The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

and if i said these things are strange?

◦☆＊★ ━━━━━━ ★＊☆◦

Samantha Hughes was eight years old when she first met William Byers.

It was Hawkins Elementary's first day back from winter break, and none of the second graders were having it. Especially Mrs. Hoover's homeroom.

No, actually. It wasn't Mrs. Hoover's homeroom, anymore. Sam's mom had mentioned something about Mrs. Hoover having a baby, so she wouldn't be returning for a good amount of time.

Sam didn't really get it, but she really did hope the stork delivered Mrs. Hoover's baby quicker. She didn't know how much longer she could stand Ms. Godfrey as their fill-in.

"All right, y'all. Ev'ryone stand up. Imma give y'all a'new seatin' chart for the new semest'r," the pale and wrinkly old lady had announced to them all. Sam didn't think Ms. Godfrey was aware that second graders had no clue what a seating chart or a semester was, but maybe that was the horrible accent Sam couldn't understand.

"I'm not havin' anoth'r Mrs. Hoover incident, ya hear? Y'all gettin' split up by boys and girls, 'cause y'all too young for all that."

Sam always tried to be a nice person, as her mother had taught her to be, but it had already been about five seconds with the woman and Sam was going to combust.

Whatever that word meant.

Ms. Godfrey pointed to one side of the classroom, and upon checking the L's on her hands, Sam realized it was the right. The teacher glanced down at her attendance sheet, "All right, fellas over there. Anthony Walsh, Matthew Jones, Taylor Brown, Justin Zimmerman..."

She continued listing off all the boys in Sam's classroom, but Sam tuned it out as the information didn't really pertain to her.

Unless Ms. Godfrey knew something Sam didn't, because it wasn't long before Sam swore she heard, "Will Byers, Mike Wheeler... oh, and Sam Hughes."

Sam's eyes shot up to the teacher, concerned and very, very confused. It was only when everyone started laughing at the Hughes girl that Sam realized Ms. Godfrey didn't even think she was a girl. She had seen the name 'Sam' on the attendance list and thought Sam was a literal boy.

"What's so funny, huh?" Ms. Godfrey snapped amongst the chatter, completely missing how Sam was trying to hide away from all human life due to the teacher's awful eyesight. "Quitch y'ur laughing and start movin' around!"

Sam, the people pleaser she was, had no bravery to tell her substitute that she was, in fact, a girl. So, she started moving around like the good little boy she apparently was and sat in the closest seat to the back corner she could find. Everyone was still turning around and laughing at Sam, causing her to slouch down even farther in her seat.

God, Sam missed Christmas break.

Stephanie probably had no problems like this in middle school. Why couldn't Sam be in middle school? This was totally unfair. Stephanie had friends. Stephanie didn't get made fun of. Stephanie didn't have a boy's nickname. What did Sam do so wrong?