August 29, 2007. A new student’s first day at a new school. He walks through a sea of unfamiliar faces. The first day is the worst. No one knows him. He gets through each day with silent tolerance. Before he knows it, two weeks have passed. Things still haven’t changed. Just when he thinks that he is stuck in this crowded solitude for the rest of his high school career, he talks to four boys in his class. At first they only speak to each other a few times a day, like at lunch and in between classes. But as each day passes, they begin to talk more and more. Soon they are actually getting in trouble for how much they talk to each other. The new student who thought he was doomed to solitude for four years had found his solution. Before these boys knew it they were inseparable. It was rare to see one or the other walking alone on his way to class or sitting alone at lunch. They stuck to each other through every scrape. When one was in trouble, it was likely that the other four were also involved in some way or another. When one did something good, he usually owed it to one or another of his friends.

Before they knew it, they had been branded more as one big group than five individuals. They soon had a title–The Freshman Five. It turned out that this new student was not so alone after all. There was also another new student at the school. He also had experienced the same things and felt the same way. Another thing that their group soon discovered that they all had in common was they all had suffered hardships in their lives. Although they all came from different backgrounds, they felt like they had no differences whatsoever. Some had come from wealthy families, others not so much. Some had broken homes, others did not. But their past was of no importance; they all had arrived at the same place one way or another. All of a sudden, teachers, students, and all others alike had branded them as a group. This became a problem for their group. Although each of them weren’t perfect students, they were not much better or worse than any other students in their school. Soon people began to say things to them when they acted up, even though it seemed every other person was doing it. People knew the name by now, the Freshman Five. If a teacher walked into a room and saw the whole class talking, the first to come to their mind were these boys. And the first person they would yell at or punish was these boys. Before they knew it, they felt like they had become trapped in a prison of no escape, because seemingly no matter what they did these boys were forever branded as troublemakers. They would not act out or do anything wrong for months at a time, but that did not mean that scrutinizing eyes were not always on them.