Birthday: September 10th, 197x

Regarding the world from behind her steely thick glasses and heavy red bangs, Hunter is the serendipidous only offspring of a free-spirited Swinging Londoner and a Joe Six-Pack from Lubbock, Texas. As a child, Hunter was possessed of a razor-sharp precocity which unfortunately went un-nurtured because her father felt that accelerated learning, or indeed ANY decent education, was just a waste of good beer money. Not surprisingly, Hunter developed a deep resentment and contempt for her father that continues to this day, although they perhaps have the potential to find common ground after a recent visit. Hunter chose to move out with her mother when her parents divorced. While not exactly the world's greatest disciplinarian, her mother Nova encouraged her daughter's fertile imagination and burning curiosity of the world around her. An insatiable bookworm, Hunter shares her mother's love of and talent for writing, although to date she is very guarded in showing anyone her work. Her somewhat insular childhood of solitary creativity and few close friends means that Hunter has a rather healthy disregard for social graces, no vanity to speak of and a tongue that can deliver honesty as subtly as a feather or with the force of an H-bomb. Perhaps as a result of the constant belittlement by her father, Hunter is fiercely protective of her emotions and shows very little of her true feelings to the world in general. In her best friend, Angela, Hunter finds an unspoilt sunny side to her species that serves to keep her faith in humanity from disappearing completely. Her one weak spot is her puppy, Ulysses. She also has some unresolved romantic tension with her classmate, Peter. On the outside, she utterly disdains his childish attempts to get her back up and has let her fists do the talking on many occasions. However, it is believed in inside, she fights an eternal battle between her cynical, I-don't-need-ANYBODY ethos and the fact that she might actually care for Peter very deeply.

Birthday: January 25th, 197x

Angie is the eldest of Barbara and John Pierce's two daughters. Her parents are strict, but also loving to the extent of sometimes being overprotective. Angela has emerged into adolescence with an extremely idealistic, some would say immature outlook on the world. She is naive, sometimes gullible, kind and on a constant mission to not have an enemy in the world. This of course throws her headlong into the sink-or-swim waters of peer pressure. Despite her best, sometimes misguided efforts to fit in with her teenage peers, Angela's gawkiness, shyness and lack of experience often acts against her and makes her a target for ridicule. Her one refuge is art - Angie is a freakishly talented artist and loves drawing cartoon characters (conventional art theory bores her). Like Hunter, her natural gifts went un-tutored by her family, her mother electing to send her to piano lessons instead. In sharp contrast to her shyness, Angela is also a good singer and loves to perform on stage, landing the lead role in the last school musical. Her upbringing could be almost the total polar opposite to Hunter's - Angela has been grilled since she could walk on how to act and speak to her social betters. Unfortunately, her shyness didn't serve to make it stick and she is still nagged by her mother on her posture, clothes and manners, which also doesn't help much to stabilise her often fragile self-image. In Hunter, Angela finally found someone who seemed to like her for who she is, not who she tries to be. On the contrary, Hunter makes it her duty to make Angela see that she shouldn't try to be something she isn't - that she's fine just the way she is.

Birthday: July 13th, 197x

aka 'Dork Boy' (by Hunter). Peter is the younger of 2 sons and is blessed (or cursed) with a somewhat rough-cut congeniality and charm. Not to mention, he is SUCH a dork. But being a Cancer, he's difficult to dislike. He's a total Nice Boy whose world revolves around food and video games. And Hunter. Peter has carried a torch for Hunter since the 2nd grade. Like all young boys, his interest manifested itself in teasing her to get her attention. The attention manifested itself with Hunter repeatedly stuffing him into trashcans, lockers, buckets, whatever is handy. But Peter has proven himself Hunter's equal in tenacity and repeatedly comes back for more, hoping for the one day where she might smile at his antics rather than remove a few more teeth. They came close to openly acknowledging their feelings for each other once, but the encounter turned into an emotional train wreck when Angela developed a crush on Peter, throwing Hunter into an emotional crisis and Peter into a pit of self-loathing. His best friend is Tony. They share a blithe apathy for social popularity and all its trappings and prefer to spend their time just being boys - burping, playing many many video games, trying to peek at girls' bra straps....

Birthday: August 28th, 197x

Tony is the second-youngest of 5 children in a large Italian-American catholic family. His whole world is encapsulated in Sandy. He lives to tend her every whim and her word is absolute law. Unfortunately, his infatuation is so intense he is blinded to the fact that she often openly abuses his attention. When Sandy and Hunter and their complex personalities become too overwhelming and confusing, Angela often finds herself coming to the boys, who are more likely to provide quick-fix comforts more in line with Angela's naivete - like ice cream. While Peter is the more sharply intuitive of the two boys, Tony is the more sensitive, to the extent that he becomes a sort of big brother to Angie. He acquired this senstivity at home, where he is equally protective of his younger sister, Francesca. His other passion is to some day own and fix up a really really cool car - something in a V8, perhaps.

Birthday: May

Sandy was born in Alabama to a mother of Southern gentry and a Chicago banker father. Her family moved north when she was 3 and she met Hunter when they started school together. The two were almost inseparable best friends until they entered junior high, when puberty hit Sandy like a sledge-hammer and she totally abandoned the things she and Hunter once shared and embraced makeup, fashion, popularity and cute boys. All while still maintaining a perfect GPA. However, she is still perhaps the one person apart from Hunter's mother who knows Hunter's inner thoughts best. She is often the one whom Hunter will find herself confiding in - her advice, though, ranges from touchingly insightful to utterly self-serving, as she harbours an inner yearning to 'convert' Hunter to her fold of newer, cooler friends. Through years of practise and a magnetic charm, Sandy is an expert at manipulating her own image as well as the people around her and is the undisputed Popularity Queen, flanked by a hard-core trio of fellow fashion disciples known as the Makeupteers.

However, it's not all Great Hair and fluorescent lace gloves. The bane of Sandy's social existence is the persistent attentions of Tony, who idolises her but is doomed to never be considered part of the 'in' crowd and hence unworthy of her time. She copes by exploiting Tony's puppy-like devotion with menial slave duties.

Birthday: July 25th, 198x

Rosie is Angela's little sister and the complete terror of Angela's home life. At only 6, Rosie is a veteran of the child pageant circuit, where her perfectly bouncy black ringlets and wicked brown eyes have helped fill her room with trophies. Barbara Pierce is no stage mother - Rosie chose this career for herself and, unusual for someone her age, is remarkably self-motivated. She has cuteness, she has charm, she has cunning. The only thing preventing her life from being perfect is having to share her parent's attention with her big sister. The Pierces love their daughters equally, but Rosie makes it her mission to constantly belittle Angela and erode her self-esteem to prevent her fighting back. Whether on the pageant stage, the schoolyard or at home, Rosie wants to be Alpha Wolf, period.

To Rosie, Angela is a figure of shame - daggy, unfashionable, and unbelievably of the same blood as the child who won Sweetest Dimples in the Little American Princess pageant 3 years running. Those among Angela's friends who have met Rosie increasingly believe that she has a pact with the Guy Downstairs to keep her young and cute forever.

Peter's older brother and holder of the lion's share of the family genes. Jon is a senior with a spectacular curly blond mullet and a penchant for dressing head to toe in denim. He is devastatingly cute to the extent that just about every girl can't help but go momentarily giggly when first meeting him. His charm and attractiveness is natural and effortless, but he does not exploit it. Actually quite an amiable guy when you get to know him, Jon is aware of Peter's awkwardness with girls and would probably want to help out if he thought Peter needed him. He and Peter are typical brothers and are actually quite close, despite the many noogies Jon has administered over the years. They call each other 'Ponch' and 'Jon' after their favourite after-school tv show, C.H.I.P.S.

11-yr-old Frannie is Tony's sister and the youngest of 5 children. She is closest to Tony because they are isolated from their siblings by a few years, Frannie especially because her two other sisters are at college or married. At that tomboyish age where horses are more cool than boys, she likes Tony's friends 'cuz they're not stuck-up and Angie draws pictures for her.