the door so her mom would stop yelling about her not tracking mud into the house when she gets back.

Cindy's eyes were wide and she appeared breathless as she latched onto Rory's wrist and took off towards apartment 17 where her boyfriend (yuck) lived. Rory let her tug her along, choosing to run as well to speed up the process.

"Freddy!!!" Cindy yelled as she knocked on the door. Knowing her boyfriend, he was most likely asleep and forgot about us hanging out "Jesus Freddy!"

A dazed Freddy opened the door and stepped out into the light, hissing like a vampire at the exposed sun "It's like 9 am, what the hell are you doing here?"

Rory rolled her eyes at the boy and pushed her own sunglasses up on her head to push her hair back "It's 2 PM firecracker, you really need an alarm"

"Get me one for my birthday and maybe I'll wake up on time"

Sighing, Cindy started tugging Freddy behind her as she had with me and in the process, waking Freddy up from his tired state. Rory hurried to follow behind, sliding down the railing of the stairs to land on the floor at the bottom.

Pausing for a second as if remembering something, Rory called over Cindy and shooed away the only boy when he followed like a lost puppy.

"I brought my new Cheer Uniform" Cindy giggled at the disgust on her face "I have to refrain myself from playing tug of war with crazy lady's dog"

"Oh don't be dramatic Aurora" Rory glared at her when she spoke her full name, but Cindy ignored her "besides, I'll be there the whole time since you know, I do cheerleading?"

Rory's nose scrunched up, before brushing past Cindy and muttering under her breath "I don't know why you would choose to do it"

Hearing a loud cry, noticeably Freddy's, Rory rolled her eyes as she and Cindy ran to catch up with the boy who was now on the floor holding his forehead. Obviously, by the swinging door where a boy clad in jeans and a blue muscle tee, Freddy had been whacked in the face by the door.

"Oh shit, Freddy, not again!" Cindy scolded the boy, leaving the boy confused and gripping his bike's handlebars.

"Again? This has happened before?"

Keeping her eyes trained on a struggling-to-stand-up-Freddy, Rory rolled her eyes "Yeah, once I pushed the door too hard and this dumbass was standing in the way"

"Ouch," he winced causing the girl to lift her head and make eye-contact with him, her jaw tightening ever so slightly as she sized him up. As if noticing her suspicious staring, he held his hand out to the girl "Oh, I'm Daniel...Daniel LaRusso,"

Rory ignored his outheld hand and nodded slowly, before looking to Freddy who perked up at the comment "Hey, you gotta be the new people in apartment 20, right?"

Daniel finally took his eyes away from the distracted Rory's face and flicked his eyes over to Freddy "Oh, yeah. I guess so"

Freddy held his hand out this time and Daniel looked less nervous than before after the first girl turned down his handshake "Freddy Fernandez, Apartment 17"

"Daniel LaRusso" he echoed back again, not knowing if the injured boy had heard him the first time over the ringing in his ears.

Cindy was the next to step forward, going to take the heavy looking suitcase on his handlebar "I'm Cindy Kettering, let me help you." She sent him a dazzling smile and unhooked the bag off the bicycle much to Daniel's guilty pleads not to which she shook off.

"Well, where you from clumsy?" Rory piped up as they all started walking to Apartment 20.

Daniel looked a little taken aback at the nickname but nonetheless looked sheepish as he answered "Just moved here from New Jersey"

Freddy laughed and turned to look at him "then what are you doing out here?"

"My mom got a job with some company out here" he shrugged "Rockets, computers, flight of the future, I don't know"

Cindy seemed to think for a second and shook her head "Never heard of it"

"It's up and coming" Daniel looked over the railing with a confused expression, almost looking like an adorable kicked puppy "is this the only pool you guys got here?"

Rory sighed and stared at it in disgust, noticing the slight mold growing at the bottom and the tinted green water "yep, that's the best you'll get here. Probably get aids from swimming in it, so I'd advise you not to"

"Noted" he hesitantly nodded, making the mental note to never go near the lame excuse for a pool.

"Hey, what was that back there? Karate?" Freddy chimed in again, looking behind them at the direction they had come from.

Rory looked interested for the first time that whole conversation and that made Daniel look more confident in his answer, plastering on a slight smirk (though with his puppy-like face, it didn't have the effect it should've had "Oh, that? Yeah."

"You been doing it long?" Rory questioned him as she sped up to be beside him, rather than behind him with a mostly silent Cindy (which was what usually happened around new people).

He seemed to both nod and shake his head in uncertainty "Yeah, a while I guess"

"Well, you ever use it?" Cindy piped up, stepping up beside me.

"A couple of time, you know"

"Bet you can kick some ass" Freddy nodded repeatedly with a grin before gesturing over to Rory "we have our own little fighter, used to take karate as well before getting kicked out after breaking someone's leg by accident"

"Freddy, you're going to scare away the poor guy" Cindy giggled lightly, nudging Rory in the side when she rolled her eyes dramatically "Anyways, he totally deserved it after trying to slap her ass. Funniest thing I've seen since resident "nice girl" dumped Rory's ass of a brother"

Daniels's eyes widened again, looking over to Rory who flashed him a sadistic grin before falling into muffled laughter behind her hand.

Coughing awkwardly, the boy continued to push along his bike "This place is a dump"

"Maybe you should scurry off back to New Jersey"

"Preach it sister" Rory immediately replied before realizing it was an unknown voice that had joined them, and by unknown, she meant crazy dog lady.

Daniel raised an eyebrow at the back of the woman who seemed to be doing either a crossword or sudoku "how'd you know I was from New Jersey?"

She kept her eyes trained on her newspaper "'cause I'm from New Jersey. I got a nose for my own"

"Oh, what part?"

"Parsippany"

"Parsipa-what?" Rory cut in, frowning at the weird name but was ignored by everyone else.

"Parsippany?"

"never should've left"

"I got an Uncle Louie from Parsipanny"

That got her attention as she snapped her head up and looked over her shoulder at a curious Daniel "Louie Fontini?"

He shook his head quickly "Louie LaRusso"

"Louie LaRusso?"

"Yeah"

"Don't know him" he waved him off abruptly making Rory choke on a laugh at his deflated expression and pat him on the shoulder sarcastically.

Daniel rolled his eyes at Rory and looked down at the dog underneath her deck chair, who was looking up at the boy "Hey, pup. Hey, pup. How are you doin', you thirsty, huh?"

Freddy patted his back to get his attention and made a round motion at his own head, a gesture towards the crazy lady as a "she's crazy" kinda thing.

"What?"

Freddy leaned down a little to help get the bike up the stairs "she's not playing with a full deck, man"

Cindy slapped his arm and turned to Daniel with a flattering smile "don't listen to Mr. Judgy over here, she's really nice once you have a late-night talk with her over what traumatizes you..."

"Jesus Cindy" Rory laughed, shaking her head "doubt the poor kid needs to hear about you getting hit by a swing when you were 5 by my brother as your trauma"

"Yeah well, it counts as trauma since I've been scared of swings ever since. And how 'bout we talk about your impending phobia of flying cockroaches?"

Rory coughed before slapping her shoulder "shut up Cynthia, who's not afraid of flying cockroaches, and no one cares about how cool you think they are Freddy"

Freddy held his hands up in surrender before turning to a silent Daniel "don't worry about them, they're always like that. But anyway, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"What? Oh, I guess nothing...why?"

Cindy pulled my arm along with her as we raced to the top of the stairs to catch up "we're having a beach party, you should definitely come Daniel!"

"It's sort of an "adios, summer" Freddy continued, looking past Daniel's shoulder at an exasperated Rory who was shaking her head "wanna come?"

"Yeah sure, that's cool"

Rory sighed and groaned silently, not really knowing why she wasn't looking forward to seeing the LaRusso boy at the beach party.