5th Grade

Minnesota was hell. No matter where you were from moving to Minnesota was worse than being shot, especially when you are coming from Florida and hadn't seen snow anywhere but on television.

He didn't want to move, but he especially didn't want to move to Minnesota. He would have rather moved to Kansas than Minnesota, which is saying something because he was allergic to honey bees which was the state insect of Kansas (yes, he had memorized all 50 state insects. Minnesota's was the Monarch butterfly). Still he was forced to go with his parents. He would have rather stayed with someone, but he didn't have any friends and all of his relatives lived too far away.

So now he was stuck in this small town where when five cars were on the road it was rush hour and the ground was permanently frozen. He was forced to go to one of those schools where there were more kids in plaid than at a lumberjack convention and everyone was wearing boots except for him. He hated it there, and it seemed like everyone hated him. He'd never fit in and he didn't expect to, but it still hurt when people tripped him in the hall on the way to his class.

The teacher wore a top covered in flowers (which he found ironic because no flowers grew in Minnesota.). She was wearing too much perfume and was a little too excited for a Monday morning. She wanted him to introduce himself, so he stood in front of his class and told them about himself.

"I'm Logan. I'm from Florida. I like math." He would have liked to add that he hated Minnesota and he wished someone here was nice, but he didn't. He took a seat next to a boy who had a 'Pokémon' lunch box. He never really got the appeal of Pokémon. He was more intrigued by Bill Nye and the Weather Channel than cartoons. Maybe that was why he never fit in. He didn't talk to anyone, but he watched as friends whispered and passed notes and he wished that he could be part of a group.

When the bell rang he was in the middle of writing history notes, he slid his notebook into his desk and filed out of the classroom behind the other students. The lunchroom was small compared to the one at his old school, but it had more than enough room for the amount of students the school had. They were serving pizza discs that looked inedible, but he picked one up because it was the only thing they had left. It took two minutes for him to make it through the lunch line, but he wished it had taken longer because now he was stuck standing alone looking for somewhere to sit.

There were no empty tables so he was stuck standing waiting for someone to leave or to invite him over. It had been two minutes since he'd left the lunch line and he felt more and more isolated. He felt a hard shove in his back and before he knew it he had lost his balance and was on the floor. He landed hard and his tray had been flung about a foot in front of him. He heard someone say sorry and walk by him. He pushed himself up and sat there staring at the mess in front of him. He groaned feeling hungrier than he had before and even more lonely.

"Here, Let me help you." He saw a person bend down and grab his tray. It was the boy who had been sitting next to him in class. He was picking up the plate and pizza disc that had fallen off his tray. "Your lunch is pretty trashed." Logan frowned.

"I guess I can just go and get more food." He said, gabbing the tray that now had the old food on it, he looked behind him to see a woman in a hairnet closing the doors to the lunch line. The boy also saw this and frowned.

"I have half a sandwich I'm not going to eat." He said, nodding to a table near by where two boys were sitting. One boy was wearing a black helmet fighting the other boy for what looked like a snack pack.

Logan smiled, "You don't have to do that." He stood up and the boy did also.

"You're hungry right?" he asked. Logan's stomach answered for him with a low grumble. "Toss your trash and come eat with us."

"Thanks." Logan said, he walked over to the maroon trashcans and dumped the trash off his tray and left the tray with the woman cleaning them. He made is way over to the table and took a seat next to the boy who had helped him.

"I'm Kendall." He said handing Logan half of his sandwich, "I hope you like peanut butter and jelly."

Logan took the sandwich, "I love it." He said taking a bite out of it. The boy in the helmet had finally given up on getting the pudding and looked at Logan. Logan stopped chewing when he noticed the boy was looking at him.

"Oh Logan, this is Carlos and James." Kendall said pointing to the two boys, they both nodded at him, "They aren't as weird as them seem." Kendall whispered to him.

"Do you like hockey?" Carlos asked mid-chew, he was staring at Logan.

"I don't know." Logan said, "I.. uh… like math." Carlos examined him and finished chewing.

"I don't know if I like him," James said to Kendall as if Logan wasn't there.

"Well I like him." Kendall said James just shrugged. Logan smiled and took another bite, because he really liked Kendall too.