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.