Chapter 4

Since everyday started off with homeroom, when Jesse and Sam got to school they both went to their own lockers to drop off some books. Sam grabbed her Calculus book, along with her notebook for U.S. History. On her way to her homeroom she saw her brother hanging around some lockers with some other boys. As she passed they gave each other a fist punch like they were good buddies. His friends noticed that this upperclassman girl acknowledged a freshman boy.

"Whoa, you know her?" One of his friends, Benny asked him. "She's like a senior or something!" He exclaimed as he kept watching her walk down the hall.

Jesse kept looking down the hall following his sister. "She's a junior." Jesse told them.

"Wow Morton, you get to know some people fast!" he said to Jesse.

"Nah guys, she's my older sister." He told them.

Both his friends dropped their jaws. "She's your sister! Damn, she's good looking!" Alex said, with Benny nodding along with the statement.

"That's gross guys, why'd you have to say that man?" Jesse said, slightly grossed out that his new friends thinks his sister's cute.

"What's her name?" Benny asked Jesse.

"Samantha, but we all call her Sam for short." He said.

Benny and Alex looked at each other. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Samantha, Sam Morton?" he asked. "The new girl, that everyone was saying was like this perfect student?" he exclaimed.

"Yeah man. Everyone was talking about how she like can do all this musical stuff, she gets good grades, and she plays sports like volleyball or something right?" Alex said energetically.

"No way man." Jesse said shaking his head.

"What?" Alex asked him. "She isn't like any of those things we just said?"

"Nope." Jesse said calmly. "She plays basketball, not volleyball!" he said with a chuckle.

Benny rolled his eyes at Jesse. "Ah man." Benny said, pushing Jesse on the shoulder. The warning bell for homeroom rang and the halls soon became empty. Sam made it to her homeroom before the warning bell rang so she mad herself comfortable in her seat and waited for Tomika and Zack to show up. They walked in the room one after the other and sat down in their seats.

"Hey Sam." Tomika greeted her.

"Morning Sam. So, first day went good yesterday?" Zack asked, taking his backpack off and putting it on his desk.

"Yep, sure did. It was pretty good. Better than I expected." She confessed. The morning announcements came on the TV, but only half the class was paying attention to what they were talking about.

"So, you gonna sit with us at lunch again?" Tomika asked. "It's cool now, we have an new member." She said smiling.

"Oh yeah, Ms. Baxter, my counselor was saying you guys have all been together for a while." Sam told them, looking from Tomika to Zack. "That true?" she asked.

"Sure is. We're in this…uh…'music group'." He told her.

"That's awesome!" Sam said. "I'd love to hear you guys sometime."

Zack thought it'd be the perfect time to drop a hint about their band. "That'd be great. Maybe, if you sing, you could do some songs with us too." Zack suggested.

"Yeah, I could have some extra help belting out those notes." Tomika smiled. "We heard you sing and dance and all that musical stuff." She told her.

"Where'd you hear that?" Sam said, confused on how they would possibly know that Sam loved to sing.

"Word's been going around school from last week about you." Zack told her.

"About me? Why?" she asked, confused once again.

"People were saying that you could like sing and dance, you had really good grades and did great in school, you can play all kinds of sports and you're super athletic. You're really nice and teachers like you, basically everyone knows you as the perfect student, 'cause you're so good at everything." Tomika explained.

Sam looked at her strangely. "How'd they come up with those judgments?" Sam asked them.

"I don't know." Zack told her. "We just started hearing about those things like on the second day of school last week. So the words gotten around school." He said. Tomika and Zack continued to tell Sam about the things people were saying about her. She was still shocked that people knew things about her before she even showed up at school.

Calculus wasn't her best subject, but she didn't mind doing any math. That day she was called up to the board to write out 3 different problems. She thought that was because her teacher knew that she could do the work, and no one volunteered to do it. But in the back of her mind, she thought that maybe her teachers heard all the positive gossip about her and her school work. After calculus she had AP U.S. History with Freddy and Zack. She was happy to go to that class since Zack was funny and very talkative. And she liked seeing Freddy, just to see him.

"Hey guys." Freddy said, sitting down in his seat. Sam was getting her books out and Zack was scribbling something on a piece of paper.

"Sup Freddy." Zack said, still looking down at his paper.

"Hey Freddy." Sam said, looking to her right. They both smiled at each other for a moment until the bell to start class rang. A few minutes into class, Zack dropped a piece of crumpled up paper over Freddy's shoulder. He opened it and read it quickly:

Yo Spazzy, just wanted to say we better ask her if she'd join our band. Summer's hassling all of us, so we better get to it soon! You wanna ask her? Or should one of us do it? 'Cause I know you'd probably like to talk to her more. wink-wink

He tore off a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote a message back to Zack. He told Zack that he'd ask Sam about it later that day. He was planning on asking her during lunch. But if he wouldn't have the chance to ask her then, there was always a chance he'd catch up with her on her way home. They did only live 4 houses away from each other. They all made it to lunch and sat at their table in the cafeteria. That day, Sam came in with Katie and went through the lunch line with her. On their way to their table, Katie pointed out all the groups at lunch.

"So, over there is the popular kids. Some of 'em are actually cool." She said. "But very few." She emphasized more on 'very'. "The Athletes. All kinds of sports, football, volleyball, basketball, baseball. And next to them is the girls table. In the corner are the really smart guys. We don't really have a name for them, not like they're the A.V. kids or anything. They're just really smart and get good grades all the time!" she told Sam. Katie gestured to a few other groups by the time they got to their table.

Katie sat down next to Summer at their lunch table. "Hey guys."

"Hey, wassup guys." Sam said, sitting at the end of the rectangular table.

"So, how's today goin'?" Tomika asked Sam. "Better than yesterday?"

"Well, kinda sorta. I mean, yesterday was pretty good, considering it was my first day. But today, all my classes have asked me to talk about where I'm from and all that stuff." Sam took a bite from her sandwich.

"You mean like telling them you're from Hawaii?" Freddy asked.

"Yep. I've had to explain all of the same things to 4 classes. Basic stuff: I'm Hawaiian, from Hawaii, yes I can surf, I can speak Hawaiian, we have to have Japanese white sticky rice with our food, we don't wear long pants or jeans 'cause it's too hot, we don't call them flip-flops, they're slippers, which came from the Japanese culture." She paused to take a sip of her juice.

Zack's face looked like he just saw a ghost. "Whoa, wait. You call them slippers?" Zack asked.

"Yeah. Every time I hear 'flip-flops' I gotta buss-out laughing. It's just weird, callin' slippers 'flip-flops'. I'd say it more like 'rubbah slippahs' actually." She smiled and started to chuckle. "I'm used to it though. I had to do that all the time in California. Wherever we went, not only school. I'd wear shirts and have stuff from Hawaii, and people would ask me what store I got it from. I told them it was from back home, and they wanted the 411 on Hawaii and people from Hawaii."

"I think people from Hawaii are awesome." Freddy said to her. There was a small moment of silence around the table as everyone turned to look at him. He quickly realized what he said and how he said it and came up with a cover-up. "Ya know, I mean, that it's such a unique culture and all." He said, stumbling over his words. "Really different from here, so it's cool." He said, blushing and looking down at his plate.

"Nice save." Zack said, who was sitting next to him had to laugh at Freddy.

"It's cool having you here Sam." Tomika told her. "You bring more 'color' up in this part of the land." Tomika said as everyone chuckled.

"True that. I'm like naturally Hawaiian-kine dark skinned. Up in California everyone thought I was Spanish or Mexican 'cause I'm dark skinned." She told them.

Tomika smiled, "Well, it's good to have another dark skinned sister!" she said. "Too many of these lighter people here." She said as the whole table cracked up.

"Back home, we call people from the mainland haole's." Sam told them. "Haole is Hawaiian for foreigner. You guys know the story of the missionaries right?" she asked them as they all either shook their heads or shrugged. "The missionaries came to Hawaii and overthrew our monarch, along with bringing small pox and killing off practically all the native Hawaiians. So anyone from the mainland (North America) that's fair-skinned, we just call them haole." She said. They all were shocked to hear such a story of how a nickname came to be. Sam continued on answering their questions they had about Hawaii and how it's different from the mainland. The bell to end their lunch period was about to ring, so everyone got up to throw their food away and head on to their next classes. Freddy forgot about asking Sam about their band, so he caught up with her on their way out.

"Hey." He said walking along side Sam.

"Hey Freddy. I hope I didn't bore you guys with my stories about Hawaii." She said to him.

"Oh, of course not. I love hearin' about you." He said, then Sam turned to him surprised at what he said. "Oh, I mean we like hearin' about you. About Hawaii." He said, embarrassed. "So, umm…" he wasn't quite sure of how to ask her. "You walking home today?" he asked her.

"Mmhmm. Jesse's goin' to the mall with his friends, so yeah, I'm walking home by myself." She told him, curious to what Freddy was getting at.

"You mind if I walk home with you?" he asked her, hoping that she'd say yes.

She looked up and smiled at him. "Sure."

"Great, I'll meet you by the trophy case after school then." He said happily.

"Okay." She said smiling back. "I'll see ya then." She said, turning the corner to go to her French class.

"Okay, bye Sam." He gave her a small wave and went on his way to class. He was so pleased that he'd get a chance to ask her to join their band, and have a chance just to be with her again. Sixth and seventh period went by quickly, so did Freddy once the last bell of the day rang. He raced to his locker to put his things away so that he'd meet Sam in time to walk her home. They both met at the trophy case at the same time.

"So, you ready to go home?" he asked her.

"Yep, let's go." She said cheerfully. They didn't live that far from school, a few blocks in fact. Each step Freddy was trying to figure out how to ask Sam about their band. She noticed that he had a puzzled face on so she asked him if he was alright.

"Oh no, I'm fine." He told her. "Actually…" he began. "I wanted to ask you something."

She turned to him with all attention on him. "Shoots."

"You're a good singer right?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Well, I'm okay." She said. "I'm definitely not the best." She warned him.

"You've sung before right? Probably with school or something?" he asked her.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, from third grade on I've been in my school's choir." She told him. "Why?" she asked him.

"Well, I don't know." He said, figuring out how to word it. "Can ya sing something' for me?" he asked her.

"Uh…I don't know. I'm probably not a good singer." She said shyly as they turned to crossed the street.

"Oh c'mon, you can't be worse than me." He reassured her with a gentle smile.

Sam couldn't resist the Jones smile. "Okay." Sam finally gave in. "What do you want me to sing?" she asked.

"Anything would sound beautiful." He told her, already working his magic on her. She smiled as her eyes drifted about, thinking of something to sing. She opened her mouth to sing a song that was sung to her as a little girl.

"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry

Go to sleep my little baby

When you wake, you shall have

All the pretty little horses

Blacks and bays, dapples and grays

Coach and six-a-little horses

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry

Go to sleep my little baby"

When she finished singing Freddy stopped walking and just stared at Sam in amazement. He didn't know what to say to her after that. Her voice was angelic, something he's never heard before. It was different from Tomika's, but he liked the sound she had.

"That was amazing." He said softly. "You have a beautiful voice." He told her as she smiled back.

"Thanks." She replied. "My mom used to sing me that song when I was little. Every night when I'd go to sleep." She said.

"It was great." He complimented her once again. "We could definitely use your voice." He said to her.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "What?" she asked somewhat confused. They started to walk once again as Freddy now explained what he'd been trying to tell her.

"Okay. Summer and the rest of the guys, myself included," he started to say. "We heard that you could sing really well." She looked at him with a funny look.

"From the rumors right?" she asked him skeptically.

"Well, yeah." He said, feeling a little guiltily for believing them. "But this time the rumors were true!" he exclaimed making Sam smile. "And now since I've just heard that you have a great…an incredible voice," he paused. "We'd like you to join our band." He finally told her.

Sam paused for a second, not quite sure what he just said. "Wait, you mean your band you have with Summer, and Zack, and Katie and everyone else? That band?" she was shocked that he'd want her to be apart of their band.

"Yeah! We have this big competition this year that we feel we can really win. With only Tomika, it'll be different since we had 2 other girls, but they moved. And Dewey's not really our lead singer anymore." He told her.

"Who's Dewey?" she asked, not knowing of this person he spoke of.

"Oh, he started our band up when we were like in, elementary school." He said to her proudly.

"Whoa, so wait." She said, drawing her hands up to stop walking. "You guys want me," she paused to think. "To be a singer, with Tomika in your band?" she asked, hoping she got some part of it wrong.

He nodded his head. "Yes."

"Wow." She said, thinking about what's been said.

"They wanted to know if you'd come to our rehearsal tomorrow after school and maybe sing with us. Then you'd decide if you'd wanna help us out and join the band." He told her. She still wanted to think this through but told him she'd at least go with them to their rehearsal the next day.

"Okay, I'll go with you guys." She finally told him.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You'll love it." He said.

"But where's this rehearsal at?" she asked him. "I'm sure my mom would have to know where I'd be going." She said, annoyed that her mom still watched over her shoulder at everything she did like a bat.

"Umm, you want me to call you tonight to give you all the details?" he asked her.

"Sure, that'd be great." She said. She took a pen out of her bag and quickly wrote her number on a piece of notebook paper and tore it out. "I'll talk to you tonight then." She told him.

Freddy smiled and nodded. "You bet." He agreed. They said goodbye and Freddy kept on walking towards his house as Sam walked up towards her front door.