Chapter 2

The next day, they all met in front of the school before the bell to start homeroom rang. Zack and Freddy were there first. Then Summer and Katie showed up. Slowly the rest of them came to school to think of a plan. They decided that they'd first find out more about her, if those rumors were true. If they were, one of them would go and ask her about it, then invite her to one of their practices. From there, it was all up in the air, seeing that they only had 10 minutes to think of a plan. The bell rang so they all rushed inside to get to their homerooms. Once they all got settled, there was the talk between their classmates about this new girl. Freddy had to go to his locker before he made it to his homeroom. But on his way back, he bumped into someone as he turned the corner to get to his homeroom.

"Oh, gosh I'm so sorry!" A girl with long, black, wavy hair said.

"Oh no, I wasn't watching where I was going." Freddy said as he bent down to pick up her dropped books.

This girl with a soft soothing voice reached to pick up more of her things. "Thanks." She said. "It's my first day and I'm kinda lost." She said, as she collected most of her belongings. "Hi, I'm Samantha. Samantha Morton." She said as she stood up, fixing her clothes.

"Hey, I'm Freddy Jones." He said as he too stood up to hand her the books in his hand. Once Freddy looked up to hand her the books, they both froze, gazing into each others eyes. "Wow, this must be that new girl everyone was talking about." He thought to himself, staring into her eyes. "She's really pretty, and to think I almost missed meeting her."

"Whoa, he's cute." She smiled to herself. "And polite, now this guy has class." She broke this awkward moment of silence between them by sticking her hand out. "I'm Samantha." She repeated, not sure if he heard her the first time.

Doing the same as Sam, he told her his name again as well. "I'm Freddy." When they shook hands, they both felt a spark rush through one hand to the other. "Oh, here's your books." He said, smiling at the fact he was still carrying them. She grabbed them from him, letting out a small laugh as she did this.

"Thanks, first days always start off rocky for me." He told him. Another moment of silence blew through the air between them.

"Well, uh," Freddy began to say. "I better get to homeroom." He told her.

"Yeah, me too." She replied.

"I guess I'll see you later?" he asked, hoping that she would say yes.

"Definitely." She replied with a smile. She turned to walk in the opposite direction, smiling the biggest smile she ever smiled once he couldn't see her face. "That was so weird." She thought to herself as she turned another corner. "I hope I do see him again though."

"Man, that was so strange. I mean, I didn't think I'd meet her first. And I didn't think I'd feel this way when I met her. Gees, I don't even know her yet, but I feel that I really want to." He thought as he walked in late to his homeroom.

"Well, thank you for gracing us with your presence Mr. Jones." His homeroom teacher Mrs. Cummings said to him as he took his seat.

"Sorry." He said quietly, taking his backpack off and putting it on his desk. As the morning announcements went on and everyone watched the TV to hear what was for lunch, he gazed off into space.

Katie noticed Freddy go into a daze. "Yo, Freddy, you okay?" she asked him. "Freddy?" she said again, waving her hand in front of his face. He finally came back to reality in a few seconds.

"Huh, oh yeah. I'm fine." He told her, shaking his head to get back into the school mood.

Meanwhile, Sam was trying to find her way to her homeroom. She finally reached her homeroom with a big bright sign on the door that read "Welcome to a new school year!!". She opened the door as quietly as she could and slipped into the room. Half of the students in the class just stared at this new girl walking in, the other half started to whisper with each other about her. She walked directly to her homeroom teacher to introduce herself. After the announcements were done, the teacher, Mrs. Park turned the TV off and walked back over to Sam's side.

"Class," she began to say. "This is our new student, Samantha Morton." She said happily. Everyone stopped chatting once her name was said. "Samantha joins us from California, but she previously lived in Hawaii!" she told the class with excitement. With this new information, more commotion went on between the students.

"Hi." Sam said, trying not to seem incredibly suspicious of why everyone was whispering to each other.

"Now, I want you all to welcome Sam to Horace Green." She said, smiling to Sam. "You can take a seat next to Tomika" she said, pointing to the only open seat in the room.

"Mahalo." Sam replied. Mrs. Park looked at Sam with confusion when Sam replied, "That's 'thank you' in Hawaiian." She smiled as Mrs. Park nodded and smiled back. She took her seat as the whole class watched her sit down in her seat.

She nervously watched the whole class follow her to her seat. "What's up?" was the only thing she could think of saying.

"Don't mind them." Tomika said, leaning over to Sam's desk. "Hi, I'm Tomika." She said, shaking Sam's hand.

"Yeah, and I'm Zack." He said, calling her attention to the seat in back of her. "Welcome to Horace Green." He said as most of the class turned away from their new student.

"So, can you guys explain why everyone looked at me like I was an alien just now?" she wondered.

"Well, some rumors were going around school about you." Zack told her as she looked at him as if he were insane.

She was surprised at hearing this and asked Zack, "Rumors? Like what?"

"Like you're the best at everything!" he said excitedly.

"Really now?" she asked in disbelief. "Who said that?"

"Mostly everyone. But I wouldn't listen to a thing you hear at this school. Mostly everyone just loves to talk." Tomika chimed in. The three of them talked for a while until the bell rang to go to their first period. Zack ran out of the classroom to get to his first class that he had with Summer. He quickly sat down next to her and began to tell her what had just happened.

"She's in my homeroom with Tomika." He said to her. "She seems really cool, and I think all those things we heard about her are true." He told her.

As impatient as Summer is, she asked him urgently about this new girl. "So, did you ask about her singing?"

"Uh…" he paused. "No. I forgot." He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Summer looked at Zack as if he was a complete idiot.

"Well, find out!" she told him forcefully. He nodded as the bell to start class rang. After first period was over, Zack hustled to his locker where he'd meet up with Freddy to go to their second class together, AP U.S. History.

"Hey Zack." Freddy said as Zack opened his locker. "So, how was first period?" he said, making conversation as he took his U.S. History book out of his own locker.

Zack quickly opened his locker and said, "Great. Guess what?"

"What?" Freddy said, not wanting to actually guess what Zack was going to tell him.

"I met that new girl." He said, closing his locker and turning towards Freddy.

"Really? Me too." He said, with a subtle smile on his face.

"How? When'd you meet her?" he asked.

"Right before homeroom. I ran into her on my way there." He told him. They began to walk towards their class, making their way through the crowd of students filling the hallways. "Her name's Samantha right?" he said to Zack.

"Yeah, she seems pretty cool." He replied to Freddy.

Freddy smiled to himself, thinking about his new girl he just met. "Yeah, she is." Freddy said in a 'dreamy' tone of voice. Zack noticed this, and squinted his eyes as he turned towards Freddy. They both walked into their classroom and greeted their teacher. Zack sat one desk behind Freddy, so he moved his desk closer to Freddy's. Two seconds before the bell rang, the last person walked in and closed the door behind them. Freddy was taking his notebook out of his binder as he saw a girl with black hair out of the corner of his eye. He recognized that hair and quickly looked up to see Samantha standing at the front of the class with their teacher.

"Everyone, this is Samantha Morton. She will be joining our class." He announced as he gathered everyone's attention. "You can take a seat behind Carlos." He directed her to her seat. As she sat down, all that Freddy could do was follow her with his eyes as she sat down next to him. She settled down and got her things out of her bag. She saw someone out of the corner of her eye staring at her, so she turned to see who it was.

"Hey, Freddy right?" she said, happy to see him again.

"Yeah. You're in AP History?" he asked, now believing that at least one of those stupid rumors were true.

Sam smiled since she loved any kind of history class. "Yeah, I guess history's just something I'm good at." Freddy and Sam kept smiling at each other while Mr. Cook started his lecture on Paul Reverie's famous ride. Zack couldn't help but noticed that neither one of them stopped looking at each other. From knowing Freddy for more than 5 years, he could tell that by the look on Freddy's face, Freddy liked this girl. Class continued with Mr. Cook's lecture and in no time the class was done. The bell rang and about 30 students rushed out of the classroom to get to their next class.

"So, uh, I guess we might see you at lunch?" Freddy asked, stumbling to get his books in his backpack. "I mean, if you wanna sit with us…" he trailed off.

"Yeah, sure. I'll look for you guys." Sam said. Zack waved Sam goodbye and Freddy gave her the biggest smile he could. Once she left the room, Zack and Freddy got all of their things together to get to their next class.

Zack quickly stood up to move in front of Freddy to face him. "Dude?! What was up with that?"

"What do you mean?" he said, pretending not to know what he was talking about.

"You so know what I mean. You like her don't you?" he said plainly.

"What? Me? Freddy Jones like the new girl?" he said as if it was absurd for such a thing to happen. But Zack could tell that he really did like Sam by the look in his eyes and the way he smiled at her. It was no lie that Freddy was interested in this new girl. Was it instinct, and Freddy knew that she'd be great for him, maybe it was just a first impression of Sam that Freddy liked. Or was it really love at first sight?