The door opened with a slight whine. After all, it had been over two years since another family had lived here.

A girl appeared. 8 years old with a surprised look on her face.

"Hi!" She said. "Who are you guys? The neighbors?"

"It's a..a..a.. girl." Ralph muttered, clearly disappointed.

Shawn had been prepared to make a positive first impression, and he wasn't going to let a little thing like the wrong gender hold him back. "Hi, yeah! We're from across the street; I'm Shawn, this is Bobby, and that's Ralph." He indicated the other two in turn, and gave her his cheeriest smile, the one Mom always told him to give the casting directors.

"Alright then!" She said, happily. "You're going to the school around here, aren't you? How is the school are the kids OK?" She asked, curious, the door moving open further as she was clearly about to invite everyone in.

Shawn wasn't sure if Tiffany was going to go to the same school as he was, so he answered noncommittally. "Everyone's pretty nice around here. Where are you from?" He didn't try to enter yet, instead following whatever social cues Tiffany was giving him in that regard.

"We're from Arizona. A place called Buckeye. There weren't a lot of people there growing up. It gets hot down there in the summer time. You've got to keep water on you during these months if we were down in there."

"Want to hear a joke?" She offered, the door now fully open. As if inviting everyone to come in.

"Sure!" Shawn looks back at Ralph and Bobby as if encouraging them to follow him before walking in. d

The house was just as Shawn remembered it. Old and worn. The wallpaper was slightly peeling, a 1950s pattern of roses on white--now yellow faded--background.

Tiffany "Are you guys all from here? Do you live in the neighborhood?" She asked, walking around a stack of boxes.

OOC: Shawn Rolls Wits + Composure

OOC: 22:15, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 2 successes using 4d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 7,3,10(+4),9. Wits + Composure.

Shawn looked at a stack of books that was sitting on one of the box. They looked old and were leatherbound. The names written on the binding were either written in flourishing cursive script from long ago, or etched in symbols and designs of a language he couldn't read. Titles such as Thelemite texts‎, The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy and On the Tricks of Demons were just some of the names of the books that were spilling out of one of the moving boxes.

"I..." Bobby said as if unsure. "I think I'm from here."

"You think you're from here? How is it that you don't know where you're from." Then she smiled.

"Oh,  you're just joking." She said laughing a little. "Good one. But you won't be able to pull one over on me. I finished first in all of my class this year with my grades. I got three As and a B. The best grades in the class." She boasted.

"That's really cool!" Shawn, all parental encouragement aside, wasn't all that great at school. He wouldn't mind having a smart friend. "Wow, you have a lot of books!"

"I'm smart." the girl confirmed. She turned to the books, looking down at the small stack of them spilling out from many of the boxes.

"Oh, those are my Dad's books. He's a parapsychologist. He studies things like ghosts and stuff. My Mom is a real doctor though. I mean the kind you go see when you get sick. But my Dad's work is still important." She justified, making clear to Shawn and the others that she was proud of her Dad and his work.

Somewhere during the conversation she produced a piece of bread and began to eat the edges.

"Para...parpa...parpa...parpa-buh-gol-o-frist." Ralph ventured, repeating the confusing word that sounded odd in his mouth.

Shawn was around 95% sure ghosts really did exist, but his belief in the supernatural was caused by some very specific evidence that he wasn't sure any grownups would believe. "Parapychologist, Ralph. That must be really scary, though - do you ever help him or stuff?" He hadn't heard that word before either, but he had practice at picking up new pronunciations quickly when the directors changed the script on him.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:58, Tue 04 July 2017.

"Oh, I dunno." She lamented, waxing with some sort of distant voice. "He's pretty secretive about what he does. Actually, he doesn't really let us do anything that he does to be honest. It's a real disappointment. I asked him if he was like one of the Ghost Busters once. He got pretty mad at that. But then he just said that when I was older I would understand. This is the fourth house we've lived in since I was a baby. Mom says Dad moves around a lot because he's 'looking for strange activity.'"

She finished the piece of bread.

"So, anything strange going on around here?"

"No." Ralph lied, his tone defensive and somewhat gruff.

Shawn made a show of thinking about it, but eventually shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "I can't really think of anything."

Tiffany let out a sigh. "Well, hopefully there's something around here. Because the last too places we lived, people were really mean to us. Mom says its because Dad's job isn't very good for a town of people. People don't like his job, so they take it out on us."

"That stinks. It's not your fault or anything." Shawn's expression was the soul of sympathy; he really wanted to make a good first impression.

"Yeah, it's alright." Tiffany said. "Come on, I'll show you around." She offered.

Just then a second kid stepped out into the hallway. He regarded Shawn and Ralph and Bobby too. But he didn't say anything.

"Oh, that's my brother Michael." Tiffany says.

Shawn waved hello at Michael, and gave him a winning smile. "Hi Michael. I'm Shawn, and this is Bobby, and this is Ralph."

"Hi." The boy said. He was maybe 11 years old, was wearing a small baseball cap and had a shirt on that said 'Optimus Prime.'

"I'm Michael." he restated, looking down at the floor instead of looking in Shawn's eyes.


That led to an awkward silence among the kids, no one saying anything

Shawn tried to cut through the awkward silence as best he could. "Nice to meet you. Oh! Do you like Transformers too? I heard they're making a movie!"

"Um...yeah." Michael said,. Looking down, eyes avoiding Shawn, it was clear that Michael wasn't much the talking type. Or maybe it was just that he was shy. Or maybe it was just that he was shy when meeting new people.

"Yeah he likes Transformers." Tiffany said. "But that's an older shirt that my brother Anthony used to wear. It's kind of a second thing. A second shirt hand." She explained.

Shawn looked outside from where they stood, now in the kitchen. Past the boxes and the clothing that was hanging on the kitchen cabinet knobs waiting to be placed into closets. Through the window, he could see an old shed. It's roof was tin-brown colored from rust. The wooden walls were leaning to the right, warped and gray from years of weather.

Tiffany came up alongside Shawn.

"That's my Dad's work shed. Every place that we've ever been to, he likes to get a work shed together so he can do his experiments. We're never allowed back there. His experiments make a lot of noise. And, he says its dangerous. So we never get to help or look inside."

Shawn looked upon the shed with appropriate wonderment and awe. "That's really cool!"

Suddenly, another kid entered the kitchen. He took in Bobby, Shawn and Ralph. Then with a wide grin, he exclaimed

"Milk, Milk, Lemonade, around the corner........FUDGE WAS MADE!"

Shawn did his best to match the newcomer's energy as he returned his smile, even if he wasn't entirely sure about what the rhyme meant. "Hi! I'm Shawn, and this is Ralph. Are you Anthony?"

The rest of the kids laughed at Anthony's joke. The newcomer, who was the oldest of the three children that were moving in, probably closest to Shawn's age smiled.

"Yup! That's my name and don't wear it out. How long have you been here? We just flew in flew in from Arizona, and boy are my arms tired! Seriously though, what are you favorite things? You wanna drink some cool-aid? We've got purple and red. Oh, and orange."

Shawn was happy to find that the third neighbour was neither really shy nor a girl. "I dunno what my favourite things are - I guess chocolate ice cream and GI Joe? Purple cool-aid sounds awesome! Bobby? Ralph? Do you want some?"

"I..."

"Sur..."

"You bet!" Anthony said, cutting off Ralph and Bobby and he was on his way. And with that, he began to rummage through the kitchen refrigerator. He was still talking about all manner of things, looking over to make sure that Ralph was paying attention, throwing head towards his siblings, checking to make sure they were focusing on what he was doing. Occassionally, he even looked at Shawn to make sure that Shawn was paying attention.

"Purple Cool-aid!" He announced, pulling a jar out of the refrigerator. "Looks like purple dinosaur piss!" He laughed, checking to see who, if anyone else would laugh along with him.

Shawn got that joke, no problem, so he giggled at the silly but absolutely hilarious joke. Haha, did dinosaurs even pee? It was all so silly!

Anthony dispersed the purple drink while the other kids continued to laugh. The atmosphere became light hearted and then Anthony turned to more serious matters.

"So, who wants to play the game, truth or dare? And if you play truth you have to tell the truth." He clarified.

Shawn had no problem with playing truth or dare, but he looked over at Bobby and Ralph, wanting to see how they felt about it.

"I'll play." Bobby said in a neutral tone.

"I...I'll play." Ralph said. "But I'm n..n..n..n..n..n..n.nnot doing any dares."

"But if you dont' do dares, then it isn't truth or dare." Bobby objected.

"Yeah. Then it would just be called 'dare.' And then, other people would only choose to do what they want. Then the game wouldnt' be any fun."

"Dare to play truth or dare." Anthony said absently. "Ha-ha." He followed up. "Truth and truth or dare and dare. We could play dare or truth. Or dare, dare, truth, truth, dare."

"No dares." Ralph insisted.

"But then it's not truth or dare!"

Michael watched the situation unfold, without saying anything, his eyes darting between the different interlocutors, absorbing the discussion, face expressionless.

Shawn tried to be the voice of compromise in the discussion. "Ralph, maybe you can just watch the first round or two? Then you can decide if you want to do dares or not for real?" In Shawn's mind, Ralph was probably a little young for Truth and Dare anyway. What could you even dare him to do that you wouldn't have to basically do for him, right?

"Oh brother! Ralph, you can just watch, not play a dare if you don't want. I'll take Ralph's spot for him. This should be fun." With the others' agreement, Anthony took center stage.

"Let's see, let's see, let's see." Anthony said. He picked up a stick and began to point it at different members of the group. Just when that person thought they would be selected, he would pull the stick away and then point it to someone else.

Finally he came upon Shawn, leaving the stick hovering out before him.

"Truth. Or Dare?" Anthony asked.

"Pick dare!" Bobby encouraged.

"No dares! P..p..pick truth!" Ralph insisted.

"He get's to choose, that's the way it goes." Tiffany instructed.

Shawn considered his choices, and the advice he was getting. "Hmm, well, since I'm first, I think I'll start off easy. Truth!"

"yay!" Ralph rejoiced.

"OK.OK. OK. OK. OK. OK." Anthony said, getting excited that the game was beginning. "What's the worst thing you've ever done? And don't say lying or anything like that, because that's lame. Oh, and it can't be a sentence. You have to tell the story." He insisted.

"The story behind it. Or whatever happened that was bad."

A naughty sort of excitement settled into the group as the other kids got the sense that secrets were about to be told and parental guidance would be avoided

Shawn paused to think about it, even as visions of April's screams, Bradford's face, and Henri's corpse echoed through his mind. He couldn't tell those stories; he had to come up with one of his own. "Well, there was this one time...I was on this movie set, and they had this really cool makeup thing where it looked like you'd been stabbed, and if you squeezed a little bag, fake blood would squirt out."

"And one time there wasn't anyone watching, so I decided to try it out, just for fun - I put it on my stomach, like I'd been stabbed in the gut, and I was pretending like it was an action movie and I was dying or something. But then I accidentally squeezed the little bag, and the blood squirted out really far, and it got all over a bunch of costumes they needed to film. They were expensive costumes, and they got ruined I was really afraid I'd get caught, so I put the thing back and ran away. I think one of the prop guys got in trouble for it, but I never told anyone about it." It was a semi-true story that had actually happened to Shawn, albeit tweaked slightly to make it a little bit worse for him and worthy of 'the worst thing he'd ever done'.

"Gross!" Tiffany said, disapprovingly. It was clear that she didn't like the story, or didn't appreciate the gory affects of it, judging by the way she shook her head in disgust.

"No way! That's cool. It's got all blood and guts on it. And it was probably messy. Gee that is bad that he got in trouble. But I'd done the same thing as you, to be honest. I mean to get the blood pack....." he paused for a second.

"Did you say movie?"

"He's an actor." Michael concluded. The first words he had uttered since introducing himself.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Stop the clock. What's that like?"

Shawn opened his mouth to answer, then stopped suddenly as a mischievous smile passed over his face. "Oh no, you've got to wait for the next time I pick 'truth'!" He giggled.

"Oh come on!" Anthony cried

"No thanks. Too much blood and guts and gross stuff. You're call." Tiffany urged Shawn, encouraging him to pick someone else for truth and dare.

"bl...bl...blood." Ralph repeated, as if thinking of something distant and long ago, and altogether unpleasant.

"Oh brother! This is fun!" Bobby commented, now getting into the rhythm of the game.

Shawn does an 'eenie meanie miney moe' and winds up pointing at...Bobby. "Bobby! Truth or Dare!"

"Ummm!! Ummm!! Truth!" Bobby yelled.

"Man, another truth! When is someone gonna do a dare?" Anthony complained.

Shawn tried to think of a question that wouldn't lead Bobby to think about any memories that had been messed with. "What's...the worst you ever did on a test?"

Bobby thought for a second.

"Ummmm....Ummmm..." then he thought some more. "Ummmm..." This time his face scrunched up, with a confusing look, like he was trying to solve a word problem or put together a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece.


"Really bad." He said finally. "I totally messed up this test once. I copied on another kid, who was right next to me. Then, it turned out, that he was terrible! It was the first test we had all year, and he was a new kid with glasses. I thought for sure that he was smart, but it turned out that he was dumber than a box of rocks!"

OOC: Shawn Rolls Wits + Subterfuge

OOC: 20:49, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 2 successes using 5d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling on 9 or more. Wits + Subterfuge.

How fast the fog that Bobby had cast on the the others dissipated when Shawn took time to listen and watch Bobby speak. It was a lie of course. A lie, but one the Tiffany and Anthony didn't seem to notice. They nodded in approval, noting how amazing the story was, and how they would have done the same thing.

But Shawn wasn't fooled. He had spent enough time around Bobby and had seen him lie before. In fact, in a way, they were both liars. And it it was no surprise that Shawn could tell that Bobby did not experience that particular story. It was made up, because Bobby couldn't remember the worst he ever performed on a test.

"Ralph!" Bobby announced. "Truth or Dare?"

"n..n...no dares."


This message was last updated by the player at 01:38, Sat 15 July 2017.

"Oh, c'mon! We need a dare!"

"n..n...no dares."

"Oh Brother, Truth then!  Ralph, what's the thing that you're most afraid of? Out of everything? You got to tell it truth-like."

Ralph frowned, turning to Shawn with a quivering lip.

Shawn gave Ralph a reassuring look, trying to give him as much emotional support as he could. "It's okay, Ralph, there's not really a wrong answer here. Maybe it was that big dog you saw, the one with the big teeth that chased you that one time?" He tried to feed Ralph an answer, hoping that Ralph's genuinely awkward little-kid delivery would make it harder to tell he was lying. After all, he'd be stuttering and pausing for support even was telling the truth.

"jj...just a...big dog...a dog. It was just....just...just...just...big. N' it jumped a..a.a..a..lot. On me. To have for barking."

OOC: Shawn Rolls Wits + Composure

"Lame!" Anthony said. "We'll, go on. Pick someone." he encouraged Ralph, really not wanting to hear anything else the young kid had to say. "It should be a dare though." He pressed.

OOC: 21:51, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 2 successes using 4d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 5,8,9,2. Wits + Composure.

Shawn noticed that Michael, though silent, appeared to be taking it all in. The boy was quiet, but observant. Shawn wasn't completely sure, but it looked like Michael wasn't buying Ralph's story which Shawn had planted for him.

"Um....Ok." Ralph wagered, eyes scanning across the group before falling on Shawn.

"Sh..sh..sh..Shawn, truth or dare?"

"He already went!" Anthony complained.

"He already went!" Tiffany complained.

"Oh brother! Ralph." Bobby said. Then, looking over at Shawn. "Are you gonna do it? I mean, he did pick you."

Shawn gave his audience a rueful grin and nodded. "Sure, I don't mind at all!" He wanted to seem cool, and when you got right down to it, when Shawn knew what he knew, Truth was probably harder than Dare.

Tiffany pulled an apple out of the refrigerator, took a large bite, teeth making a crunching sound against the fruit. "M'kay." She mumbled between bites. "Mmm...truth or dare?"

Shawn belatedly realized he hadn't actually specified his answer. "Oh, right! Sorry. Dare!"

Everyone's attention turned to Anthony to see what he would say. Maybe it was because he was the loudest, or maybe the oldest.

"Ok, Ok Ok. I dare you to um....throw a rock at that house!" Anthony said, pointing at a house down three doors down that would be hard to hit from Shawn's current distance.

"And if you don't hit it, you've got to jump up and down three times and say 'I'm a jeeeeerk!'" Anthony said, the last line causing raucous laughter among the group. Not the kind of laughter that was directed at Shawn. But even though that was the case, to refuse such a dare might put Shawn in an awkward social situation with these new kids.

Shawn looked back and forth between the house and the other kids. "Well, a dare's a dare." He bent down to pick up a rock, and tried to gauge the distance, and the number of windows facing him. He's said all sorts of crazy stuff because someone asked him to - 'I'm a jerk' was positively mild.

After judging the distance, Shawn gave it a throw, launching it hard enough that it'd look like he was giving it his all, but not giving it quite enough power to reach there. He didn't want to hit a window or anything, and he felt like gamely doing a silly thing at Anthony's request would probably endear him more to the others than actually hitting it.

"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...