A/N: Hello! Before anyone says anything, I know Kelso didn't come in til they all were in 1st grade, but...writer's liberty, yeah that's the one lol. And sadly, Fez and Jackie aren't in this one. Fez is still in that unknown country of his and Jackie's off being a spoiled rich 4-year old or something. Yeah I'm kinda weird sometimes lol. Anyway, hope you enjoy my story and please review!
"Just one more picture, Eric" Kitty Foreman urged her 5 year old son, sticking her camera into his face.
"But Mo-om, stop. I don't want any more pictures" Eric whined, shoving the camera away "Dad, can you stop her?"
"You'll do as your mother says, Eric" snapped Eric's father, Red.
Eric was starting kindergarten that day and he and his parents and his older sister Laurie, who was in 2nd grade had gotten to school early, giving Kitty, who was obsessed with taking pictures an excuse to take as many pictures as she could of her son.
Laurie walked by, ignoring her family.
"Smile for the camera, Laurie!" shouted Kitty, aiming the camera at her daughter.
"Daddy, tell her to stop" Laurie insisted.
"Kitty, I think you've taken enough pictures" Red gently removed the camera from his wife's hands.
"Hey, how come that worked for Laurie and not me?" Eric complained.
"Dad likes me better" said Laurie, smugly.
"At least I don't have to retake 2nd grade. For the third time" Eric shot back.
"Shut up scrawy, mama's boy" Laurie yelled.
"Both of you, stop fighting for once" Kitty intervened, placing a hand on each of her children's shoulders "Now, Laurie, it's your brother's first day, I want you to look out for him"
"Like hell!" Laurie twisted away from her mother's grip and ran to find her friends
"Laurie Foreman watch your language!" Kitty yelled at her daughter's retreating back. She sighed and turned to her husband "Red, she's out of control"
"She's fine" argued Red
"She swears, she doesn't do what she's told, she doesn't listen…"
At this point, Eric spaced out. He was used to his parents discussing his rebellious older sister, and eavesdropping on their conversations to get information to tease her about was one of his favorite activities. He was used to them pretending he wasn't there until he did something dumb and Red yelled at him, but he just didn't care today. He was starting kindergarten!
Eric looked around excitedly, taking in the playground. A lot of kids were playing, waiting for school to start. You could tell which were the incoming kindergarten class; they were the ones standing with adults, looking around, some nervously, some excitedly about starting school. He saw one boy, with longish brown hair, standing with a man in a business suit, who was looking impatiently at his watch. The boy, however was running around insanely, with 7 other kids, who Eric assumed were the boy's siblings, climbing on and usually falling off everything in sight. The boy ran over to the swing and promptly pushed a smaller boy off of it and sat himself down as the younger boy ran off crying to the man in the business suit. The man stopped looking at his watch and stormed over to the boy on the swing, the other boy on his heels "Michael Kelso! Did you push your brother off the swing?!"
The boy called Michael Kelso smiled happily up at his father "I wanted to use it, Dad"
Michael Kelso's father groaned and began reprimanding his son, but Eric didn't get to hear exactly what was said because he was startled out of his eavesdropping by someone very close behind him saying "Howdy neighbor!"
Eric and his parents spun around. A man with curly brown hair and a happy smile, with a blonde wife and a little red-haired girl stood behind them. Eric just stared at the girl. The only girls he knew were his mom, his grandmother and his sister, and for the most part, he didn't like any of them (with possible exception to his mom), and he had definitely never found one that he just liked looking at.
"Sorry, who are you?" Eric heard his father ask abruptly, in his usual manner
"Bob Pinciotti" the man smiled and extended his hand "This is my wife, Midge and our daughter, Donna, we just moved in next door to you yesterday, we didn't get a chance to come over and say hello. Funny we had to come all the way here to meet you" he laughed
"Red Foreman. My wife, Kitty and our son, Eric." Red scanned the playground "Our daughter, Laurie disappeared off somewhere"
"Donna's starting kindergarten today, aren't you, Donna?" Midge leaned down to the little girl, who nodded happily
"Really, so is Eric" Kitty gestured down at Eric
Donna smiled at him and Eric felt the weirdest feeling like his tummy was rumbling, but it wasn't that "Hi Eric" she said
Eric wanted to say something, but all of a sudden, he couldn't think of how to form simple words
"Eric's a little shy sometimes" Kitty explained
"I am not!" Eric yelled, forced into speech by sheer humiliation, supplied, as always, by his mother
Donna giggled "Wanna go swing, Eric?" she asked
"Okay" Eric grinned, happy she invited him
Eric and Donna walked over to the swings, passing Michael Kelso and his father. Michael seemed to be getting yelled at by his father for something, yet again, but he didn't seem to care. It seemed to be a frequent occurrence with him.
Eric and Donna swung in silence for a while. "So, Donna," Eric said, desperate to break the silence "Where did you live before?"
"Milwaukee" answered Donna promptly
"Why'd you move?"
"We were living with my grandmother and she and my mom got into a big fight, so we moved away to start over"
"Cool"
There was more silence between the two. Again, Eric desperately searched his brain for something witty to say to this girl, but he had nothing to worry about, for she slapped him on the arm (Eric rubbed his arm without her seeing)
"Hey Eric, check out the doofus" laughed Donna, pointing at Michael Kelso, who was hanging by his knees upside down from a tree branch. Now this wouldn't have been too bad, but he had convinced his younger sister to do it too. Her dress had flown up to expose her underwear to the entire playground and her legs were shaking "Michael, I'm gonna fall" she sounded like she was about to cry
"Nah you're not, isn't this great, Sarah?" Michael laughed, ignoring the sadness in his sister's voice.
"That's terrible" Eric said to Donna
"Yeah, kid's a jerk" agreed Donna
The sound of a loud thump, followed by loud sobs caused Mr. Kelso to jerk his head up from where he was staring impatiently at his watch again. He glared and began to run to the tree "MICHAEL KELSO, YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE THIS TIME!"
At that point, a bell rang, and a woman came out and announced that all kindergarten students need to come to her and Red, Kitty, Bob and Midge flocked to the two kids.
"Now, Eric, I packed you a lunch…Oh! I need to take a picture of you and your Spiderman lunchbox!" announced Kitty, simultaneously thrusting a lunchbox at her son and raising her camera to take a picture
"Okay, Donna, be smart like Daddy knows you are" Bob patted his daughter on the shoulder encouragingly
"Have a good day!" piped up Midge
"All right, all of you, let them go" snapped Red pushing the kids toward the door
Donna and Eric fell into a line forming in front of a smiling, middle-aged teacher who later introduced herself as Mrs. Whitman. Eric looked eagerly around him. His mom was smiling and waving at him with one hand while dabbing tears away from her eyes. His dad had a supporting arm around his wife, but other than that, looked bored, but that was Red. The teacher scanned the line just as Michael Kelso, fresh from another lecture from his father, joined the line. Mrs. Whitman turned to lead the class into the building when the sounds of two people arguing came from around the corner that led to the playground. One was a woman, the other sounded to be a young boy.
"Mo-om come on! We're already late!" the boy urged.
"No thanks to you, Steven Hyde!" The mother snapped "We wouldn't be late had you woke up on time!"
"And I would have woke up on time if I hadn't been up all night having to listen to you and that guy having sex all night!" the boy snapped back
Mrs. Whitman gasped as Kitty seemed to want to rush forward and cover her son's ears from the bad language, but Red held her back.
"I told you to call that guy Uncle Pete, Steven, and how the hell do you know what sex is and why the hell were you listening?"
"Hard not to know when you do it all the time and it's hard not to listen! Remember, thin walls in a crappy-ass apartment, Ma!"
"What the fuck, Steven, you're gonna make me look bad with that mouth of yours!"
"All I know is what you teach me, Edna"
By that point the boy called Steven Hyde and his mother had reached the line of kindergartners and the shocked parents around them. A woman wearing a cafeteria worker's uniform led a boy with a mess of unruly, curly reddish-brown hair, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses up to the teacher. "This kindergarten?" she asked, snapping her gum
Mrs. Whitman nodded stiffly, disapproving of this mother.
"Good. Steven, in line" she snapped at the little boy, who merely rolled his eyes and stayed where he was.
Edna rolled her eyes and walked off. The boy called Steven Hyde stared after Edna, his face expressionless. The minute she walked around the side of the building, he silently walked to the back of the line, behind Michael Kelso.
A half hour later, Eric sat at a table in his kindergarten classroom, glaring over at the table that had Donna at it. Mrs. Whitman had told them upon walking into the room that they would be sitting at tables in alphabetical order and Eric knew his alphabet enough to know that he, Eric Foreman, with an 'F' wouldn't be sitting anywhere near to Donna Pinciotti, with a 'P'. Even worse was the fact that Michael Kelso had been the first one named to sit at table 3 and Donna Pinciotti had been the last, so now Donna and Michael sat right next to each other while Eric was forced to sit next to the still silent Steven Hyde. Donna laughed at some, undoubtedly stupid thing that came out of Michael Kelso's mouth, making Eric very annoyed for some reason, he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.
"Ay, Foreman" Eric turned to find the brooding Steven Hyde staring at him. It was hard to tell because of the sunglasses he had refused to take off, but the other boy's head was turned in his direction, so Eric assumed that Steven Hyde was talking to him.
"Yes?" Eric answered politely. His mother had instilled politeness in him from a very early age. She had done the same with Laurie; it hadn't stuck.
"What'd you get for these questions?" Steven Hyde gestured to the papers in front of them that had been the first activity they had done, an activity to determine which playgroup they were in. It had been simple questions like 'write your first name' and 'how many colors are in the rainbow?'
"Um…" Eric stuttered nervously "I think we were supposed to do these on our own"
"Yeah, that's what they want you to do" You couldn't tell from his eyes, but his face seemed show more excitement than Eric had seen on the normally blank face, since Eric had first seen Steven that morning. "It's discrimination, Forman. Plain and simple. They want you to take their stupid tests to separate the smart kids from the dumbasses."
"My mom says I'm not supposed to use that word. My dad uses it all the time"
"You're a real mama's boy aren't you, Forman?"
"No!" answered Eric immediately, very embarrassed.
"Whatever" Without another word, Steven Hyde pulled Eric's finished test towards him, beginning to fill out the answers, and Eric was somewhat scared of this boy, and embarrassed that he would be called a mama's boy that Eric let him copy.
A half an hour later Mrs. Whitman had collected the tests and had set the class to a coloring activity, when she told them it was time for recess. "Oh and Steven Hyde, may I see you before you go outside, please?"
Eric watched as Steven, expressionlessly walked up to the teacher's desk. He was so enraptured he didn't even see Donna start to walk out of the room. "Eric? Aren't you coming out for recess?" Donna asked, turning.
"Oh right!" Eric asked, all thoughts of Steven Hyde being kept in for the first few minutes of recess gone with Donna's words to him.
"Eric, this is Michael" Donna introduced Eric to Michael Kelso, who had been following her around like a little puppy dog ever since they had been dismissed for recess.
Eric glared at the boy who, to him, was trying to steal his Donna. Michael on the other hand, grinned happily and said "Hi! Donna keeps talking about you. 'Eric this', 'Eric that'"
"Shut up, Michael!" Donna yelled and punched him in the stomach.
This plus hearing Donna had been talking about him and how when Donna got up from the bench the three of them, were sitting on, where she was sitting in between Eric and Michael to throw away her juice box and when she came back, went to sit on the other side of Eric, putting Eric in the middle, cheered Eric up immensely and made him quite more friendly to Michael after that.
"Hey Forman!" shouted a voice. Donna, Eric and Michael looked up. Steven Hyde was stomping towards them. He was an average looking kid, but apparently he was stronger than he looked for he grabbed Eric by his shirt collar and shoved him up against a wall.
"What are you doing?!" yelled Donna, jumping up, Michael on her heels
"You got me in trouble!" Steven yelled at Eric
"What did I do?!"
"You let me copy your stupid ass test and you didn't tell me some of the questions were about name and age! I put down your name and now she thinks I cheated on the whole thing! I've gotta stay after school for a week now, thanks to you!"
"How is it Eric's fault you didn't read the questions?" Donna asked
"Cause he told me I could copy! Anyway, I'm sorry for what I'm gonna have to do cause I thought you were an okay guy despite the whole mama's boy thing, but you got me in trouble" with that said, he punched Eric in the face.
Donna gasped and Michael screamed like a girl. Steven simply let go of Eric and walked away, hands in pockets, without a single look behind him.
"Ugh, what an incredible jerk" Donna complained. Eric was still lying on the ground, so Donna offered him a hand up.
Michael did the same on Eric's other side. "Did you really let him cheat?" he asked
"No. He asked me and I said no and he called me a mama's boy and I didn't say anything else cause I didn't want him thinking I was a mama's boy, and he took my paper"
"What's wrong with being a mama's boy?" Michael asked "My mama's awesome! She says I'm gonna be handsome when I grow up"
Eric laughed "You are a mama's boy"
"Awesome!"
Eric, Donna, and Michael found a ball and amused themselves for a while playing 'Keep Away from Michael', which was quite easy. Neither Donna or Eric were ever in the middle.
Donna threw the ball to Eric, Eric didn't catch it and it rolled away as Michael complained when he missed again.
"I'll get it" offered Eric, as Donna began to make fun of Michael for being a crybaby. The ball had rolled off into a corner. Eric reached down to pick it up. "Hey kid" Eric turned to find a bigger kid glaring at him. He shoved Eric up against the wall. Eric knew all the kids from kindergarten already, by sight at least, and Eric didn't recognize him. He looked to be in about 3rd grade. "Gimme your lunch money" the big kid grunted
"But…I don't have any lunch money." Eric stuttered
At that point, Donna suddenly came around the corner, Michael following her. "Eric how long does it take to get a…" Donna trailed off when she saw the Eric shoved against the wall by the big kid.
Michael, on the other hand, laughed with delight "Haha! You have the worst luck, Eric! First day of school and you've already been hit twice!"
Donna punched Michael in the stomach again "Shut up, Michael!"
"Owww…Donna…" complained Michael, holding his stomach
"There, so have you" Donna glared
"Anyway…" the big kid had been distracted by the arrival of Donna and Michael "You'd better start bringing lunch money, punk, or they'll be trouble"
"Hey" a new voice said. Steven Hyde came around the corner "Leave him alone"
"Yeah? And who's gonna stop me? You?" he dropped Eric and looked Steven up and down
"That's right" With an odd smirk on his lips, Steven punched the big kid, first in the stomach, then when the big kid's hands flew to his stomach, Steven punched him in the eye, then in the nose. The kid ran away sobbing, one hand holding his bleeding nose, the other covering his eye.
"You're going to get in trouble for that, you know" Donna said to Steven
Steven shrugged. "Whatever"
Eric was confused "But why did you just defend me? You hit me too"
"Because he deserved it. It wasn't fair for him to be beating on a little kid. Besides, it's like I told you before, Forman, I think you're an okay guy, and an okay guy doesn't deserve to be beaten up by a bigger guy, especially if it's an okay guy who I think is cool. I like ya, Forman, and no one beats up my friends"
This confused Eric further "But how am I your friend? You beat me up"
Suddenly, Steven took off his sunglasses and Eric, Donna and Michael were able to see his eyes for the first time ever. "I started to feel bad about it, cause it wasn't your fault I didn't read the questions, so I'm sorry" He paused thoughtfully, then shoved his sunglasses back on his face and pointed accusingly at Eric "But you better not get used to me apologizing, Forman, I don't do it a lot and for just anyone"
Eric laughed "Okay, Steven"
"Don't call me that, call me Hyde. All of you"
"Why?" Donna asked
"Cause it just makes me think of my mom yelling at me and she annoys me"
"How can you say that about moms? Moms are awesome" said Michael happily
Hyde glared at him "Why? What has your mom done?"
"She says I'm gonna be handsome when I grow up" declared Michael
Hyde rolled his eyes "Good, my new friends are two mama's boys and a girl who punches like a boy. I saw the way you punched Kelso, Donna"
"Yeah, you hit hard, Donna" Kelso complained "And I like being called Kelso" he decided, suddenly cheered by this thought "And there's nothing wrong with being a mama's boy, Hyde"
"Really? Name one reason why"
"Oh hey," Eric interrupted, suddenly "you guys wanna come over after school? It's Monday, my mom makes chocolate chip cookies"
"Okay, that's good enough for me"
Suddenly, Mrs. Whitman came out and told the kids recess was over. The four new friends, Eric, Donna, Kelso and Hyde started to walk back towards the school
"My dad's gonna be so proud of me" Kelso said happily "I went through an entire recess and didn't get hurt once"
Donna wordlessly reached out and punched him in the stomach
"Oww!! Donna!"