“You can’t sit there!” I look up and see three older girls already sitting with their lunches spread out. I smile at them, just like Mommy said to.
“Why are you looking at us like that? Go away, weirdo!” They don’t smile back, and I don’t think ‘weirdo’ is a very nice name.
“Do you know what kindness is? You just have to smile, like this!” I smile bigger now. I hope I can teach them and make Mommy proud.
“Do you know what ‘go away’ means?!” The one with big glasses and an even bigger nose says. Her voice is mean, but I don’t know what I did wrong. I was just trying to teach them how to be happy. She pushes my lunchbox off the table, andeverything falls out onto the floor. I watch the circle sandwiches roll down the hill, catching stones and dirt like they were Pokémon.
“Woops!” I look at her, confused.
It didn’t look like an accident.
I managed to rescue my carton of apple juice and granola bar, and decided to sit on the grass, away from all of the other kids.Teaching is hard work.
“Who’s your favorite Pokémon? Mine’s definitely Charizard. Did you know he’s not even adragonPokémon? He’s fire/flying, weird right?!” I look up and see a boy from my class. He’s taller than me and has a serious look on his face. His hair is floppy and brown; it reminds me of the hot chocolate Mommy makes me at bedtime, except his hair doesn’t have marshmallows in it. His eyes are the same colour, with long black lashes that look like lots of little spider legs. The thought of spiders near my eyeballs makes me shiver, until I remember I could just blast them with my special lasers–pewpew!
I don’t feel like smiling at him right now, though. The only people who smiled back so far are the growed-ups.
I don’t even have time to answer him before he sits down next to me, opens his own lunch box, and pulls out a sandwich. There’s a weird feeling in my tummy all of a sudden, like it’s being squeezed and squished; it’s the same feeling I get when I go to the dentist. Mommy says it’s fear. She tells me it’s okay to be scared sometimes, but it’s very important that we try to be brave.
“Want a sandwich? It’s cheese-spread,” he says, holding out a floppy triangle of bread. I decide it’s time to be brave and try to do what Mommy told me again, like a big boy. But when I look at him, he’s already smiling at me, a big toothy grin with sparkly eyes.Kindness, he knows it.
“Umm, thank you.” I take the sandwich and bite into it. It’s the same as the ones my Mommy makes, and all of a sudden, my tummy stops hurting. “My favorite Pokémon is Ditto, by the way.”
I laugh when he turns to face me. He has cheese spread all around his mouth, making it look like he has a white mustache.
“So you do know how to smile!” He says, and it makes me laugh even harder. “My name's Alexander, by the way. And you’re Julian, right?”How does he know my name?“It’s on your lunchbox,” He points at the letters written on tape.
“Can you read my mind?” I ask, trying to think of cool, boy stuff.Wrestling, football, dirt.
“I wish! How cool would that be?! We could talk without any noise and tell each other the answers in class. We would be like superheroes…” He keeps talking, so I try saying his name in my head, but it sounds really long. I can clap four whole times when I say it.
“Al-ix-zan-derer,” I sound it out, but it’s not the same. “Al-i-zan-drer.” Why can’t I say it like he does?
“Like this–Alex-and-er,” he spells it out for me. He’s nice and doesn’t laugh at me for getting it wrong, so I try again.
“A-lic–sadrer– I can’t say it! Why did your Mommy give you such a hard name?” Hegiggles.
“I don’t know, she died when I was a baby, so I can’t ask her.” He doesn’t have a Mommy? I’d be really sad, and I think I would cry all the time if I didn’t have mine. He doesn’t look sad, though, and he’s definitely not crying; he’s so brave. I think this is what a proper ‘big boy’ looks like.
“What about if I let you call me something different? But onlyyoucan use my new name, it will be our first secret!”
“Yeah, okay! But what? Alex?”
“Nah, there’s already an Alex in our class. What if you get us mixed up?” He’s right, I don’t want Alex– what if he doesn’t know who Ditto is? I look up at the clouds and tap my chin; I’ve seen people doing that on TV, and theyalwaysget the best ideas after.
“You’re right. What aboutZander?” His eyes open really wide, and his mouth stretches so big I think he might swallow his own face.
“YEAH! That sounds so cool!Zander, the bestest Pokémon master EVER.”
I like it when he makes funny voices and smiles at me; it makes me feel happy, too. Then, he says something that makes today not such a poopy day after all–
“And his best friend, Julian.”
When the first day of school is finished, I go home thinking all about my new friend. I think he must have magic in his eyes, too, because his smile makes me happy, just like Mommy said.
Chapter Two
Zander
