It was the first day of school. The Frosts dropped off their daughter at Lil' Gifted School for Lil' Gifted Kids. Dr. Marcus, a brilliant scientist, and Dr. Regina, a surgeon, barely said goodbye as they dropped Christine off. They didn't even look at her.

She knew why.

"Bye," she said half-heartedly.

"Just keep your gloves on," said her mother harshly.

"Yes, mother," she replied sullenly.

"And no showing off," her father said.

Another eye roll from Christine. She grumbled under her breath. They told her this almost everyday! She knew the whole drill.

Christine Frost was an average looking girl with pale blonde hair that was curly. Her eyes were a frosty blue. Her skin was fair. Her clothes consisted of a blue sweater with a white collared shirt and a plaid skirt. She wore a pair of stockings and black shoes. On her hands were a pair of white formal gloves.

She hated that she was so...different. How everything she touched turned cold. How her emotions made her lose control of her abilities. But she promised never to show off her abilities. Her parents told her about the bad people would take her away. That people would view her as not normal. A monster. Her parents hated they were cursed with a child who had abilities. It made them feel really uncomfortable. They would hide the fact that she did have a gift.

She walked into her new school, looking around nervously, straightening her gloves out so they were on tight. Looking at her gloved hands, she made sure they were on nice and tight, making sure they were covered completely. Thankfully the gloves were white and no one could see the frost forming on the finger tips. She had to keep them on no matter what. She didn't know why she was here at the School For Gifted. Her parents said she was smart, yet she had a feeling that they wanted to get rid of her. Her parents were so fake. All they cared about was their careers and barely paid attention that she was there. Her nannies assured her that they loved her, but Christine didn't believe it.

She sat down in the semi-circle with the other children, watching a floating boy with black hair lifting up the teacher's desk and twirling it around like it was basketball. She rolled her eyes in exasperation.

It was Wayne Scott!

Great! she thought. Of all people I have to spend time with...

Oh yes. She knew Wayne since forever because their parents were best friends. Their Dads would golf together while the mothers would gossip and sip their wine. Christine hated Wayne. He was so full of himself. Why did anyone find this moron impressive? She certainly didn't.

While everyone was clamoring over Golden Boy, there were the sounds of footsteps behind them and metallic clinking. The class turned around and saw a blue boy dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit escorted in shackles by two police officers. He appeared to be holding some kind of fish in a glass ball. She couldn't believe how green his eyes was. How huge his head was. He looked nervous since it was his first day at school. The fish glared. Was that normal for a fish to do?

"Alright everyone," said the teacher. "Gather round and sit in a circle. Let's welcome our new students...Christine Frost and...ah...the Blue Kid..."

Some of the kids giggled and pointed and whispered at the blue boy. He looked a bit nervous, but still confident. It was the first time he had been outside of the prison.

"Go on," she said.

The blue boy spoke about himself and introduced his fish as Minion.

Odd name for a fish. Christine thought with a raised eyebrow.

Now it was Christine's turn. She didn't really feel like talking today. She didn't think she was special in any way. She introduced herself in a rather sullen tone and talked about her family.

"Christine?" said the teacher. "You want to tell us what your special talent is?"

The girl shook her head. "There's nothing special about me," she said quietly.

"You do have a special talent," said the teacher. "I'm sure you'll find it one day."

Another head shake. "I don't think so," she said morosely.

As the day went on, the teacher allowed kids to pretty much work on their own projects. Christine shut out the world by reading her book. She listened to the kids sing Itsy Bitsy Spider while Wayne played his ukulele. She would glance over occasionally at the blue boy, making his fish into a blue cube with some kind of gun. Then poured water on it, turning the cube back into the fishbowl. She wondered what he was doing and better yet, how. Shrugging with indifference, she went back to reading. Aside from her abilities, she had always wanted to pursue a career in science: studying about suspended animation when people who had terminal illnesses needed a cure.

"What you reading there?" asked a voice behind her.

Christine saw it was the blue boy, looking with wide curious eyes. She was unable to believe how verdant they were.

"Cryonics," she said, showing him.

"You like to study about the science of cold temperatures, huh?" said the boy.

Christine smiled a little. "Glad to know that someone knows what I'm talking about," she said.

The boy smiled, sitting down with the blonde girl. The two of them began to talk about science. The two of them felt they had found someone who truly understood the nature and language of science, Christine liked having an intellectual conversation.

"I'd like to pursue a career in this someday," she said. "Find a cure for people who have terminal illnesses while in suspended animation. I'm working on an invention. Wanna see?"

The blue boy nodded, smiling wide. He liked sharing ideas with someone. Christine showed him a childish drawing of her as a scientist doing research with a person inside a silver capsule asleep.

"It puts people with terminal illnesses in suspended animation while more research is done. I call it the Cocoon," she said. "Sorry if it looks stupid. I can't draw."

"Glad to see you have plans," he said. "I think it's brilliant name. How does it work?"

"Well...I'm not sure yet," she said hesitantly. "I'm still am reading about how cryonics work. The book has a lot of big words that I don't really know yet and it talks about putting plants in cryopreservation, but not living animals or people. According to this, liquid nitrogen is used in plants. But liquid nitrogen can burn flesh."

"Yes. It's 77 degrees Kelvin. That's very cold."

"Indeed. I heard from Mom that it may be difficult to revive a person and the cold may cause damage to blood cells. It may change a person's personality or memory."

"Hm," said the blue boy, looking at the drawing. "Cryonics is a very complex science. Maybe if I could read your book, I can get a better idea to help you improve your invention."

Christine looked at her book, hoping that it would be safe. It was one of her favorite books to read.

"Alright," she said. "If you promise not to lose it."

"I'll sleep with it under my pillow."

She handed the book to the blue boy with a gloved hand. He looked at the gloves, wondering what was the deal with her wearing gloves. It seemed weird that she was wearing gloves at school.

"Remind me to credit you when the invention does become real," she said.

"I do hope so," he replied.

The two children looked at each other. She wore gloves. He was blue and had a huge head and he wore a prison jumpsuit. Two odd balls. Two nerds. They all had so many questions about each other.

"Are you really from a prison?" she asked.

"Yea," he said. "I was raised there."

"How did you get there? I'm guessing you're not from around here."

The boy frowned. "Is it because I'm blue and my big head?" he asked. "I get that a lot."

"No," said Christine quickly. "OK...yes. But other than that, you seem to know a lot about science and inventing."

The blue boy beamed, flattered that someone acknowledged his intellect. "Actually, I'm from a planet far away from here. My planet went into a black hole. I'm the last of my kind."

"I see," said Christine. "I'm surprised no one shipped you off to the Bad Place."

"The Bad Place?" he questioned. "What's that?"

"Mom and Dad said that they take people who are strange and stuff off to a government research center," she said. "And they do scientific experiments on them there."

"I've never seen anything outside the prison," he said.

"So no one thought you were weird when you came here?"

"Yes they did," he said. "But the prisoners accepted me and they became my family."

"You're not afraid of them? They're all dangerous criminals."

"If you hang around with them enough, you do see they're just normal beings who did bad things in the past," he said. "When they're brought together, they become a family since not a lot of their families outside visit a lot."

Christine lightened up a bit. "Must be nice to have a family," she said.

"You don't like yours?"

"They're OK," she said shrugging. "They're just very busy because they work a lot."

"What do they do?"

"My Dad's a scientist, does a lot of research on cures for diseases," she said. "And my Mom's a surgeon."

"I see where you get your interest in science," he replied, resting his fist on his chin. "Who are your parents?"

"Dr. Marcus and Dr. Regina Frost," she said.

"Really? You're Dr. Marcus Frost's daughter?"

"You know him?"

"Know him? I read his essay Defective DNA: Making Room for Improvement," he said.

"Yea," she said. "He was very proud of that." She looked at the blue boy's fish in the glass ball curiously. "I like your fish," she said, tapping the glass with a gloved hand.

Minion flinched from the loud tapping, shivering. He could feel the cold radiating in his glass bowl from the gloved girl's finger.

"Thanks," he said. "This is Minion. He's my best friend."

"What was that you did to him earlier?" she asked. "I saw you turn him into an ice cube."

"Oh...that..." he said. He showed her what looked like a gun that was glowing blue. "It's a dehydration gun."

"Whoa!" she said. "This is an amazing invention."

"Thanks," he said. "One thing I don't recommend is putting the dehydrated cube in the toilet."

Christine laughed. "Well...maybe Golden Boy there..." she said, gesturing to Wayne. "I wouldn't mind flushing HIM away."

The alien boy laughed as well. "You don't like him?"

"Let's just say we're very reluctant playmates because our parents are friends," she said with an eye roll.

By recess, Christine and the blue boy were laughing and sharing lunch together as they talked more about science. Wayne Scott shook his head as he looked at the two nerds. Minion was jealous that his master was spending time chatting with the gloved handed girl.

"Can I ask you a question?" the boy asked. "Why are you wearing gloves?"

Color drained from Christine's face. She knew this question would come eventually.

"Mom and Dad make me wear them," she lied. "They're germaphobes. They think that I'll bring home a deadly disease if I go out anywhere in public."

The blue boy frowned. "Well, isolating something from germs only weaken the immune system," he said. "If you're not exposed to them enough, you'll get sick a lot."

"No kidding," she said flatly. "By the way, I didn't get your name."

The blue boy opened his mouth to speak, but he honestly didn't know his name, let alone know if he had one. "Honestly," he said. "No one really named me. Some people call me 'the Blue Kid' or by my prisoner number." He pointed to his pocket that had some numbers on his jumpsuit.

"Well that's terrible," said Christine. "You should at least have a name, not a label."

"What would you call me?" he asked frowning.

"Honestly, I wouldn't know either," she said. "Sorry."

"It's OK," he said. "I'm used to it."

"Maybe you'll think of a name someday."

The blue kid smiled, his cheeks turned a lavender color. "Yea," he said. "What's your name? Or should I call you Gloves?"

Christine rolled her eyes. "I'm Christine," she said.

"Nice to meet you," he said, shaking her hand.

Christine was reluctant to touch people since her hands were radiating with cold. She didn't want to be rude either and hoped her gloves held back the cold. She took his hand and saw he shivered almost immediately on contact.

"Are you OK?" he asked. "Your hands are freezing."

"Y-yea," she said nervously. "I can't help those. They say cold hands have very warm hearts."

"It was really nice meeting you, Christine," said the boy. "I hope to see you again tomorrow at schul..."

"It's 'school'," she corrected. "You said the German word for it, but close enough."

The boy blushed lavender again. Christine found it a bit odd that his cheeks became a color. Shrugging, she figured his blood was much different from regular humans. She was quite interested in seeing him again. She had the best conversation in the world with a smart person! It was nice to know she wouldn't be alone in the world.