Maybe then she will be my friend.
When she is nice, I’ll give it to her.
I wait for her to look at me again so I can give it to her.
I keep the drawing.
“Freaky, Freaky Flynn!”
That’s what everyone calls me now. I know it is bad name. They say it before they do something that makes me angry.
The boy with the big nose is the worst. And the girl with the black hair that Ellie talks to a lot.
They took my notebook after school yesterday. They took my pictures of the Eiffel Tower and tore them up.
I yelled. I threw rocks at them. They laughed.
My mom had screamed at them when she came to take me home.
I had cried and Mom had tried to hug me.
I hit her.
Then she cried and I knew I had hurt her. She told me I shouldn’t do that. That I should talk about what makes me mad.
I didn’t say anything.
But I still liked looking at Ellie.
She had a pretty smile when she laughed. She liked to laugh when I yelled.
She laughed a lot.
The teacher tells me to work with Ellie for a paper in class.
Her hair is purple again. I like it more than the blue. But I still hate it.
“Why is your hair purple now?” I ask her.
“Why are you so weird?” she asks me.
“I’m not weird,” I said back.
“You’re a freak,” she said.
I don’t like that word. Freak. It makes me so mad I want to break my pencil.
I throw my book on the floor and start rubbing my hands. Fingers smoothing down over the back of my hand.
Up and down.
Over and over again.
Ellie looks at me and I can see her eyes are brown. Like my bedroom in Massachusetts.
I look down at my hands. I keep rubbing them. I don’t like to be looked at.
“Why do you do that?” she asks.
