The questions I so embarrassingly anticipated finally came. I was especially scared to hear it from the most popular kids in our grade. I thought they would stop talking to me, but in fact nobody held this against me. If anything it made me feel more meaningful because now there this topic of conversation that featured me. 

Middle school gave us barely any time to talk, but we also had very little to talk about. In the six minutes between classes we frequently ran out of new things and would revisit old topics. Rumors, repeat inside jokes, and now this story about me going to live with Shook.

At this point, nobody in the group of 'cool kids' that I was trying to join talked to Dan that much. The ones who had heard me talk about Dan knew him as Shook, which was his last name and the one I referred to when caricaturizing him. And the ones who had yet to hear me talk about Dan knew him as just some random kid in our grade.

After everybody found out about me moving in with Dan, each one of these kids started hearing more about Dan as Shook. Not just from me but also other kids in the group who started using the caricature more frequently. 

"Shook! You're fat!"

"Fat Dan Shook! You're crack is showing!" 

"Shook! what size cups are those?" someone would say pointing to his chest.

These are hurtful messages that would've crushed most kids and made them retreat into themselves. But for Dan this was just the gateway to something else. In fact this is when Dan started to become somebody in our grade, even if it was through it began with the caricature of "Shook".