"Ha!" Anthony rejoiced. "You didn't reach it! You didn't reach it!" He smiled at the prospect of the day's first dare having worked out in his favor. He was giddy with not only victory, but with the idea that the consequences of the dare had to be fulfilled.

The other kids also smiled and murmur broke out between them. Shawn could here the kids around him saying things like 'now he has to do it', Bobby's voice commenting 'a deal's a deal.' And Ralph saying 'that's why I said no dares.'

The weight of expectation settled upon the group. It was a familiar feeling for Shawn. It was the expectation of coming peformance. He was being called upon to perform a required role with a rehearsed line. For any other kid, this might be the moment of failure. Now, the kids waited for the expected result. More than anything else, Shawn could tell that his next move might determine how far they could trust him based on this first impression. Was he the kind of kid that would follow through according to the agreed upon rules of such playground games? Or would he leave them with the impression that he was unyielding and would not play along?

Shawn made a show of pretending to think about it, then suddenly burst into his winningest smile. He hopped up and down three times, and then paused for a moment. "What was it again? Oh yeah...I'm a jeeeeerk!" He delivered it using Anthony's exact delivery and cadence, a silly imitation that mined its humour from Shawn's literal-mindedness rather than insulting Anthony.

While Shawn was pretending to make a show of his intended plans, he felt the silence and potential dissapointment thicken around him, weighty with anticipation and resolution. Then, after he delivered the line using Anthony's intonation, kids alright him laughed. It was like some great pressure had been relieved from a steam pipe, allowing a better flow of ease and relaxation, the mood changing.

The ice had been broken, Shawn could feel it. With the first dare out of the way, the kids no longer related to each other as strangers. Ralph was now talking with Anthony, through starts and stutters, the two discussing the advantages of putting more peaunut butter on a sandwich then Jelly. Bobby and Tiffany struck up a conversation about hide and seek and where the best places to play in the neighborhood were.

The only one who wasn't talking, was Michael. He seemed to take the crowd in, observing tthe conversations with a cautious expression on his face. Absorbing the environment around him.

Everyone else was busy, but Shawn noticed Michael was off by himself, and he figured now was a good time to get to know him a little better. He was the hardest to get a read on of the siblings. He went over and sat down next to him. "Hey Michael."

Michael raised and eyebrow when Shawn sat down next to him, but otherwise his face remained more or less expressionless.

"One." He said, in response. His voice was deep for a boy near Shawn's age. Maybe a year younger. It had a sort of bellow to it, like he was already in the midst of puberty.

Shawn gave him a slightly confused look, but didn't lose his friendly air. "One what?" He smiled like it was a setup to a joke, one that he eagerly wanted to hear the punchline to.

Michael's expression remained blank, eyes fixed on Shawn.

"You said 'I'm a jerk' one time. That's one. Then Anthony said it one time. One and One is Two." He said. I didn't seem like he was joking. Shawn's first impression was that Michael wasn't really a joking around kind of person. From what he said, it sounded more like an inner monologue more than anything else. It was clear to Shawn though, based on Michael's short phrases silence for the better part of the afternoon, that it Shawn wanted to forge ahead with Michael, he would have to do most of the talking.

"Oh, that's neat." Shawn could tell he'd have to make most of the effort, but that was fine. That just made him want to win Michael over more. "Do you count a lot of other stuff? When I have trouble sleeping, I count sheep, and it makes me feel better in a strange way. Is it like that?"

"Yes." Michael responded to Shawn's question about whether he liked to count things. "I like to count." He reiterated, and Shawn could see his lips moving after he stopped speaking.

There was a rhythm to those lip movements, a pace. With dawning realization, Shawn realized that Michael was counting right now. Not outloud, nothing that could be heard. But he could read Michael's lips, parting back and forth, advancing in constant, consistent time: two-hundred sixty seven....two-hundred sixty eight....two-hundred sixty nine.

It wasn't part of the conversation with Shawn, wasn't something that Michael was trying to communicate. Shawn supposed it was part of Michaels inner monologue or soemthing that he was just doing for himself.

"What kind of other stuff do you count?" Shawn found himself genuinely interested in the answer, not just asking because he was trying to be charming or ingratiating. He'd never met someone like Michael before.

Shawn stopped moving his lips. His eyes shifted from left to right before settling on Shawn. His face was a mask of stone. Completely with out any expression. There was no hint of fake, obsequiousness. No pleasantries. No social niceties. No indication that Michael even cared what Shawn thought or what anyone thought. There was nothing.

And just before Shawn heard Michael speak, that very nothingness struck him as perhaps a raw indication of honesty. A type of honesty that he had never encountered before. Or perhaps the kid was troubled? That was what Mom or Eddie would think or say, or reflect if they were in Shawn's position talking to Michael.

"Just. Everything." Michael replied. A short answer. As short as a number that could be counted.

"Keeping the count. One number isn't any different than another. When I was at Willow Grove, I used to count the other kids as they made their way to their cells. Or I could count the hits of the paddle when someone got punished." Michael elaborated, voice deep.

Willow Grove. Shawn had never heard of it. It didn't ring any bells.

Shawn wasn't sure what to think. Cells? Paddles? On kids? He knew some parents punished their kids a lot harsher than he ever did, but this sounded almost like a prison. "What's Willow Grove?"

"Willow Grove Juvenile Detention in Buckeye, Arizona. People call it "Safety." It's not a place to go to be safe. It's a place they put kids so that people outside of Willow Grove can be safe from them. That's what they tell eveyone the first day you arrive. There are one hundred and sixty four kids in Willow Grove. Each kid has to share a room with another kid. There are two beds for each room. One hundred and sixty four divided by two is eighty two."

"Oh." Shawn wasn't sure what kind of answer he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. "You don't seem unsafe, though. Why would people need to be safe from you?"

Michael stared back blankly at Shawn. "They said I put rocks in a little kid's mouth. They said that I put them in his mouth and then he choked on the rocks.  They said that he choked on the rocks and died.  And they said that I did it because he was yelling about a fire they said I started. They said I wanted him to be quiet about the fire."

Shawn kept his face blank and non-committal in the face of Michael's deadpan description of a murder. It would be nice to say that it was difficult for him, but Shawn had witnessed too much death and harm in the recent past for a mere description to set him off. Instead he just looked vaguely sympathetic. "Did you?"

"Yes." Michael responded simply. His eyes never wavered from Shawn's. There wasn't any sadness or aggression in this gesture. No anger or intimidation.. No regret. Nothing that Shawn could read or see but a blank, impassive face.

"That's why they put me in Willow Grove." He clarified, in what Shawn was coming to know as an noticeably, deep voice.

"Okay." The old Shawn might've said something or told on Michael to his parents or siblings, but the sadder and wiser Shawn was too jaded to think it'd be much of anything but upset everyone. He kept his expression neutral. "If you're going to set any fires, can you ask me first?"

"Yes." Michael agreed. And that was it. That was all he said in response. A simple agreement. An acknowledgement that he would advise Shawn if that was to ocurr. . After that, he just stared, waiting for Shawn to direct the conversation further.

"Thanks." Shawn felt oddly like he'd accomplished something with that. He considered what to talk about next. "So are there any toys you like? I like GI Joes, though I think Bobby likes them even more than I do."

"That's two people that like G.I. Joes. You are one of them and Bobbty is the other." Michael analyzed. "I like transformers. I like Optimus Prime. He's a big robot with a lot of parts. And I like to play with dice too. Do you have any dice?"

"Optimus Prime is really cool! My Mom got me the one with detachable blasters and fuel nozzles." Shawn had done a really good job on set that day; the director had said that he was really mature for his age, so Mom has bought him a treat. "I have some dice too, but they're mostly from board games. They're still neat though."

Michael held up one finger and said in low recognition. "Your Mom got you one Optimus Prime. But it had more than one detatchable blaster and a fuel nozzle." And then, as if that was out of the way. "I have fifteeen different Transformers upstairs in my room. I've organized them into five separate rows of three. Three times five is fifteen. Each time I take one out, I put it back in the same space that I took it out of. I use the five shelves on my bookshelf to store the transformers." He explained.

"Do you want to see them?"

Shawn was interested in spite of himself; fifteen Transformers was a lot of Transformers. "Yeah, that'd be super cool!"

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread

Shawn: Michael's Just Moving In...