This story is so different than my other Callen stories lol. Thanks so much to those of you who have been reading and commenting. I really do appreciate it.

xxxxx

Callen walked down to the cafeteria and bought himself lunch which luckily, for that day, happened to be pizza. He took his tray and went over to the far corner of the room where he could sit with his back to the wall and get a view of all that was going on. At least he would be protected from anyone coming up behind him. In his past experience, this was a very important detail, one that he had never let himself forget after one or two incidents where he had been victimized by older, stronger kids.

The bell rang and the cafeteria was soon filled with chattering kids who were either buying their lunches or had brought bagged lunches from home. Callen wondered if that might be a better option for him. The pizza was okay but definitely not the same as a pizzeria. He had seen the menu for the week posted on the wall and except for the pizza and Friday's grilled cheese option, the other daily lunches; fish sticks, salisbury steak and a chicken patty held little appeal to him. He was pretty sure they wouldn't be very appetizing.

After a few minutes, a boy came up to the opposite end of the table and stood across from him. "Hey, mind if I sit here?"

Callen immediately went on alert as he shrugged and said, "Sure, it's a free country."

"I was in your geometry class earlier. G, isn't it?" the boy said as he sat down and placed his tray on the table.

Callen nodded, saying nothing.

"That was pretty awesome the way you didn't take any crap from Old Penelope Prune Face."

Callen couldn't help but smirk at that. "I tried to get out of her class, but the principal wouldn't go for it."

"She probably won't give you much trouble after today," the boy said. "She's not used to kids standing up to her. Most of them are scared of her."

"Yeah, well, I'm not scared of anybody," Callen said.

The other boy laughed. "I guess that's the way to be, though in my experience everyone's at least a little scared of someone."

"Not me."

"My name's Ed, by the way," the other boy said. "So, that really is your name, G?"

"It really is," Callen stated, waiting for this Ed kid to start giving him the business about his name.

"That's pretty cool. Ed is kind of a dorky name," Ed said. "Better than Edmund though. I don't know what my parents were thinking of when they named me that."

"It's not so bad," Callen said, thinking that he would have given anything to have a real name, one that was really and truly his own, not just a letter which he had no idea what it stood for.

"Well there are definitely worse names, I guess," Ed said with a grin. "Stanley or Horace...Neither of those would thrill me."

"Stan is kind of a bad ass name," Callen said, finally allowing a trace of a smile, sensing that this Ed seemed to be sincere and he didn't think he had anything to worry about with him. "Horace though...not much you can do with that.

"No, I'd say not," Ed said. "What other classes are you in today?"

Callen pulled his schedule from his pocket and looked at his classes. "I have French after lunch and then a study hall." He handed his schedule to Ed. It sounded like an easy afternoon at least. He'd been told that he had an ear for languages and they seemed to come easily to him. He had taken Spanish in the seventh and eighth grades, and had moved onto French in the ninth grade. He was relatively sure he would have no problem catching up as he had been ahead of most of his classmates, even with constantly switching and missing school. He planned to move onto Italian and Latin in his junior year.

"French with Mr. Goldfarb," Ed said. "He's kind of a bore, but he won't give you any trouble. Hey, I've got the same study hall as you. It's with Miss Wilder. She's cool. She doesn't make us sit silently and do our homework the way some of the others do. She's one of the better teachers around this place though I see you have Teegan for history. He's great. I have him too but at a different time than you."

Callen nodded. "Yeah, I really liked him. He seemed like a cool guy."

"Higgins is definitely the worst of the ones on your schedule," Ed said as he handed it back to Callen. "Just make nice with her and you'll be home free. Tomorrow you can sit next to me in her class. She likes me, so maybe you'll get some brownie points by association."

"Okay...that sounds good," Callen said, smiling less tentatively than before.

"We have gym together too on Thursday. Make sure you bring blue gym shorts and a white t-shirt. Those are required. Coach Lewis is okay though he definitely favors the jocks who play on the school teams. Do you play a sport?"

Callen shook his head. He'd never been in one school long enough to even consider such a thing. "I never have."

"I haven't either. I've thought about maybe playing baseball in the spring. Maybe we can both go out for it together. Might be fun."

Callen nodded, but he suddenly began wondering why Ed had latched onto him so quickly. He began feeling paranoid wondering if he was being friendly to him on a dare or something. "So...how long have you been at this school?" he finally asked, staring down at his lunch tray.

Ed laughed. "You figured me out already. I've only been here for six weeks. My family moved to California from Boston. It's pretty different out here, but my dad got a new job so here we are. It's hard starting a new school. I just figured with both of us being new, it might be cool if we got to know each other. Sometimes it's hard to get friendly with kids, especially when they already have their own friends."

Callen nodded. What Ed said was true. He'd certainly experienced more than his share of starting at new schools.

At that moment the bell rang. Ed quickly stood up and picked up his tray. "I'll see you later at study hall, G," he said. He then pointed towards the far exit of the lunch room. "If you go out that way you'll get to your French classroom faster. You probably don't want to be late. Goldfarb is a stickler for punctuality or as he says ponctualite," Ed spoke in an exaggerated French accent and grinned at Callen before he headed off to his next class.

xxxxx

The rest of the day went by quickly and easily, as Callen had predicted. He was way ahead of the others in his French class and he was already liking Ed more and more. The boys spent their study period chatting. Callen mainly deflected any questions about his own home life, not sure if he trusted Ed enough yet to give any information about his past. He usually kept such things to himself. "I'll see you tomorrow, G," Ed said when the bell rang for them to go to afternoon homeroom.

"See ya, Ed."

Callen then headed off to homeroom where he kept to himself and then finally the day was over. He breathed a sigh of relief as he left the school and found Hetty already waiting outside for him, just as she had said she'd be.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Callen," she said as he slid into the front passenger seat and fastened his seat belt. "How was your first day of school?"

"It was okay," Callen said with a shrug as he tossed his backpack onto the back seat of the car.

"Just okay?" she asked as she pulled away from the school.

"I have to have blue gym shorts by Thursday," Callen said, deciding to change the subject. "I need them for gym."

"Well, that's a relatively easy request," Hetty said, smiling at the boy. "Do you have a lot of homework?"

"Not too bad," Callen said, though he suddenly wondered if there had been any geometry homework. He guessed he should have asked Ed. Oh well, it was too late to worry about that now.

"Well then I don't suppose it will hurt you before we make an extra stop before heading home."

Callen shook his head. "No, that's fine."

"Good." Hetty said as she took a side street to turn around from the direction of her home. "So...how was math class today?"

Callen looked at Hetty suspiciously, but he couldn't read anything from her expression. He was suddenly uneasy, wondering if he should be truthful or lie. Finally, he decided to just be honest. After all, he hadn't gotten into any trouble so technically, he hadn't done anything wrong.

"My teacher...is kind of a bi...witch."

"I see and why is that?" Hetty asked, holding back a smile.

"She...she gave me a hard time about my name."

"How so?"

"She refused to call me G or Callen. She said she was going to call me Glenn and I said I wouldn't answer to that name. She said if I wouldn't, that I could go to the principal...so that's what I did." His heart was beating fast as he told Hetty what had happened, but his nerves didn't show at all on his face. He looked calm, cool and collected on the outside.

"Well, thank you for telling me that," Hetty said. "I actually had a call from the principal today and he explained what had happened. He was very much on your side of this matter. I normally wouldn't condone you talking back to a teacher, but I do like that you're not afraid to stand up for yourself if you're being treated unfairly and this is one of those times."

"Really?" Callen asked softly. "I kinda thought...well I figured you'd be mad."

"I'm mad at the teacher, Mr. Callen. She had no right to make your name into such an issue and I'm sorry that she did that to you."

"It's okay," Callen said. "Hopefully she'll lay off me now."

"Yes, hopefully she will," Hetty said. "For now, we'll consider the matter dropped." She was surprised, in a good way, that the boy had told him what had occurred on his own. She considered it to be a good omen for the future. They rode along in silence for the next few minutes until Hetty pulled the car into a parking lot. Callen hadn't been paying much attention to where they were going, but he looked out through the windshield now at a store with a sign that read Mike's Bike Shop. His eyes widened and he gave Hetty an uncertain look. "Come along, Mr. Callen."

Callen followed Hetty into the bike shop, trying to contain his excitement. Was he actually going to get a brand new bike for his very own? He'd wanted one ever since he was a little kid, but of course, no foster parents were going to buy him a bike. He'd learned to ride on other kids' bicycles and had never even dreamed of the possibility of getting his own bike. The only thing better would be a car, but he knew he was quite a long way from that.

"Can I help you?" A man in his 20's asked as he approached them.

"Yes, he would like to get a bicycle."

"Really?" Callen asked, his eyes shining as he looked back at Hetty.

"Come now, Mr. Callen," Hetty said, smiling. "Did you think we came here for me to get a bike? Now take a look around and pick out what you'd like. I know very little about such things."

Callen slowly began to walk through the store, more than a little bit overwhelmed by the different makes, models and colors. Even the most inexpensive of them all looked good to him. Finally, he picked out a very modest-appearing bike with few features and a very low price tag. "This one," he said, pointing it out to Hetty.

Hetty looked at the bike doubtfully. Even with her limited knowledge of such things, she knew he was being very frugal when it came to his choice. She turned to the salesman. "Can you tell me what's popular with young boys these days?"

"Of course," the salesman said with a smile. "This bike is very popular." He led them over to a shiny black bicycle with red and silver trim. "It's a Trek road bike, very well made. We also have several less expensive models which are similar with not as many features."

"Would you like to try this one out, Mr. Callen?" Hetty asked.

"Really?" Callen asked.

Hetty nodded with a smile and the salesman took Callen outside to give it a test ride. It was an awesome bike. Just trying it out was amazing. "It's really cool," he said with a smile when he came back inside.

"We'll take this one," Hetty said.

"Great. We'll get him the proper sized bike and it will be assembled and ready to go by Friday, just in time for the weekend. I'll go get the paperwork."

"Hetty?" Callen said tentatively, after the salesman had gone off. "You don't have to get me this bike. There are lots of cheaper ones that are good too."

"Do you like this one?" Hetty asked.

"Well, yeah, of course, but…"

"No buts, Mr. Callen," Hetty said. "I would like to get this bike for you. Call it a late birthday present or whatever you'd like. You can ride it to school. We'll just have to get a proper lock for it to make sure it doesn't get stolen."

"Thank you, Hetty...thank you so much."

"You're very welcome, Mr. Callen." Just seeing the happy look on the boy's face made Hetty know this purchase would be a worthwhile one.

Callen looked at the bike, a smile on his lips and his eyes sparkling as he stroked it's smooth exterior. He had never even dreamed of having his own bike and now, to get one like this, it really was like a dream come true.