What's in a Name?

Gretel Jane Grant-Palermo

Gretel Jane Grant-Palermo- Italian (mother); German/Scottish (father);  Gretel Grant-Palermo is a dreamer with an overactive imagination who attends the local high school and is a member of the earring club and yearbook staff, in addition to being part of an after school board gamers club. She is seen as a clever young girl, given the acts that she and her older brother Derek are prone to engaging in, yet she has the lack of thinking ideas through, often improvising in a flash. She has a caring side to her personality that is reserved for her family, namely her Nonna, puppies, and small animals, including her pet hamster whom she has named "Hamster". She is friendly and talkative and appears to be a helpful person, although she tends to have a noticeable dislike for her history homework. Gretel is a high-spirited individual who regards the world around her with an almost naive optimism and was especially vibrant and active as a child. She would run throughout the house, sliding along the floors and bouncing on various pieces of furniture and disliked adhering to her grandmother's rules. She tried to make the best of her situations and maintain her cherished relationship with Derek, but she always found herself ignored. Fiercely loyal to those she cares about, she never hesitates to support those close to her and often considers the welfare of others. Gretel grew up incredibly sheltered throughout her life and would always observe a stream of floating lanterns that would surface every year on her birthday, hoping to see them in person one day. Having spent all of her life isolated at home with little else to do, she is proficiently educated in literature and knowledgable in almost all areas, such as music and baking and even more advanced subjects like astronomy, as illustrated by her completely charted astronomical patterns.

Her greatest passion is ballet, and her bedroom is decorated in pink and white, with pink-framed pictures of her friends and old posters of Alice in Wonderland and Humpty Dumpty. She aspires to one day attend college in the city to study animation and dreams of working for a big movie company, such as DreamWorks. Gretel is also smart, kind, playful and expressive, although she is not afraid to stand up for herself or others when the situation calls for bravery. She has an aversion to peppermint however and is known for her dislike of onions, as the mere sight of either will instantaneously make her tear up. She still respects tradition and can often be found honoring her family's values, such as her mother's signature Tortellini with vodka sauce and calamari. She prefers to speak her own dialect due to her interjecting certain Italian words into her vocabulary ever so often and shared a particularly close relationship with her father. A negative aspect of Gretel's personality is her tendency to fish for compliments, as she has a strong desire to be needed and likes to be reassured that she is loved and valued. More than anything, she wishes to set things right with her brother, but after constant neglect, began to seek other ways to fill the void left by him, choosing to pursue a flawed and idealized perception of romance. She tends to play matchmaker nevertheless and often tries to encourage Derek to finally approach Zoë, an attractive girl with pink hair that he has a crush on, and they even visit her at one point her during her shift at the comic book shop. She is keen on keeping her promises and has an honest approach to life, as she usually has a strong moral center, and her father thinks that she can do no wrong. Gretel considers honey granola snaps one of her favorite cookies and enjoys some calmer pursuits such as walking in snow, scrapbooking and playing checkers. 

She is able to play Wendy Darling in her school's production of Peter Pan, which includes real costumes, programs, and even a director. She likes soccer and playing the flute and was seen trying to knit a pair of mittens in her living room, and it is shown that her gaming thumbs make her quite skilled at doing so. At the same time, she has slowly developed an interest in makeup and was once found at her friend Hannah Quigley's sleepover trying to adopt a more "mature" look to compensate for her lack of a period. Gretel is likewise a big fan of Shawn Mendes and has many posters of him inside her locker, with many of his songs being saved on her Spotify. Her favorite show to watch is Squid Game, a television series that she streams on Netflix, and she has also taken a liking for Kingdom of Lore. She has demonstrated an interest in the lives of celebrities and has a fascination with the British royal family, fantasizing about what it would be like to be a princess for a day. She is shown to post on many online forums as well and to have a Pinterest account where she saves recipes, in addition to creating mood boards for fun. Gretel was born in Guam and has an enormous amount of respect for the military, as she shows great pride in her father, who served in the Army for over 16 years. She moved around frequently as a child and was formerly stationed in Ft. Lee, Virginia before her family settled down in New York, and she considers her cousin Bailey to be her best friend. She had some trouble making and keeping friends for the majority of her life and developed anxiety issues as a result, having lost touch with many of the people she had encountered. She hopes to make Valley Stream her permanent home and has been considered a bit of a teacher's pet due to her involvement in her school work. Gretel is also capable of showing great anger under many circumstances, which can drive her to seek revenge on occasion.