In this Chapter Samuel meets Lincoln and talks to him. Also, Ronnie Anne didn't move to her family in this story. Enjoy!
Samuel opened the door to Gus Game and Grub and walked inside. It wasn't a big arcade. Samuel expected it to be kind of small, however. After all, he did move from a big urban city to a somewhat rural town. He noticed that there weren't that many people in there. There were only two children who looked to be 11 years of age. One of them was a white boy with white hair. He wore an orange polo shirt with blue jeans. He also wore a pair of white sneakers with red stripes. The other kid was a young African American male. He had an afro and wore a yellow and blue striped shirt. He also had on black tennis shoes and black pants.
Samuel wanted to make new friends that were around his age, but he knew he had to start somewhere. So, he walked up to the two boys who were talking about the game they had just finished playing. He said to them, "Hello." The boys jumped and shouted in fear as they didn't hear Samuel walk up to them. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to introduce myself to you two. I'm Samuel Hernandez. I'm new to this town and I wanted to explore it."
Lincoln was thinking what Samuel had said. He knew that Samuel was a bit older than them looking to be around 16 years old. He also knew that this would be the perfect opportunity to make a new friend. Lincoln knew with a high schooler with them, they would be invincible from bullies and protected in general. That wasn't the only reason he wanted to be his friend. He had also seemed like an interesting person in general. Not a whole lot of people moved to this small town; in fact, the last time someone did was around 5 years ago.
Clyde had the same thoughts as Lincoln, so it was no surprise that they both introduced themselves, rather zealously, at the same time to Samuel. "Hi! I'm Lincoln Loud/Clyde McBride!" they both said.
"It's nice to meet the both of you." Samuel said. He heard his stomach rumble rather loudly. Samuel rubbed his stomach. "Boy, I sure am hungry. Do you guys want to get something to eat?" he asked the two boys. Lincoln and Clyde heard their stomachs growling too. "Yeah we worked up an appetite playing all of those arcade games." Lincoln answered. "Ok then. Lunch is on me."
The three boys had ordered two slices of pizza and a medium soda. Samuel payed for the bill like he promised and they all made their way to the table. "So, tell us about yourself Samuel." Lincoln said.
After swallowing the bite of pizza, Samuel responded back to them. "Well I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. I just turned 16 years old last month. I am Hispanic, and before you ask, yes I do speak fluent Spanish." "Wow, another Hispanic kid. I know a couple of them and one is your age Samuel." Lincoln said with a surprised tone. He knew Bobby would be pleased to know there was another Spanish speaker in the town as him. "Yeah. So, where was I? Oh right. Anyways I'm a single child and I live with my mom." Samuel said. Lincoln was curious as to what happened with his father, so he decided to ask him. "Why doesn't your father live with you, Samuel?" "My parents are divorced." Samuel simply stated. Lincoln immediately felt bad for asking. "Oh, wow I'm sorry." "Its all good man. The divorce wasn't that bad. My parents just felt like they didn't love each other anymore. It was a rather peaceful divorce."
They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes before speaking again. "So, why don't you tell me about yourself, Lincoln? What's your family like?" Lincoln took a sip before responding to Samuel's question. "Well, I live with all of my sisters. I'm the only boy in the family." Samuel felt sorry for Lincoln. Growing up without and other masculine influence besides your father was kind of hard. And Samuel should know. "How many sisters do you have, Lincoln?" "Ten." Lincoln replied nonchalantly.
Samuel almost spit out his soda. "Jesus Christ!" he nearly shouted. "Haven't your parents ever heard of birth control?!" Samuel joked. Lincoln laughed. "Yeah, I've heard that joke so many times before, but it never gets old. You should meet my sister Luan. She would appreciate your sense of humor."
Samuel chuckled. "Well, does she go to high school?" he asked. "Yeah she starts this school year."
"Who are your other sisters?"
"There's Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa, and Lily."
"Wow your sibling's names all start with the letter L."
"Yeah. Anyway, Lori, Leni, Luna, and Luan all go to high school. Lynn goes to middle school and Lucy, Lana, Lola, and Lisa go to elementary school with me."
"Interesting. Being in a large family must be pretty stressful for you. You probably get no privacy and your sisters must gang up on you all the time."
"Yeah. Even though they constantly cause me both physical pain and irritation, I wouldn't trade it for the world."
Samuel turned to Clyde. "So, what about you Clyde? What is your home life like?"
Now while Clyde thought that Samuel seemed like a nice guy, he was hesitant to tell him about his two homosexual parents. He knew that the majority of America was fine with homosexuality, but there were still assholes out there who would beat up anyone who was any sexual orientation than what was considered "normal." Also, he was bullied by some kids at his school for having two dads.
Lincoln knew about this as well and was worried at how Samuel would respond. "Um, well, I would prefer not to say." Samuel quirked an eyebrow in confusion. Suddenly it dawned on him. "Clyde, do you have two homosexual parents?" he asked. Clyde seemed really nervous and timidly stuttered. "Y-Y-Yeah." "Clyde, look at me." Samuel commanded. He turned to look at Samuel who surprisingly smiled. "Clyde, I don't care who a person is, what he does or where they're from. As long as they treat me right, I'll do the same to them. I would never judge my friends for whatever reason." Clyde smiled at Samuel and so did Lincoln. "Samuel. Did you just call us your friends?"
"Of course! Do you think we should hang out sometime soon?"
"Sure!"
"Ok!"
Samuel pulled out his phone. He saw the time and his eyes bulged out. "Holy shit! I got to go home guys. I have to get ready to go to school next week." He turned to leave but then stopped and turned back. "Hey, do you guys have cell phones?" Samuel inquired. "Yeah." Lincoln and Clyde replied. "Do you guys want to exchange numbers?" "Of course!"
The two kids exchanged numbers with Samuel and texted to see if it worked. It did, and Samuel opened the door and left the arcade to go home. "Bye guys! I'll see you later!" "See you later Samuel!"
Lincoln was super excited to finally have another friend join them in their crew. And he was in high school too! "Aw man Samuel was so cool today, wasn't he?" Clyde said enthusiastically. "Yeah! He will be able to all sorts of fun things with us!" Lincoln said. "He can drive us to places and he might let us hang out with his other high schooler friends!" Clyde replied happily. "At their parties!" Lincoln added excitedly.
"Eeeeee!" they both said joyfully.
"We've got a new friend! We've got a new friend!" They didn't realize with their chanting and dancing that they had arrived at Lincoln's home and his sisters saw them. The sisters cringed, and Lincoln cleared his throat awkwardly. "So, I'll see you later then Clyde." "Yeah, you too, buddy."
After Clyde ran off to his house, Lincoln went inside the house and started texting his new friend Samuel. His sisters were all sitting in the living room watching their favorite show, The Dream Boat. "Who will Jane pick next? Who will go overboard? Find out, when we return, on the dream boat!"
"I literally hope Janet picks Brad. He is so romantic." Lori said dreamily. "No way! He's too cheesy. I like Greg. He is really strong." Lynn countered. "I like Jonathan. He is, like, totes fashionable." Leni said. "I like Ivan." Lucy stated. "Ugh he's creepy" Lola said disgusted. "I know." Lucy responded. Lori turned to Lincoln. "What about you, twerp? Who do you think she should pick?"
"Huh? Oh, I don't know. She should pick whomever she wants."
The other sisters stared at each other. They knew Lincoln was not paying attention. "Okay Lincoln what gives?" Lori asked. "You've been on that phone ever since you got home." "Yeah bro. Are you hiding something from us?" Luna questioned.
Lincoln didn't want to tell them that he had a new friend who was a high schooler. He knew that the girls would harass him because the new kid would seem intriguing and mysterious. He decided to lie about it though. "Uh, there's nothing to see here." Lincoln tried to hide the phone from the girls behind his back. They all just glared at him. The atmosphere was so tense you could hear a pin drop. "Lincoln, we won't ask this twice. What are you looking at?" Lori demanded.
Lincoln decided to run to his room. This turned out to be a big mistake. As soon as he ran, Lori shouted "GET BACK HERE TWERP!" They all proceeded to chase him around the house. They eventually cornered Lincoln. Lynn tackled him with a typical wrestling move. The other girls plucked the phone out of his hand. Lincoln was struggling to get Lynn off him, but it was no use. The other girl was too strong to let him escape. "WAIT!" Lincoln shouted. The girls stopped and looked at him. Lincoln's cheeks burned bright red as he knew this would damage his reputation. "I was…looking at…porn." Lincoln sheepishly lied.
Lori, however, didn't believe him. She opened his phone and saw a contact she hadn't before. "Who is this 'Samuel' person Lincoln? And why is he older than you? Come to think of it, I've never seen this person before." The other girls glared at Lincoln as they waited for an answer.
Lincoln sighed, defeated, and knowing his secret was out. He was also slightly irritated by the fact that his sisters meddled in his life yet again. "Ok, Ok. Samuel was a new kid whom I met at the arcade. Clyde and I befriended him." The other girl's glares softened. Then, they all squealed in delight. "Lincoln, why didn't you tell us you had a new friend?" Lucy asked. "Yeah and the fact that he's new. We could all hang out with him." Lana stated.
Lincoln paused for a moment and thought. "Well, I didn't want the same thing to happen with the sleepover incident with Clyde. After all, not everyone can handle eleven siblings." His sisters thought about it and they knew he had a point. "Fair enough Lincoln. When is he coming over?" Lori asked. "I talked to him and he said he wants to come over first school weekend. He will be going to your guy's high school." Lincoln said. The girls were excited to meet Lincoln's new friend.
Afterwards, Lincoln yawned. "I don't know about you ladies, but I'm going to hit the hay." All of his sisters could not agree more as they went to their respective rooms. The younger siblings went to bed while the older siblings stayed up, for once looking forward to the beginning of a new school year and not dreading it.
