"Detention...detention, detention, detention..."

I mumbled the words quietly to myself as the one who put me there jumped around in the corner of the room, singing some unknown song. I glared daggers at him, but he wasn't phased. It seemed like there was no where better that he could be spending the afternoon of the fist day of school.

I was in trauma, I knew that, because I thought myself much too young and much too intelligent to do anything wrong, ever, but things have a funny way of working out wrong. I was eleven, king of the world until some little cheapskate stuck his tongue out at me in the lunch line.

I should have realized that he was in my class, should have realized that fighting was against the rules, and should have realized that he was older than I was. I don't even think he was really looking for trouble, but smart remarks always get the worst of me.

"Come on...the rest of us would like to eat!"

"Watch it, shorty. I can only go so fast ya know."

He folded his arms around his chest, 'hmph'ing at me quite loudly before sticking out his little pink tongue. My buddy Sean nudged me with his elbow, whistling.

"Well Danny, gonna let him get away with that?"

I shook my head sharply, pushing my tray into his hands as I went after the kid, almost pouncing him. It didn't really get any further than that before one of the teachers pulled me off, scooped me up and pulled me out of the line.

"Mr. Jones, what has gotten into you? And on the first day of school?"

"He was picking on me!"

"You know the rules. Detention, English room, one hour, after school. Understand?"

I shook my head as he went back to find the other kid in the huge mass. Sean trudged over to me, guiding me to a table he had saved. He looked at me guiltily, pushing some food around his tray.

"Man, Mr. Lewis is one hard principal. I didn't think he'd give you detention on your first day!"

"Yeah, well think about it next time before you egg me on. For all I know, I'm going to be stuck with that kid after school now, and my mom is going to flip. I'll be grounded for life..."

He patted me on the shoulder as I chomped on my sandwich, glancing around the cafeteria. I spotted the other kid sitting at a table by himself, chewing lazily on half an apple. His elbow was resting on a page of a book, keeping the page from turning while he read. Every once in a while, he would brush a strand of his blonde hair back behind his ear, almost absently as he considered himself fitfully alone in a room full of people.

"Yo, Earth to Jonesy? What's going on?"

"He's sitting by himself..."

"Lucky bugger. You know, I feel like I'm sitting by myself half the time. You never talk."

He poked me again, giggling slightly before going back to his lunch.

"Sean, you ever seen him before?"

"No, I haven't seen half of these people before. New school, new students from all over town, you should know that. The one I would be worried about is Oli though, if he finds out what you did."

"You made me!"

"You made yourself, I was just an innocent bystander."

I rolled my eyes at him, pushing his comment about my older brother to the back of my mind. It wasn't the fair thing to do to me on such a bad day. The first shot of the day was that I didn't get in a class with any of my friends, or rather no one that I even knew. Then the teacher attacked with the evil get-to-know-you games that I had to suffer through every year. I knew who I wanted to because I wanted to, and no one was going to make me be friends with someone I didn't want to be.

My attitude got even worse as the lunch bell rang, that annoying tone that screamed that it was time to go back to the relative *cough* hell *cough* that the new teacher and students made. It wasn't fair, but when was it ever? When did I ever get what I wanted? Never, that's when...

I sat in my desk as the rest of the students came in, many of them jeering me on for what had happened in the lunch line. Just as the tardy bell was starting to sound, the blonde haired loner walked through the door, his head lowered and his pack about to slip from his shoulder. He took the last seat in the class, the one next to mine as the teacher strolled in.

"Mr. Jones, Mr. Hayes, I hope you learn something today about our rules. I don't want to hear any excuses, as I'm sure you realize they won't be tolerated. You are sixth graders, and you should know better by now than to start fights."

My shoes suddenly became very interesting as neither of us could make eye contact with Mr. Carey.

"Alright, we are going to start reading "Where The Red Fern Grows" today. Please read with a partner to chapter two. When you are finished, you can take a break until math."

Mr. Carey walked back to his desk, a wondering expression on his face.

"Just for today, I'm going to put you in groups. So, let's see...Miles and Sanford, Hart and Ramboz, Hayes and Jones..."

I tuned out the rest, banging my head quietly on my desk before I felt a hesitant hand touch my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my seat, turning to look at him sharply.

"What do you want?"

"To get this over with, because you obviously don't like me all that much."

"I'm sorry for that, I'm a bit of a hot head. Didn't hurt you did I?"

"Not that bad."

So we started reading, one of the most boring books I swear. Another unfair thing...Why can't teachers ever pick something that we would enjoy reading? Nothing against Mr. Carey, but his choices aren't all that child friendly. Guess it all goes into making us try all the more hard to get through it.

Maths was almost as bad, though slightly more tolerable. I could do math alright enough, liked it too, so I didn't mind it as much. I even got all of it done so I didn't have any homework, though I thought it would be worth my while to find something to do during detention so whoever had to make sure we did what we were supposed didn't decide to find me something to do.

Mr. Lewis was standing at the door when the final bell rang, waiting for us. He dropped a hand on each of our shoulders, leading us into one of the science rooms before he finally let go. He signaled for us to sit down, two seats apart from each other.

"As much as I would love to sit in here for the next hour and tell you about things that should and should not be done in this school, I have more pressing things to deal with. Mr. Benson is just beyond that door, in the back office, so he'll know if you two get up to anything. What you are to do is talk it out, I don't want any more problems from you two. Daniel, Oliver is coming to pick you up after footy practice. Darren, I'm also leaving you in his care, as I found out you only live down the street from the Jones', and I couldn't contact your parents. I mean it boys, anything more than a loud rumble, and you'll have Benson to deal with."

He shut the door quietly as he left, shooting us a stern look as he walked past the windows before fading down the hallway.

"Can we both say that it was all Sean's fault and leave it at that?"

"What?"

I turned to him as he dropped his bag onto the desk. He sighed, rolling his eyes slightly.

"I know Sean pushed you to it. I heard him."

"Leave Sean out of this. He wasn't the one who started it."

"Well, if you would move faster..."

"Well, if you weren't so impatient..."

"If you weren't so ignorant..."

"If you weren't so stubborn..."

"If you weren't such a loser..."

"If you weren't such a loner...Hang on a sec, loser?"

He folded his arms, giving me a look that screamed that I should have already known what he had said.

"Hello, you hang out with Sean Bexing. He's the biggest loser in the school, everybody knows that! I thought for sure you'd be hanging out with Chester and Mike and the rest of those guys, not some wannabe footy player."

"And what is so wrong with hanging out with Sean?"

"All he does is talk and get everyone else in trouble. He had a crush on my older sister before he moved in-town. He's a tosser, and you know it."

I took a good long look at him, taking him in for the first time. He was wearing a dark blue shirt over tan cargoes, blue eyes and blonde hair that kind of curled behind his ears. As big as his bottom lip was, you could tell that pouting was in his list of attacks if he didn't get his way.

"So, you're Tracey's brother?"

He shook his head, getting up from his seat.

"And you are Oliver's brother?"

I nodded, finally realizing what Mr. Lewis had said.

"I'm dead...I am so dead...Not only are my parents going to kill me, they'll have to put me back together when Oli drags my pulverized body through the door. I'm not even going to see my second day of sixth grade."

Darren shrugged, walking to the corner.

"Well, Dan, tell me if you want to talk about anything interesting..."

From then on, I was totally tuned out from his world as he bopped and sang softly to himself, leaving me to worry over my brother on my own. After nearly half an hour of sitting in a cold sweat, debating if I should chance trying to hide, Darren decided to grace me again.

"So, have any other friends besides Sean?"

"Not really...You? I mean, do you have any friends? I saw you eating alone."

"Nope...I just moved in a week ago, and I've always been the loner. Never changes I guess."

"You think we might hang out sometime? I...you don't have to if you don't want to, but it would be nice to have someone else in the crew."

"That would be cool. You think we could do something this weekend if our parent's don't kill us by then?"

"Sounds good to me. We just have to get past Oli today, and that's work enough."

Darren's face suddenly went a shade paler, his eyes not focused on me, but somewhere behind me. I turned to see what he was staring at, only to start doing the same.

"H...Hi Oli...How was footy practice?"

"Nice try Danny Boy, but you and I are going to have a nice and serious talk, and I'm sure Darren wouldn't give it a miss either. Ello to you too by the way."

At that moment, all I could think was blank spaces, and I did the most unmanly thing possible...I passed out.