His family had moved over the summer, so Jim was starting his senior year of high school at a new school in a new town--not that it mattered much to him, since he hadn't had any friends in his old school. He just never knew how to make friends, he never fit in anywhere. He wasn't bullied, he was just ignored. Occasionally he tried to reinvent himself and join one of the cliques that defined his old school's social life, changing his clothes and speech and attitude to try to fit in, but they always saw right through him and it never worked out.
He was too weak and slow to be on any of the sports teams, and he couldn't fit into their dumb, macho, aggressive dynamic anyway. He was smart enough to be a nerd, and he thought that as social outcasts the nerds might understand him, but they turned out to have a dynamic as rigid and hierarchical as the jocks'; if you weren't as knowledgeable about science and science-fiction as they were, they made no time for you. He was too poor for the preppies, too rich for the thugs, too much of a poser for the punks and emos, couldn't skate well enough to be a skater, couldn't surf well enough to be a surfer, couldn't handle his weed well enough to be a stoner. He wasn't fun enough, wasn't funny enough, wasn't fashionable enough, wasn't friendly enough, he wasn't enough of anything. He was just too average--average height, average weight, average face, average clothes, average walk, average talk, average everything.
After slogging through his classes on the first day, keeping his head down and trying to avoid notice like he usually did, it was finally lunchtime. Jim arrived in the cafeteria and looked out across the multitude of kids, all seated together in their well-defined and instantly recognizable cliques just like they were at his old school. But this year was going to be different. He reached into his pocket and slipped the magic ring onto his finger. The old man at the magic shop had told him that once he picked a group the ring would change everything about him, mentally and physically, so that he fit into that group perfectly, and that it would even change the world around him so that he always had. He had seen the old man do magic, and real magic too, but he was still doubtful--it was a big leap from changing the color of his hair or his shirt to changing everything about himself. And even if it was for real, he was nervous about changing himself into a new person, losing himself. But he had already made up his mind. He was sick of being himself. Being himself had never gotten him anything other than loneliness. He wanted to be someone new, someone better.
Ever since he got the ring, Jim had thought a lot about which clique he would want to join. He still wasn't sure, but he was ready to decide. Now was the moment he had been waiting for, not just since he got the ring but for his whole life. Jim touched the ring again, held his breath in anticipation, and walked towards...