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- "Yes, actually," said Mom, looking guilty. "Yes."
- "You told me it was an IQ test," I said.
- "I know, well, that was a white lie," she answered. "It was a test you needed to take to
- get into the school. You did very well on it, by the way."
- "So you lied," I said.
- "A white lie, but yes. Sorry," she said, trying to smile, but when I didn't smile back, she
- turned around in her seat and faced forward.
- "What's a lamb to the slaughter?" I said. Mom sighed and gave Daddy a "look."
- "I shouldn't have said that," Dad said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. "It's not true.
- Here's the thing: Mommy and I love you so much we want to protect you any way we
- can. It's just sometimes we want to do it in different ways."
- "I don't want to go to school," I answered, folding my arms.
- "It would be good for you, Auggie," said Mom.
- "Maybe I'll go next year," I answered, looking out the window.
- "This year would be better, Auggie," said Mom. "You know why? Because you'll be
- going into fifth grade, and that's the first year of middle school—for everyone. You won't
- be the only new kid."
- "I'll be the only kid who looks like me," I said.
- "I'm not going to say it won't be a big challenge for you, because you know better than
- that," she answered. "But it'll be good for you, Auggie. You'll make lots of friends. And
- you'll learn things you'd never learn with me." She turned in her seat again and looked
- at me. "When we took the tour, you know what they had in their science lab? A little
- baby chick that was just hatching out of its egg. It was so cute! Auggie, it actually kind
- of reminded me of you when you were a little baby . . . with those big brown eyes of
- yours. . . ."
- I usually love when they talk about when I was a baby. Sometimes I want to curl up into
- a little tiny ball and let them hug me and kiss me all over. I miss being a baby, not
- knowing stuff. But I wasn't in the mood for that now.
- "I don't want to go," I said.
- "How about this? Can you at least meet Mr. Tushman before making up your mind?"
- Mom asked.
- "Mr. Tushman?" I said.
- "He's the principal," answered Mom.
- "Mr. Tush man?" I repeated.
- "I know, right?" Dad answered, smiling and looking at me in the rearview mirror. "Can
- you believe that name, Auggie? I mean, who on earth would ever agree to have a
- name like Mr. Tushman?"
- I smiled even though I didn't want to let them see me smile. Dad was the one person in
- the world who could make me laugh no matter how much I didn't want to laugh. Dad
- always made everyone laugh.
- "Auggie, you know, you should go to that school just so you can hear his name said
- over the loudspeaker!" Dad said excitedly. "Can you imagine how funny that would be?
- Hello, hello? Paging Mr. Tushman!" He was using a fake high, old-lady voice. "Hi, Mr.
- Tushman! I see you're running a little behind today! Did your car get rear-ended again?
- What a bum rap!"
- I started laughing, not even because I thought he was being that funny but because I
- wasn't in the mood to stay mad anymore.
- "It could be worse, though!" Dad continued in his normal voice. "Mommy and I had a
- professor in college called Miss Butt."
- Mom was laughing now, too.
- "Is that for real?" I said.
- "Roberta Butt," Mom answered, raising her hand as if to swear. "Bobbie Butt."
- "She had huge cheeks," said Dad.
- "Nate!" said Mom.
- "What? She had big cheeks is all I'm saying."
- Mom laughed and shook her head at the same time.
- "Hey hey, I know!" said Dad excitedly. "Let's fix them up on a blind date! Can you
- imagine? Miss Butt, meet Mr. Tushman. Mr. Tushman, here's Miss Butt. They could get
- married and have a bunch of little Tushies."
- "Poor Mr. Tushman," answered Mom, shaking her head. "Auggie hasn't even met the
- man yet, Nate!
- " "Who's Mr. Tushman?" Via said groggily. She had just woken up.
- "He's the principal of my new school," I answered.
- Paging Mr. Tushman
- I would have been more nervous about meeting Mr. Tushman if I'd known I was also
- going to be meeting some kids from the new school. But I didn't know, so if anything, I
- was kind of giggly. I couldn't stop thinking about all the jokes Daddy had made about
- Mr. Tushman's name. So when me and Mom arrived at Beecher Prep a few weeks
- before the start of school, and I saw Mr. Tushman standing there, waiting for us at the
- entrance, I started giggling right away. He didn't look at all like what I pictured, though. I
- guess I thought he would have a huge butt, but he didn't. In fact, he was a pretty
- normal guy. Tall and thin. Old but not really old. He seemed nice. He shook my mom's
- hand first.
- "Hi, Mr. Tushman, it's so nice to see you again," said Mom. "This is my son, August."
- Mr. Tushman looked right at me and smiled and nodded. He put his hand out for me to
- shake.
- "Hi, August," he said, totally normally. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
- "Hi," I mumbled, dropping my hand into his hand while I looked down at his feet. He
- was wearing red Adidas.
- "So," he said, kneeling down in front of me so I couldn't look at his sneakers but had to
- look at his face, "your mom and dad have told me a lot about you."
- "Like what have they told you?" I asked.
- "Sorry?"
- "Honey, you have to speak up," said Mom.
- "Like what?" I asked, trying not to mumble. I admit I have a bad habit of mumbling.
- "Well, that you like to read," said Mr. Tushman, "and that you're a great artist." He had
- blue eyes with white eyelashes. "And you're into science, right?"
- "Uh-huh," I said, nodding. "We have a couple of great science electives at Beecher," he
- said. "Maybe you'll take one of them?"
- "Uh-huh," I said, though I had no idea what an elective was.
- "So, are you ready to take a tour?"
- "You mean we're doing that now?" I said.
- "Did you think we were going to the movies?" he answered, smiling as he stood up.
- "You didn't tell me we were taking a tour," I said to Mom in my accusing voice.
- "Auggie . . . ," she started to say. "It'll be fine, August," said Mr. Tushman, holding his
- hand out to me. "I promise."
- I think he wanted me to take his hand, but I took Mom's instead. He smiled and started
- walking toward the entrance. Mommy gave my hand a little squeeze, though I don't
- know if it was an "I love you" squeeze or an "I'm sorry" squeeze. Probably a little of
- both.
- The only school I'd ever been inside before was Via's, when I went with Mom and Dad
- to watch Via sing in spring concerts and stuff like that. This school was very different. It
- was smaller. It smelled like a hospital.
- Nice Mrs. Garcia
- We followed Mr. Tushman down a few hallways. There weren't a lot of people around.
- And the few people who were there didn't seem to notice me at all, though that may
- have been because they didn't see me. I sort of hid behind Mom as I walked. I know
- that sounds kind of babyish of me, but I wasn't feeling very brave right then.
- We ended up in a small room with the words OFFICE OF THE MIDDLE SCHOOL
- DIRECTOR on the door. Inside, there was a desk with a nice-seeming lady sitting
- behind it.
- "This is Mrs. Garcia," said Mr. Tushman, and the lady smiled at Mom and took off her
- glasses and got up out of her chair.
- My mother shook her hand and said: "Isabel Pullman, nice to meet you."
- "And this is August," Mr. Tushman said. Mom kind of stepped to the side a bit, so I
- would move forward. Then that thing happened that I've seen happen a million times
- before. When I looked up at her, Mrs. Garcia's eyes dropped for a second. It was so
- fast no one else would have noticed, since the rest of her face stayed exactly the same.
- She was smiling a really shiny smile.
- "Such a pleasure to meet you, August," she said, holding out her hand for me to shake.
- "Hi," I said quietly, giving her my hand, but I didn't want to look at her face, so I kept
- staring at her glasses, which hung from a chain around her neck.
- "Wow, what a firm grip!" said Mrs. Garcia. Her hand was really warm.
- "The kid's got a killer handshake," Mr. Tushman agreed, and everyone laughed above
- my head.
- "You can call me Mrs. G," Mrs. Garcia said. I think she was talking to me, but I was
- looking at all the stuff on her desk now. "That's what everyone calls me. Mrs. G, I forgot
- my combination. Mrs. G, I need a late pass. Mrs. G, I want to change my elective."
- "Mrs. G's actually the one who runs the place," said Mr. Tushman, which again made
- all the grown-ups laugh.
- "I'm here every morning by seven-thirty," Mrs. Garcia continued, still looking at me
- while I stared at her brown sandals with small purple flowers on the buckles. "So if you
- ever need anything, August, I'm the one to ask. And you can ask me anything."
- "Okay," I mumbled.
- "Oh, look at that cute baby," Mom said, pointing to one of the photographs on Mrs.
- Garcia's bulletin board. "Is he yours?"
- "No, my goodness!" said Mrs. Garcia, smiling a big smile now that was totally different
- from her shiny smile. "You've just made my day. He's my grandson."
- "What a cutie!" said Mom, shaking her head. "How old?"
- "In that picture he was five months, I think. But he's big now. Almost eight years old!"
- "Wow," said Mom, nodding and smiling. "Well, he is absolutely beautiful."
- "Thank you!" said Mrs. Garcia, nodding like she was about to say something else about
- her grandson. But then all of a sudden her smile got a little smaller. "We're all going to
- take very good care of August," she said to Mom, and I saw her give Mom's hand a
- little squeeze. I looked at Mom's face, and that's when I realized she was just as
- nervous as I was. I guess I liked Mrs. Garcia—when she wasn't wearing her shiny
- smile.
- Jack Will, Julian, and Charlotte
- We followed Mr. Tushman into a small room across from Mrs. Garcia's desk. He was
- talking as he closed the door to his office and sat down behind his big desk, though I
- wasn't really paying much attention to what he was saying. I was looking around at all
- the things on his desk. Cool stuff, like a globe that floated in the air and a Rubik's-type
- cube made with little mirrors. I liked his office a lot. I liked that there were all these neat
- little drawings and paintings by students on the walls, framed like they were important.
- Mom sat down in a chair in front of Mr. Tushman's desk, and even though there was
- another chair right next to hers, I decided to stand beside her.
- "Why do you have your own room and Mrs. G doesn't?" I said.
- "You mean, why do I have an office?" asked Mr. Tushman.
- "You said she runs the place," I said.
- "Oh! Well, I was kind of kidding. Mrs. G is my assistant."
- "Mr. Tushman is the director of the middle school," Mom explained.
- "Do they call you Mr. T?" I asked, which made him smile.
- "Do you know who Mr. T is?" he answered. "I pity the fool?" he said in a funny tough
- voice, like he was imitating someone.
- I had no idea what he was talking about.
- "Anyway, no," said Mr. Tushman, shaking his head. "No one calls me Mr. T. Though I
- have a feeling I'm called a lot of other things I don't know about. Let's face it, a name
- like mine is not so easy to live with, you know what I mean?"
- Here I have to admit I totally laughed, because I knew exactly what he meant.
- "My mom and dad had a teacher called Miss Butt," I said.
- "Auggie!" said Mom, but Mr. Tushman laughed.
- "Now, that's bad," said Mr. Tushman, shaking his head.
- "I guess I shouldn't complain. Hey, so listen, August, here's what I thought we would
- do today. . . ."
- "Is that a pumpkin?" I said, pointing to a framed painting behind Mr. Tushman's desk.
- "Auggie, sweetie, don't interrupt," said Mom.
- "You like it?" said Mr. Tushman, turning around and looking at the painting. "I do, too.
- And I thought it was a pumpkin, too, until the student who gave it to me explained that it
- is actually not a pumpkin. It is . . . are you ready for this . . . a portrait of me! Now,
- August, I ask you: do I really look that much like a pumpkin?"
- "No!" I answered, though I was thinking yes. Something about the way his cheeks
- puffed out when he smiled made him look like a jack-o'-lantern. Just as I thought that, it
- occurred to me how funny that was: cheeks, Mr. Tushman. And I started laughing a
- little. I shook my head and covered my mouth with my hand.
- Mr. Tushman smiled like he could read my mind.
- I was about to say something else, but then all of a sudden I heard other voices outside
- the office: kids' voices. I'm not exaggerating when I say this, but my heart literally
- started beating like I'd just run the longest race in the world. The laughter I had inside
- just poured out of me.
- The thing is, when I was little, I never minded meeting new kids because all the kids I
- met were really little, too. What's cool about really little kids is that they don't say stuff to
- try to hurt your feelings, even though sometimes they do say stuff that hurts your
- feelings. But they don't actually know what they're saying. Big kids, though: they know
- what they're saying. And that is definitely not fun for me. One of the reasons I grew my
- hair long last year was that I like how my bangs cover my eyes: it helps me block out
- the things I don't want to see.
- Mrs. Garcia knocked on the door and poked her head inside.
- "They're here, Mr. Tushman," she said.
- "Who's here?" I said.
- "Thanks," said Mr. Tushman to Mrs. Garcia. "August, I thought it would be a good idea
- for you to meet some students who'll be in your homeroom this year. I figure they could
- take you around the school a bit, show you the lay of the land, so to speak."
- "I don't want to meet anyone," I said to Mom.
- Mr. Tushman was suddenly right in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. He leaned
- down and said very softly in my ear: "It'll be okay, August. These are nice kids, I
- promise."
- "You're going to be okay, Auggie," Mom whispered with all her might.
- Before she could say anything else, Mr. Tushman opened the door to his office.
- "Come on in, kids," he said, and in walked two boys and a girl. None of them looked
- over at me or Mom: they stood by the door looking straight at Mr. Tushman like their
- lives depended on it.
- "Thanks so much for coming, guys—especially since school doesn't start until next
- month!" said Mr. Tushman. "Have you had a good summer?"
- All of them nodded but no one said anything.
- "Great, great," said Mr. Tushman. "So, guys, I wanted you to meet August, who's going
- to be a new student here this year. August, these guys have been students at Beecher
- Prep since kindergarten, though, of course, they were in the lowerschool building, but
- they know all the ins and outs of the middle-school program. And since you're all in the
- same homeroom, I thought it would be nice if you got to know each other a little before
- school started. Okay? So, kids, this is August. August, this is Jack Will."
- Jack Will looked at me and put out his hand. When I shook it, he kind of half smiled and
- said: "Hey," and looked down really fast.
- "This is Julian," said Mr. Tushman. "Hey," said Julian, and did the same exact thing as
- Jack Will: took my hand, forced a smile, looked down fast.
- "And Charlotte," said Mr. Tushman.
- Charlotte had the blondest hair I've ever seen. She didn't shake my hand but gave me
- a quick little wave and smiled. "Hi, August. Nice to meet you," she said. "Hi," I said,
- looking down. She was wearing bright green Crocs.
- "So," said Mr. Tushman, putting his hands together in a kind of slow clap. "What I
- thought you guys could do is take August on a little tour of the school. Maybe you could
- start on the third floor? That's where your homeroom class is going to be: room 301. I
- think. Mrs. G, is—"
- "Room 301!" Mrs. Garcia called out from the other room.
- "Room 301." Mr. Tushman nodded. "And then you can show August the science labs
- and the computer room. Then work your way down to the library and the performance
- space on the second floor. Take him to the cafeteria, of course."
- "Should we take him to the music room?" asked Julian.
- "Good idea, yes," said Mr. Tushman. "August, do you play any instruments?"
- "No," I said. It wasn't my favorite subject on account of the fact that I don't really have
- ears. Well, I do, but they don't exactly look like normal ears.
- "Well, you may enjoy seeing the music room anyway," said Mr. Tushman. "We have a
- very nice selection of percussion instruments."
- "August, you've been wanting to learn to play the drums," Mom said, trying to get me to
- look at her. But my eyes were covered by my bangs as I stared at a piece of old gum
- that was stuck to the bottom of Mr. Tushman's desk.
- "Great! Okay, so why don't you guys get going?" said Mr. Tushman. "Just be back here
- in . . ." He looked at Mom. "Half an hour, okay?"
- I think Mom nodded.
- "So, is that okay with you, August?" he asked me.
- I didn't answer. "Is that okay, August?" Mom repeated. I looked at her now. I wanted
- her to see how mad I was at her. But then I saw her face and just nodded. She seemed
- more scared than I was.
- The other kids had started out the door, so I followed them.
- "See you soon," said Mom, her voice sounding a little higher than normal. I didn't
- answer her.
- The Grand Tour
- Jack Will, Julian, Charlotte, and I went down a big hallway to some wide stairs. No one
- said a word as we walked up to the third floor.
- When we got to the top of the stairs, we went down a little hallway full of lots of doors.
- Julian opened the door marked 301.
- "This is our homeroom," he said, standing in front of the half-opened door. "We have
- Ms. Petosa. They say she's okay, at least for homeroom. I heard she's really strict if
- you get her for math, though."
- "That's not true," said Charlotte. "My sister had her last year and said she's totally nice."
- "Not what I heard," answered Julian, "but whatever." He closed the door and continued
- walking down the hallway.
- "This is the science lab," he said when he got to the next door. And just like he did two
- seconds ago, he stood in front of the half-opened door and started talking. He didn't
- look at me once while he talked, which was okay because I wasn't looking at him,
- either. "You won't know who you have for science until the first day of school, but you
- want to get Mr. Haller. He used to be in the lower school. He would play this giant tuba
- in class."
- "It was a baritone horn," said Charlotte.
- "It was a tuba!" answered Julian, closing the door.
- "Dude, let him go inside so he can check it out," Jack Will told him, pushing past Julian
- and opening the door.
- "Go inside if you want," Julian said. It was the first time he looked at me. I
- shrugged and walked over to the door. Julian moved out of the way quickly, like he
- was afraid I might accidentally touch him as I passed by him.
- "Nothing much to see," Julian said, walking in after me. He started pointing to a bunch
- of stuff around the room. "That's the incubator. That big black thing is the chalkboard.
- These are the desks. These are chairs. Those are the Bunsen burners. This is a gross
- science poster. This is chalk. This is the eraser."
- "I'm sure he knows what an eraser is," Charlotte said, sounding a little like Via.
- "How would I know what he knows?" Julian answered. "Mr. Tushman said he's never
- been to a school before."
- "You know what an eraser is, right?" Charlotte asked me.
- I admit I was feeling so nervous that I didn't know what to say or do except look at the
- floor.
- "Hey, can you talk?" asked Jack Will.
- "Yeah." I nodded. I still really hadn't looked at any of them yet, not directly.
- "You know what an eraser is, right?" asked Jack Will.
- "Of course!" I mumbled.
- "I told you there was nothing to see in here," said Julian, shrugging.
- "I have a question . . . ," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Um. What exactly is
- homeroom? Is that like a subject?"
- "No, that's just your group," explained Charlotte, ignoring Julian's smirk. "It's like where
- you go when you get to school in the morning and your homeroom teacher takes
- attendance and stuff like that. In a way, it's your main class even though it's not really
- a class. I mean, it's a class, but—"
- "I think he gets it, Charlotte," said Jack Will.
- "Do you get it?" Charlotte asked me.
- "Yeah." I nodded at her.
- "Okay, let's get out of here," said Jack Will, walking away.
- "Wait, Jack, we're supposed to be answering questions," said Charlotte.
- Jack Will rolled his eyes a little as he turned around.
- "Do you have any more questions?" he asked.
- "Um, no," I answered. "Oh, well, actually, yes. Is your name Jack or Jack Will?"
- "Jack is my first name. Will is my last name."
- "Oh, because Mr. Tushman introduced you as Jack Will, so I thought . . ."
- "Ha! You thought his name was Jackwill!" laughed Julian.
- "Yeah, some people call me by my first and last name," Jack said, shrugging. "I don't
- know why. Anyway, can we go now?"
- "Let's go to the performance space next," said Charlotte, leading the way out of the
- science room. "It's very cool. You'll like it, August."
- The Performance Space
- Charlotte basically didn't stop talking as we headed down to the second floor. She was
- describing the play they had put on last year, which was Oliver! She played Oliver even
- though she's a girl. As she said this, she pushed open the double doors to a huge
- auditorium. At the other end of the room was a stage.
- Charlotte started skipping toward the stage. Julian ran after her, and then turned
- around halfway down the aisle.
- "Come on!" he said loudly, waving for me to follow him, which I did.
- "There were like hundreds of people in the audience that night," said Charlotte, and it
- took me a second to realize she was still talking about Oliver! "I was so, so nervous. I
- had so many lines, and I had all these songs to sing. It was so, so, so, so hard!"
- Although she was talking to me, she really didn't look at me much. "On opening night,
- my parents were all the way in back of the auditorium, like where Jack is right now, but
- when the lights are off, you can't really see that far back. So I was like, 'Where are my
- parents? Where are my parents?' And then Mr. Resnick, our theater-arts teacher last
- year—he said: 'Charlotte, stop being such a diva!' And I was like, 'Okay!' And then I
- spotted my parents and I was totally fine. I didn't forget a single line."
- While she was talking, I noticed Julian staring at me out of the corner of his eye. This is
- something I see people do a lot with me. They think I don't know they're staring, but I
- can tell from the way their heads are tilted. I turned around to see where Jack had
- gone to. He had stayed in the back of the auditorium, like he was bored.
- "We put on a play every year," said Charlotte.
- "I don't think he's going to want to be in the school play, Charlotte," said Julian
- sarcastically.
- "You can be in the play without actually being 'in' the play," Charlotte answered, looking
- at me. "You can do the lighting. You can paint the backdrops."
- "Oh yeah, whoopee," said Julian, twirling his finger in the air.
- "But you don't have to take the theater-arts elective if you don't want to," Charlotte said,
- shrugging. "There's dance or chorus or band. There's leadership."
- "Only dorks take leadership," Julian interrupted.
- "Julian, you're being so obnoxious!" said Charlotte, which made Julian laugh.
- "I'm taking the science elective," I said.
- "Cool!" said Charlotte.
- Julian looked directly at me. "The science elective is supposably the hardest elective of
- all," he said. "No offense, but if you've never, ever been in a school before, why do you
- think you're suddenly going to be smart enough to take the science elective? I mean,
- have you ever even studied science before? Like real science, not like the kind you do
- in kits?"
- "Yeah." I nodded.
- "He was homeschooled, Julian!" said Charlotte.
- "So teachers came to his house?" asked Julian, looking puzzled.
- "No, his mother taught him!" answered Charlotte.
- "Is she a teacher?" Julian said.
- "Is your mother a teacher?" Charlotte asked me.
- "No," I said. "So she's not a real teacher!" said Julian, as if that proved his point.
- "That's what I mean. How can someone who's not a real teacher actually teach
- science?"
- "I'm sure you'll do fine," said Charlotte, looking at me.
- "Let's just go to the library now," Jack called out, sounding really bored.
- "Why is your hair so long?" Julian said to me. He sounded like he was annoyed.
- I didn't know what to say, so I just shrugged.
- "Can I ask you a question?" he said.
- I shrugged again. Didn't he just ask me a question?
- "What's the deal with your face? I mean, were you in a fire or something?"
- "Julian, that's so rude!" said Charlotte.
- "I'm not being rude," said Julian, "I'm just asking a question. Mr. Tushman said we
- could ask questions if we wanted to."
- "Not rude questions like that," said Charlotte. "Besides, he was born like that. That's
- what Mr. Tushman said. You just weren't listening."
- "I was so listening!" said Julian. "I just thought maybe he was in a fire, too."
- "Geez, Julian," said Jack. "Just shut up."
- "You shut up!" Julian yelled.
- "Come on, August," said Jack. "Let's just go to the library already."
- I walked toward Jack and followed him out of the auditorium. He held the double doors
- open for me, and as I passed by, he looked at me right in the face, kind of daring me to
- look back at him, which I did. Then I actually smiled. I don't know. Sometimes when I
- have the feeling like I'm almost crying, it can turn into an almost-laughing feeling. And
- that must have been the feeling I was having then, because I smiled, almost like I was
- going to giggle. The thing is, because of the way my face is, people who don't know
- me very well don't always get that I'm smiling. My mouth doesn't go up at the corners
- the way other people's mouths do. It just goes straight across my face. But somehow
- Jack Will got that I had smiled at him. And he smiled back.
- "Julian's a jerk," he whispered before Julian and Charlotte reached us. "But, dude,
- you're gonna have to talk." He said this seriously, like he was trying to help me. I
- nodded as Julian and Charlotte caught up to us. We were all quiet for a second, all of
- us just kind of nodding, looking at the floor. Then I looked up at Julian.
- "The word's 'supposedly,' by the way," I said.
- "What are you talking about?"
- "You said 'supposably' before," I said. "I did not!"
- "Yeah you did," Charlotte nodded. "You said the science elective is supposably really
- hard. I heard you."
- "I absolutely did not," he insisted.
- "Whatever," said Jack. "Let's just go."
- "Yeah, let's just go," agreed Charlotte, following Jack down the stairs to the next floor. I
- started to follow her, but Julian cut right in front of me, which actually made me stumble
- backward.
- "Oops, sorry about that!" said Julian.
- But I could tell from the way he looked at me that he wasn't really sorry at all.
- The Deal
- Mom and Mr. Tushman were talking when we got back to the office. Mrs. Garcia was
- the first to see us come back, and she started smiling her shiny smile as we walked in.
- "So, August, what did you think? Did you like what you saw?" she asked.
- "Yeah." I nodded, looking over at Mom.
- Jack, Julian, and Charlotte were standing by the door, not sure where to go or if they
- were still needed. I wondered what else they'd been told about me before they'd met
- me.
- "Did you see the baby chick?" Mom asked me.
- As I shook my head, Julian said: "Are you talking about the baby chicks in science?
- Those get donated to a farm at the end of every school year."
- "Oh," said Mom, disappointed. "But they hatch new ones every year in science," Julian
- added. "So August will be able to see them again in the spring."
- "Oh, good," said Mom, eyeing me. "They were so cute, August."
- I wished she wouldn't talk to me like I was a baby in front of other people.
- "So, August," said Mr. Tushman, "did these guys show you around enough or do you
- want to see more? I realize I forgot to ask them to show you the gym."
- "We did anyway, Mr. Tushman," said Julian.
- "Excellent!" said Mr. Tushman.
- "And I told him about the school play and some of the electives," said Charlotte. "Oh
- no!" she said suddenly. "We forgot to show him the art room!"
- "That's okay," said Mr. Tushman.
- "But we can show it to him now," Charlotte offered.
- "Don't we have to pick Via up soon?" I said to Mom.
- That was our signal for my telling Mom if I really wanted to leave.
- "Oh, you're right," said Mom, getting up. I could tell she was pretending to check the
- time on her watch. "I'm sorry, everybody. I lost track of the time. We have to go pick up
- my daughter at her new school. She's taking an unofficial tour today." This part wasn't a
- lie: that Via was checking out her new school today. The part that was a lie was that we
- were picking her up at the school, which we weren't. She was coming home with Dad
- later.
- "Where does she go to school?" asked Mr. Tushman, getting up.
- "She's starting Faulkner High School this fall."
- "Wow, that's not an easy school to get into. Good for her!"
- "Thank you," said Mom, nodding. "It'll be a bit of a schlep, though. The A train down to
- Eighty-Sixth, then the crosstown bus all the way to the East Side. Takes an hour that
- way but it's just a fifteen-minute drive."
- "It'll be worth it. I know a couple of kids who got into Faulkner and love it," said Mr.
- Tushman.
- "We should really go, Mom," I said, tugging at her pocketbook.
- We said goodbye kind of quickly after that. I think Mr. Tushman was a little surprised
- that we were leaving so suddenly, and then I wondered if he would blame Jack and
- Charlotte, even though it was really only Julian who made me feel kind of bad.
- "Everyone was really nice," I made sure to tell Mr. Tushman before we left.
- "I look forward to having you as a student," said Mr. Tushman, patting my back.
- "Bye," I said to Jack, Charlotte, and Julian, but I didn't look at them—or look up at all—
- until I left the building.
- Home
- As soon as we had walked at least half a block from the school, Mom said: "So . . .
- how'd it go? Did you like it?"
- "Not yet, Mom. When we get home," I said. The moment we got inside the house, I ran
- to my room and threw myself onto my bed. I could tell Mom didn't know what was up,
- and I guess I really didn't, either. I felt very sad and a tiny bit happy at the exact same
- time, kind of like that laughing-crying feeling all over again.
- My dog, Daisy, followed me into the room, jumped on the bed, and started licking me
- all over my face.
- "Who's a good girlie?" I said in my Dad voice. "Who's a good girlie?"
- "Is everything okay, sweetness?" Mom said. She wanted to sit down beside me but
- Daisy was hogging the bed. "Excuse me, Daisy." She sat down, nudging Daisy over.
- "Were those kids not nice to you, Auggie?"
- "Oh no," I said, only half lying. "They were okay."
- "But were they nice? Mr. Tushman went out of his way to tell me what sweet kids they
- are."
- "Uh-huh." I nodded, but I kept looking at Daisy, kissing her on the nose and rubbing her
- ear until her back leg did that little flea-scratch shake.
- "That boy Julian seemed especially nice," Mom said.
- "Oh, no, he was the least nice. I liked Jack, though. He was nice. I thought his name
- was Jack Will but it's just Jack."
- "Wait, maybe I'm getting them confused. Which one was the one with the dark hair that
- was brushed forward?"
- "Julian."
- "And he wasn't nice?"
- "No, not nice."
- "Oh." She thought about this for a second. "Okay, so is he the kind of kid who's one
- way in front of grown-ups and another way in front of kids?"
- "Yeah, I guess." "Ah, hate those," she answered, nodding. "He was like, 'So, August,
- what's the deal with your face?' " I said, looking at Daisy the whole time. " 'Were you in
- a fire or something?' "
- Mom didn't say anything. When I looked up at her, I could tell she was completely
- shocked.
- "He didn't say it in a mean way," I said quickly. "He was just asking."
- Mom nodded.
- "But I really liked Jack," I said. "He was like, 'Shut up, Julian!' And Charlotte was like,
- 'You're so rude, Julian!' "
- Mom nodded again. She pressed her fingers on her forehead like she was pushing
- against a headache.
- "I'm so sorry, Auggie," she said quietly. Her cheeks were bright red.
- "No, it's okay, Mom, really."
- "You don't have to go to school if you don't want, sweetie."
- "I want to," I said.
- "Auggie . . ."
- "Really, Mom. I want to." And I wasn't lying.
- First-Day Jitters
- Okay, so I admit that the first day of school I was so nervous that the butterflies in my
- stomach were more like pigeons flying around my insides. Mom and Dad were
- probably a little nervous, too, but they acted all excited for me, taking pictures of me
- and Via before we left the house since it was Via's first day of school, too.
- Up until a few days before, we still weren't sure I would be going to school at all. After
- my tour of the school, Mom and Dad had reversed sides on whether I should go or not.
- Mom was now the one saying I shouldn't go and Dad was saying I should. Dad had
- told me he was really proud of how I'd handled myself with Julian and that I was turning
- into quite the strong man. And I heard him tell Mom that he now thought she had been
- right all along. But Mom, I could tell, wasn't so sure anymore. When Dad told her that he
- and Via wanted to walk me to school today, too, since it was on the way to the subway
- station, Mom seemed relieved that we would all be going together. And I guess I was,
- too.
- Even though Beecher Prep is just a few blocks from our house, I've only been on that
- block a couple of times before. In general, I try to avoid blocks where there are lots of
- kids roaming around. On our block, everybody knows me and I know everybody. I
- know every brick and every tree trunk and every crack in the sidewalk. I know Mrs.
- Grimaldi, the lady who's always sitting by her window, and the old guy who walks up
- and down the street whistling like a bird. I know the deli on the corner where Mom gets
- our bagels, and the waitresses at the coffee shop who all call me "honey" and give me
- lollipops whenever they see me. I love my neighborhood of North River Heights, which
- is why it was so strange to be walking down these blocks feeling like it was all new to
- me suddenly. Amesfort Avenue, a street I've been down a million times, looked totally
- different for some reason. Full of people I never saw before, waiting for buses, pushing
- strollers.
- We crossed Amesfort and turned up Heights Place: Via walked next to me like she
- usually does, and Mom and Dad were behind us. As soon as we turned the corner, we
- saw all the kids in front of the school—hundreds of them talking to each other in little
- groups, laughing, or standing with their parents, who were talking with other parents. I
- kept my head way down.
- "Everyone's just as nervous as you are," said Via in my ear. "Just remember that this is
- everyone's first day of school. Okay?"
- Mr. Tushman was greeting students and parents in front of the school entrance.
- I have to admit: so far, nothing bad had happened. I didn't catch anyone staring or even
- noticing me. Only once did I look up to see some girls looking my way and whispering
- with their hands cupped over their mouths, but they looked away when they saw me
- notice them.
- We reached the front entrance.
- "Okay, so this is it, big boy," said Dad, putting his hands on top of my shoulders.
- "Have a great first day. I love you," said Via, giving me a big kiss and a hug.
- "You, too," I said.
- "I love you, Auggie," said Dad, hugging me.
- "Bye."
- Then Mom hugged me, but I could tell she was about to cry, which would have totally
- embarrassed me, so I just gave her a fast hard hug, turned, and disappeared into the
- school.
- Locks
- I went straight to room 301 on the third floor. Now I was glad I'd gone on that little tour,
- because I knew exactly where to go and didn't have to look up once. I noticed that
- some kids were definitely staring at me now. I did my thing of pretending not to notice.
- I went inside the classroom, and the teacher was writing on the chalkboard while all the
- kids started sitting at different desks. The desks were in a half circle facing the
- chalkboard, so I chose the desk in the middle toward the back, which I thought would
- make it harder for anyone to stare at me. I still kept my head way down, just looking up
- enough from under my bangs to see everyone's feet. As the desks started to fill up, I
- did notice that no one sat down next to me. A couple of times someone was about to sit
- next to me, then changed his or her mind at the last minute and sat somewhere else.
- "Hey, August." It was Charlotte, giving me her little wave as she sat down at a desk in
- the front of the class. Why anyone would ever choose to sit way up front in a class, I
- don't know.
- "Hey," I said, nodding hello. Then I noticed Julian was sitting a few seats away from
- her, talking to some other kids. I know he saw me, but he didn't say hello.
- Suddenly someone was sitting down next to me. It was Jack Will. Jack.
- "What's up," he said, nodding at me.
- "Hey, Jack," I answered, waving my hand, which I immediately wished I hadn't done
- because it felt kind of uncool.
- "Okay, kids, okay, everybody! Settle down," said the teacher, now facing us. She had
- written her name, Ms. Petosa, on the chalkboard. "Everybody find a seat, please.
- Come in," she said to a couple of kids who had just walked in the room. "There's a seat
- there, and right there."
- She hadn't noticed me yet.
- "Now, the first thing I want everyone to do is stop talking and . . ."
- She noticed me. ". . . put your backpacks down and quiet down."
- She had only hesitated for a millionth of a second, but I could tell the moment she saw
- me. Like I said: I'm used to it by now.
- "I'm going to take attendance and do the seating chart," she continued, sitting on the
- edge of her desk. Next to her were three neat rows of accordion folders. "When I call
- your name, come up and I'll hand you a folder with your name on it. It contains your
- class schedule and your combination lock, which you should not try to open until I tell
- you to. Your locker number is written on the class schedule. Be forewarned that some
- lockers are not right outside this class but down the hall, and before anyone even
- thinks of asking: no, you cannot switch lockers and you can't switch locks. Then if
- there's time at the end of this period, we're all going to get to know each other a little
- better, okay? Okay."
- She picked up the clipboard on her desk and started reading the names out loud.
- "Okay, so, Julian Albans?" she said, looking up.
- Julian raised his hand and said "Here" at the same time.
- "Hi, Julian," she said, making a note on her seating chart. She picked up the very first
- folder and held it out toward him. "Come pick it up," she said, kind of no-nonsense. He
- got up and took it from her. "Ximena Chin?"
- She handed a folder to each kid as she read off the names. As she went down the list, I
- noticed that the seat next to me was the only one still empty, even though there were
- two kids sitting at one desk just a few seats away. When she called the name of one of
- them, a big kid named Henry Joplin who already looked like a teenager, she said:
- "Henry, there's an empty desk right over there. Why don't you take that seat, okay?"
- She handed him his folder and pointed to the desk next to mine. Although I didn't look
- at him directly, I could tell Henry did not want to move next to me, just by the way he
- dragged his backpack on the floor as he came over, like he was moving in slow motion.
- Then he plopped his backpack up really high on the right side of the desk so it was kind
- of like a wall between his desk and mine.
- "Maya Markowitz?" Ms. Petosa was saying.
- "Here," said a girl about four desks down from me.
- "Miles Noury?"
- "Here," said the kid that had been sitting with Henry Joplin. As he walked back to his
- desk, I saw him shoot Henry a "poor you" look.
- "August Pullman?" said Ms. Petosa. "Here," I said quietly, raising my hand a bit. "Hi,
- August," she said, smiling at me very nicely when I went up to get my folder. I kind of
- felt everyone's eyes burning into my back for the few seconds I stood in the front of the
- class, and everybody looked down when I walked back to my desk. I resisted spinning
- the combination when I sat down, even though everyone else was doing it, because
- she had specifically told us not to. I was already pretty good at opening locks, anyway,
- because I've used them on my bike. Henry kept trying to open his lock but couldn't do
- it. He was getting frustrated and kind of cursing under his breath.
- Ms. Petosa called out the next few names. The last name was Jack Will. After she
- handed Jack his folder, she said: "Okay, so, everybody write your combinations down
- somewhere safe that you won't forget, okay? But if you do forget, which happens at
- least three point two times per semester, Mrs. Garcia has a list of all the combination
- numbers. Now go ahead, take your locks out of your folders and spend a couple of
- minutes practicing how to open them, though I know some of you went ahead and did
- that anyway." She was looking at Henry when she said that. "And in the meanwhile, I'll
- tell you guys a little something about myself. And then you guys can tell me a little
- about yourselves and we'll, um, get to know each other. Sound good? Good."
- She smiled at everyone, though I felt like she was smiling at me the most. It wasn't a
- shiny smile, like Mrs. Garcia's smile, but a normal smile, like she meant it. She looked
- very different from what I thought teachers were going to look like. I guess I thought
- she'd look like Miss Fowl from Jimmy Neutron: an old lady with a big bun on top of her
- head. But, in fact, she looked exactly like Mon Mothma from Star Wars Episode IV:
- haircut kind of like a boy's, and a big white shirt kind of like a tunic.
- She turned around and started writing on the chalkboard. Henry still couldn't get his
- lock to open, and he was getting more and more frustrated every time someone else
- popped one open. He got really annoyed when I was able to open mine on the first try.
- The funny thing is, if he hadn't put the backpack between us, I most definitely would
- have offered to help him.
- Around the Room
- Ms. Petosa told us a little about who she was. It was boring stuff about where she
- originally came from, and how she always wanted to teach, and she left her job on Wall
- Street about six years ago to pursue her "dream" and teach kids. She ended by asking
- if anyone had any questions, and Julian raised his hand.
- "Yes . . ." She had to look at the list to remember his name.
- "Julian."
- "That's cool about how you're pursuing your dream," he said.
- "Thank you!" "You're welcome!" He smiled proudly.
- "Okay, so why don't you tell us a little about yourself, Julian? Actually, here's what I
- want everyone to do. Think of two things you want other people to know about you.
- Actually, wait a minute: how many of you came from the Beecher lower school?" About
- half the kids raised their hands. "Okay, so a few of you already know each other. But
- the rest of you, I guess, are new to the school, right? Okay, so everyone think of two
- things you want other people to know about you—and if you know some of the other
- kids, try to think of things they don't already know about you. Okay? Okay. So let's
- start with Julian and we'll go around the room."
- Julian scrunched up his face and started tapping his forehead like he was thinking
- really hard.
- "Okay, whenever you're ready," Ms. Petosa said.
- "Okay, so number one is that—"
- "Do me a favor and start with your names, okay?" Ms. Petosa interrupted. "It'll help me
- remember everyone."
- "Oh, okay. So my name is Julian. And the number one thing I'd like to tell everyone
- about myself is that . . . I just got Battleground Mystic for my Wii and it's totally
- awesome. And the number two thing is that we got a Ping-Pong table this summer."
- "Very nice, I love Ping-Pong," said Ms. Petosa. "Does anyone have any questions for
- Julian?"
- "Is Battleground Mystic multiplayer or one player?" said the kid named Miles.
- "Not those kinds of questions, guys," said Ms. Petosa.
- "Okay, so how about you. . . ." She pointed to Charlotte, probably because her desk
- was closest to the front.
- "Oh, sure." Charlotte didn't hesitate for even a second, like she knew exactly what she
- wanted to say. "My name is Charlotte. I have two sisters, and we just got a new puppy
- named Suki in July. We got her from an animal shelter and she's so, so cute!"
- "That's great, Charlotte, thank you," said Ms. Petosa. "Okay, then, who's next?"
- Lamb to the Slaughter
- "Like a lamb to the slaughter": Something that you say about someone who goes
- somewhere calmly, not knowing that something unpleasant is going to happen to them.
- I Googled it last night. That's what I was thinking when Ms. Petosa called my name
- and suddenly it was my turn to talk.
- "My name is August," I said, and yeah, I kind of mumbled it.
- "What?" said someone.
- "Can you speak up, honey?" said Ms. Petosa.
- "My name is August," I said louder, forcing myself to look up. "I, um . . . have a sister
- named Via and a dog named Daisy. And, um . . . that's it."
- "Wonderful," said Ms. Petosa. "Anyone have questions for August?"
- No one said anything.
- "Okay, you're next," said Ms. Petosa to Jack.
- "Wait, I have a question for August," said Julian, raising his hand. "Why do you have
- that tiny braid in the back of your hair? Is that like a Padawan thing?"
- "Yeah." I shrug-nodded.
- "What's a Padawan thing?" said Ms. Petosa, smiling at me. "
- It's from Star Wars," answered Julian. "A Padawan is a Jedi apprentice."
- "Oh, interesting," answered Ms. Petosa, looking at me. "So, are you into Star Wars,
- August?"
- "I guess." I nodded, not looking up because what I really wanted was to just slide under
- the desk.
- "Who's your favorite character?" Julian asked. I started thinking maybe he wasn't so
- bad.
- "Jango Fett."
- "What about Darth Sidious?" he said. "Do you like him?"
- "Okay, guys, you can talk about Star Wars stuff at recess," said Ms. Petosa cheerfully.
- "But let's keep going. We haven't heard from you yet," she said to Jack.
- Now it was Jack's turn to talk, but I admit I didn't hear a word he said. Maybe no one
- got the Darth Sidious thing, and maybe Julian didn't mean anything at all. But in Star
- Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Darth Sidious's face gets burned by Sith
- lightning and becomes totally deformed. His skin gets all shriveled up and his whole
- face just kind of melts.
- I peeked at Julian and he was looking at me. Yeah, he knew what he was saying.
- Choose Kind
- There was a lot of shuffling around when the bell rang and everybody got up to leave. I
- checked my schedule and it said my next class was English, room 321. I didn't stop to
- see if anyone else from my homeroom was going my way: I just zoomed out of the
- class and down the hall and sat down as far from the front as possible. The teacher, a
- really tall man with a yellow beard, was writing on the chalkboard.
- Kids came in laughing and talking in little groups but I didn't look up. Basically, the
- same thing that happened in homeroom happened again: no one sat next to me except
- for Jack, who was joking around with some kids who weren't in our homeroom. I could
- tell Jack was the kind of kid other kids like. He had a lot of friends. He made people
- laugh.
- When the second bell rang, everyone got quiet and the teacher turned around and
- faced us. He said his name was Mr. Browne, and then he started talking about what we
- would be doing this semester. At a certain point, somewhere between A Wrinkle in
- Time and Shen of the Sea, he noticed me but kept right on talking.
- I was mostly doodling in my notebook while he talked, but every once in a while I would
- sneak a look at the other students. Charlotte was in this class. So were Julian and
- Henry. Miles wasn't.
- Mr. Browne had written on the chalkboard in big block letters:
- P-R-E-C-E-P-T!
- "Okay, everybody write this down at the very top of the very first page in your English
- notebook."
- As we did what he told us to do, he said: "Okay, so who can tell me what a precept is?
- Does anyone know?"
- No one raised their hands.
- Mr. Browne smiled, nodded, and turned around to write on the chalkboard again:
- PRECEPTS = RULES ABOUT REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS!
- "Like a motto?" someone called out.
- "Like a motto!" said Mr. Browne, nodding as he continued writing on the board. "Like a
- famous quote. Like a line from a fortune cookie. Any saying or ground rule that can
- motivate you. Basically, a precept is anything that helps guide us when making
- decisions about really important things."
- He wrote all that on the chalkboard and then turned around and faced us.
- "So, what are some really important things?" he asked us.
- A few kids raised their hands, and as he pointed at them, they gave their answers,
- which he wrote on the chalkboard in really, really sloppy handwriting:
- RULES. SCHOOLWORK. HOMEWORK.
- "What else?" he said as he wrote, not even turning around. "Just call things out!" He
- wrote everything everyone called out.
- FAMILY. PARENTS. PETS.
- One girl called out: "The environment!"
- THE ENVIRONMENT.
- he wrote on the chalkboard, and added:
- OUR WORLD!
- "Sharks, because they eat dead things in the ocean!" said one of the boys, a kid named
- Reid, and Mr. Browne wrote down
- SHARKS.
- "Bees!" "Seatbelts!" "Recycling!" "Friends!"
- "Okay," said Mr. Browne, writing all those things down. He turned around when he
- finished writing to face us again. "But no one's named the most important thing of all."
- We all looked at him, out of ideas. "God?" said one kid, and I could tell that even
- though Mr. Browne wrote "God" down, that wasn't the answer he was looking for.
- Without saying anything else, he wrote down:
- WHO WE ARE!
- "Who we are," he said, underlining each word as he said it. "Who we are! Us! Right?
- What kind of people are we? What kind of person are you? Isn't that the most important
- thing of all? Isn't that the kind of question we should be asking ourselves all the time?
- "What kind of person am I?
- "Did anyone happen to notice the plaque next to the door of this school? Anyone read
- what it says? Anyone?"
- He looked around but no one knew the answer.
- "It says: 'Know Thyself,' " he said, smiling and nodding. "And learning who you are is
- what you're here to do."
- "I thought we were here to learn English," Jack cracked, which made everyone laugh.
- "Oh yeah, and that, too!" Mr. Browne answered, which I thought was very cool of him.
- He turned around and wrote in big huge block letters that spread all the way across the
- chalkboard:
- MR. BROWNE'S SEPTEMBER PRECEPT:
- WHEN GIVEN THE CHOICE BETWEEN BEING RIGHT OR BEING KIND,
- CHOOSE KIND.
- "Okay, so, everybody," he said, facing us again, "I want you to start a brand-new
- section in your notebooks and call it Mr. Browne's Precepts."
- He kept talking as we did what he was telling us to do. "Put today's date at the
- top of the first page. And from now on, at the beginning of every month, I'm
- going to write a new Mr. Browne precept on the chalkboard and you're going to
- write it down in your notebook. Then we're going to discuss that precept and
- what it means. And at the end of the month, you're going to write an essay about
- it, about what it means to you. So by the end of the year, you'll all have your own
- list of precepts to take away with you.
- "Over the summer, I ask all my students to come up with their very own personal
- precept, write it on a postcard, and mail it to me from wherever you go on your
- summer vacation."
- "People really do that?" said one girl whose name I didn't know.
- "Oh yeah!" he answered, "people really do that. I've had students send me new
- precepts years after they've graduated from this school, actually. It's pretty
- amazing."
- He paused and stroked his beard. "But, anyway, next summer seems like a long
- way off, I know," he joked, which made us laugh. "So, everybody relax a bit
- while I take attendance, and then when we're finished with that, I'll start telling
- you about all the fun stuff we're going to be doing this year—in English." He
- pointed to Jack when he said this, which was also funny, so we all laughed at
- that.
- As I wrote down Mr. Browne's September precept, I suddenly realized that I was
- going to like school. No matter what.
- Lunch
- Via had warned me about lunch in middle school, so I guess I should have
- known it would be hard. I just hadn't expected it to be this hard. Basically, all the
- kids from all the fifth-grade classes poured into the cafeteria at the same time,
- talking loudly and bumping into one another while they ran to different tables.
- One of the lunchroom teachers said something about no seat-saving allowed,
- but I didn't know what she meant and maybe no one else did, either, because
- just about everybody was saving seats for their friends. I tried to sit down at one
- table, but the kid in the next chair said, "Oh, sorry, but somebody else is sitting
- here."
- So I moved to an empty table and just waited for everyone to finish stampeding
- and the lunchroom teacher to tell us what to do next. As she started telling us
- the cafeteria rules, I looked around to see where Jack Will was sitting, but I
- didn't see him on my side of the room. Kids were still coming in as the teachers
- started calling the first few tables to get their trays and stand on line at the
- counter. Julian, Henry, and Miles were sitting at a table toward the back of the
- room.
- Mom had packed me a cheese sandwich, graham crackers, and a juice box, so I
- didn't need to stand on line when my table was called. Instead, I just
- concentrated on opening my backpack, pulling out my lunch bag, and slowly
- opening the aluminum-foil wrapping of my sandwich.
- I could tell I was being stared at without even looking up. I knew that people
- were nudging each other, watching me out of the corners of their eyes. I thought
- I was used to those kinds of stares by now, but I guess I wasn't.
- There was one table of girls that I knew were whispering about me because they
- were talking behind their hands. Their eyes and whispers kept bouncing over to
- me.
- I hate the way I eat. I know how weird it looks. I had a surgery to fix my cleft
- palate when I was a baby, and then a second cleft surgery when I was four, but I
- still have a hole in the roof of my mouth. And even though I had jaw-alignment
- surgery a few years ago, I have to chew food in the front of my mouth. I didn't
- even realize how this looked until I was at a birthday party once, and one of the
- kids told the mom of the birthday boy he didn't want to sit next to me because I
- was too messy with all the food crumbs shooting out of my mouth. I know the kid
- wasn't trying to be mean, but he got in big trouble later, and his mom called my
- mom that night to apologize. When I got home from the party, I went to the
- bathroom mirror and started eating a saltine cracker to see what I looked like
- when I was chewing. The kid was right. I eat like a tortoise, if you've ever seen a
- tortoise eating. Like some prehistoric swamp thing.
- The Summer Table
- "Hey, is this seat taken?"
- I looked up, and a girl I never saw before was standing across from my table
- with a lunch tray full of food. She had long wavy brown hair, and wore a brown
- T-shirt with a purple peace sign on it.
- "Uh, no," I said.
- She put her lunch tray on the table, plopped her backpack on the floor, and sat
- down across from me. She started to eat the mac and cheese on her plate.
- "Ugh," she said after the swallowing the first bite. "I should have brought a
- sandwich like you did."
- "Yeah," I said, nodding.
- "My name is Summer, by the way. What's yours?"
- "August."
- "Cool," she said.
- "Summer!" Another girl came over to the table carrying a tray. "Why are you
- sitting here? Come back to the table."
- "It was too crowded," Summer answered her. "Come sit here. There's more
- room."
- The other girl looked confused for a second. I realized she had been one of the
- girls I had caught looking at me just a few minutes earlier: hand cupped over her
- mouth, whispering. I guess Summer had been one of the girls at that table, too.
- "Never mind," said the girl, leaving. Summer looked at me, shrugged-smiled,
- and took another bite of her mac and cheese.
- "Hey, our names kind of match," she said as she chewed.
- I guess she could tell I didn't know what she meant.
- "Summer? August?" she said, smiling, her eyes open wide, as she waited for me
- to get it.
- "Oh, yeah," I said after a second.
- "We can make this the 'summer only' lunch table," she said.
- "Only kids with summer names can sit here. Let's see, is there anyone here
- named June or July?"
- "There's a Maya," I said.
- "Technically, May is spring," Summer answered, "but if she wanted to sit here,
- we could make an exception." She said it as if she'd actually thought the whole
- thing through. "There's Julian. That's like the name Julia, which comes from
- July."
- I didn't say anything.
- "There's a kid named Reid in my English class," I said.
- "Yeah, I know Reid, but how is Reid a summer name?" she asked.
- "I don't know." I shrugged. "I just picture, like, a reed of grass being a summer
- thing."
- "Yeah, okay." She nodded, pulling out her notebook.
- "And Ms. Petosa could sit here, too. That kind of sounds like the word 'petal,'
- which I think of as a summer thing, too."
- "I have her for homeroom," I said.
- "I have her for math," she answered, making a face.
- She started writing the list of names on the second-to-last page of her notebook.
- "So, who else?" she said.
- By the end of lunch, we had come up with a whole list of names of kids and
- teachers who could sit at our table if they wanted. Most of the names weren't
- actually summer names, but they were names that had some kind of connection
- to summer. I even found a way of making Jack Will's name work by pointing out
- that you could turn his name into a sentence about summer, like "Jack will go to
- the beach," which Summer agreed worked fine.
- "But if someone doesn't have a summer name and wants to sit with us," she said
- very seriously, "we'll still let them if they're nice, okay?"
- "Okay." I nodded.
- "Even if it's a winter name." "Cool beans," she answered, giving me a thumbsup.
- Summer looked like her name. She had a tan, and her eyes were green like a
- leaf.
- One to Ten
- Mom always had this habit of asking me how something felt on a scale of one to
- ten. It started after I had my jaw surgery, when I couldn't talk because my mouth
- was wired shut. They had taken a piece of bone from my hip bone to insert into
- my chin to make it look more normal, so I was hurting in a lot of different places.
- Mom would point to one of my bandages, and I would hold up my fingers to
- show her how much it was hurting. One meant a little bit. Ten meant so, so, so
- much. Then she would tell the doctor when he made his rounds what needed
- adjusting or things like that. Mom got very good at reading my mind sometimes.
- After that, we got into the habit of doing the one-to-ten scale for anything that
- hurt, like if I just had a plain old sore throat, she'd ask: "One to ten?" And I'd say:
- "Three," or whatever it was.
- When school was over, I went outside to meet Mom, who was waiting for me at
- the front entrance like all the other parents or babysitters. The first thing she said
- after hugging me was: " So, how was it? One to ten?"
- "Five," I said, shrugging, which I could tell totally surprised her.
- "Wow," she said quietly, "that's even better than I hoped for."
- "Are we picking Via up?"
- "Miranda's mother is picking her up today. Do you want me to carry your
- backpack, sweetness?" We had started walking through the crowd of kids and
- parents, most of whom were noticing me, "secretly" pointing me out to each
- other.
- "I'm fine," I said.
- "It looks too heavy, Auggie." She started to take it from me.
- "Mom!" I said, pulling my backpack away from her. I walked in front of her
- through the crowd.
- "See you tomorrow, August!"
- It was Summer. She was walking in the opposite direction.
- "Bye, Summer," I said, waving at her.
- As soon as we crossed the street and were away from the crowd, Mom said:
- "Who was that, Auggie?"
- "Summer."
- "Is she in your class?"
- "I have lots of classes."
- "Is she in any of your classes?" Mom said.
- "Nope."
- Mom waited for me to say something else, but I just didn't feel like talking.
- "So it went okay?" said Mom.
- I could tell she had a million questions she wanted to ask me. "Everyone was
- nice? Did you like your teachers?"
- "Yeah."
- "How about those kids you met last week
- ? Were they nice?"
- "Fine, fine. Jack hung out with me a lot."
- "That's so great, sweetie. What about that boy Julian?"
- I thought about that Darth Sidious comment. By now it felt like that had
- happened a hundred years ago.
- "He was okay," I said.
- "And the blond girl, what was her name?"
- "Charlotte. Mom, I said everyone was nice already."
- "Okay," Mom answered.
- I honestly don't know why I was kind of mad at Mom, but I was. We crossed
- Amesfort Avenue, and she didn't say anything else until we turned onto our
- block.
- "So," Mom said.
- "How did you meet Summer if she wasn't in any of your classes?"
- "We sat together at lunch," I said.
- I had started kicking a rock between my feet like it was a soccer ball, chasing it
- back and forth across the sidewalk.
- "She seems very nice."
- "Yeah, she is."
- "She's very pretty," Mom said.
- "Yeah, I know," I answered. "We're kind of like Beauty and the Beast."
- I didn't wait to see Mom's reaction. I just started running down the sidewalk after
- the rock, which I had kicked as hard as I could in front of me.
- Padawan
- That night I cut off the little braid on the back of my head. Dad noticed first.
- "Oh good," he said. "I never liked that thing."
- Via couldn't believe I had cut it off. "That took you years to grow!" she said,
- almost like she was angry. "Why did you cut it off?"
- "I don't know," I answered.
- "Did someone make fun of it?"
- "No."
- "Did you tell Christopher you were cutting it off?"
- "We're not even friends anymore!"
- "That's not true," she said. "I can't believe you would just cut it off like that," she
- added snottily, and then practically slammed my bedroom door shut as she left
- the room.
- I was snuggling with Daisy on my bed when Dad came to tuck me in later. He
- scooched Daisy over gently and lay down next to me on the blanket.
- "So, Auggie Doggie," he said, "it was really an okay day?" He got that from an
- old cartoon about a dachshund named Auggie Doggie, by the way. He had
- bought it for me on eBay when I was about four, and we watched it a lot for a
- while—especially in the hospital. He would call me Auggie Doggie and I would
- call him "dear ol' Dad," like the puppy called the dachshund dad on the show.
- "Yeah, it was totally okay," I said, nodding.
- "You've been so quiet all night long."
- "I guess I'm tired."
- "It was a long day, huh?"
- I nodded.
- "But it really was okay?"
- I nodded again. He didn't say anything, so after a few seconds, I said: "It was
- better than okay, actually."
- "That's great to hear, Auggie," he said quietly, kissing my forehead. "So it looks
- like it was a good call Mom made, your going to school."
- "Yeah. But I could stop going if I wanted to, right?"
- "That was the deal, yes," he answered. "Though I guess it would depend on why
- you wanted to stop going, too, you know. You'd have to let us know. You'd have
- to talk to us and tell us how you're feeling, and if anything bad was happening.
- Okay? You promise you'd tell us?"
- "Yeah."
- "So can I ask you something? Are you mad at Mom or something? You've been
- kind of huffy with her all night long. You know, Auggie, I'm as much to blame for
- sending you to school as she is."
- "No, she's more to blame. It was her idea."
- Mom knocked on the door just then and peeked her head inside my room.
- "Just wanted to say good night," she said. She looked kind of shy for a second.
- "Hi, Momma," Dad said, picking up my hand and waving it at her.
- "I heard you cut off your braid," Mom said to me, sitting down at the edge of the
- bed next to Daisy.
- "It's not a big deal," I answered quickly.
- "I didn't say it was," said Mom.
- "Why don't you put Auggie to bed tonight?" Dad said to Mom, getting up. "I've
- got some work to do anyway. Good night, my son, my son." That was another
- part of our Auggie Doggie routine, though I wasn't in the mood to say Good
- night, dear ol' Dad. "I'm so proud of you," said Dad, and then he got up out of the
- bed.
- Mom and Dad had always taken turns putting me to bed. I know it was a little
- babyish of me to still need them to do that, but that's just how it was with us.
- "Will you check in on Via?" Mom said to Dad as she lay down next to me.
- He stopped by the door and turned around. "What's wrong with Via?"
- "Nothing," said Mom, shrugging, "at least that she would tell me. But . . . first day
- of high school and all that." "
- Hmm," said Dad, and then he pointed his finger at me and winked. "It's always
- something with you kids, isn't it?" he said.
- "Never a dull moment," said Mom.
- "Never a dull moment," Dad repeated. "Good night, guys."
- As soon as he closed the door, Mom pulled out the book she'd been reading to
- me for the last couple of weeks. I was relieved because I really was afraid she'd
- want to "talk," and I just didn't feel like doing that. But Mom didn't seem to want
- to talk, either. She just flipped through the pages until she got to where we had
- left off. We were about halfway through The Hobbit .
- " 'Stop! stop! ' shouted Thorin," said Mom, reading aloud, "but it was too late, the
- excited dwarves had wasted their last arrows, and now the bows that Beorn had
- given them were useless.
- "They were a gloomy party that night, and the gloom gathered still deeper on
- them in the following days. They had crossed the enchanted stream; but beyond
- it the path seemed to straggle on just as before, and in the forest they could see
- no change."
- I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden I started to cry.
- Mom put the book down and wrapped her arms around me. She didn't seem
- surprised that I was crying. "It's okay," she whispered in my ear. "It'll be okay."
- "I'm sorry," I said between sniffles.
- "Shh," she said, wiping my tears with the back of her hand. "You have nothing to
- be sorry about. . . ."
- "Why do I have to be so ugly, Mommy?" I whispered.
- "No, baby, you're not . . ."
- "I know I am."
- She kissed me all over my face. She kissed my eyes that came down too far.
- She kissed my cheeks that looked punched in. She kissed my tortoise mouth.
- She said soft words that I know were meant to help me, but words can't change
- my face.
- Wake Me Up when September Ends
- The rest of September was hard. I wasn't used to getting up so early in the
- morning. I wasn't used to this whole notion of homework. And I got my first "quiz"
- at the end of the month. I never got "quizzes" when Mom homeschooled me. I
- also didn't like how I had no free time anymore. Before, I was able to play
- whenever I wanted to, but now it felt like I always had stuff to do for school.
- And being at school was awful in the beginning. Every new class I had was like
- a new chance for kids to "not stare" at me. They would sneak peeks at me from
- behind their notebooks or when they thought I wasn't looking. They would take
- the longest way around me to avoid bumping into me in any way, like I had
- some germ they could catch, like my face was contagious.
- In the hallways, which were always crowded, my face would always surprise
- some unsuspecting kid who maybe hadn't heard about me. The kid would make
- the sound you make when you hold your breath before going underwater, a little
- "uh!" sound. This happened maybe four or five times a day for the first few
- weeks: on the stairs, in front of the lockers, in the library. Five hundred kids in a
- school: eventually every one of them was going to see my face at some time.
- And I knew after the first couple of days that word had gotten around about me,
- because every once in a while I'd catch a kid elbowing his friend as they passed
- me, or talking behind their hands as I walked by them. I can only imagine what
- they were saying about me. Actually, I prefer not to even try to imagine it.
- I'm not saying they were doing any of these things in a mean way, by the way:
- not once did any kid laugh or make noises or do anything like that. They were
- just being normal dumb kids. I know that. I kind of wanted to tell them that. Like,
- it's okay, I'm know I'm weird-looking, take a look, I don't bite. Hey, the truth is, if
- a Wookiee started going to the school all of a sudden, I'd be curious, I'd probably
- stare a bit! And if I was walking with Jack or Summer, I'd probably whisper to
- them: Hey, there's the Wookiee. And if the Wookiee caught me saying that, he'd
- know I wasn't trying to be mean. I was just pointing out the fact that he's a
- Wookiee.
- It took about one week for the kids in my class to get used to my face. These
- were the kids I'd see every day in all my classes. It took about two weeks for the
- rest of the kids in my grade to get used to my face. These were the kids I'd see
- in the cafeteria, yard time, PE, music, library, computer class.
- It took about a month for the rest of the kids in the entire school to get used to it.
- These were the kids in all the other grades. They were big kids, some of them.
- Some of them had crazy haircuts. Some of them had earrings in their noses.
- Some of them had pimples. None of them looked like me.
- Jack Will
- I hung out with Jack in homeroom, English, history, computer, music, and
- science, which were all the classes we had together. The teachers assigned
- seats in every class, and I ended up sitting next to Jack in every single class, so
- I figured either the teachers were told to put me and Jack together, or it was a
- totally incredible coincidence.
- I walked to classes with Jack, too. I know he noticed kids staring at me, but he
- pretended not to notice. One time, though, on our way to history, this huge
- eighth grader who was zooming down the stairs two steps at a time accidentally
- bumped into us at the bottom of the stairs and knocked me down. As the guy
- helped me stand up, he got a look at my face, and without even meaning to, he
- just said: "Whoa!" Then he patted me on the shoulder, like he was dusting me
- off, and took off after his friends. For some reason, me and Jack started cracking
- up.
- "That guy made the funniest face!" said Jack as we sat down at our desks.
- "I know, right?" I said. "He was like, whoa !"
- "I swear, I think he wet his pants!"
- We were laughing so hard that the teacher, Mr. Roche, had to ask us to settle
- down.
- Later, after we finished reading about how ancient Sumerians built sundials,
- Jack whispered: "Do you ever want to beat those kids up?"
- I shrugged. "I guess. I don't know."
- "I'd want to. I think you should get a secret squirt gun or something and attach it
- to your eyes somehow. And every time someone stares at you, you would squirt
- them in the face."
- "With some green slime or something," I answered.
- "No, no: with slug juice mixed with dog pee."
- "Yeah!" I said, completely agreeing.
- "Guys," said Mr. Roche from across the room. "People are still reading."
- We nodded and looked down at our books. Then Jack whispered: "Are you
- always going to look this way, August? I mean, can't you get plastic surgery or
- something?"
- I smiled and pointed to my face. "Hello? This is after plastic surgery!"
- Jack clapped his hand over his forehead and started laughing hysterically.
- "Dude, you should sue your doctor!" he answered between giggles.
- This time the two of us were laughing so much we couldn't stop, even after Mr.
- Roche came over and made us both switch chairs with the kids next to us.
- Mr. Browne's October Precept
- Mr. Browne's precept for October was:
- YOUR DEEDS ARE YOUR MONUMENTS.
- He told us that this was written on the tombstone of some Egyptian guy that died
- thousands of years ago. Since we were just about to start studying ancient
- Egypt in history, Mr. Browne thought this was a good choice for a precept.
- Our homework assignment was to write a paragraph about what we thought the
- precept meant or how we felt about it.
- This is what I wrote:
- This precept means that we should be remembered for the things we do.
- The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more
- important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do
- outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people
- build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the
- Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of
- stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you. That's why
- your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with
- stone.
- Apples
- My birthday is October 10. I like my birthday: 10/10. It would've been great if I'd
- been born at exactly 10:10 in the morning or at night, but I wasn't. I was born just
- after midnight. But I still think my birthday is cool. I usually have a little party at
- home, but this year I asked Mom if I could have a big bowling party. Mom was
- surprised but happy. She asked me who I wanted to ask from my class, and I
- said everyone in my homeroom plus Summer.
- "That's a lot of kids, Auggie," said Mom.
- "I have to invite everyone because I don't want anyone to get their feelings hurt if
- they find out other people are invited and they aren't, okay?"
- "Okay," Mom agreed. "You even want to invite the 'what's the deal' kid?"
- "Yeah, you can invite Julian," I answered. "Geez, Mom, you should forget about
- that already."
- "I know, you're right."
- A couple of weeks later, I asked Mom who was coming to my party, and she
- said: "Jack Will, Summer. Reid Kingsley. Both Maxes. And a couple of other kids
- said they were going to try to be there."
- "Like who?"
- "Charlotte's mom said Charlotte had a dance recital earlier in the day, but she
- was going to try to come to your party if time allowed. And Tristan's mom said he
- might come after his soccer game."
- "So that's it ?" I said.
- "That's like . . . five people."
- "That's more than five people, Auggie. I think a lot of people just had plans
- already," Mom answered. We were in the kitchen. She was cutting one of the
- apples we had just gotten at the farmers' market into teensy-weensy bites so I
- could eat it.
- "What kind of plans?" I asked.
- "I don't know, Auggie. We sent out the evites kind of late."
- "Like what did they tell you, though? What reasons did they give?" "Everyone
- gave different reasons, Auggie." She sounded a bit impatient. "Really, sweetie, it
- shouldn't matter what their reasons were. People had plans, that's all."
- "What did Julian give as his reason?" I asked.
- "You know," said Mom, "his mom was the only person who didn't RSVP at all."
- She looked at me. "I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
- I laughed because I thought she was making a joke, but then I realized she
- wasn't.
- "What does that mean?" I asked.
- "Never mind. Now go wash your hands so you can eat."
- My birthday party turned out to be much smaller than I thought it would be, but it
- was still great. Jack, Summer, Reid, Tristan, and both Maxes came from school,
- and Christopher came, too—all the way from Bridgeport with his parents. And
- Uncle Ben came. And Aunt Kate and Uncle Po drove in from Boston, though
- Tata and Poppa were in Florida for the winter. It was fun because all the grownups
- ended up bowling in the lane next to ours, so it really felt like there were a
- lot of people there to celebrate my birthday.
- Halloween
- At lunch the next day, Summer asked me what I was going to be for Halloween.
- Of course, I'd been thinking about it since last Halloween, so I knew right away.
- "Boba Fett."
- "You know you can wear a costume to school on Halloween, right?"
- "No way, really?"
- "So long as it's politically correct."
- "What, like no guns and stuff?"
- "Exactly."
- "What about blasters?"
- "I think a blaster's like a gun, Auggie."
- "Oh man . . . ," I said, shaking my head. Boba Fett has a blaster.
- "At least, we don't have to come like a character in a book anymore. In the lower
- school that's what you had to do. Last year I was the Wicked Witch of the West
- from The Wizard of Oz ."
- "But that's a movie, not a book."
- "Hello?" Summer answered. "It was a book first! One of my favorite books in the
- world, actually. My dad used to read it to me every night in the first grade."
- When Summer talks, especially when she's excited about something, her eyes
- squint like she's looking right at the sun.
- I hardly ever see Summer during the day, since the only class we have together
- is English. But ever since that first lunch at school, we've sat at the summer
- table together every day, just the two of us.
- "So, what are you going to be?" I asked her.
- "I don't know yet. I know what I'd really want to go as, but I think it might be too
- dorky. You know, Savanna's group isn't even wearing costumes this year. They
- think we're too old for Halloween."
- "What? That's just dumb."
- "I know, right?"
- "I thought you didn't care what those girls think."
- She shrugged and took a long drink of her milk.
- "So, what dorky thing do you want to dress up as?" I asked her, smiling.
- "Promise not to laugh?" She raised her eyebrows and her shoulders,
- embarrassed. "A unicorn."
- I smiled and looked down at my sandwich.
- "Hey, you promised not to laugh!" she laughed.
- "Okay, okay," I said. "But you're right: that is too dorky."
- "I know!" she said. "But I have it all planned out: I'd make the head out of papiermâché,
- and paint the horn gold and make the mane gold, too. . . . It would be so
- awesome."
- "Okay." I shrugged.
- "Then you should do it. Who cares what other people think, right?"
- "Maybe what I'll do is just wear it for the Halloween Parade," she said, snapping
- her fingers. "And I'll just be, like, a Goth girl for school. Yeah, that's it, that's what
- I'll do."
- "Sounds like a plan." I nodded.
- "Thanks, Auggie," she giggled. "You know, that's what I like best about you. I
- feel like I can tell you anything."
- "Yeah?" I answered, nodding. I gave her a thumbs-up sign. "Cool beans."
- School Pictures
- I don't think anyone will be shocked to learn I don't want to have my school
- picture taken on October 22. No way. No thank you. I stopped letting anyone
- take pictures of me a while ago. I guess you could call it a phobia. No, actually,
- it's not a phobia. It's an "aversion," which is a word I just learned in Mr.
- Browne's class. I have an aversion to having my picture taken. There, I used it in
- a sentence.
- I thought Mom would try to get me to drop my aversion to having my picture
- taken for school, but she didn't. Unfortunately, while I managed to avoid having
- the portrait taken, I couldn't get out of being part of the class picture. Ugh. The
- photographer looked like he'd just sucked on a lemon when he saw me. I'm sure
- he thought I ruined the picture. I was one of the ones in the front, sitting down. I
- didn't smile, not that anyone could tell if I had.
- The Cheese Touch
- I noticed not too long ago that even though people were getting used to me, no
- one would actually touch me. I didn't realize this at first because it's not like kids
- go around touching each other that much in middle school anyway. But last
- Thursday in dance class, which is, like, my least favorite class, Mrs. Atanabi, the
- teacher, tried to make Ximena Chin be my dance partner. Now, I've never
- actually seen someone have a "panic attack" before, but I have heard about it,
- and I'm pretty sure Ximena had a panic attack at that second. She got really
- nervous and turned pale and literally broke into a sweat within a minute, and
- then she came up with some lame excuse about really having to go to the
- bathroom. Anyway, Mrs. Atanabi let her off the hook, because she ended up not
- making anyone dance together.
- Then yesterday in my science elective, we were doing this cool mystery-powder
- investigation where we had to classify a substance as an acid or a base.
- Everyone had to heat their mystery powders on a heating plate and make
- observations, so we were all huddled around the powders with our notebooks.
- Now, there are eight kids in the elective, and seven of them were squished
- together on one side of the plate while one of them—me—had loads of room on
- the other side. So of course I noticed this, but I was hoping Ms. Rubin wouldn't
- notice this, because I didn't want her to say something. But of course she did
- notice this, and of course she said something.
- "Guys, there's plenty of room on that side. Tristan, Nino, go over there," she
- said, so Tristan and Nino scooted over to my side. Tristan and Nino have always
- been okay-nice to me. I want to go on record as saying that. Not super-nice, like
- they go out of their way to hang out with me, but okaynice, like they say hello to
- me and talk to me like normal. And they didn't even make a face when Ms.
- Rubin told them to come on my side, which a lot of kids do when they think I'm
- not looking. Anyway, everything was going fine until Tristan's mystery powder
- started melting. He moved his foil off the plate just as my powder began to melt,
- too, which is why I went to move mine off the plate, and then my hand
- accidentally bumped his hand for a fraction of a second. Tristan jerked his hand
- away so fast he dropped his foil on the floor while also knocking everyone else's
- foil off the heating plate.
- "Tristan!" yelled Ms. Rubin, but Tristan didn't even care about the spilled powder
- on the floor or that he ruined the experiment. What he was most concerned
- about was getting to the lab sink to wash his hands as fast as possible. That's
- when I knew for sure that there was this thing about touching me at Beecher
- Prep.
- I think it's like the Cheese Touch in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The kids in that story
- were afraid they'd catch the cooties if they touched the old moldy cheese on the
- basketball court. At Beecher Prep, I'm the old moldy cheese.
- Costumes
- For me, Halloween is the best holiday in the world. It even beats Christmas. I get
- to dress up in a costume. I get to wear a mask. I get to go around like every
- other kid with a mask and nobody thinks I look weird. Nobody takes a second
- look. Nobody notices me. Nobody knows me.
- I wish every day could be Halloween. We could all wear masks all the time.
- Then we could walk around and get to know each other before we got to see
- what we looked like under the masks.
- When I was little, I used to wear an astronaut helmet everywhere I went. To the
- playground. To the supermarket. To pick Via up from school. Even in the middle
- of summer, though it was so hot my face would sweat. I think I wore it for a
- couple of years, but I had to stop wearing it when I had my eye surgery. I was
- about seven, I think. And then we couldn't find the helmet after that. Mom looked
- everywhere for it. She figured that it had probably ended up in Grans's attic, and
- she kept meaning to look for it, but by then I had gotten used to not wearing it.
- I have pictures of me in all my Halloween costumes. My first Halloween I was a
- pumpkin. My second I was Tigger. My third I was Peter Pan (my dad dressed up
- as Captain Hook). My fourth I was Captain Hook (my dad dressed up as Peter
- Pan). My fifth I was an astronaut. My sixth I was Obi-Wan Kenobi. My seventh I
- was a clone trooper. My eighth I was Darth Vader. My ninth I was the Bleeding
- Scream, the one that has fake blood oozing out over the skull mask.
- This year I'm going to be Boba Fett: not Boba Fett the kid in Star Wars Episode
- II: Attack of the Clones, but Boba Fett the man from Star Wars Episode V: The
- Empire Strikes Back . Mom searched everywhere for the costume but couldn't
- find one in my size, so she bought me a Jango Fett costume—since Jango was
- Boba's dad and wore the same armor—and then painted the armor green. She
- did some other stuff to it to make it look worn, too. Anyway, it looks totally real.
- Mom's good at costumes.
- In homeroom we all talked about what we were going to be for Halloween.
- Charlotte was going as Hermione from Harry Potter. Jack was going as a
- wolfman. I heard that Julian was going as Jango Fett, which was a weird
- coincidence. I don't think he liked hearing that I was going as Boba Fett.
- On the morning of Halloween, Via had this big crying meltdown about
- something. Via's always been so calm and cool, but this year she's had a couple
- of these kinds of fits. Dad was late for work and was like, "Via, let's go! Let's go!"
- Usually Dad is super patient about things, but not when it comes to his being
- late for work, and his yelling just stressed out Via even more, and she started
- crying louder, so Mom told Dad to take me to school and that she'd deal with
- Via. Then Mom kissed me goodbye quickly, before I even put on my costume,
- and disappeared into Via's room.
- "Auggie, let's go now!" said Dad. "I have a meeting I can't be late for!"
- "I haven't put my costume on yet!"
- "So put it on, already. Five minutes. I'll meet you outside."
- I rushed to my room and started to put on the Boba Fett costume, but all of a
- sudden I didn't feel like wearing it. I'm not sure why—maybe because it had all
- these belts that needed to be tightened and I needed someone's help to put it
- on. Or maybe it was because it still smelled a little like paint. All I knew was that
- it was a lot of work to put the costume on, and Dad was waiting and would get
- super impatient if I made him late. So, at the last minute, I threw on the
- Bleeding Scream costume from last year. It was such an easy costume: just a
- long black robe and a big white mask. I yelled goodbye from the door on my way
- out, but Mom didn't even hear me.
- "I thought you were going as Jango Fett," said Dad when I got outside.
- "Boba Fett!"
- "Whatever," said Dad.
- "This is a better costume anyway." "Yeah, it's cool," I answered.
- The Bleeding Scream
- Walking through the halls that morning on my way to the lockers was, I have to
- say, absolutely awesome. Everything was different now. I was different. Where I
- usually walked with my head down, trying to avoid being seen, today I walked
- with my head up, looking around. I wanted to be seen. One kid wearing the
- same exact costume as mine, long white skull face oozing fake red blood, highfived
- me as we passed each other on the stairs. I have no idea who he was, and
- he had no idea who I was, and I wondered for a second if he would have ever
- done that if he'd known it was me under the mask.
- I was starting to think this was going to go down as one of the most awesome
- days in the history of my life, but then I got to homeroom. The first costume I
- saw as I walked inside the door was Darth Sidious. It had one of the rubber
- masks that are so realistic, with a big black hood over the head and a long black
- robe. I knew right away it was Julian, of course. He must have changed his
- costume at the last minute because he thought I was coming as Jango Fett. He
- was talking to two mummies who must have been Miles and Henry, and they
- were all kind of looking at the door like they were waiting for someone to come
- through it. I knew it wasn't a Bleeding Scream they were looking for. It was a
- Boba Fett.
- I was going to go and sit at my usual desk, but for some reason, I don't know
- why, I found myself walking over to a desk near them, and I could hear them
- talking.
- One of the mummies was saying: "It really does look like him."
- "Like this part especially . . . ," answered Julian's voice. He put his fingers on the
- cheeks and eyes of his Darth Sidious mask.
- "Actually," said the mummy, "what he really looks like is one of those shrunken
- heads. Have you ever seen those? He looks exactly like that."
- "I think he looks like an orc."
- "Oh yeah!" "If I looked like that," said the Julian voice, kind of laughing, "I swear
- to God, I'd put a hood over my face every day."
- "I've thought about this a lot," said the second mummy, sounding serious, "and I
- really think . . . if I looked like him, seriously, I think that I'd kill myself."
- "You would not," answered Darth Sidious.
- "Yeah, for real," insisted the same mummy. "I can't imagine looking in the mirror
- every day and seeing myself like that. It would be too awful. And getting stared
- at all the time."
- "Then why do you hang out with him so much?" asked Darth Sidious.
- "I don't know," answered the mummy. "Tushman asked me to hang out with him
- at the beginning of the year, and he must have told all the teachers to put us
- next to each other in all our classes, or something." The mummy shrugged. I
- knew the shrug, of course. I knew the voice. I knew I wanted to run out of the
- class right then and there. But I stood where I was and listened to Jack Will
- finish what he was saying. "I mean, the thing is: he always follows me around.
- What am I supposed to do?"
- "Just ditch him," said Julian.
- I don't know what Jack answered because I walked out of the class without
- anyone knowing I had been there. My face felt like it was on fire while I walked
- back down the stairs. I was sweating under my costume. And I started crying. I
- couldn't keep it from happening. The tears were so thick in my eyes I could
- barely see, but I couldn't wipe them through the mask as I walked. I was looking
- for a little tiny spot to disappear into. I wanted a hole I could fall inside of: a little
- black hole that would eat me up.
- Names
- Rat boy. Freak. Monster. Freddy Krueger. E.T. Gross-out. Lizard face. Mutant. I
- know the names they call me. I've been in enough playgrounds to know kids can
- be mean. I know, I know, I know.
- I ended up in the second-floor bathroom. No one was there because first period
- had started and everyone was in class. I locked the door to my stall and took off
- my mask and just cried for I don't know how long. Then I went to the nurse's
- office and told her I had a stomach ache, which was true, because I felt like I'd
- been kicked in the gut. Nurse Molly called Mom and had me lie down on the sofa
- next to her desk. Fifteen minutes later, Mom was at the door.
- "Sweetness," she said, coming over to hug me.
- "Hi," I mumbled. I didn't want her to ask anything until afterward.
- "You have a stomach ache?" she asked, automatically putting her hand on my
- forehead to check for my temperature.
- "He said he feels like throwing up," said Nurse Molly, looking at me with very
- nice eyes.
- "And I have a headache," I whispered.
- "I wonder if it's something you ate," said Mom, looking worried.
- "There's a stomach bug going around," said Nurse Molly.
- "Oh geez," said Mom, her eyebrows going up as she shook her head. She
- helped me to my feet. "Should I call a taxi or are you okay walking home?"
- "I can walk."
- "What a brave kid!" said Nurse Molly, patting me on the back as she walked us
- toward the door. "If he starts throwing up or runs a temperature, you should call
- the doctor."
- "Absolutely," said Mom, shaking Nurse Molly's hand.
- "Thank you so much for taking care of him."
- "My pleasure," answered Nurse Molly, putting her hand under my chin and tilting
- my face up.
- "You take care of yourself, okay?"
- I nodded and mumbled "Thank you." Mom and I hugwalked the whole way
- home. I didn't tell her anything about what had happened, and later when she
- asked me if I felt well enough to go trick-or-treating after school, I said no. This
- worried her, since she knew how much I usually loved trick-or-treating.
- I heard her say to Dad on the phone: ". . . He doesn't even have the energy to
- go trick-or-treating. . . . No, no fever at all . . . Well, I will if he doesn't feel better
- by tomorrow. . . . I know, poor thing . . . Imagine his missing Halloween."
- I got out of going to school the next day, too, which was Friday. So I had the
- whole weekend to think about everything. I was pretty sure I would never go
- back to school again.
- Part Two
- Via
- Far above the world
- Planet Earth is blue
- And there's nothing I can do
- —David Bowie, "Space Oddity"
- A Tour of the Galaxy
- August is the Sun. Me and Mom and Dad are planets orbiting the Sun. The rest
- of our family and friends are asteroids and comets floating around the planets
- orbiting the Sun. The only celestial body that doesn't orbit August the Sun is
- Daisy the dog, and that's only because to her little doggy eyes, August's face
- doesn't look very different from any other human's face. To Daisy, all our faces
- look alike, as flat and pale as the moon.
- I'm used to the way this universe works. I've never minded it because it's all I've
- ever known. I've always understood that August is special and has special
- needs. If I was playing too loudly and he was trying to take a nap, I knew I would
- have to play something else because he needed his rest after some procedure
- or other had left him weak and in pain. If I wanted Mom and Dad to watch me
- play soccer, I knew that nine out of ten times they'd miss it because they were
- busy shuttling August to speech therapy or physical therapy or a new specialist
- or a surgery.
- Mom and Dad would always say I was the most understanding little girl in the
- world. I don't know about that, just that I understood there was no point in
- complaining. I've seen August after his surgeries: his little face bandaged up
- and swollen, his tiny body full of IVs and tubes to keep him alive. After you've
- seen someone else going through that, it feels kind of crazy to complain over not
- getting the toy you had asked for, or your mom missing a school play. I knew
- this even when I was six years old. No one ever told it to me. I just knew it.
- So I've gotten used to not complaining, and I've gotten used to not bothering
- Mom and Dad with little stuff. I've gotten used to figuring things out on my own:
- how to put toys together, how to organize my life so I don't miss friends' birthday
- parties, how to stay on top of my schoolwork so I never fall behind in class. I've
- never asked for help with my homework. Never needed reminding to finish a
- project or study for a test. If I was having trouble with a subject in school, I'd go
- home and study it until I figured it out on my own. I taught myself how to convert
- fractions into decimal points by going online. I've done every school project
- pretty much by myself. When Mom or Dad ask me how things are going in
- school, I've always said "good"—even when it hasn't always been so good. My
- worst day, worst fall, worst headache, worst bruise, worst cramp, worst mean
- thing anyone could say has always been nothing compared to what August has
- gone through. This isn't me being noble, by the way: it's just the way I know it is.
- And this is the way it's always been for me, for the little universe of us. But this
- year there seems to be a shift in the cosmos. The galaxy is changing. Planets
- are falling out of alignment.
- Before August
- I honestly don't remember my life before August came into it. I look at pictures of
- me as a baby, and I see Mom and Dad smiling so happily, holding me. I can't
- believe how much younger they looked back then: Dad was this hipster dude
- and Mom was this cute Brazilian fashionista. There's one shot of me at my third
- birthday: Dad's right behind me while Mom's holding the cake with three lit
- candles, and in back of us are Tata and Poppa, Grans, Uncle Ben, Aunt Kate,
- and Uncle Po. Everyone's looking at me and I'm looking at the cake. You can
- see in that picture how I really was the first child, first grandchild, first niece. I
- don't remember what it felt like, of course, but I can see it plain as can be in the
- pictures.
- I don't remember the day they brought August home from the hospital. I don't
- remember what I said or did or felt when I saw him for the first time, though
- everyone has a story about it. Apparently, I just looked at him for a long time
- without saying anything at all, and then finally I said: "It doesn't look like Lilly!"
- That was the name of a doll Grans had given me when Mom was pregnant so I
- could "practice" being a big sister. It was one of those dolls that are incredibly
- lifelike, and I had carried it everywhere for months, changing its diaper, feeding it.
- I'm told I even made a baby sling for it. The story goes that after my initial
- reaction to August, it only took a few minutes (according to Grans) or a few days
- (according to Mom) before I was all over him: kissing him, cuddling him, baby
- talking to him. After that I never so much as touched or mentioned Lilly ever
- again.
- Seeing August
- I never used to see August the way other people saw him. I knew he didn't look
- exactly normal, but I really didn't understand why strangers seemed so shocked
- when they saw him. Horrified. Sickened. Scared. There are so many words I
- can use to describe the looks on people's faces. And for a long time I didn't get
- it. I'd just get mad. Mad when they stared. Mad when they looked away. "What
- the heck are you looking at?" I'd say to people—even grown-ups.
- Then, when I was about eleven, I went to stay with Grans in Montauk for four
- weeks while August was having his big jaw surgery. This was the longest I'd
- ever been away from home, and I have to say it was so amazing to suddenly be
- free of all that stuff that made me so mad. No one stared at Grans and me when
- we went to town to buy groceries. No one pointed at us. No one even noticed us.
- Grans was one of those grandmothers who do everything with their grandkids.
- She'd run into the ocean if I asked her to, even if she had nice clothes on. She
- would let me play with her makeup and didn't mind if I used it on her face to
- practice my face-painting skills. She'd take me for ice cream even if we hadn't
- eaten dinner yet. She'd draw chalk horses on the sidewalk in front of her house.
- One night, while we were walking back from town, I told her that I wished I could
- live with her forever. I was so happy there. I think it might have been the best
- time in my life.
- Coming home after four weeks felt very strange at first. I remember very vividly
- stepping through the door and seeing August running over to welcome me
- home, and for this tiny fraction of a moment I saw him not the way I've always
- seen him, but the way other people see him. It was only a flash, an instant while
- he was hugging me, so happy that I was home, but it surprised me because I'd
- never seen him like that before. And I'd never felt what I was feeling before,
- either: a feeling I hated myself for having the moment I had it. But as he was
- kissing me with all his heart, all I could see was the drool coming down his chin.
- And suddenly there I was, like all those people who would stare or look away.
- Horrified. Sickened. Scared.
- Thankfully, that only lasted for a second: the moment I heard August laugh his
- raspy little laugh, it was over. Everything was back the way it had been before.
- But it had opened a door for me. A little peephole. And on the other side of the
- peephole there were two Augusts: the one I saw blindly, and the one other
- people saw.
- I think the only person in the world I could have told any of this to was Grans, but
- I didn't. It was too hard to explain over the phone. I thought maybe when she
- came for Thanksgiving, I'd tell her what I felt. But just two months after I stayed
- with her in Montauk, my beautiful Grans died. It was so completely out of the
- blue. Apparently, she had checked herself into the hospital because she'd been
- feeling nauseous. Mom and I drove out to see her, but it's a threehour drive
- from where we live, and by the time we got to the hospital, Grans was gone. A
- heart attack, they told us. Just like that.
- It's so strange how one day you can be on this earth, and the next day not.
- Where did she go? Will I really ever see her again, or is that a fairy tale?
- You see movies and TV shows where people receive horrible news in hospitals,
- but for us, with all our many trips to the hospital with August, there had always
- been good outcomes. What I remember the most from the day Grans died is
- Mom literally crumpling to the floor in slow, heaving sobs, holding her stomach
- like someone had just punched her. I've never, ever seen Mom like that. Never
- heard sounds like that come out of her. Even through all of August's surgeries,
- Mom always put on a brave face.
- On my last day in Montauk, Grans and I had watched the sun set on the beach.
- We had taken a blanket to sit on, but it had gotten chilly, so we wrapped it
- around us and cuddled and talked until there wasn't even a sliver of sun left over
- the ocean. And then Grans told me she had a secret to tell me: she loved me
- more than anyone else in the world.
- "Even August?" I had asked.
- She smiled and stroked my hair, like she was thinking about what to say.
- "I love Auggie very, very much," she said softly.
- I can still remember her Portuguese accent, the way she rolled her r 's. "But he
- has many angels looking out for him already, Via. And I want you to know that
- you have me looking out for you. Okay, menina querida ? I want you to know
- that you are number one for me. You are my . . ." She looked out at the ocean
- and spread her hands out, like she was trying to smooth out the waves, "You are
- my everything. You understand me, Via? Tu es meu tudo."
- I understood her. And I knew why she said it was a secret. Grandmothers aren't
- supposed to have favorites. Everyone knows that. But after she died, I held on to
- that secret and let it cover me like a blanket.
- August Through the Peephole
- His eyes are about an inch below where they should be on his face, almost to
- halfway down his cheeks. They slant downward at an extreme angle, almost like
- diagonal slits that someone cut into his face, and the left one is noticeably lower
- than the right one. They bulge outward because his eye cavities are too shallow
- to accommodate them. The top eyelids are always halfway closed, like he's on
- the verge of sleeping. The lower eyelids sag so much they almost look like a
- piece of invisible string is pulling them downward: you can see the red part on
- the inside, like they're almost inside out. He doesn't have eyebrows or
- eyelashes. His nose is disproportionately big for his face, and kind of fleshy. His
- head is pinched in on the sides where the ears should be, like someone used
- giant pliers and crushed the middle part of his face. He doesn't have
- cheekbones. There are deep creases running down both sides of his nose to his
- mouth, which gives him a waxy appearance. Sometimes people assume he's
- been burned in a fire: his features look like they've been melted, like the
- drippings on the side of a candle. Several surgeries to correct his palate have
- left a few scars around his mouth, the most noticeable one being a jagged gash
- running from the middle of his upper lip to his nose. His upper teeth are small
- and splay out. He has a severe overbite and an extremely undersized jawbone.
- He has a very small chin. When he was very little, before a piece of his hip bone
- was surgically implanted into his lower jaw, he really had no chin at all. His
- tongue would just hang out of his mouth with nothing underneath to block it.
- Thankfully, it's better now.
- He can eat, at least: when he was younger, he had a feeding tube. And he can
- talk. And he's learned to keep his tongue inside his mouth, though that took him
- several years to master. He's also learned to control the drool that used to run
- down his neck. These are considered miracles. When he was a baby, the
- doctors didn't think he'd live.
- He can hear, too. Most kids born with these types of birth defects have problems
- with their middle ears that prevent them from hearing, but so far August can hear
- well enough through his tiny cauliflower-shaped ears. The doctors think that
- eventually he'll need to wear hearing aids, though. August hates the thought of
- this. He thinks the hearing aids will get noticed too much. I don't tell him that the
- hearing aids would be the least of his problems, of course, because I'm sure he
- knows this.
- Then again, I'm not really sure what August knows or doesn't know, what he
- understands and doesn't understand. Does August see how other people see
- him, or has he gotten so good at pretending not to see that it doesn't bother
- him? Or does it bother him? When he looks in the mirror, does he see the
- Auggie Mom and Dad see, or does he see the Auggie everyone else sees? Or is
- there another August he sees, someone in his dreams behind the misshapen
- head and face? Sometimes when I looked at Grans, I could see the pretty girl
- she used to be underneath the wrinkles. I could see the girl from Ipanema inside
- the old-lady walk. Does August see himself as he might have looked without that
- single gene that caused the catastrophe of his face?
- I wish I could ask him this stuff. I wish he would tell me how he feels. He used to
- be easier to read before the surgeries. You knew that when his eyes squinted,
- he was happy. When his mouth went straight, he was being mischievous. When
- his cheeks trembled, he was about to cry. He looks better now, no doubt about
- that, but the signs we used to gauge his moods are all gone. There are new
- ones, of course. Mom and Dad can read every single one. But I'm having trouble
- keeping up. And there's a part of me that doesn't want to keep trying: why can't
- he just say what he's feeling like everyone else? He doesn't have a trache tube
- in his mouth anymore that keeps him from talking. His jaw's not wired shut. He's
- ten years old. He can use his words. But we circle around him like he's still the
- baby he used to be. We change plans, go to plan B, interrupt conversations, go
- back on promises depending on his moods, his whims, his needs. That was fine
- when he was little. But he needs to grow up now. We need to let him, help him,
- make him grow up. Here's what I think: we've all spent so much time trying to
- make August think he's normal that he actually thinks he is normal. And the
- problem is, he's not.
- High School
- What I always loved most about middle school was that it was separate and
- different from home. I could go there and be Olivia Pullman—not Via, which is
- my name at home. Via was what they called me in elementary school, too. Back
- then, everyone knew all about us, of course. Mom used to pick me up after
- school, and August was always in the stroller. There weren't a lot of people who
- were equipped to babysit for Auggie, so Mom and Dad brought him to all my
- class plays and concerts and recitals, all the school functions, the bake sales
- and the book fairs. My friends knew him. My friends' parents knew him. My
- teachers knew him. The janitor knew him. ("Hey, how ya doin', Auggie?" he'd
- always say, and give August a high five.) August was something of a fixture at
- PS 22.
- But in middle school a lot of people didn't know about August. My old friends did,
- of course, but my new friends didn't. Or if they knew, it wasn't necessarily the
- first thing they knew about me. Maybe it was the second or third thing they'd
- hear about me. "Olivia? Yeah, she's nice. Did you hear she has a brother who's
- deformed?" I always hated that word, but I knew it was how people described
- Auggie. And I knew those kinds of conversations probably happened all the
- time out of earshot, every time I left the room at a party, or bumped into groups
- of friends at the pizza place. And that's okay. I'm always going to be the sister of
- a kid with a birth defect: that's not the issue. I just don't always want to be
- defined that way.
- The best thing about high school is that hardly anybody knows me at all. Except
- Miranda and Ella, of course. And they know not to go around talking about it.
- Miranda, Ella, and I have known each other since the first grade. What's so nice
- is we never have to explain things to one another. When I decided I wanted
- them to call me Olivia instead of Via, they got it without my having to explain.
- They've known August since he was a little baby. When we were little, our
- favorite thing to do was play dress up with Auggie; load him up with feather boas
- and big hats and Hannah Montana wigs. He used to love it, of course, and we
- thought he was adorably cute in his own way. Ella said he reminded her of E.T.
- She didn't say this to be mean, of course (though maybe it was a little bit mean).
- The truth is, there's a scene in the movie when Drew Barrymore dresses E.T. in
- a blond wig: and that was a ringer for Auggie in our Miley Cyrus heyday.
- Throughout middle school, Miranda, Ella, and I were pretty much our own little
- group. Somewhere between super popular and well-liked: not brainy, not jocks,
- not rich, not druggies, not mean, not goody-goody, not huge, not flat. I don't
- know if the three of us found each other because we were so alike in so many
- ways, or that because we found each other, we've become so alike in so many
- ways. We were so happy when we all got into Faulkner High School. It was
- such a long shot that all three of us would be accepted, especially when almost
- no one else from our middle school was. I remember how we screamed into our
- phones the day we got our acceptance letters.
- This is why I haven't understood what's been going on with us lately, now that
- we're actually in high school. It's nothing like how I thought it would be.
- Major Tom
- Out of the three of us, Miranda had almost always been the sweetest to August,
- hugging him and playing with him long after Ella and I had moved on to playing
- something else. Even as we got older, Miranda always made sure to try to
- include August in our conversations, ask him how he was doing, talk to him
- about Avatar or Star Wars or Bone or something she knew he liked. It was
- Miranda who had given Auggie the astronaut helmet he wore practically every
- day of the year when he was five or six. She would call him Major Tom and they
- would sing "Space Oddity" by David Bowie together. It was their little thing. They
- knew all the words and would blast it on the iPod and sing the song out loud.
- Since Miranda's always been really good about calling us as soon as she got
- home from summer camp, I was a little surprised when I didn't hear from her. I
- even texted her and she didn't reply. I figured maybe she had ended up staying
- in the camp longer, now that she was a counselor. Maybe she met a cute guy.
- Then I realized from her Facebook wall that she'd actually been back home for
- a full two weeks, so I sent her an IM and we chatted online a bit, but she didn't
- give me a reason for not calling, which I thought was bizarre. Miranda had
- always been a little flaky, so I figured that's all it was. We made plans to meet
- downtown, but then I had to cancel because we were driving out to visit Tata
- and Poppa for the weekend.
- So I ended up not seeing either Miranda or Ella until the first day of school. And,
- I have to admit, I was shocked. Miranda looked so different: her hair was cut in
- this super-cute bob that she'd dyed bright pink, of all things, and she was
- wearing a striped tube top that (a) seemed way inappropriate for school, and (b)
- was totally not her usual style. Miranda had always been such a prude about
- clothes, and here she was all pink-haired and tube-topped. But it wasn't just the
- way she looked that was different: she was acting differently, too. I can't say she
- wasn't nice, because she was, but she seemed kind of distant, like I was a
- casual friend. It was the weirdest thing in the world.
- At lunch the three of us sat together like we always used to, but the dynamics
- had shifted. It was obvious to me that Ella and Miranda had gotten together a
- few times during the summer without me, though they never actually said that. I
- pretended not to be at all upset while we talked, though I could feel my face
- getting hot, my smile being fake. Although Ella wasn't as over-the-top as
- Miranda, I noticed a change in her usual style, too. It's like they had talked to
- each other beforehand about redoing their image at the new school, but hadn't
- bothered to clue me in. I admit: I had always thought I was above this kind of
- typical teenage pettiness, but I felt a lump in my throat throughout lunch.
- My voice quivered as I said "See you later" when the bell rang.
- After School
- "I hear we're driving you home today."
- It was Miranda in eighth period. She had just sat down at the desk right behind
- me. I had forgotten that Mom had called Miranda's mother the night before to
- ask if she could drive me home from school.
- "You don't have to," I answered instinctively, casually. "My mom can pick me
- up."
- "I thought she had to pick Auggie up or something."
- "It turns out she can pick me up afterward. She just texted me. Not a problem."
- "Oh. Okay."
- "Thanks."
- It was all a lie on my part, but I couldn't see sitting in a car with the new Miranda.
- After school I ducked into a restroom to avoid bumping into Miranda's mother
- outside. Half an hour later I walked out of the school, ran the three blocks to the
- bus stop, hopped on the M86 to Central Park West, and took the subway home.
- "Hey there, sweetie!" Mom said the moment I stepped through the front door.
- "How was your first day? I was starting to wonder where you guys were."
- "We stopped for pizza." Incredible how easily a lie can slip through your lips.
- "Is Miranda not with you?" She seemed surprised that Miranda wasn't right
- behind me.
- "She went straight home. We have a lot of homework."
- "On your first day?"
- "Yes, on our first day!" I yelled, which completely surprised Mom. But before she
- could say anything, I said: "School was fine. It's really big, though. The kids
- seem nice." I wanted to give her enough information so she wouldn't feel the
- need to ask me more. "How was Auggie's first day of school?"
- Mom hesitated, her eyebrows still high up on her forehead from when I'd
- snapped at her a second earlier. "Okay," she said slowly, like she was letting out
- a breath.
- "What do you mean 'okay'?" I said. "Was it good or bad?"
- "He said it was good."
- "So why do you think it wasn't good?"
- "I didn't say it wasn't good! Geez, Via, what's up with you?"
- "Just forget I asked anything at all," I answered, and stormed dramatically into
- Auggie's room and slammed the door. He was on his PlayStation and didn't
- even look up. I hated how zombified his video games made him.
- "So how was school?" I said, scooching Daisy over so I could sit on his bed next
- to him.
- "Fine," he answered, still not looking up from his game.
- "Auggie, I'm talking to you!" I pulled the PlayStation out of his hands.
- "Hey!" he said angrily. "How was school?"
- "I said fine!" he yelled back, grabbing the PlayStation back from me.
- "Were people nice to you?"
- "Yes!"
- "No one was mean?"
- He put the PlayStation down and looked up at me as if I had just asked the
- dumbest question in the world. "Why would people be mean?" he said. It was
- the first time in his life that I heard him be sarcastic like that. I didn't think he had
- it in him.
- The Padawan Bites the Dust
- I'm not sure at what point that night Auggie had cut off his Padawan braid, or
- why that made me really mad. I had always found his obsession with everything
- Star Wars kind of geeky, and that braid in the back of his hair, with its little
- beads, was just awful. But he had always been so proud of it, of how long it took
- him to grow it, of how he had chosen the beads himself in a crafts store in Soho.
- He and Christopher, his best friend, used to play with lightsabers and Star Wars
- stuff whenever they got together, and they had both started growing their braids
- at the same time. When August cut his braid off that night, without an
- explanation, without telling me beforehand (which was surprising)—or even
- calling Christopher—I was just so upset I can't even explain why.
- I've seen Auggie brushing his hair in the bathroom mirror. He meticulously tries
- to get every hair in place. He tilts his head to look at himself from different
- angles, like there's some magic perspective inside the mirror that could change
- the dimensions of his face.
- Mom knocked on my door after dinner. She looked drained, and I realized that
- between me and Auggie, today had been a tough day for her, too.
- "So you want to tell me what's up?" she asked nicely, softly.
- "Not now, okay?" I answered. I was reading. I was tired. Maybe later I'd be up to
- telling her about Miranda, but not now.
- "I'll check in before you go to bed," she said, and then she came over and kissed
- me on the top of my head.
- "Can Daisy sleep with me tonight?"
- "Sure, I'll bring her in later."
- "Don't forget to come back," I said as she left.
- "I promise."
- But she didn't come back that night. Dad did. He told me Auggie had had a bad
- first day and Mom was helping him through it. He asked me how my day had
- gone and I told him fine. He said he didn't believe me for a second, and I told
- him Miranda and Ella were acting like jerks. (I didn't mention how I took the
- subway home by myself, though.) He said nothing tests friendships like high
- school, and then proceeded to poke fun at the fact that I was reading War and
- Peace. Not real fun, of course, since I'd heard him brag to people that he had a
- "fifteen-year-old who is reading Tolstoy." But he liked to rib me about where I
- was in the book, in a war part or in a peace part, and if there was anything in
- there about Napoleon's days as a hip-hop dancer. It was silly stuff, but Dad
- always managed to make everyone laugh. And sometimes that's all you need to
- feel better.
- "Don't be mad at Mom," he said as he bent down to give me a good-night kiss.
- "You know how much she worries about Auggie."
- "I know," I acknowledged.
- "Want the light on or off? It's getting kind of late," he said, pausing by the light
- switch at the door.
- "Can you bring Daisy in first?"
- Two seconds later he came back with Daisy dangling in his arms, and he laid
- her down next to me on the bed.
- "Good night, sweetheart," he said, kissing my forehead. He kissed Daisy on her
- forehead, too. "Good night, girlie. Sweet dreams."
- An Apparition at the Door
- Once, I got up in the middle of the night because I was thirsty, and I saw Mom
- standing outside Auggie's room. Her hand was on the doorknob, her forehead
- leaning on the door, which was ajar. She wasn't going in his room or stepping
- out: just standing right outside the door, as if she was listening to the sound of
- his breathing as he slept. The hallway lights were out. The only thing illuminating
- her was the blue nightlight in August's bedroom. She looked ghostlike standing
- there. Or maybe I should say angelic. I tried to walk back into my room without
- disturbing her, but she heard me and walked over to me.
- "Is Auggie okay?" I asked. I knew that sometimes he would wake up choking on
- his own saliva if he accidentally turned over on his back.
- "Oh, he's fine," she said, wrapping her arms around me. She walked me back
- into my room, pulled the covers over me, and kissed me good night. She never
- explained what she was doing outside his door, and I never asked.
- I wonder how many nights she's stood outside his door. And I wonder if she's
- ever stood outside my door like that.
- Breakfast
- "Can you pick me up from school today?" I said the next morning, smearing
- some cream cheese on my bagel.
- Mom was making August's lunch (American cheese on whole-wheat bread, soft
- enough for Auggie to eat) while August sat eating oatmeal at the table. Dad was
- getting ready to go to work. Now that I was in high school, the new school
- routine was going to be that Dad and I would take the subway together in the
- morning, which meant his having to leave fifteen minutes earlier than usual, then
- I'd get off at my stop and he'd keep going. And Mom was going to pick me up
- after school in the car.
- "I was going to call Miranda's mother to see if she could drive you home again,"
- Mom answered.
- "No, Mom!" I said quickly.
- "You pick me up. Or I'll just take the subway."
- "You know I don't want you to take the subway by yourself yet," she answered.
- "Mom, I'm fifteen! Everybody my age takes the subway by themselves!"
- "She can take the subway home," said Dad from the other room, adjusting his tie
- as he stepped into the kitchen.
- "Why can't Miranda's mother just pick her up again?" Mom argued with him.
- "She's old enough to take the subway by herself," Dad insisted.
- Mom looked at both of us. "Is something going on?" She didn't address her
- question to either one of us in particular.
- "You would know if you had come back to check on me," I said spitefully, "like
- you said you would." "Oh God, Via," said Mom, remembering now how she had
- completely ditched me last night. She put down the knife she was using to cut
- Auggie's grapes in half (still a choking hazard for him because of the size of his
- palate). "I am so sorry. I fell asleep in Auggie's room. By the time I woke up . . ."
- "I know, I know." I nodded indifferently.
- Mom came over, put her hands on my cheeks, and lifted my face to look at her.
- "I'm really, really sorry," she whispered. I could tell she was.
- "It's okay!" I said.
- "Via . . ."
- "Mom, it's fine." This time I meant it. She looked so genuinely sorry I just wanted
- to let her off the hook.
- She kissed and hugged me, then returned to the grapes.
- "So, is something going on with Miranda?" she asked.
- "Just that she's acting like a complete jerk," I said.
- "Miranda's not a jerk!" Auggie quickly chimed in.
- "She can be!" I yelled. "Believe me."
- "Okay then, I'll pick you up, no problem," Mom said decisively, sweeping the
- half-grapes into a snack bag with the side of her knife. "That was the plan all
- along anyway. I'll pick Auggie up from school in the car and then we'll pick you
- up. We'll probably get there about a quarter to four."
- "No!" I said firmly, before she'd even finished.
- "Isabel, she can take the subway!" said Dad impatiently. "She's a big girl now.
- She's reading War and Peace, for crying out loud."
- "What does War and Peace have to with anything?" answered Mom, clearly
- annoyed.
- "It means you don't have to pick her up in the car like she's a little girl," he said
- sternly.
- "Via, are you ready? Get your bag and let's go."
- "I'm ready," I said, pulling on my backpack. "Bye, Mom! Bye, Auggie!" I kissed
- them both quickly and headed toward the door.
- "Do you even have a MetroCard?" Mom said after me.
- "Of course she has a MetroCard!" answered Dad, fully exasperated. "Yeesh,
- Momma! Stop worrying so much! Bye," he said, kissing her on the cheek. "Bye,
- big boy," he said to August, kissing him on the top of his head. "I'm proud of
- you. Have a good day."
- "Bye, Daddy! You too."
- Dad and I jogged down the stoop stairs and headed down the block.
- "Call me after school before you get on the subway!" Mom yelled at me from the
- window. I didn't even turn around but waved my hand at her so she'd know I
- heard her. Dad did turn around, walking backward for a few steps.
- "War and Peace, Isabel!" he called out, smiling as he pointed at me. "War and
- Peace!"
- Genetics 101
- Both sides of Dad's family were Jews from Russia and Poland. Poppa's
- grandparents fled the pogroms and ended up in NYC at the turn of the century.
- Tata's parents fled the Nazis and ended up in Argentina in the forties. Poppa
- and Tata met at a dance on the Lower East Side while she was in town visiting
- a cousin. They got married, moved to Bayside, and had Dad and Uncle Ben.
- Mom's side of the family is from Brazil. Except for her mother, my beautiful
- Grans, and her dad, Agosto, who died before I was born, the rest of Mom's
- family—all her glamorous aunts, uncles, and cousins—still live in Alto Leblon, a
- ritzy suburb south of Rio. Grans and Agosto moved to Boston in the early sixties,
- and had Mom and Aunt Kate, who's married to Uncle Porter.
- Mom and Dad met at Brown University and have been together ever since.
- Isabel and Nate: like two peas in a pod. They moved to New York right after
- college, had me a few years later, then moved to a brick townhouse in North
- River Heights, the hippie-stroller capital of upper upper Manhattan, when I was
- about a year old.
- Not one person in the exotic mix of my family gene pool has ever shown any
- obvious signs of having what August has. I've pored over grainy sepia pictures
- of long-dead relatives in babushkas; black-and-white snapshots of distant
- cousins in crisp white linen suits, soldiers in uniform, ladies with beehive
- hairdos; Polaroids of bell-bottomed teenagers and long-haired hippies, and not
- once have I been able to detect even the slightest trace of August's face in their
- faces. Not a one. But after August was born, my parents underwent genetic
- counseling. They were told that August had what seemed to be a "previously
- unknown type of mandibulofacial dysostosis caused by an autosomal recessive
- mutation in the TCOF1 gene, which is located on chromosome 5, complicated by
- a hemifacial microsomia characteristic of OAV spectrum." Sometimes these
- mutations occur during pregnancy. Sometimes they're inherited from one parent
- carrying the dominant gene. Sometimes they're caused by the interaction of
- many genes, possibly in combination with environmental factors. This is called
- multifactorial inheritance. In August's case, the doctors were able to identify one
- of the "single nucleotide deletion mutations" that made war on his face. The
- weird thing is, though you'd never know it from looking at them: both my parents
- carry that mutant gene.
- And I carry it, too.
- The Punnett Square
- If I have children, there's a one-in-two chance that I will pass on the defective
- gene to them. That doesn't mean they'll look like August, but they'll carry the
- gene that got doubledosed in August and helped make him the way he is. If I
- marry someone who has the same defective gene, there's a one-in-two chance
- that our kids will carry the gene and look totally normal, a one-in-four chance
- that our kids will not carry the gene at all, and a one-in-four chance that our kids
- will look like August.
- If August has children with someone who doesn't have a trace of the gene,
- there's a 100 percent probability that their kids will inherit the gene, but a zero
- percent chance that their kids will have a double dose of it, like August. Which
- means they'll carry the gene no matter what, but they could look totally normal. If
- he marries someone who has the gene, their kids will have the same odds as my
- kids.
- This only explains the part of August that's explainable. There's that other part of
- his genetic makeup that's not inherited but just incredibly bad luck.
- Countless doctors have drawn little tic-tac-toe grids for my parents over the
- years to try to explain the genetic lottery to them. Geneticists use these Punnett
- squares to determine inheritance, recessive and dominant genes, probabilities
- and chance. But for all they know, there's more they don't know. They can try to
- forecast the odds, but they can't guarantee them. They use terms like "germline
- mosaicism," "chromosome rearrangement," or "delayed mutation" to explain
- why their science is not an exact science. I actually like how doctors talk. I like
- the sound of science. I like how words you don't understand explain things you
- can't understand. There are countless people under words like "germline
- mosaicism," "chromosome rearrangement," or "delayed mutation." Countless
- babies who'll never be born, like mine.
- Out with the Old
- Miranda and Ella blasted off. They attached themselves to a new crowd destined
- for high school glory. After a week of painful lunches where all they would do
- was talk about people that didn't interest me, I decided to make a clean break
- for it. They asked no questions. I told no lies. We just went our separate ways.
- I didn't even mind after a while. I stopped going to lunch for about a week,
- though, to make the transition easier, to avoid the fake Oh, shoot, there's no
- room for you at the table, Olivia! It was easier just to go to the library and read.
- I finished War and Peace in October. It was amazing. People think it's such a
- hard read, but it's really just a soap opera with lots of characters, people falling
- in love, fighting for love, dying for love. I want to be in love like that someday. I
- want my husband to love me the way Prince Andrei loved Natasha.
- I ended up hanging out with a girl named Eleanor who I'd known from my days
- at PS 22, though we'd gone to different middle schools. Eleanor had always
- been a really smart girl —a little bit of a crybaby back then, but nice. I'd never
- realized how funny she was (not laugh-out-loud Daddyfunny, but full of great
- quips), and she never knew how lighthearted I could be. Eleanor, I guess, had
- always been under the impression that I was very serious. And, as it turns out,
- she'd never liked Miranda and Ella. She thought they were stuck-up.
- I gained entry through Eleanor to the smart-kids' table at lunch. It was a larger
- group than I'd been accustomed to hanging out with, and a more diverse crowd.
- It included Eleanor's boyfriend, Kevin, who would definitely become class
- president someday; a few techie guys; girls like Eleanor who were members of
- the yearbook committee and the debate club; and a quiet guy named Justin who
- had small round glasses and played the violin, and who I had an instant crush
- on.
- When I'd see Miranda and Ella, who were now hanging out with the superpopular
- set, we'd say "Hey, what's up," and move on. Occasionally Miranda
- would ask me how August was doing, and then say "Tell him I say hello." This I
- never did, not to spite Miranda, but because August was in his own world these
- days. There were times, at home, that we never crossed paths.
- October 31
- Grans had died the night before Halloween. Since then, even though it's been
- four years, this has always been a sad time of year for me. For Mom, too,
- though she doesn't always say it. Instead, she immerses herself in getting
- August's costume ready, since we all know Halloween is his favorite time of
- year.
- This year was no different. August really wanted to be a Star Wars character
- called Boba Fett, so Mom looked for a Boba Fett costume in August's size,
- which, strangely enough, was out of stock everywhere. She went to every online
- store, found a few on eBay that were going for an outrageous amount, and
- finally ended up buying a Jango Fett costume that she then converted into a
- Boba Fett costume by painting it green. I would say, in all, she must have spent
- two weeks working on the stupid costume. And no, I won't mention the fact that
- Mom has never made any of my costumes, because it really has no bearing on
- anything at all.
- The morning of Halloween I woke up thinking about Grans, which made me
- really sad and weepy. Dad kept telling me to hurry up and get dressed, which
- just stressed me out even more, and suddenly I started crying. I just wanted to
- stay home.
- So Dad took August to school that morning and Mom said I could stay home,
- and the two of us cried together for a while. One thing I knew for sure: however
- much I missed Grans, Mom must have missed her more. All those times August
- was clinging to life after a surgery, all those rush trips to the ER: Grans had
- always been there for Mom. It felt good to cry with Mom. For both of us. At some
- point, Mom had the idea of our watching The Ghost and Mrs. Muir together,
- which was one of our all-time favorite black-and white movies. I agreed that that
- was a great idea. I think I probably would have used this weeping session as an
- opportunity to tell Mom everything that was going on at school with Miranda and
- Ella, but just as we were sitting down in front of the DVD player, the phone rang.
- It was the nurse from August's school calling to tell Mom that August had a
- stomach ache and should be picked up. So much for the old movies and the
- mother-daughter bonding.
- Mom picked August up, and the moment he came home, he went straight to the
- bathroom and threw up. Then he went to his bed and pulled the covers over his
- head. Mom took his temperature, brought him some hot tea, and assumed the
- "August's mom" role again. "Via's mom," who had come out for a little while, was
- put away. I understood, though: August was in bad shape.
- Neither one of us asked him why he had worn his Bleeding Scream costume to
- school instead of the Boba Fett costume Mom had made for him. If it annoyed
- Mom to see the costume she had worked on for two weeks tossed on the floor,
- unused, she didn't show it.
- Trick or Treat
- August said he wasn't feeling well enough to go trick-or-treating later in the
- afternoon, which was sad for him because I know how much he loved to trick-ortreat—
- especially after it got dark outside. Even though I was well beyond the
- trick-or-treating stage myself, I usually threw on some mask or other to
- accompany him up and down the blocks, watching him knocking on people's
- doors, giddy with excitement. I knew it was the one night a year when he could
- truly be like every other kid. No one knew he was different under the mask. To
- August, that must have felt absolutely amazing.
- At seven o'clock that night, I knocked on his door.
- "Hey," I said.
- "Hey," he said back. He wasn't using his PlayStation or reading a comic book.
- He was just lying in his bed looking at the ceiling. Daisy, as always, was next to
- him on the bed, her head draped over his legs. The Bleeding Scream costume
- was crumpled up on the floor next to the Boba Fett costume.
- "How's your stomach?" I said, sitting next to him on the bed.
- "I'm still nauseous."
- "You sure you're not up for the Halloween Parade?"
- "Positive."
- This surprised me. Usually August was such a trouper about his medical issues,
- whether it was skateboarding a few days after a surgery or sipping food through
- a straw when his mouth was practically bolted shut. This was a kid who's gotten
- more shots, taken more medicines, put up with more procedures by the age of
- ten than most people would have to put up with in ten lifetimes, and he was
- sidelined from a little nausea?
- "You want to tell me what's up?" I said, sounding a bit like Mom.
- "No."
- "Is it school?"
- "Yes."
- "Teachers? Schoolwork? Friends?"
- He didn't answer. "
- Did someone say something?" I asked.
- "People always say something," he answered bitterly. I could tell he was close to
- crying.
- "Tell me what happened," I said.
- And he told me what happened. He had overheard some very mean things
- some boys were saying about him. He didn't care about what the other boys had
- said, he expected that, but he was hurt that one of the boys was his "best
- friend" Jack Will. I remembered his mentioning Jack a couple of times over the
- past few months. I remembered Mom and Dad saying he seemed like a really
- nice kid, saying they were glad August had already made a friend like that.
- "Sometimes kids are stupid," I said softly, holding his hand. "I'm sure he didn't
- mean it."
- "Then why would he say it? He's been pretending to be my friend all along.
- Tushman probably bribed him with good grades or something. I bet you he was
- like, hey, Jack, if you make friends with the freak, you don't have to take any
- tests this year."
- "You know that's not true. And don't call yourself a freak."
- "Whatever. I wish I'd never gone to school in the first place."
- "But I thought you were liking it."
- "I hate it!" He was angry all of a sudden, punching his pillow.
- "I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!" He was shrieking at the top of his lungs.
- I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. He was hurt. He was mad.
- I let him have a few more minutes of his fury. Daisy started licking the tears off of
- his face.
- "Come on, Auggie," I said, patting his back gently. "Why don't you put on your
- Jango Fett costume and—"
- "It's a Boba Fett costume! Why does everyone mix that up?"
- "Boba Fett costume," I said, trying to stay calm. I put my arm around his
- shoulders. "Let's just go to the parade, okay?"
- "If I go to the parade, Mom will think I'm feeling better and make me go to school
- tomorrow."
- "Mom would never make you go to school," I answered. "Come on, Auggie. Let's
- just go. It'll be fun, I promise. And I'll let you have all my candy."
- He didn't argue. He got out of bed and slowly started pulling on his Boba Fett
- costume. I helped him adjust the straps and tighten the belt, and by the time he
- put his helmet on, I could tell he was feeling better.
- Time to Think
- August played up the stomach ache the next day so he wouldn't have to go to
- school. I admit I felt a little bad for Mom, who was genuinely concerned that he
- had a stomach bug, but I had promised August I wouldn't tell her about the
- incident at school.
- By Sunday, he was still determined not to go back to school.
- "What are you planning on telling Mom and Dad?" I asked him when he told me
- this. "
- They said I could quit whenever I wanted to." He said this while he was still
- focused on a comic book he was reading.
- "But you've never been the kind of kid who quits things," I said truthfully. "That's
- not like you."
- "I'm quitting."
- "You're going to have to tell Mom and Dad why," I pointed out, pulling the comic
- book out of his hands so he'd have to look up at me while we were talking.
- "Then Mom will call the school and everyone will know about it."
- "Will Jack get in trouble?"
- "I would think so."
- "Good."
- I have to admit, August was surprising me more and more. He pulled another
- comic book off his shelf and started leafing through it.
- "Auggie," I said. "Are you really going to let a couple of stupid kids keep you
- from going back to school? I know you've been enjoying it. Don't give them that
- power over you. Don't give them the satisfaction."
- "They have no idea I even heard them," he explained.
- "No, I know, but . . ."
- "Via, it's okay. I know what I'm doing. I've made up my mind."
- "But this is crazy, Auggie!" I said emphatically, pulling the new comic book away
- from him, too. "You have to go back to school. Everyone hates school
- sometimes. I hate school sometimes. I hate my friends sometimes. That's just
- life, Auggie. You want to be treated normally, right? This is normal! We all have
- to go to school sometimes despite the fact that we have bad days, okay?"
- "Do people go out of their way to avoid touching you, Via?" he answered, which
- left me momentarily without an answer. "Yeah, right. That's what I thought. So
- don't compare your bad days at school to mine, okay?"
- "Okay, that's fair," I said. "But it's not a contest about whose days suck the most,
- Auggie. The point is we all have to put up with the bad days. Now, unless you
- want to be treated like a baby the rest of your life, or like a kid with special
- needs, you just have to suck it up and go."
- He didn't say anything, but I think that last bit was getting to him.
- "You don't have to say a word to those kids," I continued. "August, actually, it's
- so cool that you know what they said, but they don't know you know what they
- said, you know?"
- "What the heck?"
- "You know what I mean. You don't have to talk to them ever again, if you don't
- want. And they'll never know why. See? Or you can pretend to be friends with
- them, but deep down inside you know you're not."
- "Is that how you are with Miranda?" he asked.
- "No," I answered quickly, defensively. "I never faked my feelings with Miranda."
- "So why are you saying I should?"
- "I'm not! I'm just saying you shouldn't let those little jerks get to you, that's all."
- "Like Miranda got to you."
- "Why do you keep bringing Miranda up?" I yelled impatiently.
- "I'm trying to talk to you about your friends. Please keep mine out of it."
- "You're not even friends with her anymore."
- "What does that have to do with what we're talking about?"
- The way August was looking at me reminded me of a doll's face. He was just
- staring at me blankly with his half-closed doll eyes.
- "She called the other day," he said finally.
- "What?" I was stunned. "And you didn't tell me?"
- "She wasn't calling you," he answered, pulling both comic books out of my
- hands.
- "She was calling me. Just to say hi. To see how I was doing. She didn't even
- know I was going to a real school now. I can't believe you hadn't even told her.
- She said the two of you don't hang out as much anymore, but she wanted me to
- know she'd always love me like a big sister."
- Double-stunned. Stung. Flabbergasted. No words formed in my mouth.
- "Why didn't you tell me?" I said, finally.
- "I don't know." He shrugged, opening the first comic book again.
- "Well, I'm telling Mom and Dad about Jack Will if you stop going to school," I
- answered. "Tushman will probably call you into school and make Jack and those
- other kids apologize to you in front of everyone, and everyone will treat you like
- a kid who should be going to a school for kids with special needs. Is that what
- you want? Because that's what's going to happen. Otherwise, just go back to
- school and act like nothing happened. Or if you want to confront Jack about it,
- fine. But either way, if you—"
- "Fine. Fine. Fine," he interrupted.
- "What?"
- "Fine! I'll go!" he yelled, not loudly. "Just stop talking about it already. Can I
- please read my book now?"
- "Fine!" I answered. Turning to leave his room, I thought of something. "Did
- Miranda say anything else about me?"
- He looked up from the comic book and looked right into my eyes. "She said to
- tell you she misses you. Quote unquote."
- I nodded. "Thanks,"
- I said casually, too embarrassed to let him see how happy that made me feel.
- Part Three
- Summer
- You are beautiful no matter what they say
- Words can't bring you down
- You are beautiful in every single way
- Yes, words can't bring you down
- —Christina Aguilera, "Beautiful"
- Weird Kids
- Some kids have actually come out and asked me why I hang out with "the freak" so
- much. These are kids that don't even know him well. If they knew him, they wouldn't
- call him that.
- "Because he's a nice kid!" I always answer. "And don't call him that."
- "You're a saint, Summer," Ximena Chin said to me the other day. "I couldn't do what
- you're doing."
- "It's not a big deal," I answered her truthfully.
- "Did Mr. Tushman ask you to be friends with him?" Charlotte Cody asked.
- "No. I'm friends with him because I want to be friends with him," I answered.
- Who knew that my sitting with August Pullman at lunch would be such a big deal?
- People acted like it was the strangest thing in the world. It's weird how weird kids can
- be.
- I sat with him that first day because I felt sorry for him. That's all. Here he was, this
- strange-looking kid in a brandnew school. No one was talking to him. Everyone was
- staring at him. All the girls at my table were whispering about him. He wasn't the only
- new kid at Beecher Prep, but he was the only one everyone was talking about. Julian
- had nicknamed him the Zombie Kid, and that's what everyone was calling him. "Did
- you see the Zombie Kid yet?" Stuff like that gets around fast. And August knew it. It's
- hard enough being the new kid even when you have a normal face. Imagine having his
- face?
- So I just went over and sat with him. Not a biggie. I wish people would stop trying to
- turn it into something major.
- He's just a kid. The weirdest-looking kid I've ever seen, yes. But just a kid.
- The Plague
- I do admit August's face takes some getting used to. I've been sitting with him for two
- weeks now, and let's just say he's not the neatest eater in the world. But other than
- that, he's pretty nice. I should also say that I don't really feel sorry for him anymore.
- That might have been what made me sit down with him the first time, but it's not why I
- keep sitting down with him. I keep sitting down with him because he is fun.
- One of the things I'm not loving about this year is how a lot of the kids are acting like
- they're too grown-up to play things anymore. All they want to do is "hang out" and "talk"
- at recess. And all they talk about now is who likes who and who is cute and isn't cute.
- August doesn't bother about that stuff. He likes to play Four Square at recess, which I
- love to play, too.
- It was actually because I was playing Four Square with August that I found out about
- the Plague. Apparently this is a "game" that's been going on since the beginning of the
- year. Anyone who accidentally touches August has only thirty seconds to wash their
- hands or find hand sanitizer before they catch the Plague. I'm not sure what happens to
- you if you actually catch the Plague because nobody's touched August yet—not
- directly.
- How I found out about this is that Maya Markowitz told me that the reason she won't
- play Four Square with us at recess is that she doesn't want to catch the Plague. I was
- like, "What's the Plague?" And she told me. I told Maya I thought that was really dumb
- and she agreed, but she still wouldn't touch a ball that August just touched, not if she
- could help it.
- The Halloween Party
- I was really excited because I got an invitation to Savanna's Halloween party.
- Savanna is probably the most popular girl in the school. All the boys like her. All the
- girls want to be friends with her. She was the first girl in the grade to actually have a
- "boyfriend." It was some kid who goes to MS 281, though she dumped him and started
- dating Henry Joplin, which makes sense because the two of them totally look like
- teenagers already.
- Anyway, even though I'm not in the "popular" group, I somehow got invited, which is
- very cool. When I told Savanna I got her invitation and would be going to her party,
- she was really nice to me, though she made sure to tell me that she didn't invite a lot of
- people, so I shouldn't go around bragging to anyone that I got invited. Maya didn't get
- invited, for instance. Savanna also made sure to tell me not to wear a costume. It's
- good she told me because, of course, I would have worn a costume to a Halloween
- party—not the unicorn costume I made for the Halloween Parade, but the Goth girl
- getup that I'd worn to school. But even that was a no-no for Savanna's party. The only
- negative about my going to Savanna's party was that now I wouldn't be able to go the
- parade and the unicorn costume would be wasted. That was kind of a bummer, but
- okay.
- Anyway, the first thing that happened when I got to her party was that Savanna greeted
- me at the door and asked: "Where's your boyfriend, Summer?"
- I didn't even know what she was talking about.
- "I guess he doesn't have to wear a mask at Halloween, right?" she added. And then I
- knew she was talking about August.
- "He's not my boyfriend," I said.
- "I know. I'm just kidding!" She kissed my cheek (all the girls in her group kissed each
- other's cheeks now whenever they said hello), and threw my jacket on a coatrack in her
- hallway. Then she took me by the hand down the stairs to her basement, which is
- where the party was. I didn't see her parents anywhere.
- There were about fifteen kids there: all of them were popular kids from either Savanna's
- group or Julian's group. I guess they've all kind of merged into one big supergroup of
- popular kids, now that some of them have started dating each other.
- I didn't even know there were so many couples. I mean, I knew about Savanna and
- Henry, but Ximena and Miles? And Ellie and Amos? Ellie's practically as flat as I am.
- Anyway, about five minutes after I got there, Henry and Savanna were standing next to
- me, literally hovering over me.
- "So, we want to know why you hang out with the Zombie Kid so much," said Henry.
- "He's not a zombie," I laughed, like they were making a joke. I was smiling but I didn't
- feel like smiling.
- "You know, Summer," said Savanna, "you would be a lot more popular if you didn't
- hang out with him so much. I'm going to be completely honest with you: Julian likes
- you. He wants to ask you out."
- "He does?"
- "Do you think he's cute?"
- "Um . . . yeah, I guess. Yeah, he's cute."
- "So you have to choose who you want to hang out with," Savanna said. She was
- talking to me like a big sister would talk to a little sister. "Everyone likes you, Summer.
- Everyone thinks you're really nice and that you're really, really pretty. You could totally
- be part of our group if you wanted to, and believe me, there are a lot of girls in our
- grade who would love that."
- "I know." I nodded. "Thank you."
- "You're welcome," she answered. "You want me to tell Julian to come and talk to you?"
- I looked over to where she was pointing and could see Julian looking over at us.
- "Um, I actually need to go to the bathroom. Where is that?"
- I went to where she pointed, sat down on the side of the bathtub, and called Mom and
- asked her to pick me up.
- "Is everything okay?" said Mom.
- "Yeah, I just don't want to stay," I said.
- Mom didn't ask any more questions and said she'd be there in ten minutes.
- "Don't ring the bell," I told her. "Just call me when you're outside."
- I hung out in the bathroom until Mom called, and then I snuck upstairs without anyone
- seeing me, got my jacket, and went outside.
- It was only nine-thirty. The Halloween Parade was in full swing down Amesfort
- Avenue. Huge crowds everywhere. Everyone was in costume. Skeletons. Pirates.
- Princesses. Vampires. Superheroes.
- But not one unicorn.
- November
- The next day at school I told Savanna I had eaten some really bad Halloween candy
- and gotten sick, which is why I went home early from her party, and she believed me.
- There was actually a stomach bug going around, so it was a good lie.
- I also told her that I had a crush on someone else that wasn't Julian so she would leave
- me alone about that and hopefully spread the word to Julian that I wasn't interested.
- She, of course, wanted to know who I had a crush on, and I told her it was a secret.
- August was absent the day after Halloween, and when he came back, I could tell
- something was up with him. He was acting so weird at lunch!
- He barely said a word, and kept looking down at his food when I talked to him. Like he
- wouldn't look me in the eye.
- Finally, I was like, "Auggie, is everything okay? Are you mad at me or something?"
- "No," he said.
- "Sorry you weren't feeling well on Halloween. I kept looking for Boba Fett in the
- hallways."
- "Yeah, I was sick."
- "Did you have that stomach bug?"
- "Yeah, I guess."
- He opened a book and started to read, which was kind of rude.
- "I'm so excited about the Egyptian Museum project," I said.
- "Aren't you?" He shook his head, his mouth full of food. I actually looked away
- because between the way he was chewing, which almost seemed like he was being
- gross on purpose, and the way his eyes were just kind of closed down, I was getting a
- really bad vibe from him.
- "What project did you get?" I asked.
- He shrugged, pulled out a little scrap of paper from his jeans pocket, and flicked it
- across the table to me.
- Everyone in the grade got assigned an Egyptian artifact to work on for Egyptian
- Museum Day, which was in December. The teachers wrote all the assignments down
- on tiny scraps of paper, which they put into a fishbowl, and then all us kids in the grade
- took turns picking the papers out of the fishbowl in assembly.
- So I unfolded Auggie's little slip of paper.
- "Oh, cool!" I said, maybe a little overexcited because I was trying to get him psyched
- up. "You got the Step Pyramid of Sakkara!"
- "I know!" he said.
- "I got Anubis, the god of the afterlife."
- "The one with the dog head?"
- "It's actually a jackal head," I corrected him. "Hey, you want to start working on our
- projects together after school? You could come over to my house."
- He put his sandwich down and leaned back in his chair. I can't even describe the look
- he was giving me.
- "You know, Summer," he said. "You don't have to do this."
- "What are you talking about?"
- "You don't have to be friends with me. I know Mr. Tushman talked to you."
- "I have no idea what you're talking about."
- "You don't have to pretend, is all I'm saying. I know Mr. Tushman talked to some kids
- before school started and told them they had to be friends with me."
- "He did not talk to me, August."
- "Yeah, he did."
- "No, he did not."
- "Yeah, he did."
- "No he didn't!! I swear on my life!" I put my hands up in the air so he could see I wasn't
- crossing my fingers. He immediately looked down at my feet, so I shook off my UGGs
- so he could see my toes weren't crossed.
- "You're wearing tights," he said accusingly.
- "You can see my toes are flat!" I yelled.
- "Okay, you don't have to scream."
- "I don't like being accused of things, okay?"
- "Okay. I'm sorry."
- "You should be."
- "He really didn't talk to you?"
- "Auggie!" "Okay, okay, I'm really sorry."
- I would have stayed mad at him longer, but then he told me about something bad that
- had happened to him on Halloween and I couldn't stay mad at him anymore. Basically,
- he heard Jack bad-mouthing him and saying really horrible things behind his back. It
- kind of explained his attitude, and now I knew why he'd been out "sick."
- "Promise you won't tell anyone," he said.
- "I won't." I nodded.
- "Promise you won't ever be mean like that to me again?"
- "Promise," he said, and we pinky swore.
- Warning: This Kid Is Rated R
- I had warned Mom about August's face. I had described what he looked like. I did this
- because I know she's not always so good at faking her feelings, and August was
- coming over for the first time today. I even sent her a text at work to remind her about
- it. But I could tell from the expression on her face when she came home after work that
- I hadn't prepared her enough. She was shocked when she came through the door and
- saw his face for the first time.
- "Hi, Mom, this is Auggie. Can he stay for dinner?" I asked quickly.
- It took a second for my question to even register.
- "Hi, Auggie," she said. "Um, of course, sweetheart. If it's okay with Auggie's mother."
- While Auggie called his mother on his cell phone, I whispered to Mom: "Stop making
- that weirded-out face!" She had that look like when she's watching the news and some
- horrific event has happened. She nodded quickly, like she hadn't realized she was
- making a face, and was really nice and normal to Auggie afterward.
- After a while, Auggie and I got tired of working on our projects and went to hang out in
- the living room. Auggie was looking at the pictures on the mantel, and he saw a picture
- of me and Daddy.
- "Is that your dad?" he said.
- "Yeah." "I didn't know you were . . . what's the word?"
- "Biracial."
- "Right! That's the word."
- "Yeah." He looked at the picture again.
- "Are your parents divorced? I've never seen him at drop-off or anything."
- "Oh, no," I said. "He was a platoon sergeant. He died a few years ago."
- "Whoa! I didn't know that."
- "Yeah." I nodded, handing him a picture of my dad in his uniform.
- "Wow, look at all those medals."
- "Yeah. He was pretty awesome."
- "Wow, Summer. I'm sorry."
- "Yeah, it sucks. I really miss him a lot."
- "Yeah, wow." He nodded, handing me back the picture.
- "Have you ever known anyone who died?" I asked.
- "Just my grandmother, and I don't really even remember her."
- "That's too bad."
- Auggie nodded.
- "You ever wonder what happens to people when they die?" I asked.
- He shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I guess they go to heaven? That's where my Grans
- went."
- "I think about it a lot," I said.
- "I think when people die, their souls go to heaven but just for a little while. Like that's
- where they see their old friends and stuff, and kind of catch up on old times. But then I
- actually think the souls start thinking about their lives on earth, like if they were good or
- bad or whatever. And then they get born again as brand-new babies in the world."
- "Why would they want to do that?"
- "Because then they get another chance to get it right," I answered.
- "Their souls get a chance to have a do-over."
- He thought about what I was saying and then nodded. "Kind of like when you get a
- makeup test," he said.
- "Right."
- "But they don't come back looking the same," he said. "I mean, they look completely
- different when they come back, right?"
- "Oh yeah," I answered. "Your soul stays the same but everything else is different."
- "I like that," he said, nodding a lot. "I really like that, Summer. That means in my next life
- I won't be stuck with this face."
- He pointed to his face when he said that and batted his eyes, which made me laugh.
- "I guess not." I shrugged.
- "Hey, I might even be handsome!" he said, smiling. "That would be so awesome,
- wouldn't it? I could come back and be this good-looking dude and be super buff and
- super tall."
- I laughed again. He was such a good sport about himself. That's one of the things I like
- the most about Auggie.
- "Hey, Auggie, can I ask you a question?"
- "Yeah," he said, like he knew exactly what I wanted to ask. I hesitated. I've been
- wanting to ask him this for a while but I've always lost the guts to ask.
- "What?" he said.
- "You want to know what's wrong with my face?"
- "Yeah, I guess. If it's okay for me to ask."
- He shrugged. I was so relieved that he didn't seem mad or sad.
- "Yeah, it's no big deal," he said casually. "The main thing I have is this thing called
- man-di-bu-lo-facial dys-os-tosis— which took me forever to learn how to pronounce, by
- the way. But I also have this other syndrome thing that I can't even pronounce. And
- these things kind of just morphed together into one big superthing, which is so rare they
- don't even have a name for it. I mean, I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm actually
- considered something of a medical wonder, you know."
- He smiled.
- "That was a joke," he said. "You can laugh."
- I smiled and shook my head.
- "You're funny, Auggie." I said.
- "Yes, I am," he said proudly. "I am cool beans."
- The Egyptian Tomb
- Over the next month, August and I hung out a lot after school, either at his house or my
- house. August's parents even invited Mom and me over for dinner a couple of times. I
- overheard them talking about fixing Mom up on a blind date with August's uncle Ben.
- On the day of the Egyptian Museum exhibit, we were all really excited and kind of
- giddy. It had snowed the day before—not as much as it had snowed over the
- Thanksgiving break, but still, snow is snow.
- The gym was turned into a giant museum, with everyone's Egyptian artifact displayed
- on a table with a little caption card explaining what the thing was. Most of the artifacts
- were really great, but I have to say I really think mine and August's were the best. My
- sculpture of Anubis looked pretty real, and I had even used real gold paint on it. And
- August had made his step pyramid out of sugar cubes. It was two feet high and two
- feet long, and he had spray painted the cubes with this kind of fake-sand paint or
- something. It looked so awesome.
- We all dressed up in Egyptian costumes. Some of the kids were Indiana Jones-type
- archaeologists. Some of them dressed up like pharaohs. August and I dressed up like
- mummies. Our faces were covered except for two little holes for the eyes and one little
- hole for the mouth.
- When the parents showed up, they all lined up in the hallway in front of the gym. Then
- we were told we could go get our parents, and each kid got to take his or her parent on
- a flashlight tour through the dark gym. August and I took our moms around together.
- We stopped at each exhibit, explaining what it was, talking in whispers, answering
- questions. Since it was dark, we used our flashlights to illuminate the artifacts while we
- were talking. Sometimes, for dramatic effect, we would hold the flashlights under our
- chins while we were explaining something in detail. It was so much fun, hearing all
- these whispers in the dark, seeing all the lights zigzagging around the dark room.
- At one point, I went over to get a drink at the water fountain. I had to take the mummy
- wrap off my face.
- "Hey, Summer," said Jack, who came over to talk to me. He was dressed like the man
- from The Mummy. "Cool costume."
- "Thanks."
- "Is the other mummy August?"
- "Yeah."
- "Um . . . hey, do you know why August is mad at me?"
- "Uh-huh." I nodded.
- "Can you tell me?"
- "No." He nodded. He seemed bummed.
- "I told him I wouldn't tell you," I explained.
- "It's so weird," he said. "I have no idea why he's mad at me all of a sudden. None. Can't
- you at least give me a hint?"
- I looked over at where August was across the room, talking to our moms. I wasn't about
- to break my solid oath that I wouldn't tell anyone about what he overheard at
- Halloween, but I felt bad for Jack.
- "Bleeding Scream," I whispered in his ear, and then walked away.
- Part Four
- Jack
- Now here is my secret. It is very simple.
- It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly.
- What is essential is invisible to the eye.
- —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
- The Call
- So in August my parents got this call from Mr. Tushman, the middle-school director.
- And my Mom said: "Maybe he calls all the new students to welcome them," and my dad
- said: "That's a lot of kids he'd be calling." So my mom called him back, and I could
- hear her talking to Mr. Tushman on the phone. This is exactly what she said:
- "Oh, hi, Mr. Tushman. This is Amanda Will, returning your call? Pause. Oh, thank you!
- That's so nice of you to say. He is looking forward to it. Pause. Yes. Pause. Yeah.
- Pause. Oh. Sure. Long pause. Ohhh. Uh-huh. Pause. Well, that's so nice of you to
- say. Pause. Sure. Ohh. Wow. Ohhhh. Super long pause. I see, of course. I'm sure he
- will. Let me write it down . . . got it. I'll call you after I've had a chance to talk to him,
- okay? Pause. No, thank you for thinking of him. Bye bye!"
- And when she hung up, I was like, "what's up, what did he say?"
- And Mom said: "Well, it's actually very flattering but kind of sad, too. See, there's this
- boy who's starting middle school this year, and he's never been in a real school
- environment before because he was homeschooled, so Mr. Tushman talked to some
- of the lower-school teachers to find out who they thought were some of the really, really
- great kids coming into fifth grade, and the teachers must have told him you were an
- especially nice kid—which I already knew, of course—and so Mr. Tushman is
- wondering if he could count on you to sort of shepherd this new boy around a bit?"
- "Like let him hang out with me?" I said.
- "Exactly," said Mom. "He called it being a 'welcome buddy.' "
- "But why me?"
- "I told you. Your teachers told Mr. Tushman that you were the kind of kid who's known
- for being a good egg. I mean, I'm so proud that they think so highly of you. . . ."
- "Why is it sad?"
- "What do you mean?"
- "You said it's flattering but kind of sad, too."
- "Oh." Mom nodded. "Well, apparently this boy has some sort of . . . um, I guess there's
- something wrong with his face . . . or something like that. Not sure. Maybe he was in
- an accident. Mr. Tushman said he'd explain a bit more when you come to the school
- next week."
- "School doesn't start till September!"
- "He wants you to meet this kid before school starts."
- "Do I have to?"
- Mom looked a bit surprised.
- "Well, no, of course not," she said, "but it would be the nice thing to do, Jack."
- "If I don't have to do it," I said, "I don't want to do it."
- "Can you at least think about it?"
- "I'm thinking about it and I don't want to do it."
- "Well, I'm not going to force you," she said, "but at least think about it some more,
- okay? I'm not calling Mr. Tushman back until tomorrow, so just sit with it a bit. I mean,
- Jack, I really don't think it's that much to ask that you spend a little extra time with
- some new kid. . . ."
- "It's not just that he's a new kid, Mom," I answered. "He's deformed."
- "That's a terrible thing to say, Jack."
- "He is, Mom." "
- You don't even know who it is!"
- "Yeah, I do," I said, because I knew the second she started talking about him that it
- was that kid named August.
- Carvel
- I remember seeing him for the first time in front of the Carvel on Amesfort Avenue when
- I was about five or six. Me and Veronica, my babysitter, were sitting on the bench
- outside the store with Jamie, my baby brother, who was sitting in his stroller facing us. I
- guess I was busy eating my ice cream cone, because I didn't even notice the people
- who sat down next to us.
- Then at one point I turned my head to suck the ice cream out of the bottom of my
- cone, and that's when I saw him: August. He was sitting right next to me. I know it
- wasn't cool, but I kind of went "Uhh!" when I saw him because I honestly got scared. I
- thought he was wearing a zombie mask or something. It was the kind of "uhh" you say
- when you're watching a scary movie and the bad guy like jumps out of the bushes.
- Anyway, I know it wasn't nice of me to do that, and though the kid didn't hear me, I
- know his sister did.
- "Jack! We have to go!" said Veronica. She had gotten up and was turning the stroller
- around because Jamie, who had obviously just noticed the kid, too, was about to say
- something embarrassing. So I jumped up kind of suddenly, like a bee had landed on
- me, and followed Veronica as she zoomed away. I could hear the kid's mom saying
- softly behind us: "Okay, guys, I think it's time to go," and I turned around to look at
- them one more time. The kid was licking his ice cream cone, the mom was picking up
- his scooter, and the sister was glaring at me like she was going to kill me. I looked
- away quickly.
- "Veronica, what was wrong with that kid?" I whispered.
- "Hush, boy!" she said, her voice angry. I love Veronica, but when she got mad, she got
- mad. Meanwhile, Jamie was practically spilling out of his stroller trying to get another
- look as Veronica pushed him away.
- "But, Vonica . . . ," said Jamie.
- "You boys were very naughty! Very naughty!" said Veronica as soon as we were farther
- down the block. "Staring like that!"
- "I didn't mean to!" I said.
- "Vonica," said Jamie.
- "Us leaving like that," Veronica was muttering.
- "Oh Lord, that poor lady. I tell you, boys. Every day we should thank the Lord for our
- blessings, you hear me?"
- "Vonica!"
- "What is it, Jamie?"
- "Is it Halloween?"
- "No, Jamie."
- "Then why was that boy wearing a mask?"
- Veronica didn't answer. Sometimes, when she was mad about something, she would
- do that.
- "He wasn't wearing a mask," I explained to Jamie.
- "Hush, Jack!" said Veronica.
- "Why are you so mad, Veronica?" I couldn't help asking. I thought this would make her
- angrier, but actually she shook her head.
- "It was bad how we did that," she said. "Just getting up like that, like we'd just seen the
- devil. I was scared for what Jamie was going to say, you know? I didn't want him to say
- anything that would hurt that little boy's feelings. But it was very bad, us leaving like
- that. The momma knew what was going on."
- "But we didn't mean it," I answered.
- "Jack, sometimes you don't have to mean to hurt someone to hurt someone. You
- understand?"
- That was the first time I ever saw August in the neighborhood, at least that I remember.
- But I've seen him around ever since then: a couple of times in the playground, a few
- times in the park. He used to wear an astronaut helmet sometimes. But I always knew
- it was him underneath the helmet. All the kids in the neighborhood knew it was him.
- Everyone has seen August at some point or another. We all know his name, though he
- doesn't know ours.
- And whenever I've seen him, I try to remember what Veronica said. But it's hard. It's
- hard not to sneak a second look. It's hard to act normal when you see him.
- Why I Changed My Mind
- "Who else did Mr. Tushman call?" I asked Mom later that night. "Did he tell you?"
- "He mentioned Julian and Charlotte."
- "Julian!" I said. "Ugh. Why Julian?"
- "You used to be friends with Julian!"
- "Mom, that was like in kindergarten. Julian's the biggest phony there is. And he's trying
- so hard to be popular all the time."
- "Well," said Mom, "at least Julian agreed to help this kid out. Got to give him credit for
- that."
- I didn't say anything because she was right.
- "What about Charlotte?" I asked.
- "Is she doing it, too?" "Yes," Mom said.
- "Of course she is. Charlotte's such a Goody Two-Shoes," I answered.
- "Boy, Jack," said Mom, "you seem to have a problem with everybody these days."
- "It's just . . . ," I started. "Mom, you have no idea what this kid looks like."
- "I can imagine." "No! You can't! You've never seen him. I have."
- "It might not even be who you're thinking it is."
- "Trust me, it is. And I'm telling you, it's really, really bad. He's deformed, Mom. His eyes
- are like down here." I pointed to my cheeks. "And he has no ears. And his mouth is like
- . . ."
- Jamie had walked into the kitchen to get a juice box from the fridge.
- "Ask Jamie," I said. "Right, Jamie? Remember that kid we saw in the park after school
- last year? The kid named August? The one with the face?"
- "Oh, that kid?" said Jamie, his eyes opening wide. "He gave me a nightmare!!
- Remember, Mommy? That nightmare about the zombies from last year?"
- "I thought that was from watching a scary movie!" answered Mom.
- "No!" said Jamie, "it was from seeing that kid! When I saw him, I was like, 'Ahhh!' and I
- ran away. . . ."
- "Wait a minute," said Mom, getting serious. "Did you do that in front of him?"
- "I couldn't help it!" said Jamie, kind of whining.
- "Of course you could help it!" Mom scolded.
- "Guys, I have to tell you, I'm really disappointed by what I'm hearing here." And she
- looked like how she sounded. "I mean, honestly, he's just a little boy—just like you! Can
- you imagine how he felt to see you running away from him, Jamie, screaming?"
- "It wasn't a scream," argued Jamie. "It was like an 'Ahhh!' " He put his hands on his
- cheeks and started running around the kitchen.
- "Come on, Jamie!" said Mom angrily. "I honestly thought both my boys were more
- sympathetic than that."
- "What's sympathetic?" said Jamie, who was only going into the second grade.
- "You know exactly what I mean by sympathetic, Jamie," said Mom.
- "It's just he's so ugly, Mommy," said Jamie.
- "Hey!" Mom yelled, "I don't like that word! Jamie, just get your juice box. I want to talk to
- Jack alone for a second."
- "Look, Jack," said Mom as soon as he left, and I knew she was about to give me a
- whole speech.
- "Okay, I'll do it," I said, which completely shocked her.
- "You will?"
- "Yes!"
- "So I can call Mr. Tushman?"
- "Yes! Mom, yes, I said yes!"
- Mom smiled. "I knew you'd rise to the occasion, kiddo. Good for you. I'm proud of you,
- Jackie." She messed up my hair.
- So here's why I changed my mind. It wasn't so I wouldn't have to hear Mom give me a
- whole lecture. And it wasn't to protect this August kid from Julian, who I knew would be
- a jerk about the whole thing. It was because when I heard Jamie talking about how he
- had run away from August going 'Ahhh,' I suddenly felt really bad. The thing is, there
- are always going to be kids like Julian who are jerks. But if a little kid like Jamie, who's
- usually a nice enough kid, can be that mean, then a kid like August doesn't stand a
- chance in middle school.
- Four Things
- First of all, you do get used to his face. The first couple of times I was like, whoa, I'm
- never going to get used to this. And then, after about a week, I was like, huh, it's not so
- bad.
- Second of all, he's actually a really cool dude. I mean, he's pretty funny. Like, the
- teacher will say something and August will whisper something funny to me that no one
- else hears and totally make me crack up. He's also just, overall, a nice kid. Like, he's
- easy to hang out with and talk to and stuff. T
- hird of all, he's really smart. I thought he'd be behind everyone because he hadn't gone
- to school before. But in most things he's way ahead of me. I mean, maybe not as smart
- as Charlotte or Ximena, but he's up there. And unlike Charlotte or Ximena, he lets me
- cheat off of him if I really need to (though I've only needed to a couple of times). He
- also let me copy his homework once, though we both got in trouble for it after class.
- "The two of you got the exact same answers wrong on yesterday's homework," Ms.
- Rubin said, looking at both of us like she was waiting for an explanation. I didn't know
- what to say, because the explanation would have been: Oh, that's because I copied
- August's homework.
- But August lied to protect me. He was like, "Oh, that's because we did our homework
- together last night," which wasn't true at all.
- "Well, doing homework together is a good thing," Ms. Rubin answered, "but you're
- supposed to still do it separately, okay? You could work side by side if you want, but
- you can't actually do your homework together, okay? Got it?"
- After we left the classroom, I said: "Dude, thanks for doing that." And he was like, "No
- problem."
- That was cool.
- Fourthly, now that I know him, I would say I actually do want to be friends with August.
- At first, I admit it, I was only friendly to him because Mr. Tushman asked me to be
- especially nice and all that. But now I would choose to hang out with him. He laughs at
- all my jokes. And I kind of feel like I can tell August anything. Like he's a good friend.
- Like, if all the guys in the fifth grade were lined up against a wall and I got to choose
- anyone I wanted to hang out with, I would choose August.
- Ex-Friends
- Bleeding Scream? What the heck? Summer Dawson has always been a bit out there,
- but this was too much. All I did was ask her why August was acting like he was mad at
- me or something. I figured she would know. And all she said was "Bleeding Scream"? I
- don't even know what that means.
- It's so weird because one day, me and August were friends. And the next day, whoosh,
- he was hardly talking to me. And I haven't the slightest idea why. When I said to him,
- "Hey, August, you mad at me or something?" he shrugged and walked away. So I
- would take that as a definite yes. And since I know for a fact that I didn't do anything to
- him to be mad about, I figured Summer could tell me what's up. But all I got from her
- was "Bleeding Scream"? Yeah, big help. Thanks, Summer.
- You know, I've got plenty of other friends in school. So if August wants to officially be
- my ex-friend, then fine, that is okay by me, see if I care. I've started ignoring him like
- he's ignoring me in school now. This is actually kind of hard since we sit next to each
- other in practically every class.
- Other kids have noticed and have started asking if me and August have had a fight.
- Nobody asks August what's going on. Hardly anyone ever talks to him, anyway. I
- mean, the only person he hangs out with, other than me, is Summer. Sometimes he
- hangs out with Reid Kingsley a little bit, and the two Maxes got him playing Dungeons
- & Dragons a couple of times at recess. Charlotte, for all her Goody Two- Shoeing,
- doesn't ever do more than nod hello when she's passing him in the hallway. And I don't
- know if everyone's still playing the Plague behind his back, because no one ever really
- told me about it directly, but my point is that it's not like he has a whole lot of other
- friends he could be hanging out with instead of me. If he wants to dis me, he's the one
- who loses—not me.
- So this is how things are between us now. We only talk to each other about school stuff
- if we absolutely have to. Like, I'll say, "What did Rubin say the homework was?" and
- he'll answer. Or he'll be like, "Can I use your pencil sharpener?" and I'll get my
- sharpener out of my pencil case for him. But as soon as the bell rings, we go our
- separate ways.
- Why this is good is because I get to hang out with a lot more kids now. Before, when I
- was hanging out with August all the time, kids weren't hanging out with me because
- they'd have to hang out with him. Or they would keep things from me, like the whole
- thing about the Plague. I think I was the only one who wasn't in on it, except for
- Summer and maybe the D&D crowd. And the truth is, though nobody's that obvious
- about it: nobody wants to hang out with him. Everyone's way too hung up on being in
- the popular group, and he's just as far from the popular group as you can get. But now
- I can hang out with anyone I want. If I wanted to be in the popular group, I could totally
- be in the popular group.
- Why this is bad is because, well, (a) I don't actually enjoy hanging out with the popular
- group that much. And (b) I actually liked hanging out with August. So this is kind of
- messed up. And it's all August's fault.
- Snow
- The first snow of winter hit right before Thanksgiving break. School was closed, so we
- got an extra day of vacation. I was glad about that because I was so bummed about
- this whole August thing and I just wanted some time to chill without having to see him
- every day. Also, waking up to a snow day is just about my favorite thing in the world. I
- love that feeling when you first open your eyes in the morning and you don't even
- know why everything seems different than usual. Then it hits you: Everything is quiet.
- No cars honking. No buses going down the street. Then you run over to the window,
- and outside everything is covered in white: the sidewalks, the trees, the cars on the
- street, your windowpanes. And when that happens on a school day and you find out
- your school is closed, well, I don't care how old I get: I'm always going to think that
- that's the best feeling in the world. And I'm never going to be one of those grown-ups
- that use an umbrella when it's snowing—ever.
- Dad's school was closed, too, so he took me and Jamie sledding down Skeleton Hill in
- the park. They say a little kid broke his neck while sledding down that hill a few years
- ago, but I don't know if this is actually true or just one of those legends. On the way
- home, I spotted this banged-up wooden sled kind of propped up against the Old Indian
- Rock monument. Dad said to leave it, it was just garbage, but something told me it
- would make the greatest sled ever. So Dad let me drag it home, and I spent the rest of
- the day fixing it up. I super-glued the broken slats together and wrapped some heavyduty
- white duct tape around them for extra strength. Then I spray painted the whole
- thing white with the paint I had gotten for the Alabaster Sphinx I was making for the
- Egyptian Museum project. When it was all dry, I painted LIGHTNING in gold letters on
- the middle piece of wood, and I made a little lightning-bolt symbol above the letters. It
- looked pretty professional, I have to say. Dad was like, "Wow, Jackie! You were right
- about the sled!"
- The next day, we went back to Skeleton Hill with Lightning. It was the fastest thing I've
- ever ridden—so, so, so much faster than the plastic sleds we'd been using. And
- because it had gotten warmer outside, the snow had become crunchier and wetter:
- good packing snow. Me and Jamie took turns on Lightning all afternoon. We were in
- the park until our fingers were frozen and our lips had turned a little blue. Dad
- practically had to drag us home.
- By the end of the weekend, the snow had started turning gray and yellow, and then a
- rainstorm turned most of the snow to slush. When we got back to school on Monday,
- there was no snow left.
- It was rainy and yucky the first day back from vacation. A slushy day. That's how I was
- feeling inside, too.
- I nodded "hey" to August the first time I saw him. We were in front of the lockers. He
- nodded "hey" back.
- I wanted to tell him about Lightning, but I didn't.
- Fortune Favors the Bold
- Mr. Browne's December precept was: Fortune favors the bold. We were all supposed to
- write a paragraph about some time in our lives when we did something very brave and
- how, because of it, something good happened to us.
- I thought about this a lot, to be truthful. I have to say that I think the bravest thing I ever
- did was become friends with August. But I couldn't write about that, of course. I was
- afraid we'd have to read these out loud, or Mr. Browne would put them up on the
- bulletin board like he does sometimes. So, instead, I wrote this lame thing about how I
- used to be afraid of the ocean when I was little. It was dumb but I couldn't think of
- anything else.
- I wonder what August wrote about. He probably had a lot of things to choose from.
- Private School
- My parents are not rich. I say this because people sometimes think that everyone who
- goes to private school is rich, but that isn't true with us. Dad's a teacher and Mom's a
- social worker, which means they don't have those kinds of jobs where people make
- gazillions of dollars. We used to have a car, but we sold it when Jamie started
- kindergarten at Beecher Prep. We don't live in a big townhouse or in one of those
- doorman buildings along the park. We live on the top floor of a five-story walk-up we
- rent from an old lady named Doña Petra all the way on the "other" side of Broadway.
- That's "code" for the section of North River Heights where people don't want to park
- their cars. Me and Jamie share a room. I overhear my parents talk about things like
- "Can we do without an air conditioner one more year?" or "Maybe I can work two jobs
- this summer."
- So today at recess I was hanging out with Julian and Henry and Miles. Julian, who
- everyone knows is rich, was like, "I hate that I have to go back to Paris this Christmas.
- It's so boring!"
- "Dude, but it's, like, Paris," I said like an idiot.
- "Believe me, it's so boring," he said. "My grandmother lives in this house in the middle
- of nowhere. It's like an hour away from Paris in this tiny, tiny, tiny village. I swear to
- God, nothing happens there! I mean, it's like, oh wow, there's another fly on the wall!
- Look, there's a new dog sleeping on the sidewalk. Yippee."
- I laughed. Sometimes Julian could be very funny.
- "Though my parents are talking about throwing a big party this year instead of going to
- Paris. I hope so. What are you doing over break?" said Julian.
- "Just hanging out," I said.
- "You're so lucky," he said.
- "I hope it snows again," I answered. "I got this new sled that is so amazing." I was
- about to tell them about Lightning but Miles started talking first.
- "I got a new sled, too!" he said. "My dad got it from Hammacher Schlemmer. It's so
- state of the art."
- "How could a sled be state of the art?" said Julian.
- "It was like eight hundred dollars or something."
- "Whoa!"
- "We should all go sledding and have a race down Skeleton Hill," I said.
- "That hill is so lame," answered Julian.
- "Are you kidding?" I said. "Some kid broke his neck there. That's why it's called
- Skeleton Hill."
- Julian narrowed his eyes and looked at me like I was the biggest moron in the world.
- "It's called Skeleton Hill because it was an ancient Indian burial ground, duh," he said.
- "Anyway, it should be called Garbage Hill now, it's so freakin' junky. Last time I was
- there it was so gross, like with soda cans and broken bottles and stuff." He shook his
- head.
- "I left my old sled there," said Miles. "It was the crappiest piece of junk—and someone
- took it, too!"
- "Maybe a hobo wanted to go sledding!" laughed Julian.
- "Where did you leave it?" I said.
- "By the big rock at the bottom of the hill. And I went back the next day and it was gone.
- I couldn't believe somebody actually took it!"
- "Here's what we can do," said Julian.
- "Next time it snows, my dad could drive us all up to this golf course in Westchester that
- makes Skeleton Hill look like nothing. Hey, Jack, where are you going?"
- I had started to walk away.
- "I've got to get a book out of my locker," I lied. I just wanted to get away from them fast.
- I didn't want anyone to know that I was the "hobo" who had taken the sled.
- In Science
- I'm not the greatest student in the world. I know some kids actually like school, but I
- honestly can't say I do. I like some parts of school, like PE and computer class. And
- lunch and recess. But all in all, I'd be fine without school. And the thing I hate the most
- about school is all the homework we get. It's not enough that we have to sit through
- class after class and try to stay awake while they fill our heads with all this stuff we will
- probably never need to know, like how to figure out the surface area of a cube or what
- the difference is between kinetic and potential energy. I'm like, who cares? I've never,
- ever heard my parents say the word "kinetic" in my entire life!
- I hate science the most out of all my classes. We get so much work it's not even funny!
- And the teacher, Ms. Rubin, is so strict about everything—even the way we write our
- headings on the top of our papers! I once got two points off a homework assignment
- because I didn't put the date on top. Crazy stuff.
- When me and August were still friends, I was doing okay in science because August
- sat next to me and always let me copy his notes. August has the neatest handwriting of
- anybody I've ever seen who's a boy. Even his script is neat: up and down perfectly,
- with really small round loopy letters. But now that we're ex-friends, it's bad because I
- can't ask him to let me copy his notes anymore.
- So I was kind of scrambling today, trying to take notes about what Ms. Rubin was
- saying (my handwriting is awful), when all of a sudden she started talking about the
- fifth-grade science-fair project, how we all had to choose a science project to work on.
- While she was saying this, I was thinking, We just finished the freakin' Egypt project,
- now we have to start a whole new thing? And then in my head I was going, Oh
- noooooo! like that kid in Home Alone with his mouth hanging open and his hands on
- his face. That was the face I was making on the inside. And then I thought of those
- pictures of melting ghost faces I've seen somewhere, where the mouths are open wide
- and they're screaming. And then all of a sudden this picture flew into my head, this
- memory, and I knew what Summer had meant by "bleeding scream." It's so weird how
- it all just came to me in this flash. Someone in homeroom had dressed up in a
- Bleeding Scream costume on Halloween. I remember seeing him a few desks away
- from me. And then I remember not seeing him again.
- Oh man. It was August!
- All of this hit me in science class while the teacher was talking.
- Oh man.
- I'd been talking to Julian about August. Oh man. Now I understood! I was so mean. I
- don't even know why. I'm not even sure what I said, but it was bad. It was only a minute
- or two. It's just that I knew Julian and everybody thought I was so weird for hanging out
- with August all the time, and I felt stupid. And I don't know why I said that stuff. I just
- was going along. I was stupid. I am stupid. Oh God. He was supposed to come as
- Boba Fett! I would never have said that stuff in front of Boba Fett. But that was him,
- that Bleeding Scream sitting at the desk looking over at us. The long white mask with
- the fake squirting blood. The mouth open wide. Like the ghoul was crying. That was
- him.
- I felt like I was going to puke.
- Partners
- I didn't hear a word of what Ms. Rubin was saying after that. Blah blah blah. Sciencefair
- project. Blah blah blah. Partners. Blah blah. It was like the way grown-ups talk in
- Charlie Brown movies. Like someone talking underwater. Mwah-mwah-mwahhh, mwah
- mwahh.
- Then all of a sudden Ms. Rubin started pointing to kids around the class. "Reid and
- Tristan, Maya and Max, Charlotte and Ximena, August and Jack." She pointed to us
- when she said this. "Miles and Amos, Julian and Henry, Savanna and . . ." I didn't hear
- the rest.
- "Huh?" I said.
- The bell rang.
- "So don't forget to get together with your partners to choose a project from the list,
- guys!" said Ms. Rubin as everyone started taking off. I looked up at August, but he had
- already put his backpack on and was practically out the door.
- I must have had a stupid look on my face because Julian came over and said: "Looks
- like you and your best bud are partners." He was smirking when he said this. I hated
- him so much right then.
- "Hello, earth to Jack Will?" he said when I didn't answer him.
- "Shut up, Julian." I was putting my loose-leaf binder away in my backpack and just
- wanted him away from me.
- "You must be so bummed you got stuck with him," he said. "You should tell Ms. Rubin
- you want to switch partners. I bet she'd let you."
- "No she wouldn't," I said.
- "Ask her." "No, I don't want to."
- "Ms. Rubin?" Julian said, turning around and raising his hand at the same time.
- Ms. Rubin was erasing the chalkboard at the front of the room. She turned when she
- heard her name.
- "No, Julian!" I whisper-screamed.
- "What is it, boys?" she said impatiently.
- "Could we switch partners if we wanted to?" said Julian, looking very innocent. "Me and
- Jack had this science-fair project idea we wanted to work on together. . . ."
- "Well, I guess we could arrange that . . . ," she started to say.
- "No, it's okay, Ms. Rubin," I said quickly, heading out the door. "Bye!"
- Julian ran after me. "Why'd you do that?" he said, catching up to me at the stairs.
- "We could have been partners. You don't have to be friends with that freak if you don't
- want to be, you know. . . ."
- And that's when I punched him. Right in the mouth.
- Detention
- Some things you just can't explain. You don't even try. You don't know where to start.
- All your sentences would jumble up like a giant knot if you opened your mouth. Any
- words you used would come out wrong.
- "Jack, this is very, very serious," Mr. Tushman was saying. I was in his office, sitting on
- a chair across from his desk and looking at this picture of a pumpkin on the wall behind
- him. "Kids get expelled for this kind of thing, Jack! I know you're a good kid and I don't
- want that to happen, but you have to explain yourself."
- "This is so not like you, Jack," said Mom. She had come from work as soon as they had
- called her. I could tell she was going back and forth between being really mad and
- really surprised.
- "I thought you and Julian were friends," said Mr. Tushman.
- "We're not friends," I said. My arms were crossed in front of me.
- "But to punch someone in the mouth, Jack?" said Mom, raising her voice. "I mean,
- what were you thinking?" She looked at Mr. Tushman. "Honestly, he's never hit anyone
- before. He's just not like that."
- "Julian's mouth was bleeding, Jack," said Mr. Tushman. "You knocked out a tooth, did
- you know that?"
- "It was just a baby tooth," I said.
- "Jack!" said Mom, shaking her head.
- "That's what Nurse Molly said!"
- "You're missing the point!" Mom yelled.
- "I just want to know why," said Mr. Tushman, raising his shoulders.
- "It'll just make everything worse," I sighed.
- "Just tell me, Jack."
- I shrugged but I didn't say anything. I just couldn't. If I told him that Julian had called
- August a freak, then he'd go talk to Julian about it, then Julian would tell him how I had
- badmouthed August, too, and everybody would find out about it.
- "Jack!" said Mom. I
- started to cry. "I'm sorry . . ."
- Mr. Tushman raised his eyebrows and nodded, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he
- kind of blew into his hands, like you do when your hands are cold. "Jack," he said, "I
- don't really know what to say here. I mean, you punched a kid. We have rules about
- that kind of thing, you know? Automatic expulsion. And you're not even trying to explain
- yourself."
- I was crying a lot by now, and the second Mom put her arms around me, I started to
- bawl.
- "Let's, um . . . ," said Mr. Tushman, taking his glasses off to clean them, "let's do this,
- Jack. We're out for winter break as of next week anyway. How about you stay home for
- the rest of this week, and then after winter break you'll come back and everything will
- be fresh and brand new. Clean slate, so to speak."
- "Am I being suspended?" I sniffled.
- "Well," he said, shrugging, "technically yes, but it's only for a couple of days. And I'll tell
- you what. While you're at home, you take the time to think about what's happened.
- And if you want to write me a letter explaining what happened, and a letter to Julian
- apologizing, then we won't even put any of this in your permanent record, okay? You
- go home and talk about it with your mom and dad, and maybe in the morning you'll
- figure it all out a bit more."
- "That sounds like a good plan, Mr. Tushman," said Mom, nodding. "Thank you."
- "Everything is going to be okay," said Mr. Tushman, walking over to the door, which
- was closed. "I know you're a nice kid, Jack. And I know that sometimes even nice kids
- do dumb things, right?" He opened the door.
- "Thank you for being so understanding," said Mom, shaking his hand at the door.
- "No problem." He leaned over and told her something quietly that I couldn't hear.
- "I know, thank you," said Mom, nodding.
- "So, kiddo," he said to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. "Think about what
- you've done, okay? And have a great holiday. Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas!
- Happy Kwanzaa!"
- I wiped my nose with my sleeve and started walking out the door.
- "Say thank you to Mr. Tushman," said Mom, tapping my shoulder. I stopped and
- turned around, but I couldn't look at him.
- "Thank you, Mr. Tushman," I said.
- "Bye, Jack," he answered.
- Then I walked out the door.
- Season's Greetings
- Weirdly enough, when we got back home and Mom brought in the mail, there were
- holiday cards from both Julian's family and August's family. Julian's holiday card was a
- picture of Julian wearing a tie, looking like he was about to go to the opera or
- something. August's holiday card was of a cute old dog wearing reindeer antlers, a red
- nose, and red booties. There was a cartoon bubble above the dog's head that read:
- "Ho-Ho-Ho!" On the inside of the card it read:
- To the Will family,
- Peace on Earth. Love, Nate, Isabel, Olivia, August (and Daisy)
- "Cute card, huh?" I said to Mom, who had hardly said a word to me all the way home. I
- think she honestly just didn't know what to say.
- "That must be their dog," I said.
- "Do you want to tell me what's going on inside your head, Jack?" she answered me
- seriously.
- "I bet you they put a picture of their dog on the card every year," I said.
- She took the card from my hands and looked at the picture carefully. Then she raised
- her eyebrows and her shoulders and gave me back the card. "We're very lucky, Jack.
- There's so much we take for granted. . . ."
- "I know," I said. I knew what she was talking about without her having to say it.
- "I heard that Julian's mom actually Photoshopped August's face out of the class picture
- when she got it. She gave a copy to a couple of the other moms."
- "That's just awful," said Mom. "People are just . . . they're not always so great."
- "I know."
- "Is that why you hit Julian?"
- "No." And then I told her why I punched Julian. And I told her that August was my exfriend
- now. And I told her about Halloween.
- Letters, Emails, Facebook, Texts
- December 18
- Dear Mr. Tushman,
- I am very, very sorry for punching Julian. It was very, very wrong for me to do that. I am
- writing a letter to him to tell him that, too. If it's okay, I would really rather not tell you
- why I did what I did because it doesn't really make it right anyway. Also, I would rather
- not make Julian get in trouble for having said something he should not have said.
- Very sincerely,
- Jack Will
- December 18
- Dear Julian,
- I am very, very, very sorry for hitting you. It was wrong of me. I hope you are okay. I
- hope your grownup tooth grows in fast. Mine always do.
- Sincerely,
- Jack Will
- December 26
- Dear Jack,
- Thank you so much for your letter. One thing I've learned after being a middle-school
- director for twenty years: there are almost always more than two sides to every story.
- Although I don't know the details, I have an inkling about what may have sparked the
- confrontation with Julian.
- While nothing justifies striking another student—ever —I also know good friends are
- sometimes worth defending. This has been a tough year for a lot of students, as the
- first year of middle school usually is.
- Keep up the good work, and keep being the fine boy we all know you are.
- All the best,
- Lawrence Tushman
- Middle-School Director
- To: ltushman@beecherschool.edu
- Cc: johnw ill@phillipsacademy.edu; amandawill@ copperbeech.org
- Fr: melissa.albans@rmail.com
- Subject: Jack Will
- Dear Mr. Tushman,
- I spoke with Amanda and John Will yesterday, and they expressed their regret at Jack's
- having punched our son, Julian, in the mouth. I am writing to let you know that my
- husband and I support your decision to allow Jack to return to Beecher Prep after a
- two-day suspension. Although I think hitting a child would be valid grounds for
- expulsion in other schools, I agree such extreme measures aren't warranted here. We
- have known the Will family since our boys were in kindergarten, and are confident that
- every measure will be taken to ensure this doesn't happen again.
- To that end, I wonder if Jack's unexpectedly violent behavior might have been a result
- of too much pressure being placed on his young shoulders? I am speaking specifically
- of the new child with special needs who both Jack and Julian were asked to "befriend."
- In retrospect, and having now seen the child in question at various school functions and
- in the class pictures, I think it may have been too much to ask of our children to be
- able to process all that. Certainly, when Julian mentioned he was having a hard time
- befriending the boy, we told him he was "off the hook" in that regard. We think the
- transition to middle school is hard enough without having to place greater burdens or
- hardships on these young, impressionable minds. I should also mention that, as a
- member of the school board, I was a little disturbed that more consideration was not
- given during this child's application process to the fact that Beecher Prep is not an
- inclusion school. There are many parents—myself included—who question the decision
- to let this child into our school at all. At the very least, I am somewhat troubled that this
- child was not held to the same stringent application standards (i.e. interview) that the
- rest of the incoming middle-school students were.
- Best,
- Melissa Perper Albans
- To: melissa.albans@rmail.com
- Fr: ltushman@beecherschool.edu
- Cc: johnwill@phillipsacademy.edu; amandawill@ copperbeech.org
- Subject: Jack Will
- Dear Mrs. Albans,
- Thanks for your email outlining your concerns. Were I not convinced that Jack Will is
- extremely sorry for his actions, and were I not confident that he would not repeat those
- actions, rest assured that I would not be allowing him back to Beecher Prep.
- As for your other concerns regarding our new student August, please note that he
- does not have special needs. He is neither disabled, handicapped, nor
- developmentally delayed in any way, so there was no reason to assume anyone would
- take issue with his admittance to Beecher Prep—whether it is an inclusion school or
- not. In terms of the application process, the admissions director and I both felt it within
- our right to hold the interview off-site at August's home for reasons that are obvious.
- We felt that this slight break in protocol was warranted but in no way prejudicial—in
- one way or another—to the application review. August is an extremely good student,
- and has secured the friendship of some truly exceptional young people, including Jack
- Will.
- At the beginning of the school year, when I enlisted certain children to be a "welcoming
- committee" to August, I did so as a way of easing his transition into a school
- environment. I did not think asking these children to be especially kind to a new student
- would place any extra "burdens or hardships" on them. In fact, I thought it would teach
- them a thing or two about empathy, and friendship, and loyalty.
- As it turns out, Jack Will didn't need to learn any of these virtues—he already had them
- in abundance.
- Thank you again for being in touch.
- Sincerely,
- Lawrence Tushman
- To: melissa.albans@rmail.com
- Fr: johnwill@phillipsacademy.edu
- Cc: ltushman@beecherschool.edu; amandawill@ copperbeech.org
- Subject: Jack
- Hi Melissa,
- Thank you for being so understanding about this incident with Jack. He is, as you
- know, extremely sorry for his actions. I hope you do accept our offer to pay Julian's
- dental bills.
- We are very touched by your concern regarding Jack's friendship with August. Please
- know we have asked Jack if he felt any undue pressure about any of this, and the
- answer was a resolute "no." He enjoys August's company and feels like he has made a
- good friend.
- Hope you have a
- Happy New Year!
- John and Amanda Will
- Hi August, Jacklope Will wants to be friends with you on Facebook.
- Jackalope Will
- 32 mutual friends
- Thanks, The Facebook Team
- To: auggiedoggiepullman@email.com
- Subject: Sorry ! ! ! ! ! !
- Message: Hey august. Its me Jack Will. I noticed im not on ur friends list anymore.
- Hope u friend me agen cuz im really sorry. I jus wanted 2 say that. Sorry. I know why
- ur mad at me now Im sorry I didn't mean the stuff I said. I was so stupid. I hope u can
- 4give me
- Hope we can b friends agen. Jack
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 4:47PM
- got ur message u know why im mad at u now?? did Summer tell u?
- 1 New Text Message
- From: JACKWILL
- Dec 31 4:49PM
- She told me bleeding scream as hint but didn't get it at first then I remember seeing
- bleeding scream in homeroom on Hallween. didn't know it was you thought u were
- coming as Boba Fett.
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 4:51PM
- I changed my mind at the last minute. Did u really punch Julian?
- 1 New Text Message
- From: JACKWILL
- Dec 31 4:54PM
- Yeah i punchd him knocked out a tooth in the back. A baby tooth.
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 4:55PM
- whyd u punch him????????
- 1 New Text Message
- From: JACKWILL
- Dec 31 4:56PM
- I dunno
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 4:58PM
- liar. I bet he said something about me right?
- 1 New Text Message
- From: JACKWILL
- Dec 31 5:02PM
- he's a jerk. but I was a jerk too. really really really sorry for wat I said dude, Ok? can
- we b frenz agen?
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 5:03PM
- ok
- 1 New Text Message
- From: JACKWILL
- Dec 31 5:04PM
- awsum!!!!
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 5:06PM
- but tell me the truth, ok? wud u really wan to kill urself if u wer me???
- 1 New Text Message
- From: JACKWILL
- Dec 31 5:08PM
- no!!!!! I swear on my life but dude- I would want 2 kill myself if I were Julian ;)
- 1 New Text Message
- From: AUGUST
- Dec 31 5:10PM
- lol yes dude we'r frenz agen.
- Back from Winter Break
- Despite what Tushman said, there was no "clean slate" when I went back to school in
- January. In fact, things were totally weird from the second I got to my locker in the
- morning. I'm next to Amos, who's always been a pretty straight-up kid, and I was like,
- "Yo, what up?" and he basically just nodded a half hello and closed his locker door and
- left. I was like, okay, that was bizarre. And then I said: "Hey, what up?" to Henry, who
- didn't even bother half-smiling but just looked away.
- Okay, so something's up. Dissed by two people in less than five minutes. Not that
- anyone's counting. I thought I'd try one more time, with Tristan, and boom, same thing.
- He actually looked nervous, like he was afraid of talking to me.
- I've got a form of the Plague now, is what I thought. This is Julian's payback.
- And that's pretty much how it went all morning. Nobody talked to me. Not true: the girls
- were totally normal with me. And August talked to me, of course. And, actually, I have
- to say both Maxes said hello, which made me feel kind of bad for never, ever hanging
- out with them in the five years I've been in their class.
- I hoped lunch would be better, but it wasn't. I sat down at my usual table with Luca and
- Isaiah. I guess I thought since they weren't in the super-popular group but were kind of
- middle-of-the-road jock kids that I'd be safe with them. But they barely nodded when I
- said hello. Then, when our table was called, they got their lunches and never came
- back. I saw them find a table way over at the other end of the cafeteria. They weren't
- at Julian's table, but they were near him, like on the fringe of popularity. So anyway, I'd
- been ditched. I knew table switching was something that happened in the fifth grade,
- but I never thought it would happen to me.
- It felt really awful being at the table by myself. I felt like everyone was watching me. It
- also made me feel like I had no friends. I decided to skip lunch and go read in the
- library.
- The War
- It was Charlotte who had the inside scoop on why everyone was dissing me. I found a
- note inside my locker at the end of the day.
- Meet me in room 301 right after school. Come by yourself! Charlotte.
- She was already inside the room when I walked in. "Sup," I said.
- "Hey," she said. She went over to the door, looked left and right, and then closed the
- door and locked it from the inside. Then she turned to face me and started biting her
- nail as she talked. "Look, I feel bad about what's going on and I just wanted to tell you
- what I know. Promise you won't tell anyone I talked to you?"
- "Promise."
- "So Julian had this huge holiday party over winter break," she said. "I mean, huge. My
- sister's friend had had her sweet sixteen at the same place last year. There were like
- two hundred people there, so I mean it's a huge place."
- "Yeah, and?"
- "Yeah, and . . . well, pretty much everybody in the whole grade was there."
- "Not everybody," I joked.
- "Right, not everybody. Duh. But like even parents were there, you know. Like my
- parents were there. You know Julian's mom is the vice president of the school board,
- right? So she knows a lot of people. Anyway, so basically what happened at the party
- was that Julian went around telling everyone that you punched him because you had
- emotional problems. . . ."
- "What?!" "And that you would have gotten expelled, but his parents begged the school
- not to expel you . . ."
- "What?!"
- "And that none of it would have happened in the first place if Tushman hadn't forced
- you to be friends with Auggie. He said his mom thinks that you, quote unquote,
- snapped under the pressure. . . ."
- I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "No one bought into that, right?" I said.
- She shrugged. "That's not even the point. The point is he's really popular. And, you
- know, my mom heard that his mom is actually pushing the school to review Auggie's
- application to Beecher."
- "Can she do that?"
- "It's about Beecher not being an inclusion school. That's a type of school that mixes
- normal kids with kids with special needs."
- "That's just stupid. Auggie doesn't have special needs."
- "Yeah, but she's saying that if the school is changing the way they usually do things in
- some ways . . ."
- "But they're not changing anything!"
- "Yeah, they did. Didn't you notice they changed the theme of the New Year Art Show?
- In past years fifth graders painted self-portraits, but this year they made us do those
- ridiculous self-portraits as animals, remember?"
- "So big freakin' deal."
- "I know! I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying that's what she's saying."
- "I know, I know. This is just so messed up. . . ."
- "I know. Anyway, Julian said that he thinks being friends with Auggie is bringing you
- down, and that for your own good you need to stop hanging out with him so much. And
- if you start losing all your old friends, it'll be like a big wake-up call. So basically, for
- your own good, he's going to stop being your friend completely."
- "News flash: I stopped being his friend completely first!"
- "Yeah, but he's convinced all the boys to stop being your friend—for your own good.
- That's why nobody's talking to you."
- "You're talking to me."
- "Yeah, well, this is more of a boy thing," she explained.
- "The girls are staying neutral. Except Savanna's group, because they're going out with
- Julian's group. But to everybody else this is really a boy war."
- I nodded. She tilted her head to one side and pouted like she felt sorry for me.
- "Is it okay that I told you all this?" she said.
- "Yeah! Of course! I don't care who talks to me or not," I lied. "This is all just so dumb."
- She nodded.
- "Hey, does Auggie know any of this?"
- "Of course not. At least, not from me."
- "And Summer?"
- "I don't think so. Look, I better go. Just so you know, my mom thinks Julian's mom is a
- total idiot. She said she thinks people like her are more concerned about what their
- kids' class pictures look like than doing the right thing. You heard about the
- Photoshopping, right?"
- "Yeah, that was just sick."
- "Totally," she answered, nodding. "Anyway, I better go. I just wanted you to know what
- was up and stuff."
- "Thanks, Charlotte."
- "I'll let you know if I hear anything else," she said. Before she went out, she looked left
- and right outside the door to make sure no one saw her leaving. I guess even though
- she was neutral, she didn't want to be seen with me.
- Switching Tables
- The next day at lunch, stupid me, I sat down at a table with Tristan, Nino, and Pablo. I
- thought maybe they were safe because they weren't really considered popular, but they
- weren't out there playing D&D at recess, either. They were sort of in-betweeners. And,
- at first, I thought I scored because they were basically too nice to not acknowledge my
- presence when I walked over to the table. They all said "Hey," though I could tell they
- looked at each other. But then the same thing happened that happened yesterday: our
- lunch table was called, they got their food, and then headed toward a new table on the
- other side of the cafeteria.
- Unfortunately, Mrs. G, who was the lunch teacher that day, saw what happened and
- chased after them.
- "That's not allowed, boys!" she scolded them loudly. "This is not that kind of school.
- You get right back to your table."
- Oh great, like that was going to help. Before they could be forced to sit back down at
- the table, I got up with my tray and walked away really fast. I could hear Mrs. G call my
- name, but I pretended not to hear and just kept walking to the other side of the
- cafeteria, behind the lunch counter.
- "Sit with us, Jack."
- It was Summer. She and August were sitting at their table, and they were both waving
- me over.
- Why I Didn't Sit with August the First Day of School
- Okay, I'm a total hypocrite. I know. That very first day of school I remember seeing
- August in the cafeteria. Everybody was looking at him. Talking about him. Back then,
- no one was used to his face or even knew that he was coming to Beecher, so it was a
- total shocker for a lot of people to see him there on the first day of school. Most kids
- were even afraid to get near him.
- So when I saw him going into the cafeteria ahead of me, I knew he'd have no one to sit
- with, but I just couldn't bring myself to sit with him. I had been hanging out with him all
- morning long because we had so many classes together, and I guess I was just kind of
- wanting a little normal time to chill with other kids. So when I saw him move to a table
- on the other side of the lunch counter, I purposely found a table as far away from there
- as I could find. I sat down with Isaiah and Luca even though I'd never met them before,
- and we talked about baseball the whole time, and I played basketball with them at
- recess. They became my lunch table from then on.
- I heard Summer had sat down with August, which surprised me because I knew for a
- fact she wasn't one of the kids that Tushman had talked to about being friends with
- Auggie. So I knew she was doing it just to be nice, and that was pretty brave, I thought.
- So now here I was sitting with Summer and August, and they were being totally nice to
- me as always. I filled them in about everything Charlotte had told me, except for the
- whole big part about my having "snapped" under the pressure of being Auggie's friend,
- or the part about Julian's mom saying that Auggie had special needs, or the part about
- the school board. I guess all I really told them about was how Julian had had a holiday
- party and managed to turn the whole grade against me.
- "It just feels so weird," I said, "to not have people talking to you, pretending you don't
- even exist."
- Auggie started smiling.
- "Ya think?" he said sarcastically.
- "Welcome to my world!"
- Sides
- "So here are the official sides," said Summer at lunch the next day. She pulled out a
- folded piece of loose-leaf paper and opened it. It had three columns of names.
- Jack's Side Julian's Sides Neutrals
- Jack Miles Malik
- August Henry Remo
- Reid Amos Jose
- Max G Simon Leif
- Max W Tristan Ram
- Pablo Ivan
- Nino Russell
- Isaiah
- Luca
- Jake
- Toland
- Roman
- Ben
- Emmanuel
- Zele
- Tomaso
- "Where did you get this?" said Auggie, looking over my shoulder as I read the list.
- "Charlotte made it," Summer answered quickly. "She gave it to me last period. She said
- she thought you should know who was on your side, Jack."
- "Yeah, not many people, that's for sure," I said.
- "Reid is," she said. "And the two Maxes."
- "Great. The nerds are on my side."
- "Don't be mean," said Summer.
- "I think Charlotte likes you, by the way."
- "Yeah, I know."
- "Are you going to ask her out?"
- "Are you kidding? I can't, now that everybody's acting like I have the Plague."
- The second I said it, I realized I shouldn't have said it. There was this awkward moment
- of silence. I looked at Auggie.
- "It's okay," he said. "I knew about that."
- "Sorry, dude," I said.
- "I didn't know they called it the Plague, though," he said.
- "I figured it was more like the Cheese Touch or something."
- "Oh, yeah, like in Diary of a Wimpy Kid." I nodded.
- "The Plague actually sounds cooler," he joked.
- "Like someone could catch the 'black death of ugliness.' " As he said this, he made air
- quotes.
- "I think it's awful," said Summer, but Auggie shrugged while taking a big sip from his
- juice box.
- "Anyway, I'm not asking Charlotte out," I said.
- "My mom thinks we're all too young to be dating anyway," she answered.
- "What if Reid asked you out?" I said. "Would you go?"
- I could tell she was surprised. "No!" she said.
- "I'm just asking," I laughed.
- She shook her head and smiled. "Why? What do you know?"
- "Nothing! I'm just asking!" I said.
- "I actually agree with my mom," she said. "I do think we're too young to be dating. I
- mean, I just don't see what the rush is."
- "Yeah, I agree," said August. "Which is kind of a shame, you know, what with all those
- babes who keep throwing themselves at me and stuff?"
- He said this in such a funny way that the milk I was drinking came out my nose when I
- laughed, which made us all totally crack up.
- August's House
- It was already the middle of January, and we still hadn't even chosen what science-fair
- project we were going to work on. I guess I kept putting it off because I just didn't want
- to do it. Finally, August was like, "Dude, we have to do this." So we went to his house
- after school.
- I was really nervous because I didn't know if August had ever told his parents about
- what we now called the Halloween Incident. Turns out the dad wasn't even home and
- the mom was out running errands. I'm pretty sure from the two seconds I'd spent
- talking to her that Auggie had never mentioned a thing about it. She was super cool
- and friendly toward me.
- When I first walked into Auggie's room, I was like, "Whoa, Auggie, you have got a
- serious Star Wars addiction."
- He had ledges full of Star Wars miniatures, and a huge The Empire Strikes Back poster
- on his wall.
- "I know, right?" he laughed.
- He sat down on a rolling chair next to his desk and I plopped down on a beanbag chair
- in the corner. That's when his dog waddled into the room right up to me.
- "He was on your holiday card!" I said, letting the dog sniff my hand.
- "She," he corrected me. "Daisy. You can pet her. She doesn't bite."
- When I started petting her, she basically just rolled over onto her back.
- "She wants you to rub her tummy," said August.
- "Okay, this is the cutest dog I've ever seen," I said, rubbing her stomach.
- "I know, right? She's the best dog in the world. Aren't you, girlie?"
- As soon as she heard Auggie's voice say that, the dog started wagging her tail and
- went over to him.
- "Who's my little girlie? Who's my little girlie?" Auggie was saying as she licked him all
- over the face.
- "I wish I had a dog," I said. "My parents think our apartment's too small." I started
- looking around at the stuff in his room while he turned on the computer. "Hey, you've
- got an Xbox 360? Can we play?"
- "Dude, we're here to work on the science-fair project."
- "Do you have Halo ?"
- "Of course I have Halo."
- "Please can we play?"
- He had logged on to the Beecher website and was now scrolling down Ms. Rubin's
- teacher page through the list of science-fair projects. "Can you see from there?" he
- said. I sighed and went to sit on a little stool that was right next to him.
- "Cool iMac," I said. "What kind of computer do you have?"
- "Dude, I don't even have my own room, much less my own computer. My parents have
- this ancient Dell that's practically dead."
- "Okay, how about this one?" he said, turning the screen in my direction so I would look.
- I made a quick scan of the screen and my eyes literally started blurring.
- "Making a sun clock," he said. "That sounds kind of cool."
- I leaned back. "Can't we just make a volcano?"
- "Everyone makes volcanoes."
- "Duh, because it's easy," I said, petting Daisy again.
- "What about: How to make crystal spikes out of Epsom salt?"
- "Sounds boring," I answered. "So why'd you call her Daisy?"
- He didn't look up from the screen. "My sister named her. I wanted to call her Darth.
- Actually, technically speaking, her full name is Darth Daisy, but we never really called
- her that."
- "Darth Daisy! That's funny! Hi, Darth Daisy!" I said to the dog, who rolled onto her back
- again for me to rub her tummy.
- "Okay, this one is the one," said August, pointing to a picture on the screen of a bunch
- of potatoes with wires poking out of them. "How to build an organic battery made of
- potatoes. Now, that's cool. It says here you could power a lamp with it. We could call it
- the Spud Lamp or something. What do you think?"
- "Dude, that sounds way too hard. You know I suck at science."
- "Shut up, you do not."
- "Yeah I do! I got a fifty-four on my last test. I suck at science!"
- "No you don't! And that was only because we were still fighting and I wasn't helping
- you. I can help you now. This is a good project, Jack. We've got to do it."
- "Fine, whatever." I shrugged.
- Just then there was a knock on the door. A teenage girl with long dark wavy hair poked
- her head inside the door. She wasn't expecting to see me.
- "Oh, hey," she said to both of us.
- "Hey, Via," said August, looking back at the computer screen. "Via, this is Jack. Jack,
- that's Via."
- "Hey," I said, nodding hello.
- "Hey," she said, looking at me carefully. I knew the second Auggie said my name that
- he had told her about the stuff I had said about him. I could tell from the way she
- looked at me. In fact, the way she looked at me made me think she remembered me
- from that day at Carvel on Amesfort Avenue all those years ago.
- "Auggie, I have a friend I want you to meet, okay?" she said. "He's coming over in a few
- minutes."
- "Is he your new boyfriend ?" August teased.
- Via kicked the bottom of his chair. "Just be nice," she said, and left the room.
- "Dude, your sister's hot," I said.
- "I know."
- "She hates me, right? You told her about the Halloween Incident?"
- "Yeah."
- "Yeah, she hates me or yeah, you told her about Halloween?"
- "Both."
- The Boyfriend
- Two minutes later the sister came back with this guy named Justin. Seemed like a cool
- enough dude. Longish hair. Little round glasses. He was carrying a big long shiny silver
- case that ended in a sharp point on one end.
- "Justin, this is my little brother, August," said Via. "And that's Jack."
- "Hey, guys," said Justin, shaking our hands. He seemed a little nervous. I guess maybe
- it was because he was meeting August for the first time. Sometimes I forget what a
- shock it is the first time you meet him. "Cool room."
- "Are you Via's boyfriend?" Auggie asked mischievously, and his sister pulled his cap
- down over his face.
- "What's in your case?" I said. "A machine gun?"
- "Ha!" answered the boyfriend. "That's funny. No, it's a, uh . . . fiddle."
- "Justin's a fiddler," said Via.
- "He's in a zydeco band." "What the heck is a zydeco band?" said Auggie, looking at
- me.
- "It's a type of music," said Justin. "Like Creole music."
- "What's Creole?" I said.
- "You should tell people that's a machine gun," said Auggie. "Nobody would ever mess
- with you."
- "Ha, I guess you're right," Justin said, nodding and tucking his hair behind his ears.
- "Creole's the kind of music they play in Louisiana," he said to me.
- "Are you from Louisiana?" I asked.
- "No, um," he answered, pushing up his glasses. "I'm from Brooklyn."
- I don't know why this made me want to laugh.
- "Come on, Justin," said Via, pulling him by the hand. "Let's go hang out in my room."
- "Okay, see you guys later. Bye," he said.
- "Bye!"
- "Bye!"
- As soon as they left the room, Auggie looked at me, smiling.
- "I'm from Brooklyn," I said, and we both started laughing hysterically.
- Part Five
- Justin
- Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams.
- —John Merrick in Bernard Pomerance's
- The Elephant Man
- Olivia's Brother
- the first time i meet Olivia's little brother, i have to admit i'm totally taken by surprise.
- i shouldn't be, of course. olivia's told me about his "syndrome." has even described
- what he looks like. but she's also talked about all his surgeries over the years, so i
- guess i assumed he'd be more normal-looking by now. like when a kid is born with a
- cleft palate and has plastic surgery to fix it sometimes you can't even tell except for the
- little scar above the lip. i guess i thought her brother would have some scars here and
- there. but not this. i definitely wasn't expecting to see this little kid in a baseball cap
- who's sitting in front of me right now.
- actually there are two kids sitting in front me: one is a totally normal-looking kid with
- curly blond hair named jack; the other is auggie.
- i like to think i'm able to hide my surprise. i hope i do. surprise is one of those emotions
- that can be hard to fake, though, whether you're trying to look surprised when you're
- not or trying to not look surprised when you are.
- i shake his hand. i shake the other kid's hand. don't want to focus on his face. cool
- room, I say. are you via's boyfriend? he says. i think he's smiling.
- olivia pushes down his baseball cap. is that a machine gun? the blond kid asks, like i
- haven't heard that one before. and we talk about zydeco for a bit. and then via's taking
- my hand and leading me out of the room. as soon as we close the door behind us, we
- hear them laughing.
- i'm from brooklyn! one of them sings.
- olivia rolls her eyes as she smiles. let's go hang out in my room, she says.
- we've been dating for two months now. i knew from the moment i saw her, the minute
- she sat down at our table in the cafeteria, that i liked her. i couldn't keep my eyes off of
- her. really beautiful. with olive skin and the bluest eyes i've ever seen in my life. at first
- she acted like she only wanted to be friends. i think she kind of gives off that vibe
- without even meaning to. stay back. don't even bother. she doesn't flirt like some other
- girls do. she looks you right in the eye when she talks to you, like she's daring you. so i
- just kept looking her right in the eye, too, like i was daring her right back. and then i
- asked her out and she said yes, which rocked.
- she's an awesome girl and i love hanging out with her. she didn't tell me about august
- until our third date. i think she used the phrase "a craniofacial abnormality" to describe
- his face. or maybe it was "craniofacial anomaly." i know the one word she didn't use
- was "deformed," though, because that word would have registered with me.
- so, what did you think? she asks me nervously the second we're inside her room. are
- you shocked?
- no, i lie. she smiles and looks away. you're shocked.
- i'm not, i assure her. he's just like what you said he'd be. she nods and plops down on
- her bed. kind of cute how she still has a lot of stuffed animals on her bed. she takes
- one of them, a polar bear, without thinking and puts it in her lap.
- i sit down on the rolling chair by her desk. her room is immaculate.
- when i was little, she says, there were lots of kids who never came back for a second
- playdate. i mean, lots of kids. i even had friends who wouldn't come to my birthdays
- because he would be there. they never actually told me this, but it would get back to
- me. some people just don't know how to deal with auggie, you know?
- i nod.
- it's not even like they know they're being mean, she adds. they were just scared. i
- mean, let's face it, his face is a little scary, right?
- i guess, i answer. but you're okay with it? she asks me sweetly. you're not too freaked
- out? or scared?
- i'm not freaked out or scared. i smile. she nods and looks down at the polar bear on her
- lap. i can't tell whether she believes me or not, but then she gives the polar bear a kiss
- on the nose and tosses it to me with a little smile. i think that means she believes me.
- or at least that she wants to.
- Valentine's Day
- i give olivia a heart necklace for valentine's day, and she gives me a messenger bag
- she's made out of old floppy disks. very cool how she makes things like that. earrings
- out of pieces of circuit boards. dresses out of t-shirts. bags out of old jeans. she's so
- creative. i tell her she should be an artist someday, but she wants to be a scientist. a
- geneticist, of all things. she wants to find cures for people like her brother, i guess.
- we make plans for me to finally meet her parents. a mexican restaurant on amesfort
- avenue near her house on saturday night.
- all day long i'm nervous about it. and when i get nervous my tics come out. i mean, my
- tics are always there, but they're not like they used to be when i was little: nothing but a
- few hard blinks now, the occasional head pull. but when i'm stressed they get worse—
- and i'm definitely stressing about meeting her folks.
- they're waiting inside when i get to the restaurant. the dad gets up and shakes my
- hand, and the mom gives me a hug. i give auggie a hello fist-punch and kiss olivia on
- the cheek before i sit down.
- it's so nice to meet you, justin! we've heard so much about you! her parents couldn't be
- nicer. put me at ease right away. the waiter brings over the menus and i notice his
- expression the moment he lays eyes on august. but i pretend not to notice. i guess
- we're all pretending not to notice things tonight. the waiter. my tics. the way august
- crushes the tortilla chips on the table and spoons the crumbs into his mouth. i look at
- olivia and she smiles at me. she knows. she sees the waiter's face. she sees my tics.
- olivia is a girl who sees everything.
- we spend the entire dinner talking and laughing. olivia's parents ask me about my
- music, how i got into the fiddle and stuff like that. and i tell them about how i used to
- play classical violin but I got into appalachian folk music and then zydeco. and they're
- listening to every word like they're really interested. they tell me to let them know the
- next time my band's playing a gig so they can come listen.
- i'm not used to all the attention, to be truthful. my parents don't have a clue about what I
- want to do with my life. they never ask. we never talk like this. i don't think they even
- know i traded my baroque violin for an eight-string hardanger fiddle two years ago. after
- dinner we go back to olivia's for some ice cream. their dog greets us at the door. an old
- dog. super sweet. she'd thrown up all over the hallway, though. olivia's mom rushes to
- get paper towels while the dad picks the dog up like she's a baby.
- what's up, ol' girlie? he says, and the dog's in heaven, tongue hanging out, tail wagging,
- legs in the air at awkward angles. dad, tell justin how you got daisy, says olivia.
- yeah! says auggie. the dad smiles and sits down in a chair with the dog still cradled in
- his arms. it's obvious he's told this story lots of times and they all love to hear it. so i'm
- coming home from the subway one day, he says, and a homeless guy i've never seen
- in this neighborhood before is pushing this floppy mutt in a stroller, and he comes up to
- me and says, hey, mister, wanna buy my dog? and without even thinking about it, i say
- sure, how much you want? and he says ten bucks, so i give him the twenty dollars i
- have in my wallet and he hands me the dog. justin, i'm telling you, you've never
- smelled anything so bad in your life! she stank so much i can't even tell you! so i took
- her right from there to the vet down the street and then i brought her home.
- didn't even call me first, by the way! the mom interjects as she cleans the floor, to see if
- i'm okay with his bringing home some homeless guy's dog. the dog actually looks over
- at the mom when she says this, like she understands everything everyone is saying
- about her. she's a happy dog, like she knows she lucked out that day finding this family.
- i kind of know how she feels. i like olivia's family. they laugh a lot. my family's not like
- this at all. my mom and dad got divorced when i was four and they pretty much hate
- each other. i grew up spending half of every week in my dad's apartment in chelsea
- and the other half in my mom's place in brooklyn heights. i have a half brother who's
- five years older than me and barely knows i exist. for as long as i can remember, i've
- felt like my parents could hardly wait for me to be old enough to take care of myself.
- "you can go to the store by yourself." "here's the key to the apartment." it's funny how
- there's a word like overprotective to describe some parents, but no word that means
- the opposite. what word do you use to describe parents who don't protect enough?
- underprotective? neglectful? self-involved? lame? all of the above.
- olivia's family tell each other "i love you" all the time.
- i can't remember the last time anyone in my family said that to me. by the time i go
- home, my tics have all stopped.
- OUR TOWN
- we're doing the play our town for the spring show this year. olivia dares me to try out for
- the lead role, the stage manager, and somehow i get it. total fluke. never got any lead
- roles in anything before. i tell olivia she brings me good luck. unfortunately, she doesn't
- get the female lead, emily gibbs. the pink-haired girl named miranda gets it. olivia gets
- a bit part and is also the emily understudy. i'm actually more disappointed than olivia is.
- she almost seems relieved. i don't love people staring at me, she says, which is sort of
- strange coming from such a pretty girl. a part of me thinks maybe she blew her
- audition on purpose. the spring show is at the end of april. it's mid-march now, so that's
- less than six weeks to memorize my part. plus rehearsal time. plus practicing with my
- band. plus finals. plus spending time with olivia. it's going to be a rough six weeks,
- that's for sure. mr. davenport, the drama teacher, is already manic about the whole
- thing. will drive us crazy by the time it's over, no doubt. i heard through the grapevine
- that he'd been planning on doing the elephant man but changed it to our town at the
- last minute, and that change took a week off of our rehearsal schedule.
- not looking forward to the craziness of the next month and a half.
- Ladybug
- olivia and i are sitting on her front stoop. she's helping me with my lines. it's a warm
- march evening, almost like summer. the sky is still bright cyan but the sun is low and
- the sidewalks are streaked with long shadows.
- i'm reciting: yes, the sun's come up over a thousand times. summers and winters have
- cracked the mountains a little bit more and the rains have brought down some of the
- dirt. some babies that weren't even born before have begun talking regular sentences
- already; and a number of people who thought they were right young and spry have
- noticed that they can't bound up a flight of stairs like they used to, without their heart
- fluttering a little. . . .
- i shake my head. can't remember the rest.
- all that can happen in a thousand days, olivia prompts me, reading from the script.
- right, right, right, i say, shaking my head. i sigh. i'm wiped, olivia. how the heck am i
- going to remember all these lines?
- you will, she answers confidently. she reaches out and cups her hands over a ladybug
- that appears out of nowhere. see? a good luck sign, she says, slowly lifting her top
- hand to reveal the ladybug walking on the palm of her other hand.
- good luck or just the hot weather, i joke. of course good luck, she answers, watching
- the ladybug crawl up her wrist. there should be a thing about making a wish on a
- ladybug. auggie and I used to do that with fireflies when we were little. she cups her
- hand over the ladybug again. come on, make a wish. close your eyes.
- i dutifully close my eyes. a long second passes, then I open them.
- did you make a wish? she asks.
- yep. she smiles, uncups her hands, and the ladybug, as if on cue, spreads its wings
- and flits away.
- don't you want to know what I wished for? i ask, kissing her.
- no, she answers shyly, looking up at the sky, which, at this very moment, is the exact
- color of her eyes.
- i made a wish, too, she says mysteriously, but she has so many things she could wish
- for I have no idea what she's thinking.
- The Bus Stop
- olivia's mom, auggie, jack, and daisy come down the stoop just as i'm saying goodbye
- to olivia. slightly awkward since we are in the middle of a nice long kiss.
- hey, guys, says the mom, pretending not to see anything, but the two boys are giggling.
- hi, mrs. pullman.
- please call me isabel, justin, she says again. it's like the third time she's told me this, so
- i really need to start calling her that.
- i'm heading home, i say, as if to explain.
- oh, are you heading to the subway? she says, following the dog with a newspaper. can
- you walk jack to the bus stop?
- no problem.
- that okay with you, jack? the mom asks him, and he shrugs. justin, can you stay with
- him till the bus comes? of course!
- we all say our goodbyes. olivia winks at me.
- you don't have to stay with me, says jack as we're walking up the block. i take the bus
- by myself all the time. auggie's mom is way too overprotective.
- he's got a low gravelly voice, like a little tough guy. he kind of looks like one of those
- little-rascal kids in old black-andwhite movies, like he should be wearing a newsboy cap
- and knickers.
- we get to the bus stop and the schedule says the bus will be there in eight minutes. i'll
- wait with you, i tell him. up to you. he shrugs. can i borrow a dollar? i want some gum.
- i fish a dollar out of my pocket and watch him cross the street to the grocery store on
- the corner. he seems too small to be walking around by himself, somehow. then i think
- how i was that young when i was taking the subway by myself. way too young. i'm
- going to be an overprotective dad someday, i know it. my kids are going to know i care.
- i'm waiting there a minute or two when i notice three kids walking up the block from the
- other direction. they walk right past the grocery store, but one of them looks inside and
- nudges the other two, and they all back up and look inside. i can tell they're up to no
- good, all elbowing each other, laughing. one of them is jack's height but the other two
- look much bigger, more like teens. they hide behind the fruit stand in front of the store,
- and when jack walks out, they trail behind him, making loud throw-up noises. jack
- casually turns around at the corner to see who they are and they run away, high-fiving
- each other and laughing. little jerks.
- jack crosses the street like nothing happened and stands next to me at the bus stop,
- blowing a bubble.
- friends of yours? i finally say.
- ha, he says. he's trying to smile but i can see he's upset.
- just some jerks from my school, he says.
- a kid named julian and his two gorillas, henry and miles.
- do they bother you like that a lot?
- no, they've never done that before. they'd never do that in school or they'd get kicked
- out. julian lives two blocks from here, so I guess it was just bad luck running into him.
- oh, okay. i nod.
- it's not a big deal, he assures me.
- we both automatically look down amesfort avenue to see if the bus is coming.
- we're sort of in a war, he says after a minute, as if that explains everything. then he
- pulls out this crumpled piece of loose-leaf paper from his jean pocket and gives it to
- me. i unfold it, and it's a list of names in three columns. he's turned the whole grade
- against me, says jack.
- not the whole grade, i point out, looking down at the list.
- he leaves me notes in my locker that say stuff like everybody hates you.
- you should tell your teacher about that.
- jack looks at me like i'm an idiot and shakes his head.
- anyway, you have all these neutrals, i say, pointing to the list. if you get them on your
- side, things will even up a bit.
- yeah, well, that's really going to happen, he says sarcastically. why not? he shoots me
- another look like i am absolutely the stupidest guy he's ever talked to in the world.
- what? i say. he shakes his head like i'm hopeless. let's just say, he says, i'm friends
- with someone who isn't exactly the most popular kid in the school.
- then it hits me, what's he's not coming out and saying: august. this is all about his being
- friends with august. and he doesn't want to tell me because i'm the sister's boyfriend.
- yeah, of course, makes sense.
- we see the bus coming down amesfort avenue.
- well, just hang in there, i tell him, handing back the paper. middle school is about as
- bad as it gets, and then it gets better. everything'll work out. he shrugs and shoves the
- list back into his pocket.
- we wave bye when he gets on the bus, and i watch it pull away.
- when i get to the subway station two blocks away, i see the same three kids hanging
- out in front of the bagel place next door. they're still laughing and yuck-yucking each
- other like they're some kind of gangbangers, little rich boys in expensive skinny jeans
- acting tough.
- don't know what possesses me, but i take my glasses off, put them in my pocket, and
- tuck my fiddle case under my arm so the pointy side is facing up. i walk over to them,
- my face scrunched up, mean-looking. they look at me, laughs dying on their lips when
- they see me, ice cream cones at odd angles.
- yo, listen up. don't mess with jack, i say really slowly, gritting my teeth, my voice all clint
- eastwood tough-guy. mess with him again and you will be very, very sorry. and then i
- tap my fiddle case for effect.
- got it?
- they nod in unison, ice cream dripping onto their hands.
- good. i nod mysteriously, then sprint down the subway two steps at a time.
- Rehearsal
- the play is taking up most of my time as we get closer to opening night. lots of lines to
- remember. long monologues where it's just me talking. olivia had this great idea,
- though, and it's helping. i have my fiddle with me onstage and play it a bit while i'm
- talking. It's not written that way, but mr. davenport thinks it adds an extra-folksy element
- to have the stage manager plucking on a fiddle. and for me it's so great because
- whenever i need a second to remember my next line, i just start playing a little "soldier's
- joy" on my fiddle and it buys me some time.
- i've gotten to know the kids in the show a lot better, especially the pink-haired girl who
- plays emily. turns out she's not nearly as stuck-up as i thought she was, given the
- crowd she hangs out with. her boyfriend's this built jock who's a big deal on the varsity
- sports circuit at school. it's a whole world that i have nothing to do with, so i'm kind of
- surprised that this miranda girl turns out to be kind of nice.
- one day we're sitting on the floor backstage waiting for the tech guys to fix the main
- spotlight. so how long have you and olivia been dating? she asks out of the blue. about
- four months now, i say.
- have you met her brother? she says casually.
- it's so unexpected that i can't hide my surprise.
- you know olivia's brother? i ask. via didn't tell you? we used to be good friends. i've
- known auggie since he was a baby.
- oh, yeah, i think i knew that, i answer. i don't want to let on that olivia had not told me
- any of this. i don't want to let on how surprised i am that she called her via. nobody but
- olivia's family calls her via, and here this pink-haired girl, who i thought was a stranger,
- is calling her via.
- miranda laughs and shakes her head but she doesn't say anything. there's an
- awkward silence and then she starts fishing through her bag and pulls out her wallet.
- she rifles through a couple of pictures and then hands one to me. it's of a little boy in a
- park on a sunny day. he's wearing shorts and a t-shirt—and an astronaut helmet that
- covers his entire head. it was like a hundred degrees that day, she says, smiling at the
- picture. but he wouldn't take that helmet off for anything. he wore it for like two years
- straight, in the winter, in the summer, at the beach. it was crazy.
- yeah, i've seen pictures in olivia's house.
- i'm the one who gave him that helmet, she says. she sounds a little proud of that. she
- takes the picture and carefully inserts it back into her wallet.
- cool, i answer. so you're okay with it? she says, looking at me.
- i look at her blankly. okay with what? she raises her eyebrows like she doesn't believe
- me. you know what i'm talking about, she says, and takes a long drink from her water
- bottle. let's face it, she continues, the universe was not kind to auggie pullman.
- Bird
- why didn't you tell me that you and miranda navas used to be friends? i say to olivia the
- next day. i'm really annoyed at her for not telling me this.
- it's not a big deal, she answers defensively, looking at me like i'm weird. it is a big deal,
- i say. i looked like an idiot. how could you not tell me? you've always acted like you
- don't even know her.
- i don't know her, she answers quickly. i don't know who that pink-haired cheerleader is.
- the girl i knew was a total dork who collected american girl dolls.
- oh come on, olivia.
- you come on!
- you could have mentioned it to me at some point, i say quietly, pretending not to notice
- the big fat tear that's suddenly rolling down her cheek. she shrugs, fighting back bigger
- tears.
- it's okay, i'm not mad, i say, thinking the tears are about me.
- i honestly don't care if you're mad, she says spitefully.
- oh, that's real nice, i fire back. she doesn't say anything. the tears are about to come.
- olivia, what's the matter? i say. she shakes her head like she doesn't want to talk about
- it, but all of a sudden the tears start rolling a mile a minute.
- i'm sorry, it's not you, justin. i'm not crying because of you, she finally says through her
- tears.
- then why are you crying?
- because i'm an awful person.
- what are you talking about?
- she's not looking at me, wiping her tears with the palm of her hand.
- i haven't told my parents about the show, she says quickly.
- i shake my head because i don't quite get what she's telling me. that's okay, i say. it's
- not too late, there are still tickets available—
- i don't want them to come to the show, justin, she interrupts impatiently. don't you see
- what i'm saying? i don't want them to come! if they come, they'll bring auggie with them,
- and i just don't feel like . . .
- here she's hit by another round of crying that doesn't let her finish talking. i put my arm
- around her.
- i'm an awful person! she says through her tears.
- you're not an awful person, i say softly.
- yes i am! she sobs. it's just been so nice being in a new school where nobody knows
- about him, you know? nobody's whispering about it behind my back. it's just been so
- nice, justin. but if he comes to the play, then everyone will talk about it, everyone will
- know. . . . i don't know why i'm feeling like this. . . . i swear i've never been
- embarrassed by him before.
- i know, i know, i say, soothing her. you're entitled, olivia. you've dealt with a lot your
- whole life.
- olivia reminds me of a bird sometimes, how her feathers get all ruffled when she's mad.
- and when she's fragile like this, she's a little lost bird looking for its nest. so i give her
- my wing to hide under.
- The Universe
- i can't sleep tonight. my head is full of thoughts that won't turn off. lines from my
- monologues. elements of the periodic table that i'm supposed to be memorizing.
- theorems i'm supposed to be understanding. olivia. auggie.
- miranda's words keep coming back: the universe was not kind to auggie pullman.
- i'm thinking about that a lot and everything it means. she's right about that. the universe
- was not kind to auggie pullman. what did that little kid ever do to deserve his
- sentence? what did the parents do? or olivia? she once mentioned that some doctor
- told her parents that the odds of someone getting the same combination of syndromes
- that came together to make auggie's face were like one in four million. so doesn't that
- make the universe a giant lottery, then? you purchase a ticket when you're born. and
- it's all just random whether you get a good ticket or a bad ticket. it's all just luck.
- my head swirls on this, but then softer thoughts soothe, like a flatted third on a major
- chord. no, no, it's not all random, if it really was all random, the universe would
- abandon us completely. and the universe doesn't. it takes care of its most fragile
- creations in ways we can't see. like with parents who adore you blindly. and a big sister
- who feels guilty for being human over you. and a little gravelly-voiced kid whose
- friends have left him over you. and even a pink-haired girl who carries your picture in
- her wallet. maybe it is a lottery, but the universe makes it all even out in the end. the
- universe takes care of all its birds.
- Part Six
- August
- What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how
- infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and
- admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension
- how like a god! the beauty of the world! . . .
- —Shakespeare, Hamlet
- North Pole
- The Spud Lamp was a big hit at the science fair. Jack and I got an A for it. It was the
- first A Jack got in any class all year long, so he was psyched.
- All the science-fair projects were set up on tables in the gym. It was the same setup as
- the Egyptian Museum back in December, except this time there were volcanoes and
- molecule dioramas on the tables instead of pyramids and pharaohs. And instead of the
- kids taking our parents around to look at everybody else's artifact, we had to stand by
- our tables while all the parents wandered around the room and came over to us one by
- one.
- Here's the math on that one: Sixty kids in the grade equals sixty sets of parents—and
- doesn't even include grandparents. So that's a minimum of one hundred and twenty
- pairs of eyes that find their way over to me. Eyes that aren't as used to me as their kids'
- eyes are by now. It's like how compass needles always point north, no matter which
- way you're facing. All those eyes are compasses, and I'm like the North Pole to them.
- That's why I still don't like school events that include parents. I don't hate them as much
- as I did at the beginning of the school year. Like the Thanksgiving Sharing Festival:
- that was the worst one, I think. That was the first time I had to face the parents all at
- once. The Egyptian Museum came after that, but that one was okay because I got to
- dress up as a mummy and nobody noticed me. Then came the winter concert, which I
- totally hated because I had to sing in the chorus. Not only can I not sing at all, but it felt
- like I was on display. The New Year Art Show wasn't quite as bad, but it was still
- annoying. They put up our artwork in the hallways all over the school and had the
- parents come and check it out. It was like starting school all over again, having
- unsuspecting adults pass me on the stairway.
- Anyway, it's not that I care that people react to me. Like I've said a gazillion times: I'm
- used to that by now. I don't let it bother me. It's like when you go outside and it's
- drizzling a little. You don't put on boots for a drizzle. You don't even open your
- umbrella. You walk through it and barely notice your hair getting wet.
- But when it's a huge gym full of parents, the drizzle becomes like this total hurricane.
- Everyone's eyes hit you like a wall of water.
- Mom and Dad hang around my table a lot, along with Jack's parents. It's kind of funny
- how parents actually end up forming the same little groups their kids form. Like my
- parents and Jack's and Summer's mom all like and get along with each other. And I
- see Julian's parents hang out with Henry's parents and Miles's parents. And even the
- two Maxes' parents hang out together. It's so funny.
- I told Mom and Dad about it later when we were walking home, and they thought it was
- a funny observation.
- I guess it's true that like seeks like, said Mom.
- The Auggie Doll
- For a while, the "war" was all we talked about. February was when it was really at its
- worst. That's when practically nobody was talking to us, and Julian had started leaving
- notes in our lockers. The notes to Jack were stupid, like: You stink, big cheese! and
- Nobody likes you anymore!
- I got notes like: Freak! And another that said: Get out of our school, orc!
- Summer thought we should report the notes to Ms. Rubin, who was the middle-school
- dean, or even Mr. Tushman, but we thought that would be like snitching. Anyway, it's
- not like we didn't leave notes, too, though ours weren't really mean. They were kind of
- funny and sarcastic.
- One was: You're so pretty, Julian! I love you. Will you marry me? Love, Beulah
- Another was: Love your hair! XOX Beulah
- Another was: You're a babe. Tickle my feet. XO Beulah
- Beulah was a made-up person that me and Jack came up with. She had really gross
- habits, like eating the green stuff in between her toes and sucking on her knuckles. And
- we figured someone like that would have a real crush on Julian, who looked and acted
- like someone in a KidzBop commercial.
- There were also a couple of times in February when Julian, Miles, and Henry played
- tricks on Jack. They didn't play tricks on me, I think, because they knew that if they got
- caught "bullying" me, it would be big-time trouble for them. Jack, they figured, was an
- easier target. So one time they stole his gym shorts and played Monkey in the Middle
- with them in the locker room. Another time Miles, who sat next to Jack in homeroom,
- swiped Jack's worksheet off his desk, crumpled it in a ball, and tossed it to Julian
- across the room. This wouldn't have happened if Ms. Petosa had been there, of
- course, but there was a substitute teacher that day, and subs never really know what's
- going on. Jack was good about this stuff. He never let them see he was upset, though
- I think sometimes he was.
- The other kids in the grade knew about the war. Except for Savanna's group, the girls
- were neutral at first. But by March they were getting sick of it. And so were some of the
- boys. Like another time when Julian was dumping some pencilsharpener shavings into
- Jack's backpack, Amos, who was usually tight with them, grabbed the backpack out of
- Julian's hands and returned it to Jack. It was starting to feel like the majority of boys
- weren't buying into Julian anymore.
- Then a few weeks ago, Julian started spreading this ridiculous rumor that Jack had
- hired some "hit man" to "get" him and Miles and Henry. This lie was so pathetic that
- people were actually laughing about him behind his back. At that point, any boys who
- had still been on his side now jumped ship and were clearly neutral. So by the end of
- March, only Miles and Henry were on Julian's side—and I think even they were getting
- tired of the war by then.
- I'm pretty sure everyone's stopped playing the Plague game behind my back, too. No
- one really cringes if I bump into them anymore, and people borrow my pencils without
- acting like the pencil has cooties.
- People even joke around with me now sometimes. Like the other day I saw Maya
- writing a note to Ellie on a piece of Uglydoll stationery, and I don't know why, but I just
- kind of randomly said: "Did you know the guy who created the Uglydolls based them
- on me?"
- Maya looked at me with her eyes wide open like she totally believed me. Then, when
- she realized I was only kidding, she thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
- "You are so funny, August!" she said, and then she told Ellie and some of the other
- girls what I had just said, and they all thought it was funny, too. Like at first they were
- shocked, but then when they saw I was laughing about it, they knew it was okay to
- laugh about it, too. And the next day I found a little Uglydoll key chain sitting on my
- chair with a nice little note from Maya that said: For the nicest Auggie Doll in the world!
- XO Maya.
- Six months ago stuff like that would never have happened, but now it happens more
- and more.
- Also, people have been really nice about the hearing aids I started wearing.
- Lobot
- Ever since I was little, the doctors told my parents that someday I'd need hearing aids. I
- don't know why this always freaked me out a bit: maybe because anything to do with
- my ears bothers me a lot.
- My hearing was getting worse, but I hadn't told anyone about it. The ocean sound that
- was always in my head had been getting louder. It was drowning out people's voices,
- like I was underwater. I couldn't hear teachers if I sat in the back of the class. But I
- knew if I told Mom or Dad about it, I'd end up with hearing aids—and I was hoping I
- could make it through the fifth grade without having that happen.
- But then in my annual checkup in October I flunked the audiology test and the doctor
- was like, "Dude, it's time." And he sent me to a special ear doctor who took impressions
- of my ears.
- Out of all my features, my ears are the ones I hate the most. They're like tiny closed
- fists on the sides of my face. They're too low on my head, too. They look like squashed
- pieces of pizza dough sticking out of the top of my neck or something. Okay, maybe
- I'm exaggerating a little. But I really hate them.
- When the ear doctor first pulled the hearing aids out for me and Mom to look at, I
- groaned.
- "I am not wearing that thing," I announced, folding my arms in front of me.
- "I know they probably look kind of big," said the ear doctor, "but we had to attach them
- to the headband because we had no other way of making them so they'd stay in your
- ears."
- See, normal hearing aids usually have a part that wraps around the outer ear to hold
- the inner bud in place. But in my case, since I don't have outer ears, they had to put the
- earbuds on this heavy-duty headband that was supposed to wrap around the back of
- my head.
- "I can't wear that, Mom," I whined.
- "You'll hardly notice them," said Mom, trying to be cheerful. "They look like
- headphones."
- "Headphones? Look at them, Mom!" I said angrily. "I'll look like Lobot!"
- "Which one is Lobot?" said Mom calmly.
- "Lobot?" The ear doctor smiled as he looked at the headphones and made some
- adjustments. " The Empire Strikes Back? The bald guy with the cool bionic
- radiotransmitter thing that wraps around the back of his skull?"
- "I'm drawing a blank," said Mom.
- "You know Star Wars stuff?" I asked the ear doctor.
- "Know Star Wars stuff?" he answered, slipping the thing over my head. "I practically
- invented Star Wars stuff!" He leaned back in his chair to see how the headband fit and
- then took it off again.
- "Now, Auggie, I want to explain what all this is," he said, pointing to the different parts
- of one of the hearing aids. "This curved piece of plastic over here connects to the
- tubing on the ear mold. That's why we took those impressions back in December, so
- that this part that goes inside your ear fits nice and snug. This part here is called the
- tone hook, okay? And this thing is the special part we've attached to this cradle here."
- "The Lobot part," I said miserably.
- "Hey, Lobot is cool," said the ear doctor. "It's not like we're saying you're going to look
- like Jar Jar, you know? That would be bad." He slid the earphones on my head again
- carefully. "There you go, August. So how's that?"
- "Totally uncomfortable!" I said.
- "You'll get used to them very quickly," he said.
- I looked in the mirror. My eyes started tearing up. All I saw were these tubes jutting out
- from either side of my head— like antennas.
- "Do I really have to wear this, Mom?" I said, trying not to cry. "I hate them. They don't
- make any difference!"
- "Give it a second, buddy," said the doctor. "I haven't even turned them on yet. Wait until
- you hear the difference: you'll want to wear them."
- "No I won't!"
- And then he turned them on.
- Hearing Brightly
- How can I describe what I heard when the doctor turned on my hearing aids? Or what I
- didn't hear? It's too hard to think of words. The ocean just wasn't living inside my head
- anymore. It was gone. I could hear sounds like shiny lights in my brain. It was like when
- you're in a room where one of the lightbulbs on the ceiling isn't working, but you don't
- realize how dark it is until someone changes the lightbulb and then you're like, whoa,
- it's so bright in here! I don't know if there's a word that means the same as "bright" in
- terms of hearing, but I wish I knew one, because my ears were hearing brightly now.
- "How does it sound, Auggie?" said the ear doctor. "Can you hear me okay, buddy?"
- I looked at him and smiled but I didn't answer.
- "Sweetie, do you hear anything different?" said Mom.
- "You don't have to shout, Mom." I nodded happily.
- "Are you hearing better?" asked the ear doctor. "I don't hear that noise anymore," I
- answered. "It's so quiet in my ears."
- "The white noise is gone," he said, nodding. He looked at me and winked. "I told you
- you'd like what you heard, August." He made more adjustments on the left hearing aid.
- "Does it sound very different, love?" Mom asked.
- "Yeah." I nodded. "It sounds . . . lighter."
- "That's because you have bionic hearing now, buddy," said the ear doctor, adjusting
- the right side. "Now touch here." He put my hand behind the hearing aid. "Do you feel
- that? That's the volume. You have to find the volume that works for you. We're going
- to do that next. Well, what do you think?" He picked up a small mirror and had me look
- in the big mirror at how the hearing aids looked in the back. My hair covered most of
- the headband. The only part that peeked out was the tubing.
- "Are you okay with your new bionic Lobot hearing aids?" the ear doctor asked, looking
- in the mirror at me.
- "Yeah," I said. "Thank you." "
- Thank you so much, Dr. James," said Mom.
- The first day I showed up at school with the hearing aids, I thought kids would make a
- big deal about it. But no one did. Summer was glad I could hear better, and Jack said it
- made me look like an FBI agent or something. But that was it. Mr. Browne asked me
- about it in English class, but it wasn't like, what the heck is that thing on your head?! It
- was more like, "If you ever need me to repeat something, Auggie, make sure you tell
- me, okay?"
- Now that I look back, I don't know why I was so stressed about it all this time. Funny
- how sometimes you worry a lot about something and it turns out to be nothing.
- Via's Secret
- A couple of days after spring break ended, Mom found out that Via hadn't told her
- about a school play that was happening at her high school the next week. And Mom
- was mad. Mom doesn't really get mad that much (though Dad would disagree with
- that), but she was really mad at Via for that. She and Via got into a huge fight. I could
- hear them yelling at each other in Via's room. My bionic Lobot ears could hear Mom
- saying: "But what is with you lately, Via? You're moody and taciturn and secretive. . . ."
- "What is so wrong with my not telling you about a stupid play?" Via practically
- screamed. "I don't even have a speaking part in it!"
- "Your boyfriend does! Don't you want us to see him in it?"
- "No! Actually, I don't!"
- "Stop screaming!"
- "You screamed first! Just leave me alone, okay? You've been really good about leaving
- me alone my whole life, so why you choose high school to suddenly be interested I
- have no idea. . . ."
- Then I don't know what Mom answered because it all got very quiet, and even my
- bionic Lobot ears couldn't pick up a signal.
- My Cave
- By dinner they seemed to have made up. Dad was working late. Daisy was sleeping.
- She'd thrown up a lot earlier in the day, and Mom made an appointment to take her to
- the vet the next morning.
- The three of us were sitting down and no one was talking.
- Finally, I said: "So, are we going to see Justin in a play?"
- Via didn't answer but looked down at her plate.
- "You know, Auggie," said Mom quietly. "I hadn't realized what play it was, and it really
- isn't something that would be interesting to kids your age."
- "So I'm not invited?" I said, looking at Via.
- "I didn't say that," said Mom. "It's just I don't think it's something you'd enjoy."
- "You'd get totally bored," said Via, like she was accusing me of something.
- "Are you and Dad going?" I asked.
- "Dad'll go," said Mom. "I'll stay home with you."
- "What?" Via yelled at Mom. "Oh great, so you're going to punish me for being honest by
- not going?"
- "You didn't want us to go in the first place, remember?" answered Mom.
- "But now that you know about it, of course I want you to go!" said Via.
- "Well, I've got to weigh everyone's feelings here, Via," said Mom.
- "What are you two talking about?" I shouted.
- "Nothing!" they both snapped at the same time.
- "Just something about Via's school that has nothing to do with you," said Mom.
- "You're lying," I said.
- "Excuse me?" said Mom, kind of shocked. Even Via looked surprised.
- "I said you're lying!" I shouted. "You're lying!" I screamed at Via, getting up. "You're
- both liars! You're both lying to my face like I'm an idiot!"
- "Sit down, Auggie!" said Mom, grabbing my arm.
- I pulled my arm away and pointed at Via.
- "You think I don't know what's going on?" I yelled. "You just don't want your brand-new
- fancy high school friends to know your brother's a freak!"
- "Auggie!" Mom yelled. "That's not true!"
- "Stop lying to me, Mom!" I shrieked. "Stop treating me like a baby! I'm not retarded! I
- know what's going on!"
- I ran down the hallway to my room and slammed the door behind me so hard that I
- actually heard little pieces of the wall crumble inside the door frame. Then I plopped
- onto my bed and pulled the covers up on top of me. I threw my pillows over my
- disgusting face and then piled all my stuffed animals on top of the pillows, like I was
- inside a little cave. If I could walk around with a pillow over my face all the time, I
- would.
- I don't even know how I got so mad. I wasn't really mad at the beginning of dinner. I
- wasn't even sad. But then all of a sudden it all kind of just exploded out of me. I knew
- Via didn't want me to go to her stupid play. And I knew why.
- I figured Mom would follow me into my room right away, but she didn't. I wanted her to
- find me inside my cave of stuffed animals, so I waited a little more, but even after ten
- minutes she still didn't come in after me. I was pretty surprised. She always checks on
- me when I'm in my room, upset about stuff.
- I pictured Mom and Via talking about me in the kitchen. I figured Via was feeling really,
- really, really bad. I pictured Mom totally laying on the guilt. And Dad would be mad at
- her when he came home, too.
- I made a little hole through the pile of pillows and stuffed animals and peeked at the
- clock on my wall. Half an hour had passed and Mom still hadn't come into my room. I
- tried to listen for the sounds in the other rooms. Were they still having dinner? What
- was going on?
- Finally, the door opened. It was Via. She didn't even bother coming over to my bed,
- and she didn't come in softly like I thought she would. She came in quickly.
- Goodbye
- "Auggie," said Via. "Come quick. Mom needs to talk to you."
- "I'm not apologizing!"
- "This isn't about you!" she yelled. "Not everything in the world is about you, Auggie!
- Now hurry up. Daisy's sick. Mom's taking her to the emergency vet. Come say
- goodbye."
- I pushed the pillows off my face and looked up at her. That's when I saw she was
- crying. "What do you mean 'goodbye'?"
- "Come on!" she said, holding out her hand.
- I took her hand and followed her down the hall to the kitchen. Daisy was lying down
- sideways on the floor with her legs straight out in front of her. She was panting a lot,
- like she'd been running in the park. Mom was kneeling beside her, stroking the top of
- her head.
- "What happened?" I asked.
- "She just started whimpering all of a sudden," said Via, kneeling down next to Mom.
- I looked down at Mom, who was crying, too.
- "I'm taking her to the animal hospital downtown," she said. "The taxi's coming to pick
- me up."
- "The vet'll make her better, right?" I said.
- Mom looked at me. "I hope so, honey," she said quietly. "But I honestly don't know."
- "Of course he will!" I said.
- "Daisy's been sick a lot lately, Auggie. And she's old . . ."
- "But they can fix her," I said, looking at Via to agree with me, but Via wouldn't look up at
- me.
- Mom's lips were trembling. "I think it might be time we say goodbye to Daisy, Auggie.
- I'm sorry."
- "No!" I said.
- "We don't want her to suffer, Auggie," she said.
- The phone rang. Via picked it up, said, "Okay, thanks," and then hung up.
- "The taxi's outside," she said, wiping her tears with the backs of her hands.
- "Okay, Auggie, open the door for me, sweetie?" said Mom, picking Daisy up very gently
- like she was a huge droopy baby.
- "Please, no, Mommy?" I cried, putting myself in front of the door.
- "Honey, please," said Mom. "She's very heavy."
- "What about Daddy?" I cried.
- "He's meeting me at the hospital," Mom said. "He doesn't want Daisy to suffer, Auggie."
- Via moved me away from the door and held it open it for Mom.
- "My cell phone's on if you need anything," Mom said to Via. "Can you cover her with the
- blanket?"
- Via nodded, but she was crying hysterically now.
- "Say goodbye to Daisy, kids," Mom said, tears streaming down her face.
- "I love you, Daisy," Via said, kissing Daisy on the nose. "I love you so much."
- "Bye, little girlie . . . ," I whispered into Daisy's ear. "I love you. . . ."
- Mom carried Daisy down the stoop. The taxi driver had opened the back door and we
- watched her get in. Just before she closed the door, Mom looked up at us standing by
- the entrance to the building and she gave us a little wave. I don't think I've ever seen
- her look sadder.
- "I love you, Mommy!" said Via.
- "I love you, Mommy!" I said. "I'm sorry, Mommy!"
- Mom blew a kiss to us and closed the door. We watched the car leave and then Via
- closed the door. She looked at me a second, and then she hugged me very, very tight
- while we both cried a million tears.
- Daisy's Toys
- Justin came over about half an hour later. He gave me a big hug and said: "Sorry,
- Auggie." We all sat down in the living room, not saying anything. For some reason, Via
- and I had taken all of Daisy's toys from around the house and had put them in a little
- pile on the coffee table. Now we just stared at the pile.
- "She really is the greatest dog in the world," said Via.
- "I know," said Justin, rubbing Via's back.
- "She just started whimpering, like all of a sudden?" I said.
- Via nodded. "Like two seconds after you left the table," she said. "Mom was going to go
- after you, but Daisy just started, like, whimpering."
- "Like how?" I said.
- "Just whimpering, I don't know," said Via.
- "Like howling?" I asked.
- "Auggie, like whimpering!" she answered impatiently. "She just started moaning, like
- something was really hurting her. And she was panting like crazy. Then she just kind of
- plopped down, and Mom went over and tried to pick her up, and whatever, she was
- obviously hurting. She bit Mom."
- "What?" I said. "When Mom tried to touch her stomach, Daisy bit her hand," Via
- explained.
- "Daisy never bites anybody!" I answered.
- "She wasn't herself," said Justin. "She was obviously in pain."
- "Daddy was right," said Via. "We shouldn't have let her get this bad."
- "What do you mean?" I said. "He knew she was sick?"
- "Auggie, Mom's taken her to the vet like three times in the last two months. She's been
- throwing up left and right. Haven't you noticed?"
- "But I didn't know she was sick!" Via didn't say anything, but she put her arm around
- my shoulders and pulled me closer to her. I started to cry again.
- "I'm sorry, Auggie," she said softly. "I'm really sorry about everything, okay? You forgive
- me? You know how much I love you, right?"
- I nodded. Somehow that fight didn't matter much now.
- "Was Mommy bleeding?" I asked. "It was just a nip," said Via. "Right there." She
- pointed to the bottom of her thumb to show me exactly where Daisy had bitten Mom.
- "Did it hurt her?" "Mommy's okay, Auggie. She's fine."
- Mom and Dad came home two hours later. We knew the second they opened the door
- and Daisy wasn't with them that Daisy was gone. We all sat down in the living room
- around the pile of Daisy's toys. Dad told us what happened at the animal hospital, how
- the vet took Daisy for some Xrays and blood tests, then came back and told them she
- had a huge mass in her stomach. She was having trouble breathing. Mom and Dad
- didn't want her to suffer, so Daddy picked her up in his arms like he always liked to do,
- with her legs straight up in the air, and he and Mom kissed her goodbye over and over
- again and whispered to her while the vet put a needle into her leg. And then after about
- a minute she died in Daddy's arms. It was so peaceful, Daddy said. She wasn't in any
- pain at all. Like she was just going to sleep. A couple of times while he talked, Dad's
- voice got trembly and he cleared his throat.
- I've never seen Dad cry before, but I saw him cry tonight. I had gone into Mom and
- Dad's bedroom looking for Mom to put me to bed, but saw Dad sitting on the edge of
- the bed, taking off his socks. His back was to the door, so he didn't know I was there.
- At first I thought he was laughing because his shoulders were shaking, but then he put
- his palms on his eyes and I realized he was crying. It was the quietest crying I've ever
- heard. Like a whisper. I was going to go over to him, but then I thought maybe he was
- whisper-crying because he didn't want me or anyone else to hear him. So I walked out
- and went to Via's room, and I saw Mom lying next to Via on the bed, and Mom was
- whispering to Via, who was crying.
- So I went to my bed and put on my pajamas without anyone telling me to and put the
- night-light on and turned the light off and crawled into the little mountain of stuffed
- animals I had left on my bed earlier. It felt like that all had happened a million years
- ago. I took my hearing aids off and put them on the night table and pulled the covers up
- to my ears and imagined Daisy snuggling with me, her big wet tongue licking my face
- all over like it was her favorite face in the world. And that's how I fell asleep.
- Heaven
- I woke up later on and it was still dark. I got out of bed and walked into Mom and Dad's
- bedroom.
- "Mommy?" I whispered. It was completely dark, so I couldn't see her open her eyes.
- "Mommy?"
- "You okay, honey?" she said groggily.
- "Can I sleep with you?"
- Mom scooted over toward Daddy's side of the bed, and I snuggled up next to her. She
- kissed my hair.
- "Is your hand okay?" I said. "Via told me Daisy bit you."
- "It was only a nip," she whispered in my ear.
- "Mommy . . ." I started crying. "I'm sorry about what I said."
- "Shhh . . . There's nothing to be sorry about," she said, so quietly I could barely hear
- her. She was rubbing the side of her face against my face. "
- Is Via ashamed of me?" I said.
- "No, honey, no. You know she's not. She's just adjusting to a new school. It's not easy."
- "I know."
- "I know you know."
- "I'm sorry I called you a liar."
- "Go to sleep, sweet boy. . . . I love you so much."
- "I love you so much, too, Mommy."
- "Good night, honey," she said very softly.
- "Mommy, is Daisy with Grans now?"
- "I think so."
- "Are they in heaven?"
- "Yes."
- "Do people look the same when they get to heaven?"
- "I don't know. I don't think so."
- "Then how do people recognize each other?"
- "I don't know, sweetie." She sounded tired. "They just feel it. You don't need your eyes
- to love, right? You just feel it inside you. That's how it is in heaven. It's just love, and no
- one forgets who they love."
- She kissed me again.
- "Now go to sleep, honey. It's late. And I'm so tired."
- But I couldn't go to sleep, even after I knew she had fallen asleep. I could hear Daddy
- sleeping, too, and I imagined I could hear Via sleeping down the hallway in her room.
- And I wondered if Daisy was sleeping in heaven right then. And if she was sleeping,
- was she dreaming about me? And I wondered how it would feel to be in heaven
- someday and not have my face matter anymore. Just like it never, ever mattered to
- Daisy.
- Understudy
- Via brought home three tickets to her school play a few days after Daisy died. We
- never mentioned the fight we had over dinner again. On the night of the play, right
- before she and Justin were leaving to get to their school early, she gave me a big hug
- and told me she loved me and she was proud to be my sister.
- This was my first time in Via's new school. It was much bigger than her old school, and
- a thousand times bigger than my school. More hallways. More room for people. The
- only really bad thing about my bionic Lobot hearing aids was the fact that I couldn't
- wear a baseball cap anymore. In situations like these, baseball caps come in really
- handy. Sometimes I wish I could still get away with wearing that old astronaut helmet I
- used to wear when I was little. Believe it or not, people would think seeing a kid in an
- astronaut helmet was a lot less weird than seeing my face. Anyway, I kept my head
- down as I walked right behind Mom through the long bright hallways.
- We followed the crowd to the auditorium, where students handed out programs at the
- front entrance. We found seats in the fifth row, close to the middle. As soon as we sat
- down, Mom started looking inside her pocketbook.
- "I can't believe I forgot my glasses!" she said.
- Dad shook his head. Mom was always forgetting her glasses, or her keys, or something
- or other. She is flaky that way.
- "You want to move closer?" said Dad.
- Mom squinted at the stage. "No, I can see okay."
- "Speak now or forever hold your peace," said Dad.
- "I'm fine," answered Mom.
- "Look, there's Justin," I said to Dad, pointing out Justin's picture in the program.
- "That's a nice picture of him," he answered, nodding.
- "How come there's no picture of Via?" I said.
- "She's an understudy," said Mom. "But, look: here's her name."
- "Why do they call her an understudy?" I asked.
- "Wow, look at Miranda's picture," said Mom to Dad. "I don't think I would have
- recognized her."
- "Why do they call it understudy?" I repeated.
- "It's what they call someone who replaces an actor if he can't perform for some
- reason," answered Mom.
- "Did you hear Martin's getting remarried?" Dad said to Mom.
- "Are you kidding me?!" Mom answered, like she was surprised.
- "Who's Martin?" I asked.
- "Miranda's father," Mom answered, and then to Dad: "Who told you?"
- "I ran into Miranda's mother in the subway. She's not happy about it. He has a new
- baby on the way and everything."
- "Wow," said Mom, shaking her head.
- "What are you guys talking about?" I said.
- "Nothing," answered Dad.
- "But why do they call it understudy?" I said.
- "I don't know, Auggie Doggie," Dad answered. "Maybe because the actors kind of study
- under the main actors or something? I really don't know."
- I was going to say something else but then the lights went down. The audience got very
- quiet very quickly.
- "Daddy, can you please not call me Auggie Doggie anymore?" I whispered in Dad's
- ear.
- Dad smiled and nodded and gave me a thumbs-up.
- The play started. The curtain opened. The stage was completely empty except for
- Justin, who was sitting on an old rickety chair tuning his fiddle. He was wearing an
- oldfashioned type of suit and a straw hat.
- "This play is called 'Our Town,' " he said to the audience. "It was written by Thornton
- Wilder; produced and directed by Philip Davenport. . . . The name of the town is
- Grover's Corners, New Hampshire—just across the Massachusetts line: latitude 42
- degrees 40 minutes; longitude 70 degrees 37 minutes. The First Act shows a day in our
- town. The day is May 7, 1901. The time is just before dawn."
- I knew right then and there that I was going to like the play. It wasn't like other school
- plays I've been to, like The Wizard of Oz or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. No, this
- was grown-up seeming, and I felt smart sitting there watching it.
- A little later in the play, a character named Mrs. Webb calls out for her daughter, Emily.
- I knew from the program that that was the part Miranda was playing, so I leaned
- forward to get a better look at her.
- "That's Miranda," Mom whispered to me, squinting at the stage when Emily walked out.
- "She looks so different. . . ."
- "It's not Miranda," I whispered.
- "It's Via." "Oh my God!" said Mom, lurching forward in her seat.
- "Shh!" said Dad.
- "It's Via," Mom whispered to him.
- "I know," whispered Dad, smiling.
- "Shhh!"
- The Ending
- The play was so amazing. I don't want to give away the ending, but it's the kind of
- ending that makes people in the audience teary. Mom totally lost it when Via-as-Emily
- said:
- "Good-by, Good-by world! Good-by, Grover's Corners . . . Mama and Papa. Good-by to
- clocks ticking and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses
- and hot baths . . . and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for
- anybody to realize you!"
- Via was actually crying while she was saying this. Like real tears: I could see them
- rolling down her cheeks. It was totally awesome.
- After the curtain closed, everyone in the audience started clapping. Then the actors
- came out one by one. Via and Justin were the last ones out, and when they appeared,
- the whole audience rose to their feet.
- "Bravo!" I heard Dad yelling through his hands.
- "Why is everyone getting up?" I said.
- "It's a standing ovation," said Mom, getting up.
- So I got up and clapped and clapped. I clapped until my hands hurt. For a second, I
- imagined how cool it would be to be Via and Justin right then, having all these people
- standing up and cheering for them. I think there should be a rule that everyone in the
- world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.
- Finally, after I don't know how many minutes, the line of actors onstage stepped back
- and the curtain closed in front of them. The clapping stopped and the lights went up
- and the audience started getting up to leave.
- Me and Mom and Dad made our way to the backstage. Crowds of people were
- congratulating the performers, surrounding them, patting them on the back. We saw
- Via and Justin at the center of the crowd, smiling at everyone, laughing and talking.
- "Via!" shouted Dad, waving as he made his way through the crowd. When he got
- close enough, he hugged her and lifted her off the floor a little. "You were amazing,
- sweetheart!"
- "Oh my God, Via!" Mom was screaming with excitement.
- "Oh my God, oh my God!" She was hugging Via so hard I thought Via would suffocate,
- but Via was laughing.
- "You were brilliant!" said Dad.
- "Brilliant!" Mom said, kind of nodding and shaking her head at the same time.
- "And you, Justin," said Dad, shaking Justin's hand and giving him a hug at the same
- time. "You were fantastic!"
- "Fantastic!" Mom repeated. She was, honestly, so emotional she could barely talk.
- "What a shock to see you up there, Via!" said Dad.
- "Mom didn't even recognize you at first!" I said.
- "I didn't recognize you!" said Mom, her hand over her mouth.
- "Miranda got sick right before the show started," said Via, all of out of breath. "There
- wasn't even time to make an announcement." I have to say she looked kind of strange,
- because she was wearing all this makeup and I'd never seen her like this before.
- "And you just stepped in there right at the last minute?" said Dad. "Wow."
- "She was amazing, wasn't she?" said Justin, his arm around Via.
- "There wasn't a dry eye in the house," said Dad.
- "Is Miranda okay?" I said, but no one heard me.
- At that moment, a man who I think was their teacher came over to Justin and Via,
- clapping his hands.
- "Bravo, bravo! Olivia and Justin!" He kissed Via on both cheeks.
- "I flubbed a couple of lines," said Via, shaking her head.
- "But you got through it," said the man, smiling ear to ear.
- "Mr. Davenport, these are my parents," said Via.
- "You must be so proud of your girl!" he said, shaking their hands with both his hands.
- "We are!"
- "And this is my little brother, August," said Via.
- He looked like he was about to say something but suddenly froze when he looked at
- me.
- "Mr. D," said Justin, pulling him by the arm, "come meet my mom."
- Via was about to say something to me, but then someone else came over and started
- talking to her, and before I knew it, I was kind of alone in the crowd. I mean, I knew
- where Mom and Dad were, but there were so many people all around us, and people
- kept bumping into me, spinning me around a bit, giving me that one-two look, which
- made me feel kind of bad. I don't know if it was because I was feeling hot or
- something, but I kind of started getting dizzy. People's faces were blurring in my head.
- And their voices were so loud it was almost hurting my ears. I tried to turn the volume
- down on my Lobot ears, but I got confused and turned them louder at first, which kind
- of shocked me. And then I looked up and I didn't see Mom or Dad or Via anywhere.
- "Via?" I yelled out. I started pushing through the crowd to find Mom. "Mommy!" I really
- couldn't see anything but people's stomachs and ties all around me. "Mommy!"
- Suddenly someone picked me up from behind. "Look who's here!" said a familiar
- voice, hugging me tight. I thought it was Via at first, but when I turned around, I was
- completely surprised. "Hey, Major Tom!" she said.
- "Miranda!" I answered, and I gave her the tightest hug I could give.
- Part 7
- Miranda
- I forgot that I might see
- So many beautiful things
- I forgot that I might need
- To find out what life could bring
- —Andain, "Beautiful Things"
- Camp Lies
- My parents got divorced the summer before ninth grade. My father was with someone
- else right away. In fact, though my mother never said so, I think this was the reason
- they got divorced.
- After the divorce, I hardly ever saw my father. And my mother acted stranger than ever.
- It's not that she was unstable or anything: just distant. Remote. My mother is the kind
- of person who has a happy face for the rest of the world but not a lot left over for me.
- She's never talked to me much—not about her feelings, her life. I don't know much
- about what she was like when she was my age. Don't know much about the things she
- liked or didn't like. The few times she mentioned her own parents, who I've never met, it
- was mostly about how she wanted to get as far away from them as she could once
- she'd grown up. She never told me why. I asked a few times, but she would pretend
- she hadn't heard me.
- I didn't want to go to camp that summer. I had wanted to stay with her, to help her
- through the divorce. But she insisted I go away. I figured she wanted the alone time, so
- I gave it to her.
- Camp was awful. I hated it. I thought it would be better being a junior counselor, but it
- wasn't. No one I knew from the previous year had come back, so I didn't know
- anyone— not a single person. I'm not even sure why, but I started playing this little
- make-believe game with the girls in the camp. They'd ask me stuff about myself, and I'd
- make things up: my parents are in Europe, I told them. I live in a huge townhouse on
- the nicest street in North River Heights. I have a dog named Daisy.
- Then one day I blurted out that I had a little brother who was deformed. I have
- absolutely no idea why I said this: it just seemed like an interesting thing to say. And, of
- course, the reaction I got from the little girls in the bungalow was dramatic. Really? So
- sorry! That must be tough! Et cetera. Et cetera. I regretted saying this the moment it
- escaped from my lips, of course: I felt like such a fake. If Via ever found out, I thought,
- she'd think I was such a weirdo. And I felt like a weirdo. But, I have to admit, there was
- a part of me that felt a little entitled to this lie. I've known Auggie since I was six years
- old. I've watched him grow up. I've played with him. I've watched all six episodes of
- Star Wars for his sake, so I could talk to him about the aliens and bounty hunters and
- all that. I'm the one that gave him the astronaut helmet he wouldn't take off for two
- years. I mean, I've kind of earned the right to think of him as my brother.
- And the strangest thing is that these lies I told, these fictions, did wonders for my
- popularity. The other junior counselors heard it from the campers, and they were all
- over it. Never in my life have I ever been considered one of the "popular" girls in
- anything, but that summer in camp, for whatever reason, I was the girl everybody
- wanted to hang out with. Even the girls in bungalow 32 were totally into me. These
- were the girls at the top of the food chain. They said they liked my hair (though they
- changed it). They said they liked the way I did my makeup (though they changed that,
- too). They showed me how to turn my T-shirts into halter tops. We smoked. We snuck
- out late at night and took the path through the woods to the boys' camp. We hung out
- with boys.
- When I got home from camp, I called Ella right away to make plans with her. I don't
- know why I didn't call Via. I guess I just didn't feel like talking about stuff with her. She
- would have asked me about my parents, about camp. Ella never really asked me about
- things. She was an easier friend to have in that way. She wasn't serious like Via. She
- was fun. She thought it was cool when I dyed my hair pink. She wanted to hear all
- about those trips through the woods late at night.
- School
- I hardly saw Via at school this year, and when I did it was awkward. It felt like she was
- judging me. I knew she didn't like my new look. I knew she didn't like my group of
- friends. I didn't much like hers. We never actually argued: we just drifted away. Ella
- and I badmouthed her to each other: She's such a prude, she's so this, she's so that.
- We knew we were being mean, but it was easier to ice her out if we pretended she had
- done something to us. The truth is she hadn't changed at all: we had. We'd become
- these other people, and she was still the person she'd always been. That annoyed me
- so much and I didn't know why.
- Once in a while I'd look to see where she was sitting in the lunchroom, or check the
- elective lists to see what she'd signed up for. But except for a few nods in the hallway
- and an occasional "hello," we never really spoke to each other.
- I noticed Justin about halfway through the school year. I hadn't noticed him at all before
- then, other than that he was this skinny cutish dude with thick glasses and longish hair
- who carried a violin everywhere. Then one day I saw him in front of the school with his
- arm around Via. "So Via has a boyfriend!" I said to Ella, kind of mocking. I don't know
- why it surprised me that she'd have a boyfriend. Out of the three of us, she was totally
- the prettiest: blue, blue eyes and long wavy dark hair. But she'd just never acted like
- she was at all interested in boys. She acted like she was too smart for that kind of
- stuff.
- I had a boyfriend, too: a guy named Zack. When I told him I was choosing the theater
- elective, he shook his head and said: "Careful you don't turn into a drama geek." Not
- the most sympathetic dude in the world, but very cute. Very high up on the totem pole.
- A varsity jock.
- I wasn't planning on taking theater at first. Then I saw Via's name on the sign-up sheet
- and just wrote my name down on the list. I don't even know why. We managed to avoid
- one another throughout most of the semester, like we didn't even know each other.
- Then one day I got to theater class a little early, and Davenport asked me to run off
- additional copies of the play he was planning on having us do for the spring
- production: The Elephant Man. I'd heard about it but I didn't really know what it was
- about, so I started skimming through the pages while I was waiting for the xerox
- machine. It was about a man who lived more than a hundred years ago named John
- Merrick who was terribly deformed.
- "We can't do this play, Mr. D," I told him when I got back to class, and I told him why:
- my little brother has a birth defect and has a deformed face and this play would hit too
- close to home. He seemed annoyed and a little unsympathetic, but I kind of said that
- my parents would have a real issue with the school doing this play. So anyway, he
- ended up switching to Our Town.
- I think I went for the role of Emily Gibbs because I knew Via was going to go for it, too.
- It never occurred to me that I'd beat her for the role.
- What I Miss Most
- One of the things I miss the most about Via's friendship is her family. I loved her mom
- and dad. They were always so welcoming and nice to me. I knew they loved their kids
- more than anything. I always felt safe around them: safer than anywhere else in the
- world. How pathetic that I felt safer in someone else's house than in my own, right?
- And, of course, I loved Auggie. I was never afraid of him: even when I was little. I had
- friends that couldn't believe I'd ever go over to Via's house. "His face creeps me out,"
- they'd say. "You're stupid," I'd tell them. Auggie's face isn't so bad once you get used
- to it.
- I called Via's house once just to say hello to Auggie. Maybe part of me was hoping Via
- would answer, I don't know.
- "Hey, Major Tom!" I said, using my nickname for him.
- "Miranda!" He sounded so happy to hear my voice it actually kind of took me by
- surprise. "I'm going to a regular school now!" he told me excitedly.
- "Really? Wow!" I said, totally shocked. I guess I never thought he'd go to a regular
- school. His parents have always been so protective of him. I guess I thought he'd
- always be that little kid in the astronaut helmet I gave him. Talking to him, I could tell
- he had no idea that Via and I weren't close anymore. "It's different in high school," I
- explained to him. "You end up hanging out with loads of different people."
- "I have some friends in my new school," he told me. "A kid named Jack and a girl
- named Summer."
- "That's awesome, Auggie," I said. "Well, I was just calling to tell you I miss you and
- hope you're having a good year. Feel free to call me whenever you want, okay,
- Auggie? You know I love you always."
- "I love you, too, Miranda!"
- "Say hi to Via for me. Tell her I miss her."
- "I will. Bye!"
- "Bye!"
- Extraordinary, but No One There to See
- Neither my mother nor my father could come see the play on opening night: my mother
- because she had this thing at work, and my dad because his new wife was going to
- have her baby any second now, and he had to be on call.
- Zack couldn't come to opening night, either: he had a volleyball game against
- Collegiate he couldn't miss. In fact, he had wanted me to miss the opening night so I
- could come cheer him on. My "friends" all went to the game, of course, because all
- their boyfriends were playing. Even Ella didn't come. Given a choice, she chose the
- crowd.
- So on opening night no one that was remotely close to me was even there. And the
- thing is, I realized in my third or fourth rehearsal that I was good at this acting thing. I
- felt the part. I understood the words I spoke. I could read the lines as if they were
- coming from my brain and my heart. And on opening night, I can honestly say I knew I
- was going to be more than good: I was going to be great. I was going to be
- extraordinary, but there would be no one there to see.
- We were all backstage, nervously running through our lines in our heads. I peeked
- through the curtain at the people taking their seats in the auditorium. That's when I saw
- Auggie walking down the aisle with Isabel and Nate. They took three seats in the fifth
- row, near the middle. Auggie was wearing a bow tie, looking around excitedly. He had
- grown up a bit since I'd last seen him, almost a year ago. His hair was shorter, and he
- was wearing some kind of hearing aid now. His face hadn't changed a bit.
- Davenport was running through some last-minute changes with the set decorator. I saw
- Justin pacing off stage left, mumbling his lines nervously.
- "Mr. Davenport," I said, surprising myself as I spoke. "I'm sorry, but I can't go on
- tonight."
- Davenport turned around slowly.
- "What?" he said.
- "I'm sorry."
- "Are you kidding?"
- "I'm just . . . ," I muttered, looking down, "I don't feel well. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm going
- to throw up." This was a lie.
- "It's just last-minute jitters. . . ."
- "No! I can't do it! I'm telling you."
- Davenport looked furious. "Miranda, this is outrageous."
- "I'm sorry!"
- Davenport took a deep breath, like he was trying to restrain himself. To be truthful, I
- thought he looked like he was going to explode. His forehead turned bright pink.
- "Miranda, this is absolutely unacceptable! Now go take a few deep breaths and—"
- "I'm not going on!" I said loudly, and the tears came to my eyes fairly easily.
- "Fine!" he screamed, not looking at me. Then he turned to a kid named David, who was
- a set decorator. "Go find Olivia in the lighting booth! Tell her she's filling in for Miranda
- tonight!"
- "What?" said David, who wasn't too swift.
- "Go!" shouted Davenport in his face. "Now!" The other kids had caught on to what was
- happening and gathered around.
- "What's going on?" said Justin.
- "Last-minute change of plans," said Davenport. "Miranda doesn't feel well."
- "I feel sick," I said, trying to sound sick.
- "So why are you still here?" Davenport said to me angrily.
- "Stop talking, take off your costume, and give it to Olivia! Okay? Come on, everybody!
- Let's go! Go! Go!"
- I ran backstage to the dressing room as quickly as I could and started peeling off my
- costume. Two seconds later there was a knock and Via half opened the door.
- "What is going on?" she said.
- "Hurry up, put it on," I answered, handing her the dress.
- "You're sick?"
- "Yeah! Hurry up!" Via, looking stunned, took off her T-shirt and jeans and pulled the
- long dress over her head. I pulled it down for her, and then zipped up the back. Luckily,
- Emily Webb didn't go on until ten minutes into the play, so the girl handling hair and
- makeup had time to put Via's hair up in a twist and do a quick makeup job. I'd never
- seen Via with a lot of makeup on: she looked like a model.
- "I'm not even sure I'll remember my lines," Via said, looking at herself in the mirror. "
- Your lines."
- "You'll do great," I said.
- She looked at me in the mirror. "Why are you doing this, Miranda?"
- "Olivia!" It was Davenport, hush-shouting from the door. "You're on in two minutes. It's
- now or never!"
- Via followed him out the door, so I never got the chance to answer her question. I don't
- know what I would have said, anyway. I wasn't sure what the answer was.
- The Performance
- I watched the rest of the play from the wings just offstage, next to Davenport. Justin
- was amazing, and Via, in that heartbreaking last scene, was awesome. There was one
- line she flubbed a bit, but Justin covered for her, and no one in the audience even
- noticed. I heard Davenport muttering under his breath: "Good, good, good." He was
- more nervous than all of the students put together: the actors, the set decorators, the
- lighting team, the guy handling the curtains. Davenport was a wreck, frankly.
- The only time I felt any regret, if you could even call it that, was at the end of the play
- when everyone went out for their curtain calls. Via and Justin were the last of the actors
- walking out onstage, and the audience rose to their feet when they took their bows.
- That, I admit, was a little bittersweet for me. But just a few minutes later I saw Nate
- and Isabel and Auggie make their way backstage, and they all seemed so happy.
- Everyone was congratulating the actors, patting them on the back. It was that crazy
- backstage theater mayhem where sweaty actors stand euphoric while people come
- worship them for a few seconds. In that crush of people, I noticed Auggie looking kind
- of lost. I cut through the crowd as fast as I could and came up behind him.
- "Hey!" I said. "Major Tom!"
- After the Show
- I can't say why I was so happy to see August again after so long, or how good it felt
- when he hugged me.
- "I can't believe how big you've gotten," I said to him.
- "I thought you were going to be in the play!" he said.
- "I wasn't up to it," I said. "But Via was great, don't you think?"
- He nodded. Two seconds later Isabel found us.
- "Miranda!" she said happily, giving me a kiss on the cheek. And then to August: "Don't
- ever disappear like that again."
- "You're the one who disappeared," Auggie answered back.
- "How are you feeling?" Isabel said to me. "Via told us you got sick. . . ."
- "Much better," I answered.
- "Is your mom here?" said Isabel.
- "No, she had work stuff, so it's actually not a big deal for me," I said truthfully. "We have
- two more shows anyway, though I don't think I'll be as good an Emily as Via was
- tonight."
- Nate came over and we had basically the same exact conversation. Then Isabel said:
- "Look, we're going to have a late-night dinner to celebrate the show. Are you feeling up
- to joining us? We'd love to have you!"
- "Oh, no . . . ," I started to say.
- "Pleeease?" said Auggie.
- "I should go home," I said.
- "We insist," said Nate.
- By now Via and Justin had come over with Justin's mom, and Via put her arm around
- me.
- "You're definitely coming," she said, smiling her old smile at me. They started leading
- me out of the crowd, and I have to admit, for the first time in a very, very long time, I felt
- absolutely happy.
- Part Eight
- August
- You're gonna reach the sky
- Fly . . . Beautiful child
- —Eurythmics, "Beautiful Child"
- The Fifth-Grade Nature Retreat
- Every year in the spring, the fifth graders of Beecher Prep go away for three days and
- two nights to a place called the Broarwood Nature Reserve in Pennsylvania. It's a four-
- hour bus drive away. The kids sleep in cabins with bunk beds. There are campfires
- and s'mores and long walks through the woods. The teachers have been prepping us
- about this all year long, so all the kids in the grade are excited about it— except for
- me. And it's not even that I'm not excited, because I kind of am—it's just I've never
- slept away from home before and I'm kind of nervous.
- Most kids have had sleepovers by the time they're my age. A lot of kids have gone to
- sleepaway camps, or stayed with their grandparents or whatever. Not me. Not unless
- you include hospital stays, but even then Mom or Dad always stayed with me
- overnight. But I never slept over Tata and Poppa's house, or Aunt Kate and Uncle Po's
- house. When I was really little, that was mainly because there were too many medical
- issues, like my trache tube needing to be cleared every hour, or reinserting my feeding
- tube if it got detached. But when I got bigger, I just never felt like sleeping anywhere
- else. There was one time when I half slept over Christopher's house. We were about
- eight, and we were still best friends. Our family had gone for a visit to his house, and
- me and Christopher were having such a great time playing Legos Star Wars that I didn't
- want to leave when it was time to go. We were like, "Please, please, please can we
- have a sleepover?" So our parents said yes, and Mom and Dad and Via drove home.
- And me and Christopher stayed up till midnight playing, until Lisa, his mom, said:
- "Okay, guys, time to go to bed." Well, that's when I kind of panicked a bit. Lisa tried to
- help me go to sleep, but I just started crying that I wanted to go home. So at one a.m.
- Lisa called Mom and Dad, and Dad drove all the way back out to Bridgeport to pick me
- up. We didn't get home until three a.m. So my one and only sleepover, up until now,
- was pretty much of a disaster, which is why I'm a little nervous about the nature
- retreat.
- On the other hand, I'm really excited.
- Known For
- I asked Mom to buy me a new rolling duffel bag because my old one had Star Wars
- stuff on it, and there was no way I was going to take that to the fifth-grade nature
- retreat. As much as I love Star Wars, I don't want that to be what I'm known for.
- Everyone's known for something in middle school. Like Reid is known for really being
- into marine life and the oceans and things like that. And Amos is known for being a
- really good baseball player. And Charlotte is known for having been in a TV
- commercial when she was six. And Ximena's known for being really smart.
- My point is that in middle school you kind of get known for what you're into, and you
- have to be careful about stuff like that. Like Max G and Max W will never live down their
- Dungeons & Dragons obsession.
- So I was actually trying to ease out of the whole Star Wars thing a bit. I mean, it'll
- always be special to me, like it is with the doctor who put in my hearing aids. It's just not
- the thing I wanted to be known for in middle school. I'm not sure what I want to be
- known for, but it's not that.
- That's not exactly true: I do know what I'm really known for. But there's nothing I can do
- about that. A Star Wars duffel bag I could do something about.
- Packing
- Mom helped me pack the night before the big trip. We put all the clothes I was taking
- on my bed, and she folded everything neatly and put it inside the bag while I watched.
- It was a plain blue rolling duffel, by the way: no logos or artwork. "
- What if I can't sleep at night?" I asked.
- "Take a book with you. Then if you can't sleep, you can pull out your flashlight, and
- read for a bit until you get sleepy," she answered.
- I nodded. "What if I have a nightmare?"
- "Your teachers will be there, sweetie," she said. "And Jack. And your friends."
- "I can bring Baboo," I said. That was my favorite stuffed animal when I was little. A
- small black bear with a soft black nose.
- "You don't really sleep with him anymore, do you?" said Mom.
- "No, but I keep him in my closet in case I wake up in the middle of the night and can't
- get back to sleep," I said. "I could hide him in my bag. No one would know."
- "Then let's do that." Mom nodded, getting Baboo from inside my closet.
- "I wish they allowed cell phones," I said.
- "I know, me too!" she said. "Though I know you're going to have a great time, Auggie.
- You sure you want me to pack Baboo?"
- "Yeah, but way down where no one can see him," I said.
- She stuck Baboo deep inside the bag and then stuffed the last of my T-shirts on top of
- him. "So many clothes for just two days!"
- "Three days and two nights," I corrected her.
- "Yep." She nodded, smiling. "Three days and two nights." She zipped up the duffel bag
- and picked it up. "Not too heavy. Try it."
- I picked up the bag. "Fine." I shrugged.
- She sat on the bed. "Hey, what happened to your Empire Strikes Back poster?"
- "Oh, I took that down ages ago," I answered.
- She shook her head. "Huh, I didn't notice that before."
- "I'm trying to, you know, change my image a bit," I explained.
- "Okay." She smiled, nodding like she understood. "Anyway, honey, you have to
- promise me you won't forget to put on the bug spray, okay? On the legs, especially
- when you're hiking through the woods. It's right here in the front compartment."
- "Uh-huh."
- "And put on your sunscreen," she said. "You do not want to get a sunburn. And don't, I
- repeat, do not forget to take your hearing aids off if you go swimming."
- "Would I get electrocuted?"
- "No, but you'd be in real hot water with Daddy because those things cost a fortune!"
- she laughed. "I put the rain poncho in the front compartment, too. Same thing goes if it
- rains, Auggie, okay? Make sure you cover the hearing aids with the hood."
- "Aye, aye, sir," I said, saluting.
- She smiled and pulled me over.
- "I can't believe how much you've grown up this year, Auggie," she said softly, putting
- her hands on the sides of my face.
- "Do I look taller?"
- "Definitely." She nodded.
- "I'm still the shortest one in my grade."
- "I'm not really even talking about your height," she said.
- "Suppose I hate it there?"
- "You're going to have a great time, Auggie."
- I nodded. She got up and gave me a quick kiss on the forehead. "Okay, so I say we get
- to bed now."
- "It's only nine o'clock, Mom!"
- "Your bus leaves at six a.m. tomorrow. You don't want to be late. Come on. Chop chop.
- Your teeth are brushed?" I
- nodded and climbed into bed. She started to lie down next to me.
- "You don't need to put me to bed tonight, Mom," I said. "I'll read on my own till I get
- sleepy."
- "Really?" She nodded, impressed. She squeezed my hand and gave it a kiss. "Okay
- then, goodnight, love. Have sweet dreams."
- "You too."
- She turned on the little reading light beside the bed.
- "I'll write you letters," I said as she was leaving. "Even though I'll probably be home
- before you guys even get them."
- "Then we can read them together," she said, and threw me a kiss.
- When she left my room, I took my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe off the
- night table and started reading until I fell asleep.
- . . . though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a
- magic deeper still which she did not know. Her
- knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if
- she could have looked a little further back, into the
- stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she
- would have read there a different incantation.
- Daybreak
- The next day I woke up really early. It was still dark inside my room and even darker
- outside, though I knew it would be morning soon. I turned over on my side but didn't
- feel at all sleepy. That's when I saw Daisy sitting near my bed. I mean, I knew it wasn't
- Daisy, but for a second I saw a shadow that looked just like her. I didn't think it was a
- dream then, but now, looking back, I know it must have been. It didn't make me sad to
- see her at all: it just filled me up with nice feelings inside. She was gone after a second,
- and I couldn't see her again in the darkness.
- The room slowly started lightening. I reached for my hearing aid headband and put it
- on, and now the world was really awake. I could hear the garbage trucks clunking down
- the street and the birds in our backyard. And down the hallway I heard Mom's alarm
- beeping. Daisy's ghost made me feel super strong inside, knowing wherever I am,
- she'd be there with me.
- I got up out of bed and went to my desk and wrote a little note to Mom. Then I went into
- the living room, where my packed bag was by the door. I opened it up and fished inside
- until I found what I was looking for.
- I took Baboo back to my room, and I laid him in my bed and taped the little note to Mom
- on his chest. And then I covered him with my blanket so Mom would find him later. The
- note read:
- Dear Mom, I won't need Baboo, but if you miss me, you can cuddle with him yourself.
- XO Auggie
- Day One
- The bus ride went really fast. I sat by the window and Jack was next to me in the aisle
- seat. Summer and Maya were in front of us. Everyone was in a good mood. Kind of
- loud, laughing a lot. I noticed right away that Julian wasn't on our bus, even though
- Henry and Miles were. I figured he must be on the other bus, but then I overheard Miles
- tell Amos that Julian ditched the grade trip because he thought the whole natureretreat
- thing was, quote unquote, dorky. I got totally pumped because dealing with
- Julian for three days in a row—and two nights—was a major reason that I was nervous
- about this whole trip. So now without him there, I could really just relax and not worry
- about anything.
- We got to the nature reserve at around noon. The first thing we did was put our stuff
- down in the cabins. There were three bunk beds to every room, so me and Jack did
- rock, paper, scissors for the top bunk and I won. Woo-hoo. And the other guys in the
- room were Reid and Tristan, and Pablo and Nino.
- After we had lunch in the main cabin, we all went on a twohour guided nature hike
- through the woods. But these were not woods like the kind they have in Central Park:
- these were real woods. Giant trees that almost totally blocked out the sunlight. Tangles
- of leaves and fallen tree trunks. Howls and chirps and really loud bird calls. There was
- a slight fog, too, like a pale blue smoke all around us. So cool. The nature guide
- pointed everything out to us: the different types of trees we were passing, the insects
- inside the dead logs on the trail, the signs of deer and bears in the woods, what types
- of birds were whistling and where to look for them. I realized that my Lobot hearing
- aids actually made me hear better than most people, because I was usually the first
- person to hear a new bird call.
- It started to rain as we headed back to camp. I pulled on my rain poncho and pulled the
- hood up so my hearing aids wouldn't get wet, but my jeans and shoes got soaked by
- the time we reached our cabins. Everyone got soaked. It was fun, though. We had a
- wet-sock fight in the cabin.
- Since it rained for the rest of the day, we spent most of the afternoon goofing off in the
- rec room. They had a Ping-Pong table and old-style arcade games like Pac-Man and
- Missile Command that we played until dinnertime. Luckily, by then it had stopped
- raining, so we got to have a real campfire cookout. The log benches around the
- campfire were still a little damp, but we threw our jackets over them and hung out by
- the fire, toasting s'mores and eating the best roasted hot dogs I have ever, ever tasted.
- Mom was right about the mosquitoes: there were tons of them. But luckily I had
- spritzed myself before I left the cabin, and I wasn't eaten alive like some of the other
- kids were.
- I loved hanging out by the campfire after dark. I loved the way bits of fire dust would
- float up and disappear into the night air. And how the fire lit up people's faces. I loved
- the sound the fire made, too. And how the woods were so dark that you couldn't see
- anything around you, and you'd look up and see a billion stars in the sky. The sky
- doesn't look like that in North River Heights. I've seen it look like that in Montauk,
- though: like someone sprinkled salt on a shiny black table.
- I was so tired when I got back to the cabin that I didn't need to pull out the book to read.
- I fell asleep almost as fast as my head hit the pillow. And maybe I dreamed about the
- stars, I don't know.
- The Fairgrounds
- The next day was just as great as the first day. We went horseback riding in the
- morning, and in the afternoon we rappelled up some ginormous trees with the help of
- the nature guides. By the time we got back to the cabins for dinner, we were all really
- tired again. After dinner they told us we had an hour to rest, and then we were going to
- take a fifteen-minute bus ride to the fairgrounds for an outdoor movie night. I hadn't
- had the chance to write a letter to Mom and Dad and Via yet, so I wrote one telling
- them all about the stuff we did that day and the day before. I pictured myself reading it
- to them out loud when I got back, since there was just no way the letter would get
- home before I did.
- When we got to the fairgrounds, the sun was just starting to set. It was about seventhirty.
- The shadows were really long on the grass, and the clouds were pink and
- orange. It looked like someone had taken sidewalk chalk and smudged the colors
- across the sky with their fingers. It's not that I haven't seen nice sunsets before in the
- city, because I have—slivers of sunsets between buildings—but I wasn't used to seeing
- so much sky in every direction. Out here in the fairgrounds, I could understand why
- ancient people used to think the world was flat and the sky was a dome that closed in
- on top of it. That's what it looked like from the fairgrounds, in the middle of this huge
- open field.
- Because we were the first school to arrive, we got to run around the field all we wanted
- until the teachers told us it was time to lay out our sleeping bags on the ground and get
- good viewing seats. We unzipped our bags and laid them down like picnic blankets on
- the grass in front of the giant movie screen in the middle of the field. Then we went to
- the row of food trucks parked at the edge of the field to load up on snacks and sodas
- and stuff like that. There were concession stands there, too, like at a farmers' market,
- selling roasted peanuts and cotton candy. And up a little farther was a short row of
- carnival-type stalls, the kind where you can win a stuffed animal if you throw a baseball
- into a basket. Jack and I both tried—and failed—to win anything, but we heard Amos
- won a yellow hippo and gave it to Ximena. That was the big gossip that went around:
- the jock and the brainiac.
- From the food trucks, you could see the cornstalks in back of the movie screen. They
- covered about a third of the entire field. The rest of the field was completely surrounded
- by woods. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the tall trees at the entrance to the woods
- looked dark blue.
- By the time the other school buses pulled into the parking lots, we were back in our
- spots on the sleeping bags, right smack in front of the screen: the best seats in the
- whole field. Everyone was passing around snacks and having a great time. Me and
- Jack and Summer and Reid and Maya played Pictionary. We could hear the sounds of
- the other schools arriving, the loud laughing and talking of kids coming out on the field
- on both sides of us, but we couldn't really see them. Though the sky was still light, the
- sun had gone down completely, and everything on the ground had turned deep purple.
- The clouds were shadows now. We had trouble even seeing the Pictionary cards in
- front of us.
- Just then, without any announcement, all the lights at the ends of the field went on at
- once. They were like big bright stadium lights. I thought of that scene in Close
- Encounters when the alien ship lands and they're playing that music: duh-dah-doo-dadunnn.
- Everyone in the field started applauding and cheering like something great had
- just happened.
- Be Kind to Nature
- An announcement came over the huge speakers next to the stadium lights:
- "Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the twenty-third annual Big Movie Night at the
- Broarwood Nature Reserve. Welcome, teachers and students from . . . MS 342: the
- William Heath School. . . ." A big cheer went up on the left side of the field. "Welcome,
- teachers and students from Glover Academy. . . ." Another cheer went up, this time
- from the right side of the field. "And welcome, teachers and students from . . . the
- Beecher Prep School!" Our whole group cheered as loudly as we could. "We're thrilled
- to have you as our guests here tonight, and thrilled that the weather is cooperating—in
- fact, can you believe what a beautiful night this is?" Again, everyone whooped and
- hollered. "So as we prepare the movie, we do ask that you take a few moments to
- listen to this important announcement. The Broarwood Nature Reserve, as you know, is
- dedicated to preserving our natural resources and the environment. We ask that you
- leave no litter behind. Clean up after yourselves. Be kind to nature and it will be kind to
- you. We ask that you keep that in mind as you walk around the grounds. Do not
- venture beyond the orange cones at the edges of the fairgrounds. Do not go into the
- cornfields or the woods. Please keep the free roaming to a minimum. Even if you don't
- feel like watching the movie, your fellow students may feel otherwise, so please be
- courteous: no talking, no playing music, no running around. The restrooms are located
- on the other side of the concession stands. After the movie is over, it will be quite dark,
- so we ask that all of you stay with your schools as you make your way back to your
- buses. Teachers, there's usually at least one lost party on Big Movie Nights at
- Broarwood: don't let it happen to you! Tonight's movie presentation will be . . . The
- Sound of Music !"
- I immediately started clapping, even though I'd seen it a few times before, because it
- was Via's favorite movie of all time. But I was surprised that a whole bunch of kids (not
- from Beecher) booed and hissed and laughed. Someone from the right side of the field
- even threw a soda can at the screen, which seemed to surprise Mr. Tushman. I saw
- him stand up and look in the direction of the can thrower, though I knew he couldn't see
- anything in the dark.
- The movie started playing right away. The stadium lights dimmed. Maria the nun was
- standing at the top of the mountain twirling around and around. It had gotten chilly all
- of a sudden, so I put on my yellow Montauk hoodie and adjusted the volume on my
- hearing aids and leaned against my backpack and started watching.
- The hills are alive . . .
- The Woods Are Alive
- Somewhere around the boring part where the guy named Rolf and the oldest daughter
- are singing You are sixteen, going on seventeen, Jack nudged me.
- "Dude, I've got to pee," he said.
- We both got up and kind of hopscotched over the kids who were sitting or lying down
- on the sleeping bags. Summer waved as we passed and I waved back.
- There were lots of kids from the other schools walking around by the food trucks,
- playing the carnival games, or just hanging out. Of course, there was a huge line for
- the toilets.
- "Forget this, I'll just find a tree," said Jack.
- "That's gross, Jack. Let's just wait," I answered.
- But he headed off to the row of trees at the edge of the field, which was past the
- orange cones that we were specifically told not to go past. And of course I followed
- him. And of course we didn't have our flashlights because we forgot to bring them. It
- was so dark now we literally couldn't see ten steps ahead of us as we walked toward
- the woods. Luckily, the movie gave off some light, so when we saw a flashlight coming
- toward us out of the woods, we knew immediately that it was Henry, Miles, and Amos. I
- guess they hadn't wanted to wait on line to use the toilets, either.
- Miles and Henry were still not talking to Jack, but Amos had let go of the war a while
- ago. And he nodded hello to us as they passed by.
- "Be careful of the bears!" shouted Henry, and he and Miles laughed as they walked
- away.
- Amos shook his head at us like, Don't pay attention to them.
- Jack and I walked a little farther until we were just inside the woods. Then Jack hunted
- around for the perfect tree and finally did his business, though it felt like he was taking
- forever.
- The woods were loud with strange sounds and chirps and croaks, like a wall of noise
- coming out of the trees. Then we started hearing loud snaps not far from us, almost like
- cap gun pops, that definitely weren't insect noises. And far away, like in another world,
- we could hear Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.
- "Ah, that's much better," said Jack, zipping up.
- "Now I have to pee," I said, which I did on the nearest tree. No way I was going farther
- in like Jack did.
- "Do you smell that? Like firecrackers," he said, coming over to me.
- "Oh yeah, that's what that is," I answered, zipping up.
- "Weird."
- "Let's go."
- Alien
- We headed back the way we came, in the direction of the giant screen. That's when we
- walked straight into a group of kids we didn't know. They'd just come out of the woods,
- doing stuff I'm sure they didn't want their teachers to know about. I could smell the
- smoke now, the smell of both firecrackers and cigarettes. They pointed a flashlight at
- us. There were six of them: four boys and two girls. They looked like they were in the
- seventh grade.
- "What school are you from?" one of the boys called out.
- "Beecher Prep!" Jack started to answer, when all of a sudden one of the girls started
- screaming.
- "Oh my God!" she shrieked, holding her hand over her eyes like she was crying. I
- figured maybe a huge bug had just flown into her face or something.
- "No way!" one of the boys cried out, and he started flicking his hand in the air like he'd
- just touched something hot. And then he covered his mouth. "No freakin' way, man! No
- freakin' way!"
- All of them started half laughing and half covering their eyes now, pushing each other
- and cursing loudly.
- "What is that?" said the kid who was pointing the flashlight at us, and it was only then
- that I realized that the flashlight was pointed right at my face, and what they were
- talking about—screaming about—was me.
- "Let's get out of here," Jack said to me quietly, and he pulled me by my sweatshirt
- sleeve and started walking away from them.
- "Wait wait wait!" yelled the guy with the flashlight, cutting us off. He pointed the
- flashlight right in my face again, and now he was only about five feet away. "Oh man!
- Oh man!!" he said, shaking his head, his mouth wide open. "What happened to your
- face?"
- "Stop it, Eddie," said one of the girls.
- "I didn't know we were watching Lord of the Rings tonight!" he said. "Look, guys, it's
- Gollum!"
- This made his friends hysterical.
- Again we tried to walk away from them, and again the kid named Eddie cut us off. He
- was at least a head taller than Jack, who was about a head taller than me, so the guy
- looked huge to me.
- "No man, it's Alien !" said one of the other kids.
- "No, no, no, man. It's an orc!" laughed Eddie, pointing the flashlight in my face again.
- This time he was right in front of us.
- "Leave him alone, okay?" said Jack, pushing the hand holding the flashlight away.
- "Make me," answered Eddie, pointing the flashlight in Jack's face now.
- "What's your problem, dude?" said Jack.
- "Your boyfriend's my problem!"
- "Jack, let's just go," I said, pulling him by the arm.
- "Oh man, it talks!" screamed Eddie, shining the flashlight in my face again. Then one of
- the other guys threw a firecracker at our feet.
- Jack tried to push past Eddie, but Eddie shoved his hands into Jack's shoulders and
- pushed him hard, which made Jack fall backward.
- "Eddie!" screamed one of the girls.
- "Look," I said, stepping in front of Jack and holding my hands up in the air like a traffic
- cop. "We're a lot smaller than you guys . . ."
- "Are you talking to me, Freddie Krueger? I don't think you want to mess with me, you
- ugly freak," said Eddie. And this was the point where I knew I should run away as fast
- as I could, but Jack was still on the ground and I wasn't about to leave him.
- "Yo, dude," said a new voice behind us. "What's up, man?"
- Eddie spun around and pointed his flashlight toward the voice. For a second, I couldn't
- believe who it was.
- "Leave them alone, dude," said Amos, with Miles and Henry right behind him.
- "Says who?" said one of the guys with Eddie.
- "Just leave them alone, dude," Amos repeated calmly.
- "Are you a freak, too?" said Eddie.
- "They're all a bunch of freaks!" said one of his friends.
- Amos didn't answer them but looked at us. "Come on, guys, let's go. Mr. Tushman's
- waiting for us."
- I knew that was a lie, but I helped Jack get up, and we started walking over to Amos.
- Then out of the blue, the Eddie guy grabbed my hood as I passed by him, yanking it
- really hard so I was pulled backward and fell flat on my back. It was a hard fall, and I
- hurt my elbow pretty bad on a rock. I couldn't really see what happened afterward,
- except that Amos rammed into the Eddie guy like a monster truck and they both fell
- down to the ground next to me.
- Everything got really crazy after that. Someone pulled me up by my sleeve and yelled,
- "Run!" and someone else screamed, "Get 'em!" at the same time, and for a few
- seconds I actually had two people pulling the sleeves of my sweatshirt in opposite
- directions. I heard them both cursing, until my sweatshirt ripped and the first guy yanked
- me by my arm and started pulling me behind him as we ran, which I did as fast as I
- could. I could hear footsteps just behind us, chasing us, and voices shouting and girls
- screaming, but it was so dark I didn't know whose voices they were, only that
- everything felt like we were underwater. We were running like crazy, and it was pitch
- black, and whenever I started to slow down, the guy pulling me by my arm would yell,
- "Don't stop!"
- Voices in the Dark
- Finally, after what seemed like a forever of running, someone yelled: "I think we lost
- them!"
- "Amos?"
- "I'm right here!" said Amos's voice a few feet behind us.
- "We can stop!" Miles yelled from farther up.
- "Jack!" I yelled.
- "Whoa!" said Jack. "I'm here."
- "I can't see a thing!"
- "Are you sure we lost them?" Henry asked, letting go of my arm. That's when I realized
- that he'd been the one who was pulling me as we ran.
- "Yeah."
- "Shh! Let's listen!"
- We all got super quiet, listening for footsteps in the dark. All we could hear were the
- crickets and frogs and our own crazy panting. We were out of breath, stomachs hurting,
- bodies bent over our knees.
- "We lost them," said Henry.
- "Whoa! That was intense!"
- "What happened to the flashlight?"
- "I dropped it!"
- "How did you guys know?" said Jack.
- "We saw them before."
- "They looked like jerks."
- "You just rammed into him!" I said to Amos.
- "I know, right?" laughed Amos.
- "He didn't even see it coming!" said Miles.
- "He was like, 'Are you a freak, too?' and you were like, bam! " said Jack.
- "Bam!" said Amos, throwing a fake punch in the air. "But after I tackled him, I was like,
- run, Amos, you schmuck, he's ten times bigger than you! And I got up and started
- running as fast as I could!"
- We all started laughing. "I grabbed Auggie and I was like, 'Run!' " said Henry.
- "I didn't even know it was you pulling me!" I answered.
- "That was wild," said Amos, shaking his head.
- "Totally wild."
- "Your lip is bleeding, dude."
- "I got in a couple of good punches," answered Amos, wiping his lip.
- "I think they were seventh graders."
- "They were huge."
- "Losers!" Henry shouted really loudly, but we all shushed him.
- We listened for a second to make sure no one had heard him.
- "Where the heck are we?" asked Amos. "I can't even see the screen."
- "I think we're in the cornfields," answered Henry.
- "Duh, we're in the cornfields," said Miles, pushing a cornstalk at Henry.
- "Okay, I know exactly where we are," said Amos. "We have to go back in this direction.
- That'll take us to the other side of the field."
- "Yo, dudes," said Jack, hand high in the air. "That was really cool of you guys to come
- back for us. Really cool. Thanks."
- "No problem," answered Amos, high-fiving Jack. And then Miles and Henry high-fived
- him, too.
- "Yeah, dudes, thanks," I said, holding my palm up like Jack just had, though I wasn't
- sure if they'd high-five me, too.
- Amos looked at me and nodded. "It was cool how you stood your ground, little dude,"
- he said, high-fiving me.
- "Yeah, Auggie," said Miles, high-fiving me, too. "You were like, 'We're littler than you
- guys' . . ."
- "I didn't know what else to say!" I laughed.
- "Very cool," said Henry, and he high-fived me, too.
- "Sorry I ripped your sweatshirt." I looked down, and my sweatshirt was completely torn
- down the middle. One sleeve was ripped off, and the other was so stretched out it was
- hanging down to my knees.
- "Hey, your elbow's bleeding," said Jack.
- "Yeah." I shrugged. It was starting to hurt a lot.
- "You okay?" said Jack, seeing my face. I
- nodded. Suddenly I felt like crying, and I was trying really hard not to do that.
- "Wait, your hearing aids are gone!" said Jack.
- "What!" I yelled, touching my ears. The hearing aid band was definitely gone. That's
- why I felt like I was underwater! "Oh no!" I said, and that's when I couldn't hold it in
- anymore. Everything that had just happened kind of hit me and I couldn't help it: I
- started to cry. Like big crying, what Mom would call "the waterworks." I was so
- embarrassed I hid my face in my arm, but I couldn't stop the tears from coming.
- The guys were really nice to me, though. They patted me on the back.
- "You're okay, dude. It's okay," they said. "
- You're one brave little dude, you know that?" said Amos, putting his arm around my
- shoulders. And when I kept on crying, he put both his arms around me like my dad
- would have done and let me cry.
- The Emperor's Guard
- We backtracked through the grass for a good ten minutes to see if we could find my
- hearing aids, but it was way too dark to see anything. We literally had to hold on to
- each other's shirts and walk in single file so we wouldn't trip over one another. It was
- like black ink had been poured all around.
- "This is hopeless," said Henry. "They could be anywhere."
- "Maybe we can come back with a flashlight," answered Amos.
- "No, it's okay," I said. "Let's just go back. Thanks, though."
- We walked back toward the cornfields, and then cut through them until the back of the
- giant screen came into view. Since it was facing away from us, we didn't get any light
- from the screen at all until we'd walked around to the edge of the woods again. That's
- where we finally started seeing a little light.
- There was no sign of the seventh graders anywhere.
- "Where do you think they went?" said Jack.
- "Back to the food trucks," said Amos. "They're probably thinking we're going to report
- them."
- "Are we?" asked Henry. T
- hey looked at me. I shook my head.
- "Okay," said Amos, "but, little dude, don't walk around here alone again, okay? If you
- need to go somewhere, tell us and we'll go with you."
- "Okay." I nodded.
- As we got closer to the screen, I could hear High on a hill was a lonely goatherd, and
- could smell the cotton candy from one of the concession stands near the food trucks.
- There were lots of kids milling around in this area, so I pulled what was left of my
- hoodie over my head and kept my face down, hands in pockets, as we made our way
- through the crowd. It had been a long time since I'd been out without my hearing aids,
- and it felt like I was miles under the earth. It felt like that song Miranda used to sing to
- me: Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong . . .
- I did notice as I walked that Amos had stayed right next to me. And Jack was close on
- the other side of me. And Miles was in front of us and Henry was in back of us. They
- were surrounding me as we walked through the crowds of kids. Like I had my own
- emperor's guard.
- Sleep
- Then they came out of the narrow valley and at once
- she saw the reason. There stood Peter and Edmund
- and all the rest of Aslan's army fighting desperately
- against the crowd of horrible creatures whom she
- had seen last night; only now, in the daylight, they
- looked even stranger and more evil and more deformed.
- I stopped there. I'd been reading for over an hour and sleep still didn't come. It was
- almost two a.m. Everyone else was asleep. I had my flashlight on under the sleeping
- bag, and maybe the light was why I couldn't sleep, but I was too afraid to turn it off. I
- was afraid of how dark it was outside the sleeping bag.
- When we got back to our section in front of the movie screen, no one had even noticed
- we'd been gone. Mr. Tushman and Ms. Rubin and Summer and all the rest of the kids
- were just watching the movie. They had no clue how something bad had almost
- happened to me and Jack. It's so weird how that can be, how you could have a night
- that's the worst in your life, but to everybody else it's just an ordinary night. Like, on my
- calendar at home, I would mark this as being one of the most horrific days of my life.
- This and the day Daisy died. But for the rest of the world, this was just an ordinary day.
- Or maybe it was even a good day. Maybe somebody won the lottery today.
- Amos, Miles, and Henry brought me and Jack over to where we'd been sitting before,
- with Summer and Maya and Reid, and then they went and sat where they had been
- sitting before, with Ximena and Savanna and their group. In a way, everything was
- exactly as we had left it before we went looking for the toilets. The sky was the same.
- The movie was the same. Everyone's faces were the same. Mine was the same.
- But something was different. Something had changed.
- I could see Amos and Miles and Henry telling their group what had just happened. I
- knew they were talking about it because they kept looking over at me while they were
- talking. Even though the movie was still playing, people were whispering about it in the
- dark. News like that spreads fast.
- It was what everyone was talking about on the bus ride back to the cabins. All the girls,
- even girls I didn't know very well, were asking me if I was okay. The boys were all
- talking about getting revenge on the group of seventh-grade jerks, trying to figure out
- what school they were from.
- I wasn't planning on telling the teachers about any of what had happened, but they
- found out anyway. Maybe it was the torn sweatshirt and the bloody elbow. Or maybe
- it's just that teachers hear everything. When we got back to the camp, Mr. Tushman
- took me to the first-aid office, and while I was getting my elbow cleaned and bandaged
- up by the camp nurse, Mr. Tushman and the camp director were in the next room
- talking with Amos and Jack and Henry and Miles, trying to get a description of the
- troublemakers. When he asked me about them a little later, I said I couldn't remember
- their faces at all, which wasn't true. I
- t's their faces I kept seeing every time I closed my eyes to sleep. The look of total
- horror on the girl's face when she first saw me. The way the kid with the flashlight,
- Eddie, looked at me as he talked to me, like he hated me.
- Like a lamb to the slaughter. I remember Dad saying that ages ago, but tonight I think I
- finally got what it meant.
- Aftermath
- Mom was waiting for me in front of the school along with all the other parents when the
- bus arrived. Mr. Tushman told me on the bus ride home that they had called my
- parents to tell them there had been a "situation" the night before but that everyone was
- fine. He said the camp director and several of the counselors went looking for the
- hearing aid in the morning while we all went swimming in the lake, but they couldn't
- find it anywhere. Broarwood would reimburse us the cost of the hearing aids, he said.
- They felt bad about what happened.
- I wondered if Eddie had taken my hearing aids with him as a kind of souvenir.
- Something to remember the orc. Mom gave me a tight hug when I got off the bus, but
- she didn't slam me with questions like I thought she might. Her hug felt good, and I
- didn't shake it off like some of the other kids were doing with their parents' hugs.
- The bus driver started unloading our duffel bags, and I went to find mine while Mom
- talked to Mr. Tushman and Ms. Rubin, who had walked over to her. As I rolled my bag
- toward her, a lot of kids who don't usually say anything to me were nodding hello, or
- patting my back as I walked by them.
- "Ready?" Mom said when she saw me. She took my duffel bag, and I didn't even try to
- hold on to it: I was fine with her carrying it. If she had wanted to carry me on her
- shoulders, I would have been fine with that, too, to be truthful.
- As we started to walk away, Mr. Tushman gave me a quick, tight hug but didn't say
- anything.
- Home
- Mom and I didn't talk much the whole walk home, and when we got to the front stoop, I
- automatically looked in the front bay window, because I forgot for a second that Daisy
- wasn't going to be there like always, perched on the sofa with her front paws on the
- windowsill, waiting for us to come home. It made me kind of sad when we walked
- inside. As soon as we did, Mom dropped my duffel bag and wrapped her arms around
- me and kissed me on my head and on my face like she was breathing me in.
- "It's okay, Mom, I'm fine," I said, smiling.
- She nodded and took my face in her hands. Her eyes were shiny.
- "I know you are," she said. "I missed you so much, Auggie."
- "I missed you, too."
- I could tell she wanted to say a lot of things but she was stopping herself. "
- Are you hungry?" she asked.
- "Starving. Can I have a grilled cheese?"
- "Of course," she answered, and immediately started to make the sandwich while I took
- my jacket off and sat down at the kitchen counter.
- "Where's Via?" I asked. "
- She's coming home with Dad today. Boy, did she miss you, Auggie," Mom said.
- "Yeah? She would have liked the nature reserve. You know what movie they played?
- The Sound of Music."
- "You'll have to tell her that."
- "So, do you want to hear about the bad part or the good part first?" I asked after a few
- minutes, leaning my head on my hand.
- "Whatever you want to talk about," she answered.
- "Well, except for last night, I had an awesome time," I said. "I mean, it was just
- awesome. That's why I'm so bummed. I feel like they ruined the whole trip for me."
- "No, sweetie, don't let them do that to you. You were there for more than forty-eight
- hours, and that awful part lasted one hour. Don't let them take that away from you,
- okay?"
- "I know." I nodded.
- "Did Mr. Tushman tell you about the hearing aids?"
- "Yes, he called us this morning."
- "Was Dad mad? Because they're so expensive?"
- "Oh my gosh, of course not, Auggie. He just wanted to know that you were all right.
- That's all that matters to us. And that you don't let those . . . thugs . . . ruin your trip."
- I kind of laughed at the way she said the word "thugs."
- "What?" she asked.
- "Thugs," I teased her.
- That's kind of an old-fashioned word."
- "Okay, jerks. Morons. Imbeciles," she said, flipping over the sandwich in the pan. "
- Cretinos, as my mother would have said. Whatever you want to call them, if I saw them
- on the street, I would . . ." She shook her head.
- "They were pretty big, Mom." I smiled. "Seventh graders, I think."
- She shook her head. "Seventh graders? Mr. Tushman didn't tell us that. Oh my
- goodness."
- "Did he tell you how Jack stood up for me?" I said. "And Amos was like, bam, he
- rammed right into the leader. They both crashed to the ground, like in a real fight! It
- was pretty awesome. Amos's lip was bleeding and everything."
- "He told us there was a fight, but . . . ," she said, looking at me with her eyebrows
- raised. "I'm just . . . phew . . . I'm just so grateful you and Amos and Jack are fine.
- When I think about what could have happened . . . ," she trailed off, flipping the grilled
- cheese again.
- "My Montauk hoodie got totally shredded."
- "Well, that can be replaced," she answered. She lifted the grilled cheese onto a plate
- and put the plate in front of me on the counter. "Milk or white grape juice?"
- "Chocolate milk, please?" I started devouring the sandwich. "Oh, can you do it that
- special way you make it, with the froth?"
- "How did you and Jack end up at the edge of the woods in the first place?" she said,
- pouring the milk into a tall glass.
- "Jack had to go to the bathroom," I answered, my mouth full. As I was talking, she
- spooned in the chocolate powder and started rolling a small whisk between her palms
- really fast. "But there was a huge line and he didn't want to wait.
- So we went toward the woods to pee." She looked up at me while she was whisking. I
- know she was thinking we shouldn't have done that. The chocolate milk in the glass
- now had a two-inch froth on top. "That looks good, Mom. Thanks."
- "And then what happened?" she said, putting the glass in front of me.
- I took a long drink of the chocolate milk. "Is it okay if we don't talk about it anymore right
- now?"
- "Oh. Okay."
- "I promise I'll tell you all about it later, when Dad and Via come home. I'll tell you all
- every detail. I just don't want to have to tell the whole story over and over, you know?"
- "Absolutely."
- I finished my sandwich in two more bites and gulped down the chocolate milk.
- "Wow, you practically inhaled that sandwich. Do you want another one?" she said.
- I shook my head and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
- "Mom? Am I always going to have to worry about jerks like that?" I asked. "Like when I
- grow up, is it always going to be like this?"
- She didn't answer right away, but took my plate and glass and put them in the sink and
- rinsed them with water.
- "There are always going to be jerks in the world, Auggie," she said, looking at me. "But
- I really believe, and Daddy really believes, that there are more good people on this
- earth than bad people, and the good people watch out for each other and take care of
- each other. Just like Jack was there for you. And Amos. And those other kids."
- "Oh yeah, Miles and Henry," I answered. "They were awesome, too. It's weird because
- Miles and Henry haven't even really been very nice to me at all during the year."
- "Sometimes people surprise us," she said, rubbing the top of my head.
- "I guess."
- "Want another glass of chocolate milk?"
- "No, I'm good," I said. "Thanks, Mom. Actually, I'm kind of tired. I didn't sleep too good
- last night."
- "You should take a nap. Thanks for leaving me Baboo, by the way."
- "You got my note?" She smiled.
- "I slept with him both nights." She was about to say something else when her cell
- phone rang, and she answered. She started beaming as she listened. "Oh my
- goodness, really?
- What kind?" she said excitedly. "Yep, he's right here. He was about to take a nap. Want
- to say hi? Oh, okay, see you in two minutes." She clicked it off.
- "That was Daddy," she said excitedly. "He and Via are just down the block."
- "He's not at work?" I said.
- "He left early because he couldn't wait to see you," she said. "So don't take a nap quite
- yet."
- Five seconds later Dad and Via came through the door. I ran into Dad's arms, and he
- picked me up and spun me around and kissed me. He didn't let me go for a full minute,
- until I said, "Dad, it's okay." And then it was Via's turn, and she kissed me all over like
- she used to do when I was little.
- It wasn't until she stopped that I noticed the big white cardboard box they had brought
- in with them.
- "What is that?" I said.
- "Open it," said Dad, smiling, and he and Mom looked at each other like they knew a
- secret.
- "Come on, Auggie!" said Via.
- I opened the box. Inside was the cutest little puppy I've ever seen in my life. It was
- black and furry, with a pointy little snout and bright black eyes and small ears that
- flopped down.
- Bear
- We called the puppy Bear because when Mom first saw him, she said he looked just
- like a little bear cub. I said: "That's what we should call him!" and everyone agreed that
- that was the perfect name. I
- took the next day off from school—not because my elbow was hurting me, which it
- was, but so I could play with Bear all day long. Mom let Via stay home from school, too,
- so the two of us took turns cuddling with Bear and playing tug-ofwar with him. We had
- kept all of Daisy's old toys, and we brought them out now, to see which ones he'd like
- best.
- It was fun hanging out with Via all day, just the two of us. It was like old times, like
- before I started going to school. Back then, I couldn't wait for her to come home from
- school so she could play with me before starting her homework. Now that we're older,
- though, and I'm going to school and have friends of my own that I hang out with, we
- never do that anymore.
- So it was nice hanging out with her, laughing and playing. I think she liked it, too.
- The Shift
- When I went back to school the next day, the first thing I noticed was that there was a
- big shift in the way things were. A monumental shift. A seismic shift. Maybe even a
- cosmic shift. Whatever you want to call it, it was a big shift. Everyone—not just in our
- grade but every grade—had heard about what had happened to us with the seventh
- graders, so suddenly I wasn't known for what I'd always been known for, but for this
- other thing that had happened. And the story of what happened had gotten bigger and
- bigger each time it was told. Two days later, the way the story went was that Amos
- had gotten into a major fistfight with the kid, and Miles and Henry and Jack had thrown
- some punches at the other guys, too. And the escape across the field became this
- whole long adventure through a cornfield maze and into the deep dark woods. Jack's
- version of the story was probably the best because he's so funny, but in whatever
- version of the story, and no matter who was telling it, two things always stayed the
- same: I got picked on because of my face and Jack defended me, and those guys—
- Amos, Henry, and Miles—protected me. And now that they'd protected me, I was
- different to them. It was like I was one of them. They all called me "little dude" now—
- even the jocks. These big dudes I barely even knew before would knuckle-punch me in
- the hallways now.
- Another thing to come out of it was that Amos became super popular and Julian,
- because he missed the whole thing, was really out of the loop. Miles and Henry were
- hanging out with Amos all the time now, like they switched best friends. I'd like to be
- able to say that Julian started treating me better, too, but that wouldn't be true. He still
- gave me dirty looks across the room. He still never talked to me or Jack. But he was
- the only one who was like that now. And me and Jack, we couldn't care less.
- Ducks
- The day before the last day of school, Mr. Tushman called me into his office to tell me
- they had found out the names of the seventh graders from the nature retreat. He read
- off a bunch of names that didn't mean anything to me, and then he said the last name:
- "Edward Johnson."
- I nodded.
- "You recognize the name?" he said.
- "They called him Eddie." "Right. Well, they found this in Edward's locker." He handed
- me what was left of my hearing aid headband. The right piece was completely gone
- and the left one was mangled. The band that connected the two, the Lobot part, was
- bent down the middle.
- "His school wants to know if you want to press charges," said Mr. Tushman.
- I looked at my hearing aid.
- "No, I don't think so." I shrugged. "I'm being fitted for new ones anyway."
- "Hmm. Why don't you talk about it with your parents tonight? I'll call your mom tomorrow
- to talk about it with her, too."
- "Would they go to jail?" I asked.
- "No, not jail. But they'd probably go to juvie court. And maybe they'll learn a lesson that
- way."
- "Trust me: that Eddie kid is not learning any lessons," I joked.
- He sat down behind his desk.
- "Auggie, why don't you sit down a second?" he said. I
- sat down. All the things on his desk were the same as when I first walked into his office
- last summer: the same mirrored cube, the same little globe floating in the air. That felt
- like ages ago.
- "Hard to believe this year's almost over, huh?" he said, almost like he was reading my
- mind.
- "Yeah."
- "Has it been a good year for you, Auggie? Has it been okay?"
- "Yeah, it's been good." I nodded. "I know academically it's been a great year for you.
- You're one of our top students. Congrats on the High Honor Roll."
- "Thanks. Yeah, that's cool."
- "But I know it's had its share of ups and downs," he said, raising his eyebrows.
- "Certainly, that night at the nature reserve was one of the low points."
- "Yeah." I nodded. "But it was also kind of good, too."
- "In what way?"
- "Well, you know, how people stood up for me and stuff?"
- "That was pretty wonderful," he said, smiling.
- "Yeah."
- "I know in school things got a little hairy with Julian at times."
- I have to admit: he surprised me with that one.
- "You know about that stuff?" I asked him.
- "Middle-school directors have a way of knowing about a lot of stuff."
- "Do you have, like, secret security cameras in the hallways?" I joked.
- "And microphones everywhere," he laughed.
- "No, seriously?"
- He laughed again. "No, not seriously."
- "Oh!"
- "But teachers know more than kids think, Auggie. I wish you and Jack had come to me
- about the mean notes that were left in your lockers."
- "How do you know about that?" I said.
- "I'm telling you: middle-school directors know all."
- "It wasn't that big a deal," I answered. "And we wrote notes, too."
- He smiled. "I don't know if it's public yet," he said, "though it will be soon anyway, but
- Julian Albans is not coming back to Beecher Prep next year."
- "What!" I said. I honestly couldn't hide how surprised I was.
- "His parents don't think Beecher Prep is a good fit for him," Mr. Tushman continued,
- raising his shoulders.
- "Wow, that's big news," I said.
- "Yeah, I thought you should know."
- Then suddenly I noticed that the pumpkin portrait that used to be behind his desk was
- gone and my drawing, my Self- Portrait as an Animal that I drew for the New Year Art
- Show, was now framed and hanging behind his desk.
- "Hey, that's mine!" I pointed.
- Mr. Tushman turned around like he didn't know what I was talking about. "Oh, that's
- right!" he said, tapping his forehead. "I've been meaning to show this to you for months
- now."
- "My self-portrait as a duck." I nodded.
- "I love this piece, Auggie," he said. "When your art teacher showed it to me, I asked her
- if I could keep it for my wall. I hope that's okay with you."
- "Oh, yeah! Sure. What happened to the pumpkin portrait?"
- "Right behind you."
- "Oh, yeah. Nice."
- "I've been meaning to ask you since I hung this up . . . ," he said, looking at it. "Why did
- you choose to represent yourself as a duck?"
- "What do you mean?" I answered. "That was the assignment."
- "Yes, but why a duck?" he said. "Is it safe to assume that it was because of the story of
- the . . . um, the duckling that turns into a swan?"
- "No," I laughed, shaking my head. "It's because I think I look like a duck."
- "Oh!" said Mr. Tushman, his eyes opening wide. He started laughing. "Really? Huh.
- Here I was looking for symbolism and metaphors and, um . . . sometimes a duck is just
- a duck!"
- "Yeah, I guess," I said, not quite getting why he thought that was so funny. He laughed
- to himself for a good thirty seconds.
- "Anyway, Auggie, thanks for chatting with me," he said, finally. "I just want you to know
- it's truly a pleasure having you here at Beecher Prep, and I'm really looking forward to
- next year." He reached across the desk and we shook hands.
- "See you tomorrow at graduation."
- "See you tomorrow, Mr. Tushman."
- The Last Precept
- This was written on Mr. Browne's chalkboard when we walked into English class for the
- last time:
- MR. BROWNE'S JUNE PRECEPT:
- JUST FOLLOW THE DAY AND REACH FOR THE SUN!
- (The Polyphonic Spree)
- Have a great summer vacation, Class 5B!
- It's been a great year and you've been a wonderful group of students.
- If you remember, please send me a postcard this summer with YOUR
- personal precept. It can be something you made up for yourself or
- something you've read somewhere that means something to you. (If so,
- don't forget the attribution, please!) I really look forward to getting them.
- Tom Browne
- 563 Sebastian Place
- Bronx, NY 10053
- The Drop-Off
- The graduation ceremony was held in the Beecher Prep Upper School auditorium. It
- was only about a fifteen-minute walk from our house to the other campus building, but
- Dad drove me because I was all dressed up and had on new shiny black shoes that
- weren't broken in yet and I didn't want my feet to hurt. Students were supposed to
- arrive at the auditorium an hour before the ceremony started, but we got there even
- earlier, so we sat in the car and waited. Dad turned on the CD player, and our favorite
- song come on. We both smiled and started bobbing our heads to the music.
- Dad sang along with the song: "Andy would bicycle across town in the rain to bring you
- candy."
- "Hey, is my tie on straight?" I said.
- He looked and straightened it a tiny bit as he kept on singing: "And John would buy the
- gown for you to wear to the prom . . ."
- "Does my hair look okay?" I said.
- He smiled and nodded. "Perfect," he said. "You look great, Auggie."
- "Via put some gel in it this morning," I said, pulling down the sun visor and looking in
- the little mirror. "It doesn't look too puffy?"
- "No, it's very, very cool, Auggie. I don't think you've ever had it this short before, have
- you?"
- "No, I got it cut yesterday. I think it makes me look more grown-up, don't you?"
- "Definitely!" He was smiling, looking at me and nodding.
- "But I'm the luckiest guy on the Lower East Side, 'cause I got wheels, and you want to
- go for a ride."
- "Look at you, Auggie!" he said, smiling from ear to ear. "Look at you, looking so grownup
- and spiffy. I can't believe you're graduating from the fifth grade!"
- "I know, it's pretty awesome, right?" I nodded.
- "It feels like just yesterday that you started."
- "Remember I still had that Star Wars braid hanging from the back of my head?"
- "Oh my gosh, that's right," he said, rubbing his palm over his forehead.
- "You hated that braid, didn't you, Dad?"
- "Hate is too strong a word, but I definitely didn't love it."
- "You hated it, come on, admit it," I teased.
- "No, I didn't hate it." He smiled, shaking his head. "But I will admit to hating that
- astronaut helmet you used to wear, do you remember?"
- "The one Miranda gave me? Of course I remember! I used to wear that thing all the
- time."
- "Good God, I hated that thing," he laughed, almost more to himself.
- "I was so bummed when it got lost," I said.
- "Oh, it didn't get lost," he answered casually. "I threw it out."
- "Wait. What?" I said. I honestly didn't think I heard him right.
- "The day is beautiful, and so are you," he was singing.
- "Dad!" I said, turning the volume down.
- "What?" he said.
- "You threw it out?!" He finally looked at my face and saw how mad I was. I couldn't
- believe he was being so matter-of-fact about the whole thing. I mean, to me this was a
- major revelation, and he was acting like it was no big deal.
- "Auggie, I couldn't stand seeing that thing cover your face anymore," he said clumsily.
- "Dad, I loved that helmet! It meant a lot to me! I was bummed beyond belief when it got
- lost—don't you remember?"
- "Of course I remember, Auggie," he said softly. "Ohh, Auggie, don't be mad. I'm sorry. I
- just couldn't stand seeing you wear that thing on your head anymore, you know? I
- didn't think it was good for you." He was trying to look me in the eye, but I wouldn't look
- at him.
- "Come on, Auggie, please try to understand," he continued, putting his hand under my
- chin and tilting my face toward him. "You were wearing that helmet all the time. And the
- real, real, real, real truth is: I missed seeing your face, Auggie. I know you don't always
- love it, but you have to understand . . . I love it. I love this face of yours, Auggie,
- completely and passionately. And it kind of broke my heart that you were always
- covering it up."
- He was squinting at me like he really wanted me to understand.
- "Does Mom know?" I said. He opened his eyes wide. "No way. Are you kidding? She
- would have killed me!"
- "She tore the place apart looking for that helmet, Dad," I said. "I mean, she spent like a
- week looking for it in every closet, in the laundry room, everywhere."
- "I know!" he said, nodding. "That's why she'd kill me!"
- And then he looked at me, and something about his expression made me start
- laughing, which made him open his mouth wide like he'd just realized something.
- "Wait a minute, Auggie," he said, pointing his finger at me. "You have to promise me
- you will never tell Mommy anything about this."
- I smiled and rubbed my palms together like I was about to get very greedy.
- "Let's see," I said, stroking my chin. "I'll be wanting that new Xbox when it comes out
- next month. And I'll definitely be wanting my own car in about six years, a red Porsche
- would be nice, and . . ."
- He started laughing. I love it when I'm the one who makes Dad laugh, since he's
- usually the funnyman that gets everybody else laughing.
- "Oh boy, oh boy," he said, shaking his head. "You really have grown up."
- The part of the song we love to sing the most started to play, and I turned up the
- volume. We both started singing.
- "I'm the ugliest guy on the Lower East Side, but I've got wheels and you want to go for
- a ride. Want to go for a ride. Want to go for a ride. Want to go for a riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide."
- We always sang this last part at the top of our lungs, trying to hold that last note as long
- as the guy who sang the song, which always made us crack up. While we were
- laughing, we noticed Jack had arrived and was walking over to our car. I started to get
- out.
- "Hold on," said Dad. "I just want to make sure you've forgiven me, okay?"
- "Yes, I forgive you."
- He looked at me gratefully. "Thank you."
- "But don't ever throw anything else of mine out again without telling me!"
- "I promise." I opened the door and got out just as Jack reached the car.
- "Hey, Jack," I said.
- "Hey, Auggie. Hey, Mr. Pullman," said Jack.
- "How you doin', Jack?" said Dad.
- "See you later, Dad," I said, closing the door.
- "Good luck, guys!" Dad called out, rolling down the front window. "See you on the other
- side of fifth grade!"
- We waved as he turned on the ignition and started to pull away, but then I ran over and
- he stopped the car. I put my head in the window so Jack wouldn't hear what I was
- saying.
- "Can you guys not kiss me a lot after graduation?" I asked quietly. "It's kind of
- embarrassing."
- "I'll try my best."
- "Tell Mom, too?"
- "I don't think she'll be able to resist, Auggie, but I'll pass it along."
- "Bye, dear ol' Dad." He smiled. "Bye, my son, my son."
- Take Your Seats, Everyone
- Jack and I walked right behind a couple of sixth graders into the building, and then
- followed them to the auditorium.
- Mrs. G was at the entrance, handing out the programs and telling kids where to go.
- "Fifth graders down the aisle to the left," she said. "Sixth graders go to the right.
- Everyone come in. Come in. Good morning. Go to your staging areas. Fifth graders to
- the left, sixth grade to the right . . ."
- The auditorium was huge inside. Big sparkly chandeliers. Red velvet walls. Rows and
- rows and rows of cushioned seats leading up to the giant stage. We walked down the
- wide aisle and followed the signs to the fifth-grade staging area, which was in a big
- room to the left of the stage. Inside were four rows of folding chairs facing the front of
- the room, which is where Ms. Rubin was standing, waving us in as soon as we walked
- in the room.
- "Okay, kids, take your seats. Take your seats," she was saying, pointing to the rows of
- chairs. "Don't forget, you're sitting alphabetically. Come on, everybody, take your
- seats." Not too many kids had arrived yet, though, and the ones who had weren't
- listening to her. Me and Jack were swordfighting with our rolled-up programs.
- "Hey, guys." It was Summer walking over to us. She was wearing a light pink dress
- and, I think, a little makeup.
- "Wow, Summer, you look awesome," I told her, because she really did.
- "Really? Thanks, you do, too, Auggie."
- "Yeah, you look okay, Summer," said Jack, kind of matter of- factly. And for the first
- time, I realized that Jack had a crush on her.
- "This is so exciting, isn't it?" said Summer.
- "Yeah, kind of," I answered, nodding.
- "Oh man, look at this program," said Jack, scratching his forehead. "We're going to be
- here all freakin' day."
- I looked at my program.
- Headmaster's Opening Remarks: Dr. Harold Jansen
- Middle-School Director's Address: Mr. Lawrence Tushman
- "Light and Day": Middle-School Choir
- Fifth-Grade Student Commencement Address: Ximena Chin
- Pachelbel: "Canon in D": Middle-School Chamber Music Ensemble
- Sixth-Grade Student Commencement Address: Mark Antoniak
- "Under Pressure": Middle-School Choir
- Middle-School Dean's Address: Ms. Jennifer Rubin
- Awards Presentation (see back)
- Roll Call of Names
- "Why do you think that?" I asked.
- "Because Mr. Jansen's speeches go on forever," said Jack.
- "He's even worse than Tushman!"
- "My mom said she actually dozed off when he spoke last year," Summer added.
- "What's the awards presentation?" I asked.
- "That's where they give medals to the biggest brainiacs," Jack answered. "Which would
- mean Charlotte and Ximena will win everything in the fifth grade, like they won
- everything in the fourth grade and in the third grade."
- "Not in the second grade?" I laughed.
- "They didn't give those awards out in the second grade," he answered.
- "Maybe you'll win this year," I joked.
- "Not unless they give awards for the most Cs!" he laughed.
- "Everybody, take your seats!" Ms. Rubin started yelling louder now, like she was
- getting annoyed that nobody was listening. "We have a lot to get through, so take your
- seats. Don't forget you're sitting in alphabetical order! A through G is the first row! H
- through N is the second row; O through Q is the third row; R through Z is the last row.
- Let's go, people."
- "We should go sit down," said Summer, walking toward the front section.
- "You guys are definitely coming over my house after this, right?" I called out after her.
- "Definitely!" she said, taking her seat next to Ximena Chin.
- "When did Summer get so hot?" Jack muttered in my ear.
- "Shut up, dude," I said, laughing as we headed toward the third row.
- "Seriously, when did that happen?" he whispered, taking the seat next to mine.
- "Mr. Will!" Ms. Rubin shouted. "Last time I checked, W came between R and Z, yes?"
- Jack looked at her blankly.
- "Dude, you're in the wrong row!" I said.
- "I am?" And the face he made as he got up to leave, which was a mixture of looking
- completely confused and looking like he's just played a joke on someone, totally
- cracked me up.
- A Simple Thing
- About an hour later we were all seated in the giant auditorium waiting for Mr. Tushman
- to give his "middleschool address." The auditorium was even bigger than I imagined it
- would be—bigger even than the one at Via's school. I looked around, and there must
- have been a million people in the audience. Okay, maybe not a million, but definitely a
- lot.
- "Thank you, Headmaster Jansen, for those very kind words of introduction," said Mr.
- Tushman, standing behind the podium on the stage as he talked into the microphone.
- "Welcome, my fellow teachers and members of the faculty. . . .
- "Welcome, parents and grandparents, friends and honored guests, and most
- especially, welcome to my fifth- and sixthgrade students. . . .
- "Welcome to the Beecher Prep Middle School graduation ceremonies!!!"
- Everyone applauded. "Every year," continued Mr. Tushman, reading from his notes
- with his reading glasses way down on the tip of his nose, "I am charged with writing two
- commencement addresses: one for the fifth- and sixth-grade graduation ceremony
- today, and one for the seventh- and eighth-grade ceremony that will take place
- tomorrow. And every year I say to myself, Let me cut down on my work and write just
- one address that I can use for both situations. Seems like it shouldn't be such a hard
- thing to do, right? And yet each year I still end up with two different speeches, no
- matter what my intentions, and I finally figured out why this year. It's not, as you might
- assume, simply because tomorrow I'll be talking to an older crowd with a middle-school
- experience that is largely behind them—whereas your middle-school experience is
- largely in front of you. No, I think it has to do more with this particular age that you are
- right now, this particular moment in your lives that, even after twenty years of my being
- around students this age, still moves me. Because you're at the cusp, kids. You're at
- the edge between childhood and everything that comes after. You're in transition.
- "We are all gathered here together," Mr. Tushman continued, taking off his glasses and
- using them to point at all of us in the audience, "all your families, friends, and teachers,
- to celebrate not only your achievements of this past year, Beecher middle schoolers—
- but your endless possibilities. "When you reflect on this past year, I want you all to look
- at where you are now and where you've been. You've all gotten a little taller, a little
- stronger, a little smarter . . . I hope."
- Here some people in the audience chuckled.
- "But the best way to measure how much you've grown isn't by inches or the number of
- laps you can now run around the track, or even your grade point average—though
- those things are important, to be sure. It's what you've done with your time, how you've
- chosen to spend your days, and whom you have touched this year. That, to me, is the
- greatest measure of success.
- "There's a wonderful line in a book by J. M. Barrie—and no, it's not Peter Pan, and I'm
- not going to ask you to clap if you believe in fairies. . . ."
- Here everyone laughed again.
- "But in another book by J. M. Barrie called The Little White Bird . . . he writes . . ." He
- started flipping through a small book on the podium until he found the page he was
- looking for, and then he put on his reading glasses. " 'Shall we make a new rule of life .
- . . always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?' "
- Here Mr. Tushman looked up at the audience. "Kinder than is necessary," he repeated.
- "What a marvelous line, isn't it? Kinder than is necessary. Because it's not enough to
- be kind. One should be kinder than needed. Why I love that line, that concept, is that it
- reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind,
- but the very choice of kindness. And what does that mean? How is that measured?
- You can't use a yardstick. It's like I was saying just before: it's not like measuring how
- much you've grown in a year. It's not exactly quantifiable, is it? How do we know we've
- been kind? What is being kind, anyway?"
- He put on his reading glasses again and started flipping through another small book.
- "There's another passage in a different book I'd like to share with you," he said. "If you'll
- bear with me while I find it. . . . Ah, here we go. In Under the Eye of the Clock, by
- Christopher Nolan, the main character is a young man who is facing some
- extraordinary challenges. There's this one part where someone helps him: a kid in his
- class. On the surface, it's a small gesture. But to this young man, whose name is
- Joseph, it's . . . well, if you'll permit me . . ."
- He cleared his throat and read from the book: " 'It was at moments such as these that
- Joseph recognized the face of God in human form. It glimmered in their kindness to
- him, it glowed in their keenness, it hinted in their caring, indeed it caressed in their
- gaze.' "
- He paused and took off his reading glasses again. "It glimmered in their kindness to
- him," he repeated, smiling. "Such a simple thing, kindness. Such a simple thing. A nice
- word of encouragement given when needed. An act of friendship. A passing smile."
- He closed the book, put it down, and leaned forward on the podium.
- "Children, what I want to impart to you today is an understanding of the value of that
- simple thing called kindness. And that's all I want to leave you with today. I know I'm
- kind of infamous for my . . . um . . . verbosity . . ."
- Here everybody laughed again. I guess he knew he was known for his long speeches.
- ". . . but what I want you, my students, to take away from your middle-school
- experience," he continued, "is the sure knowledge that, in the future you make for
- yourselves, anything is possible. If every single person in this room made it a rule that
- wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is
- necessary—the world really would be a better place. And if you do this, if you act just a
- little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in
- you, in every single one of you, the face of God."
- He paused and shrugged.
- "Or whatever politically correct spiritual representation of universal goodness you
- happen to believe in," he added quickly, smiling, which got a lot of laughs and loads of
- applause, especially from the back of the auditorium, where the parents were sitting.
- Awards
- I liked Mr. Tushman's speech, but I have to admit: I kind of zoned out a little during
- some of the other speeches.
- I tuned in again as Ms. Rubin started reading off the names of the kids who'd made the
- High Honor Roll because we were supposed to stand up when our names were called.
- So I waited and listened for my name as she went down the list alphabetically. Reid
- Kingsley. Maya Markowitz. August Pullman. I stood up. Then when she finished
- reading off the names, she asked us all to face the audience and take a bow, and
- everyone applauded.
- I had no idea where in that huge crowd my parents might be sitting. All I could see were
- the flashes of light from people taking photos and parents waving at their kids. I
- pictured Mom waving at me from somewhere even though I couldn't see her.
- Then Mr. Tushman came back to the podium to present the medals for academic
- excellence, and Jack was right: Ximena Chin won the gold medal for "overall academic
- excellence in the fifth grade." Charlotte won the silver. Charlotte also won a gold medal
- for music. Amos won the medal for overall excellence in sports, which I was really
- happy about because, ever since the nature retreat, I considered Amos to be like one
- of my best friends in school. But I was really, really thrilled when Mr. Tushman called
- out Summer's name for the gold medal in creative writing. I saw Summer put her hand
- over her mouth when her name was called, and when she walked up onto the stage, I
- yelled: "Woo-hoo, Summer!" as loudly as I could, though I don't think she heard me.
- After the last name was called, all the kids who'd just won awards stood next to each
- other onstage, and Mr. Tushman said to the audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am
- very honored to present to you this year's Beecher Prep School scholastic achievers.
- Congratulations to all of you!"
- I applauded as the kids onstage bowed. I was so happy for Summer.
- "The final award this morning," said Mr. Tushman, after the kids onstage had returned
- to their seats, "is the Henry Ward Beecher medal to honor students who have been
- notable or exemplary in certain areas throughout the school year.
- Typically, this medal has been our way of acknowledging volunteerism or service to the
- school." I immediately figured Charlotte would get this medal because she organized
- the coat drive this year, so I kind of zoned out a bit again. I looked at my watch: 10:56. I
- was getting hungry for lunch already.
- ". . . Henry Ward Beecher was, of course, the nineteenthcentury abolitionist—and fiery
- sermonizer for human rights —after whom this school was named," Mr. Tushman was
- saying when I started paying attention again.
- "While reading up on his life in preparation for this award, I came upon a passage that
- he wrote that seemed particularly consistent with the themes I touched on earlier,
- themes I've been ruminating upon all year long. Not just the nature of kindness, but the
- nature of one's kindness. The power of one's friendship. The test of one's character.
- The strength of one's courage—"
- And here the weirdest thing happened: Mr. Tushman's voice cracked a bit, like he got
- all choked up. He actually cleared his throat and took a big sip of water. I started paying
- attention, for real now, to what he was saying.
- "The strength of one's courage," he repeated quietly, nodding and smiling. He held up
- his right hand like he was counting off. "Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character.
- These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to
- greatness. And this is what the Henry Ward Beecher medal is about: recognizing
- greatness. "But how do we do that? How do we measure something like greatness?
- Again, there's no yardstick for that kind of thing. How do we even define it? Well,
- Beecher actually had an answer for that."
- He put his reading glasses on again, leafed through a book, and started to read. "
- 'Greatness,' wrote Beecher, 'lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength. . .
- . He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts . . .' "
- And again, out of the blue, he got all choked up. He put his two index fingers over his
- mouth for a second before continuing.
- " 'He is the greatest,' " he finally continued, " 'whose strength carries up the most hearts
- by the attraction of his own.' Without further ado, this year I am very proud to award the
- Henry Ward Beecher medal to the student whose quiet strength has carried up the
- most hearts.
- "So will August Pullman please come up here to receive this award?"
- Floating
- People started applauding before Mr. Tushman's words actually registered in my brain.
- I heard Maya, who was next to me, give a little happy scream when she heard my
- name, and Miles, who was on the other side of me, patted my back.
- "Stand up, get up!" said kids all around me, and I felt lots of hands pushing me upward
- out of my seat, guiding me to the edge of the row, patting my back, high-fiving me.
- "Way to go, Auggie!" "Nice going, Auggie!" I even started hearing my name being
- chanted: "Aug-gie! Aug-gie! Aug-gie!" I looked back and saw Jack leading the chant,
- fist in the air, smiling and signaling for me to keep going, and Amos shouting through
- his hands: "Woo-hoo, little dude!"
- Then I saw Summer smiling as I walked past her row, and when she saw me look at
- her, she gave me a secret little thumbs-up and mouthed a silent "cool beans" to me. I
- laughed and shook my head like I couldn't believe it.
- I really couldn't believe it. I think I was smiling. Maybe I was beaming, I don't know. As
- I walked up the aisle toward the stage, all I saw was a blur of happy bright faces
- looking at me, and hands clapping for me. And I heard people yelling things out at me:
- "You deserve it, Auggie!" "Good for you, Auggie!" I saw all my teachers in the aisle
- seats, Mr. Browne and Ms. Petosa and Mr. Roche and Mrs. Atanabi and Nurse Molly
- and all the others: and they were cheering for me, woo-hoo ing and whistling.
- I felt like I was floating. It was so weird. Like the sun was shining full force on my face
- and the wind was blowing. As I got closer to the stage, I saw Ms. Rubin waving at me in
- the front row, and then next to her was Mrs. G, who was crying hysterically—a happy
- crying—smiling and clapping the whole time. And as I walked up the steps to the stage,
- the most amazing thing happened: everyone started standing up. Not just the front
- rows, but the whole audience suddenly got up on their feet, whooping, hollering,
- clapping like crazy. It was a standing ovation. For me.
- I walked across the stage to Mr. Tushman, who shook my hand with both his hands
- and whispered in my ear: "Well done, Auggie." Then he placed the gold medal over my
- head, just like they do in the Olympics, and had me turn to face the audience. It felt like
- I was watching myself in a movie, almost, like I was someone else. It was like that last
- scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and
- Chewbacca are being applauded for destroying the Death Star.
- I could almost hear the Star Wars theme music playing in my head as I stood on the
- stage.
- I wasn't even sure why I was getting this medal, really.
- No, that's not true. I knew why. It's like people you see sometimes, and you can't
- imagine what it would be like to be that person, whether it's somebody in a wheelchair
- or somebody who can't talk. Only, I know that I'm that person to other people, maybe to
- every single person in that whole auditorium.
- To me, though, I'm just me. An ordinary kid.
- But hey, if they want to give me a medal for being me, that's okay. I'll take it. I didn't
- destroy a Death Star or anything like that, but I did just get through the fifth grade. And
- that's not easy, even if you're not me.
- Pictures
- Afterward there was a reception for the fifth and sixth graders under a huge white tent
- in the back of the school. All the kids found their parents, and I didn't mind at all when
- Mom and Dad hugged me like crazy, or when Via wrapped her arms around me and
- swung me left and right about twenty times. Then Poppa and Tata hugged me, and
- Aunt Kate and Uncle Po, and Uncle Ben—everyone kind of teary-eyed and wetcheeked.
- But Miranda was the funniest: she was crying more than anyone and
- squeezed me so tight that Via had to practically pry her off of me, which made them
- both laugh.
- Everyone started taking pictures of me and pulling out their Flips, and then Dad got me,
- Summer, and Jack together for a group shot. We put our arms around each other's
- shoulders, and for the first time I can remember, I wasn't even thinking about my face.
- I was just smiling a big fat happy smile for all the different cameras clicking away at me.
- Flash, flash, click, click : smiling away as Jack's parents and Summer's mom started
- clicking. Then Reid and Maya came over. Flash, flash, click, click. And then Charlotte
- came over and asked if she could take a picture with us, and we were like, "Sure, of
- course!" And then Charlotte's parents were snapping away at our little group along with
- everyone else's parents.
- And the next thing I knew, the two Maxes had come over, and Henry and Miles, and
- Savanna. Then Amos came over, and Ximena. And we were all in this big tight huddle
- as parents clicked away like we were on a red carpet somewhere. Luca. Isaiah. Nino.
- Pablo. Tristan. Ellie. I lost track of who else came over. Everybody, practically. All I
- knew for sure is that we were all laughing and squeezing in tight against each other,
- and no one seemed to care if it was my face that was next to theirs or not. In fact, and I
- don't mean to brag here, but it kind of felt like everyone wanted to get close to me.
- The Walk Home
- We walked to our house for cake and ice cream after the reception. Jack and his
- parents and his little brother, Jamie. Summer and her mother. Uncle Po and Aunt Kate.
- Uncle Ben, Tata and Poppa. Justin and Via and Miranda. Mom and Dad.
- It was one of those great June days when the sky is completely blue and the sun is
- shining but it isn't so hot that you wish you were on the beach instead. It was just the
- perfect day. Everyone was happy. I still felt like I was floating, the Star Wars hero music
- in my head.
- I walked with Summer and Jack, and we just couldn't stop cracking up. Everything
- made us laugh. We were in that giggly kind of mood where all someone has to do is
- look at you and you start laughing.
- I heard Dad's voice up ahead and looked up. He was telling everyone a funny story as
- they walked down Amesfort Avenue. The grown-ups were all laughing, too. It was like
- Mom always said: Dad could be a comedian.
- I noticed Mom wasn't walking with the group of grown-ups, so I looked behind me. She
- was hanging back a bit, smiling to herself like she was thinking of something sweet.
- She seemed happy.
- I took a few steps back and surprised her by hugging her as she walked. She put her
- arm around me and gave me a squeeze.
- "Thank you for making me go to school," I said quietly.
- She hugged me close and leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
- "Thank you, Auggie," she answered softly.
- "For what?"
- "For everything you've given us," she said. "For coming into our lives. For being you."
- She bent down and whispered in my ear. "You really are a wonder, Auggie. You are a
- wonder."
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