“No, I guess not,” said Ozzie as he scuffed his shoe on the floor.
“Ozzie, doyouthink you’re stupid?” I said in a quiet voice. He shrugged and my chest ached again. “Sweetie, we’ve gone over this as well. Having dyslexia doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It just means you’ve got a different type of brain. That can actually be helpful for some things. Some of the most successful people in the world have dyslexia. Thinking differently isn’t always a bad thing. Do you think Einstein’s stupid?”
Ozzie shrugged again and I decided to go for someone a little more modern. “How about Tom Cruise?”
That got his attention. His little body shifted so he was facing me a little more and he blinked up at me with the startling blue eyes he’d inherited from his father. “Tom Cruise has dyslexia?”
“Yes, and whatever anyone says about the man, nobody thinks he’s stupid, do they?”
Ozzie considered this for a minute and then slowly shook his head.
“I happen to think that you’re very clever, Ozzie,” I told him. “All we have to do is help your brain out a bit with the muddling up the letters thing, and then there’ll be nothing stopping you.”
“I shouldn’t have chucked the book at Margot’s head.”
“Do you think you should say sorry?”
Ozzie nodded. I looked up at Lily, who was still trying to placate an irate Margot, and gave her a quick nod. Lily smiled and spoke to Margot again, pointing over to where Ozzie and I were sitting. Then Margot marched over to us to stand in front of the desk, planting her feet wide and putting her hands on her hips. She looked like a seven-year-old unexploded bomb of attitude.
“Hey, Margot,” I said, “Ozzie has something to say to you.”
“Sorry,” muttered Ozzie at his lap.
Margot tilted her head to the side. “I’m gonna need more than that, Oscar Sterling,” she said with all the sass I had expected.
“I shouldn’t’ve chucked a book at your head,” he said a little more clearly, but still not giving her eye contact. “It was a dick move.”
“Oscar!” I admonished. “That was a bad word. You know we can’t use those words at school.”
Okay, so it wasn’t ideal that Oscar used the d-word, but at least now Margot was smiling.
“Yeah,” she said. “Itwasa dick move.”
“Margot!”
“Why’d you do it?” Margot asked, her attitude-laden pose from before relaxing somewhat.
“Dunno,” muttered Ozzie.
“Yeah, you do,” she countered, scowling down at him.
“My brain works funny, and I was embarrassed,” Ozzie said eventually.
“Funny how?” Margot asked, her eyebrows going up and her head tilting to the side.
Ozzie scuffed the floor again with his shoe. “I get my letters mixed up.”
“Oh, you meandyslexia,” Margot said, and Ozzie blinked at her in surprise.
“Er… yeah,” he said. “That’s it.”
“Well, what’s the big bloody deal?” Margot asked and I rolled my eyes again.
“Margot, I am sitting right here, love,” I told her. “If you could justpretendnot to swear, that’d be great.”
She grinned at me. “Sorry. Mummy’s always telling me off. She blames Daddy.” She turned back to Ozzie. “Well, dyslexia’s not a big deal. My cousin’s got it, and she gets to go to her own special room for exams, which is way cooler than the exam room. She gets snacks and everything cause her exam is longer. Last time, she had awhole packetof Jaffa Cakes.”
“Snacks?” Ozzie asked, perking up significantly. “Hey, Miss Clara. You never mentioned the snacks!”
