“Zac, why don’t you show Samantha your new clothes,” Diana said.

“Uh ok mom,” Zac replied, “Let’s go, I’ll show you my new clothes silly Sam.”

I followed Zac up the stairs to look at his new clothes, he continued to tell me the story he had barely begun before Diana asked him to show me his clothes.

“Okay, so we were at the mall trying on shoes and the sales clerk asked us for our autographs!” Zac told me, “She wasn’t even that young, she was thirty maybe even forty!”

“Wow, that’s really cool!” I replied.

“Yeah!”

Zac showed me his new clothes, he got 1 pair of shoes- new airwalks, a pair of corduroys, a pair of jeans, and 2 shirts- a dark blue one and a black adidas.

“Samantha!!” I heard Diana call, “Phone! It’s your mom,”

I picked up the phone, “Hello?”

“Sam, I think it’s about time you come on home, all right? You do have school tomorrow,” my mom asserted.

“Okay, I’ll walk home now, bye.”

“Bye bye.”

“You have to go?” Zac asked, even though he already knew the answer to that question.

“Yep, I have school tomorrow, it is a Monday,” I answered, gathering my things.

“Well, do you want me to walk you home?” Zac asked.

“All right, thanks,” I answered. That was really nice of him, he doesn’t usually walk me. Maybe he feels bad that they are going again. I went downstairs to put my coat on. Zac was already down and telling his mom he was walking me home.

“Bring a flashlight, the sun has just about set,” Diana told us. I didn’t see the point in a flashflight since there were street lamps about every five feet, but if it made Diana feel better neither of us minded bringing one along.

“Ok Mom, I got one!” Zac replied, “You ready?” He asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

We didn’t walk fast, just a stroll. We talked about Laser Quest, we hadn’t been there in a while. We decided to go next weekend since my parents probably wouldn’t let me go after school. We wanted to make the most of our ten days, well nine days now.

“Come over after school tomorrow?” Zac asked me.

“I have to finish my homework first, but yeah, I will,” I told him.

“Okay, but hurry up with it, we’re leaving next Tuesday,” Why did he have to remind me? As if I wasn’t thinking about it enough....I gave Zac a look, I don’t know what kind of look really, I just looked at him, into his deep caramel eyes. We stopped walking. He looked back at me. Into my fields of hazel, I felt a tear form. But before that tear could roll down my cheek, Zac took my hand in his. I smiled, and we walked the rest of the way to my house hand in hand, no words exchanged.

When we reached my house, our fingers slowly let loose of their tight grip. Zac moved his hand up and waved, “See you tomorrow Sam,”

“Bye Zac.”

I walked past my family in the dining room and upstairs to my room. I watched outside my window as he walked away. I watched until his body seemed ant size and then disappeared. I had a sad feeling deep in my gut. I was going to have to get used to that feeling. I stripped into my pajamas and went into bed, pulled the covers taut around me and laughed about how he calls me “Silly Sam.” I needed something to laugh at.

The next day at school I could hardly pay attention. This was often the case because I was often thinking about Zac. It didn’t hurt my grades though, I could just take the books home and teach myself, it worked pretty well since I had never gotten below an 85 on my report card. If I needed additional help I could pull Jamie in to help me out, but that wasn’t needed too often anyway. I wished that Zac could go to school with me. I thought about him so often because I missed him, it was even worse when I knew that if I ran over to their home on 78th street they wouldn’t be there, like when they were recording Middle Of Nowhere. I guess you could say I was sort of an outcast at school. At least, I felt like one. Zac was my best friend, and had been for four years now, I wasn’t letting anyone else come even close to Zac’s place. Maybe, subconciously, I was afraid that someone would replace Zac, that I’d forget about him while they were off on a tour. But even worse, what if Zac forgot about me? I cleared the thoughts out of my mind, what was I thinking? Zac and I were going to be friends forever!

“Samantha? Samantha!” I heard my Pre-Algebra teacher.

“Hmmm?” I looked up from my daze.

“Samantha! Will you please put number six from last night’s homework on the board?”

I went up to the board, homework paper in hand. Everyone was staring at me. I hated going up in front of the class, I just wished the teacher would let me daydream, she knew that I knew the material!

I copied the problem onto the board.

“Samantha, will you please show your work!” My teacher exclaimed.

“I did,” I replied.

“No, I’m afraid you didn’t answer completely. How did you get from 5X=30 to X=6?” She questioned.

“I divided by 5,” I told her. Wasn’t that obvious? She ended up making me go back and showing that I divided by 5. I didn’t see how it mattered, I got the problem right anyway.

The bell rang and we all headed off for the cafeteria. I sit with the guys in lunch. Somehow, I related with them a lot better than the girls. The girls seemed to be immature. I know it’s weird that you’d think, girls immature and guys aren’t? Well, the guys were immature too, in a different way. The girls, all they thought about was getting a boy to ask them to the movies. If there was a boy who I liked, which there wasn’t at this point in my life, I believe I’d go right up to him and tell him so. It’s only junior high, who really cared? There were plenty of boys who I thought were cute, but I didn’t like any of them. Well, except for Zac. No, wait. I didn’t just think that did I? I liked Zac? No, Zac was just my best friend, I’m getting him confused. Ok, maybe I sorta of like Zac. I take back what I said before, I don’t think I could tell Zac that I liked him, or sorta liked him, or thought I liked him. I realized I was wrong, I swerved in mid stride from the cafeteria line headed to the boys table and went to sit with the girls in my class. I was friendly with them anyway. There was this one girl, she was really popular, pretty much for no other reason besides the fact that she was more ahead, developing wise, than the rest of us girls. Her name was Alyssa.

“Hello Samantha. Why are you sitting with us today?” She asked me.

“I was sick of their burping, it’s disgusting!” I lied, trying to fit in. The girls laughed and continued with their gossip for a few minutes until the subject that was already in my mind, and had been in my mind all day, came up in the conversation.

“Have any of you heard that new song MMMBop?” Alyssa asked, she was usually the instigator of new topics.

I looked up from my lunch at Alissa. She continued to talk.

“MMMBop!!! Those boys are so fine!” She smiled and laughed a superficial sort of laugh.

All the other girls at the table agreed, then they started to discuss all the times they had seen Hanson perform.

“You lucky dog!” Alyssa said to Amy after Amy admitted she’d seen them perform 9 times, “I’ve only seen them four, but I think that little one had something for me!” I gave her a nasty look, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But, like I would go for him, I mean, maybe, but I go for older guys. The middle brother will suit me fine. I would go for the oldest one, but he looks like an ape!”

“No he doesn’t!!” I protested.

“Well what’s that?” Alyssa asked in a teasing manner, “Sammy likes Hanson? Sammy has a crush on the big Hanson?” The other girls laughed.

“No,” I said, “He’s my friend and I don’t like to hear people talking bad about my friends!”

“You’re friends with Hanson?” She asked in a somewhat disbelieving manner, “Prove it.”

“I don’t have to prove anything!” I said angrily as I threw my lunch away and got out of that cafeteria.

I went to the nurse’s office and played sick. I did not want to have to face those girls again, or my teacher, or anyone for that matter. I was confused about a lot of things...friends, school, growing up, life in general I suppose. I got my mom to come pick me up after only 40 minutes in the nurse’s office. I was so glad to see her until she said that since I was sick, I wouldn’t be allowed to visit at Zac’s house after school! I couldn’t believe she was taking that away from me!