By the time you’d whittled your inner circle down to three, I had seen enough. Enough to know that you were no longer worthy of my attention, not even my curiosity. I knew that if you ever tried to hurt me again, you would find that you were incapable. That if you ever tried to hurt anyone else, I wouldn’t be a part of it. Clearly we didn’t need you or your approval. We were just fine being us.
So I guess I’m really writing this letter to say thank you. I believe that it was because of the way you treated me that I learned what really mattered. It was because of the way you treated me that I learned to be my own person, have my own opinion, stand my ground. It’s at least partially because I survived you that I’m the person I am today.
And I like me.
Sincerely,
Kieran Scott
Just Kidding
Stench
by Jon Scieszka
His real name was Michael Henry. Which should have been funny enough . . . considering the average level of our fifth-grade wit.
For instance:
Because he was short, we called Bobby D. “Shorty.”
Because he had white-blond hair, we called Timmy G. “Whitey.”
And it won’t take you much brainpower to guess what we called Mike W., who happened to have the biggest, most stuck-out ears in the entire school.
Yes, “Ears.”
So we really should have called Michael Henry something like “Two First Names” or “Mike Hank.” But I guess we didn’t have a nickname for Michael Henry because he was new to school.
He was a big kid. Chubby and dark brown. He even had a hint of black mustache hairs on his upper lip. There were rumors that he had been held back a grade. Or maybe two. And because Michael Henry was older than us, he was also further into adolescence than us, and hadn’t had that deodorant talk with his mom. He smelled.
I, on the other hand, with a September birthday, was one of the youngest and smallest kids in fifth grade. I had avoided getting tagged with an embarrassing nickname mostly by keeping a low profile—cracking the occasional joke, not messing with the bigger guys, and generally not drawing any attention to myself.
So it was kind of unusual that I even said anything in the group of fifth-grade boys hanging around the playground after lunch that day. But I did.
Bill M., the captain of our fifth-grade basketball team, was trying out nicknames for Michael Henry, who was standing right there with us. “How about ‘Round Guy’?”
“Bigfoot,” suggested Whitey.
“Big Head!” said Shorty.
“Really Dark Hair Guy!” said Ears.
The fifth-grade boy brain has a terrifying power. In the presence of other fifth-grade boy brains, it is capable of joining together with those brains . . . and somehow generating less thoughtful action than any one of the individual brains. Which is exactly what happened next.
I don’t know why I violated my own survival strategy of laying low. I must have been still drunk on a feeling of word power from my 100 percent on the third-period vocabulary test. I joined in the fifth-grade brain drain and blurted out a single word—“Stench!”
Everybody looked at me.
“It means a really bad smell,” I added.
“Stench,” repeated Bill M., trying it out. “Hey, Stench,” Bill M. said to Michael Henry. And that was that. Michael Henry was Stench for the rest of fifth grade.
I honestly didn’t give it much more thought. If anything, I was pretty pleased that Bill M. had taken my suggestion and that everybody now knew I was a pretty smart word guy. Another terrifying power of the fifth-grade boy brain: the ability to not even think about how your actions might affect others. I had no idea how much misery that one small mean word caused Michael Henry.
But in a fitting turn of the karmic wheel, the next year, in sixth grade, my mom bought me a pair of green corduroy pants. These pants were a shade of green just bright enough to catch the attention of Bill M. He took one look at them and called to me, “Hey. Nice pants, Green Bean.”
And so I was “Green Bean” for the whole first half of sixth grade. No matter what pants I wore.
Sorry about the “Stench” nickname, Michael H.
I hope “Green Bean” evened things up a bit.
And here’s hoping that maybe this story will help a fifth grader out there fight against the mind-sucking power of the no-think group brain.
What I Wanted to Tell You
by Melissa Schorr
E—
Can you even believe it? We made it? Junior high is actually over???
I can. I’ve only been praying for the last 231 nights or so for someone to come and put an end to my misery. All I can say is: What took so long?
There are soooo many memories I have of the two of us. Remember playing pranks on my patio? Doing backflips at your pool? Sex ed with Mr. Mueller? Good times . . .
Until the moment you decided I wasn’t cool enough or fun enough or whatever enough to be your friend anymore. And dropped me, like a stone down a cold, dark shaft.
This year was a total blast, you know?
Well, that’s how it looked, anyway, from my perch in social Siberia. Because with you waltzed every last one of my so-called friends. Karen and Shoshana. Gia and Gaby. Sarah and Sabrina. Pam and Lisa. Even Patricia.
As for the boys? None rushed to my rescue. They were merely witnesses, innocent bystanders, who watched the car crash—the shattered glass, the twisted metal—and shifted delicately to avoid the debris.
And why? I’d done no wrong, committed no crime. I wasn’t some obvious outcast—seven feet tall and gangly and slouchy, like Meg. Or desperate and needy and letting two boys kiss me at once, like Di.
I was left to wonder, with no one to ask.
There are so many moments that stand out. Remember our table for ten in the cafeteria?
Where I was abruptly told there was no longer “room” for me.
That game of Spin the Bottle at Shoshi’s surprise party, where you finally kissed you-know-who?
I wasn’t invited, but even I heard the whispers that Monday morning.
What I remember most? Hiding, shivering, in the locker room stalls, trying to escape another cruel comment. Sitting with “friends,” excluded by their coded conversations, feeling lonelier than when I was simply alone.
Congrats on winning that citizenship award! You totally deserved it.
That day you called me on the phone, when we hadn’t spoken in months? I got all stupidly flustered, like it was a real, live boy calling. For a second, I thought maybe you were going to apologize. Ask to be friends again.
Then I realized you were just hitting me up for sponsor money for some charity walkathon, and I was clearly the hundredth person down on your call list, and I felt like a total fool.
I gave anyway.
I know we weren’t that close this year, but I’m glad I’m signing your yearbook. ’Cause there’s something I wanted to tell you.
For no reason at all, by the end of the year, it was over. Like a high fever that broke, leaving me clammy and weak and slightly delirious, wondering if it had all been a bad dream.
Little by little, everyone else welcomed me back in. Karen and Shoshana. Gia and Gaby. Sarah and Sabrina. Pam and Lisa. Patricia. And you. Back on the party circuit. Back at the table of ten. Like nothing had happened. Like none of it needed to be mentioned.