Sam POV

"Samantha, are you listening to me?" My mother's voice rang shaking me from my thoughts.

"Huh?"

She sighed "Do try to behave in class, Samantha. Mansons have always been the most well behaved kids in their classes."

"I'll try, mom" I told her more so I could exit the car and get to class already than to reassure her.

Mom nodded to the the driver, who got out and opened the door for us. Upon getting out I took notice that other kids were being dropped off by their parents as well. As I looked around at the cars my eyes landed on one that looked like a tank. Suddenly the door on the tank opened up letting out a red haired women in a blue rubber looking suit followed by a boy and girl looking to be about my age.

The boy was weird that was for sure; he had on funny looking shoes that looked to be made out of metal. When he walked he appeared to be struggling to left his feet like the shoes were to heavy for him, they made a thump sound when he walked. The weirdness didn't stop at shoes either, the boy also had on green rubber gloves that followed his arm all the way up to a little pass his elbow. His midnight hair seemed to be trying to swallow his head whole. Overall he looked like a kid about to do the dishes and over prepared.

The girl seemed to be the smaller vision of the women, who I'm guessing is their mother. She had long red hair pulled back into a braid. Her outfit seemed the most normal of the three; she was wearing blue pants with a pink unicorn t-shirt. The only thing weird about her was she wore big green goggles.

Once out of the tank the women crouched down to the boy and girls height and made some weird gestures with her hands to which the kids replied doing the same. This confused me; it was like they were talking, but then why weren't they just using their mouths like normal people?

Suddenly Mom was pulling me toward the school's door so I couldn't watch the weird people anymore. Upon reaching the class I see the teacher was an fat old balding man. Great, class would surely be boring. After Mom greeted the teacher, he pointed me to a seat next to a dark skinned kid with glasses.

As soon as I sat down he said "Hi, I'm Tucker! What's your name?"

"Samantha Manson" I answered.

"Samantha? That's a long name."

"It's only two more letters than yours."

He blushed "yeah, I guess it is."

Before either of us could say more the weird kids from earlier walked in. They were accompanied by the red haired women. The women went up to the teacher, showing him something on a notebook. The teacher nodded to her before she wrote more down for him to see. After that was done he directed the boy to a seat up front by a blonde blue eyed boy and the girl a seat next to a latina girl in the back. The whole class stopped what they were doing to watch the boy walk to his seat; we couldn't help it, his shoes made him walk funny and they made a loud thump when he walked. This seemed to upset the girl but she didn't say anything.

Once the kids sat down the teacher took that time to speak "Well, looks like were all here. Welcome to your new 3rd grade class! I'll be your teacher Mr. Lancer."

Then the class went in on doing tasks Mr. Lancer had assigned. After completing some worksheets it was finally recess. Tucker and I headed out together, heading for the swings, which I guess makes us friends.

"Bet I can go higher than you!" Tucker challenged

"Your on"

We then proceeded to swing higher than the other. When I turned to see if Tucker was higher something in the background caught my eye. Upon inspecting further I realized it was the strange boy from earlier; he was sitting against a tree by his sister. I felt bad for him, nobody but his sister wanted to play with him because he was different. His mom probably made him wear those wear clothes much like my mom made me wear this horrid pink dress. That decided it, I was going to go talk to him.

"Samantha?" Tucker asked. "You ok?" Looking down I realized I'd slowed to a stop while staring at the boy.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go say hi to them, they looks lonely." I answered pointing at the boy.

Tucker looked at the boy warily. "I don't know. He looks…weird"

I glared at him "Hasn't your mother ever told you not to judge a book by it's cover?" Truth be told my mother didn't tell me this my grandma did but Tucker didn't need to know that.

He sighed "Ok"

Together we got up heading for the boy and girl. The closer we got the colder it seemed to get, goose bumps began appearing on our skin. The kids didn't seem to notice, the boys head was in his knees with his arms around his legs. Taking another step forward I realized he was crying. His sister was sitting on the ground next to him head on his shoulder and rubbing his back.

"Hey, you ok?" I found myself asking even though if he's crying he's probably not ok.

The boy's head shot up and he quickly wiped his tears. Then gurgled some gibberish out. I frowned and looked to Tucker who gave me a 'I told you he was weird look'.

Glaring at him again I said "um I don't know what that means. Is that a different language?" I asked. Maybe he was chinese? He did have black hair and pale skin, but his sister didn't look like it at all. (no offence to chinese. I'm not trying to stereotype.)

The boys eyes widened and he shook his head. "Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I don't realize I'm not speaking in English." He apologized with a blush across his cheeks.

I smiled and looked to Tucker as if to say 'see he's not that weird'.

"Cool, you can speak different languages?" Tucker asked

Danny blushed again and nodded.

"Can you?" Tucker asked the girl.

"I understand some of it but I don't speak it." she answered.

"I'm Samantha and this is Tucker. What's your names?"

"I'm Jazz and this is my twin brother Danny" she explained

"What's a twin?" I asked having never heard the trem.

"It means we were born at the same time." Danny explained.

"Well, that's cool." Tucker said "And your names are short so I won't forget them. I always forgets names so sorry if I get yours wrong."

"Actually those are our nicknames. Jazz is short for Jasmine and Danny is short for Daniel." Jazz explained.

"Wait you don't go by your real name?" Tucker asked the idea of it was exciting. Why hadn't I thought of this before? I didn't have to go by Samantha.

"No, I don't like being called Daniel; It sounds like an adult name." Danny frowned.

"I want a nickname too!" I exclaimed "I don't like my name."

Tucker looked at me in shock while Danny and Jazz smiled.

"Ok, what do you want to be called?" Danny asked

"I don't know. What's a nickname for Samantha?" I asked

We all thought for a moment.

"How about Sam?" Danny asked

"Isn't Sam a boy name?" Tucker questioned

"It's a boy and girl name." Jazz clarified "We got an aunt named Sam."

"I like it!" I declared

"What about me?" Tucker whined "Do I get a nickname?"

"We can call you Tuck." Danny suggested

"Awesome! This is cool. We're like the nickname club."

"Well lookie here. The weirdos actually made some friends." yelled the blonde boy Danny sits next to in class.

"Oh no" I heard Danny muttered.

"What was that freak?"

"Please leave us alone." Jazz pleaded.

"Oh wait I forgot weirdos can't speak English."

"Leave him alone!" I shouted

At my shouting Danny flinched. Then as other kids started surrounding us to see what was going on Danny pressed his hands to his temples like he was in pain.

"What's a matter weirdo?" the boy nagged "Can't handle a little teasing?"

Tucker turned to Danny "Dude, you ok?"

Danny shook his head, clenching his teeth and sputtered out more of the gibberish that was his second language. It only took Jazz half a second to jump into action, she wrapped her arms around him whispering in such a low voice that if I didn't see her lips move I wouldn't have known she said anything. Tucker looked to me scared.

"Should we get the teacher?"

"I don't know!" I answered

"You guys are wasting your time. He does this all the time. The little weirdo can't act normal." the blonde boy said

"How do you know?" I shouted. There was nothing wrong with my new friend he's just different.

"His parents tried to make us friends by setting up a playdate. The weirdo talks about dead people all the time! He says his friends are invisible. The loser has fake friends!"

Tucker and I both gave Danny confused looks to which he just gave us a sad, panicked look. I wanted to help but I didn't know how. I didn't understand why he was in pain, it's not like anyone hit him, sure the blonde boy was mean but he didn't cause any physical pain. Jazz slowly led Danny away from the blonde. When she got to the people blocking the way she yelled "Move!" making Danny flinch again, but it did get the intended results. Once they were out of the circle of kids everyone left to go about their own business now that the excitement was over.

Tucker and I were left in shock. What do we do now? Follow them? Go back to swinging? We did say we were in a club and they did help us with nicknames. Making up my mind I grabbed Tucks hand and pulled him toward our retreating friends. They may be weird but who likes normal anyway?

"Wait, we're still going to play with them?" Tuck asked

"Well of course! We're the nickname club remember?""

He looked down nervously. "Yeah, but if they talk to dead things… That's creepy, Sam. I don't like creepy stuff."

I gave him another glare "Well I love creepy things. Besides what if that one kid was lying?"

"What if he wasn't?"

I huffed "Fine! You don't have to come if you don't want but I am!" With that I turned on my heels and headed for the twins, who were sitting on a bench. They were sitting like they had earlier but this time Danny was clutching his ears and slightly rocking.

As I got closer I could hear Jazz saying "It's ok Danny, people will still like you, your a great person." Danny then said more gibberish. "No! I'm not leaving you alone. Family sticks together." More gibberish from Danny. "If they're not going to stick with you they're not good friends. I won't be friends with someone who's mean to my brother."

"And I won't let anyone hurt my friend." I said announcing my presence.

Once again Danny's face shot up, tears staining his cheeks. He looked surprised like he didn't expect me to come back.

"You don't think I'm weird?" He asked

"No, you're really weird." His face fell. I gave a small smile and light punch to the arm . "But I like weird."

Jazz smiled "Good for you we got all weirdness you could wish for."

"Really because I'm not impressed."

Danny gave a small laughed "Good, you shouldn't be, you haven't seen anything yet."

"Got room for one more?" Called Tucker's voice from behind me.

We turned and smiled.

"We got room if you want to join. I understand if you don't though." Danny answered.

"I do!" Tuck rushed out "You guys are really nice. I just don't really like creepy stuff, it scares me."

The twins seemed conflicted about this, for they were silent.

"Well you better get used to it." I said breaking the silence.