Julia Reign was a very smart girl, one who prided herself on being the smartest person in the room. At her old school, she was always receiving awards for her brilliance and was always the person who the teachers relied on when their classes got too rowdy. With just one whistle, all of her classmates would stop doing what they were doing, shoot her angry looks, and then listen to the teachers. It felt wonderful being that smart.

Until she wasn't.

Julia stared at her new schedule, the paper quivering in her shaking hands. Students bustled around the hallways of Mission Creek High School, but she stood still next to her locker as she did not know where to go for her first class, not joining in on the back-to-school festivities. She knew no one here and couldn't hug them or talk to them about how much she missed them. To be completely honest, she couldn't do that at her old school, either. She didn't exactly have any friends.

She just had to remember a quote from her favorite tech mogul, Donald Davenport. Once when he was getting interviewed and the interviewer asked him how he handles his nerves, he said that he never got nervous about anything. But then he had said that he just focuses on the things he knows because that makes him feel like he has more control over that situation. When he has more control, then he can think more clearly.

Starting with her first fact, Julia pictured the route that she had just traveled to get here to Mission Creek. With her parents, she had traveled 1,308 miles from home just to move to Mission Creek with her parents after her dad got a new job at, coincidentally, Davenport Industries. Next, she thought about how the car got about 30 miles to the gallon, and her parents' car could get up to 12 gallons of gas in the car. That meant that they had filled up the car three times on the way to Mission Creek.

Julia nodded to herself after doing that math, and it felt a lot easier to breathe. She could do this. 

She started walking but realized she still didn't know where to go for her class. The bell had just rung, the warning blast, and there weren't that many people left in the hallways. However, there were three boys and one girl still chatting together near the weird circular bench in the center of the main hallway. She knew that she would have to ask them where to go, so Julia walked over to them. None of them had seen her yet. 

"Excuse me," she said, tapping the boy closest to her on the shoulder, "can you help me? I'm new here, and I don't know where my class is. I'm Julia Reign."

The boy turned around with an annoyed look on his cute face. His hair stood up slightly in tiny little spikes, and his eyes narrowed when he looked at her. "I'm going to be late to class if I help you," he said to her.

Julia hung her head, but she understood the sentiment. The thing was, she didn't want to be late on her first day, either. That was why she was asking that boy to give her directions. "Thank you anyway," she said to him softly.

"Oh, Chase, don't be like that," the girl said, slapping the boy on the shoulder. She smiled at Julia. "Here, let me look at your schedule. I'll help you."

Julia handed her schedule to the girl while the taller boy said, "Bree, you don't know your way around the school like I do. Let me look."

"Adam, you got lost going to the gym."

"Yeah, that's in the past."

"It was yesterday!"

While the two of them argued about who knew the hallways to this school better, the third boy rolled his eyes. "I'm Leo Dooley," he said to Julia. He smiled warmly at her. "Welcome to Mission Creek. You'll hate it here."

"Way to make her excited for school, Leo," the original boy said, rolling his eyes. "Look, I have to get to class. I don't want to be late. Again."

"Wait, Chase!" the girl -- Bree -- said, holding up her hand. The original boy stopped. "Great news. Julia is in your class with you, so you can take her there."

Chase didn't look too excited about that piece of information, but he waited for Julia to catch up with him before he took off again. She struggled to keep up with him at first. However, she was a little worried that she was going to be late, too, so she kept speed with him. He seemed to appreciate that.

The two of them made it to the classroom just as the final bell rang, and Julia was forced to sit directly behind Chase as those were the two last seats left in the room. The teacher started calling out the rollcall, but Julia knew she would be closer to the end of the alphabet since her last name was Reign. She didn't have to listen that hard for a long time. 

However, her ears perked up when the teacher called out, "Chase Davenport." The boy that guided Julia to the classroom raised his hand. Her eyes widened when she heard his last name. Could it he somehow be related to Donald Davenport? Her heart thudded against her chest, and she nearly missed it when her own name was called.

"I want everyone to partner up," the teacher said after she finished calling out the names of everyone in the class. "I have prepared a small project that I want you to work on with your partner, and it's going to be due tomorrow."

Almost everyone in the classroom groaned, but Julia couldn't help but smile to herself. This sounded promising. She had been worried that since she was moving, she couldn't have the same type of education as she did back home. What if her new school wasn't as top notch as her old one? But this made her think that everything was going to be okay. 

Since she didn't know anyone else in the classroom, Julia found herself tapping Chase on the shoulder once more. This time, he didn't look annoyed that she wanted to talk to him. Instead, he had a smile on his face. "I'm glad we're on the same page," he said to her. "I don't know anyone else in here, either. If you didn't know, this is a pretty big school."

"Are you related to Donald Davenport?" she asked him once he fully turned around to face her. He gave her a weird look, and she felt herself blush slightly. "I'm only asking because my dad works for Davenport Industries. And he's my favorite tech genius out there."

"Great, his head's going to get much bigger because of that," he said while laughing. "Yes, Donald Davenport is my father."

"Oh, my goodness!" she squealed. Thankfully, everyone else in the class didn't look at her like she was crazy. Only Chase did. At least he had a smile on his face, though. "I'm sorry. I just love his work, and I can't believe that on my first day at school, I met his child."

"Children," Chase corrected her. "Leo and Adam are my brothers, and Bree is my sister."

"No. Way."

"Yes. Way."

Julia couldn't believe her ears. This day was turning out much better than she had originally planned. Their teacher finally passed out the homework packet, and she grinned at Chase. "I love school," she told him. "I'm the smartest person I know."

"Well, you've met your match, Julia, because I'm the smartest person I know."

While they worked on the project, Julia learned a lot about Chase. He actually was very smart, just like her, and they both kept cracking the nerdiest jokes and laughing about them. Usually, if she had said those jokes to her classmates back at her old school, they would have ignored her and went about their day. But Chase thought she was hilarious, and that made her heart sing a new song.

But the time went by too quickly, and with them cracking jokes left and right, Chase and Julia hadn't completed their project packet. "I think you should come over to my house tonight," Chase told her with a nod. He still wore that adorable smile, the one that came out when she started telling him jokes. "That way, we can finish this project."

"That sounds great to me, Chase Davenport. I'll see you later."

---

Julia couldn't believe that she was standing at Donald Davenport's door. At first, she didn't have enough bravery to knock on the door. But after counting all the bricks on the ground, she felt a little better about things. She raised her hand and rapped her knuckles against the rough wooden door. 

It swung open as quickly as she knocked, and there stood Chase, almost as if he had been waiting for her. "I'm glad you could make it, Julia," Chase said with that sweet smile of his. Her heart jumped nervously. "Come on in."

Julia stepped inside and her eyes widened. The living room was immaculate, with a white couch and large picture windows behind the stairs. A red kitchen opened up just beyond the living. So far, this house was already bigger than the apartment her and her parents just moved into the other day. She was on the look-out, though, for her very own hero, Donald Davenport. But it seemed like the only other person in here was Chase.

He took her to the white couch, and Chase sat down. The coffee table was pulled up close to the couch so the two of them could work on their project together. "Thank you for letting me come over today," she told him as she sat down next to him. 

"It's no problem. I want to get this homework done sooner rather than later."

"Same!"

The two of them quickly got to work on the project, but the kept up the jokes from earlier, almost as if they hadn't been separated for hours today. When she was reaching for one of their many different colored highlighters, her arm accidentally brushed against Chase's, and he jerked away from her.

Suddenly, their packet of papers flew off of the coffee table without either of them touching it. Chase looked at her with wide eyes, fear appearing in them. "Julia," he whispered, "promise me you won't tell anyone!"

"I don't even know what happened!" Julia said.

"I'm bionic," Chase blurted out. "And so are Adam and Bree. I have supreme intelligence, Adam has supreme strength, and Bree has supreme agility and super speed."

"Okay, I know what happened now." She stared at him, her mind totally blown. Somehow, her hero had made his children bionic. She wished he were here so she could ask him everything about it! But with the fear in Chase's eyes, she knew that Donald Davenport wouldn't be happy that she knew. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

He let out a breath he was holding and said, "Thank you."

It was hard for her to go back to her homework, though, now that she couldn't stop thinking about this cute new boy being bionic. And it seemed like Chase couldn't stop thinking about it, either, because he didn't bother to go pick up their packet. Instead, he turned his body so that he could face her completely.

"Do you want to go out sometime?" Chase asked her suddenly. She glanced over at him to see red seeping across his cheeks. His blood seemed to be rushing to the forefront of his skin. Julia thought he looked so cute. "I mean, that is, if you want to. I could show you around Mission Creek since you're new --"

"Chase, I think it's better if you stop now before you stick your foot deeper in your mouth," Bree said in passing as she walked down the stairs and to the kitchen. Chase sank lower on the couch. She paused before opening up the fridge, winked at Julia, and then said, "Don't let him ramble on because he will never stop."

"Bree!" Chase yells, throwing one of the decorative pillows at her. She just laughs before running somewhere deeper in the house. Chase turned toward Julia with an angry look on his face. "She gets on my nerves so much sometimes."

Julia just smiled at Chase and slipped her hand into his. He glanced down at that before looking at her with a frown on his face. "Yeah, I'd like to go out with you sometime," she told him with a nod. "You can give me a tour of the town. And maybe take me out to eat."

"That sounds great to me, Julia Reign."