"I don't like her." Mercedes whined, her tiny hands clenching into fists.

"Why? She's nice and gives us candy!" Sam asked, nibbling on his Hershey's kiss.

Sam didn't understand why Mercedes didn't like Quinn. They'd all been friends since preschool, and now they were in kindergarten together. How come she disliked their best friend all of the sudden? What did she do?

"She's stupid."

"No she's not." Sam disagreed, defending his friend.

"Yes she is!" Mercedes said kicking a toy car laying on the reading mat and barely missing poor Mike's head. He turned around and looked at her incredulously before walking away hurriedly.

Sam saw how hurt Mercedes was by the look of her eyes blazing and her afro puffs quivering. She was shaking, Mercedes was so angry.

Her eyes watered, and she tried not to cry because she was mad, not sad. "Quinn is bad, Sam."

He didn't understand what she was talking about, yet as she said it, he felt himself liking Quinn less and less. Whenever Mercedes said not to like something, suddenly whatever he liked wasn't his cup of tea anymore. Sam knew that was just because Mercedes opinions were similar to his. At least, he couldn't think of another reason why.

"Are you sure?" He asked, looking down onto her determined expression.

"Yes." She nodded, with her head bobbing and her arms crossed.

"Okay then."

"I think Quinn likes you." Puck told him at lunch later that day. He shivered in disgust; Sam didn't like any girls because they all smelled funny.

"Gross." He said, biting into his peanut butter sandwich.

"I know, how can you stand being around Mercedes all the time?"

Sam gave it some thought, and he could honestly say that Mercy didn't smell like the other girls in his kindergarten class.

"Mercy doesn't smell funny." He said, not sure how else to explain his logic.

"Who?"

"Mercedes."

"Oh, I know what you mean." Puck said nodding in agreement. "Lauren doesn't smell weird either." Sam was about to say that Lauren did have an odor to him, but thought against it. It was nice having someone that felt the same way he did. He didn't want to mess that up.

"So when should we play on the jungle gym?"

Sam crumpled up his lunch sack before shrugging. "I don't care when. You go there first and I'll be there in a second, I have to pee."

He knew that it was bad to lie like that, but he didn't want to tell his friend that he was ditching him to go play with Mercy.