So it was going to be another endless year of being bored in class and lonely outside of class.
When the noon bell finally rang, Josh busied himself with his book bag until all the rest of the kids were gone, then slid out of his seat and started for the door. Before he could escape, the teacher’s voice stopped him.
“Josh?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around. He could hear Mrs. Schulze’s heavy footsteps coming down the aisle toward him. When he felt her hand on his shoulder, he once again wished the floor would open and the earth would swallow him up.
“I just wanted to tell you how happy I am to have you in my class this year,” Rita Schulze said. “I know it’s not going to be easy for you—”
Before she could finish, Josh spun around and stared up at her, his stormy eyes brimming with tears. “No you don’t,” he said in a voice that trembled with emotion. “You don’t know if it’s going to be easy or hard. And you don’t care, either! All you care about is that I can answer the stupid questions!” His voice rose as he lost control of his tears. “And that’s what they are, too — stupid, stupid, stupid!” Jerking away from the teacher, Josh turned and stumbled into the mercifully empty hall, then ran toward the boys’ room at its far end.
Five minutes later, his tears dried and his face washed, he emerged from the boys’ room and uttered a silent sigh of relief when he found the hall empty. He went to his locker, put his book bag inside and took out the brown paper bag containing his lunch. He was about to close the locker when he suddenly changed his mind and burrowed a hand into the bottom of his book bag, fishing out the copy of Les Miserables his mother had given him last week. Though he knew the cover wasn’t real leather, he still admired it for a moment, with its ornate gilt border surrounding a fleur-de-lis pattern.
Since he already knew he’d be sitting by himself in the cafeteria, he might as well try to read a few chapters.
In the cafeteria, he joined the tail end of the lunch line, silently moving forward until he was able to pick up a carton of milk, then edging toward the cash register. “Well, look who’s here,” Emily Sanchez said, smiling warmly as she rang up Josh’s purchase. “Seventh grade already. Next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re headin’ for high school!”
Josh managed a slight nod of his head, and held out his hand for the change from the dollar bill he’d given Emily. As she put the coins into his hand, Emily leaned toward him, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Any of them kids give you trouble, you let me know, okay? They ain’t so smart as they think they are, right?” She winked conspiratorially, but Josh didn’t see it, his flushing face already turned away as he hurried toward an empty table in the far corner.
No one spoke to him as he threaded his way between the tables, but he could feel them watching him.
He sat down with his back to the room, determined to ignore the rest of the kids, and opened his bag to pull out the peanut butter sandwich and small container of cottage cheese that invariably made up his lunch.
“I know it’s not interesting,” his mother had explained to him over and over again whenever he’d complained of the sameness of it. “But it’s good for you, and it’s all I can afford.”
And so he’d eaten it, day after day, through one school year after another. Today, though, as he contemplated the sandwich in the heat of the cafeteria, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to choke it down.
Indeed, as he took the first bite, chewed it, and attempted to swallow it, it stuck in his throat, and he was finally only able to dislodge it by taking a long swallow of the milk. Opening the book, he began reading, and soon was lost in the tale of Jean Valjean, who was just then stealing a set of silver candelabra from the kindly priest who had taken him in.
Josh turned the pages rapidly, his eyes skimming over the text, taking in every word as he felt himself sinking deeper and deeper into the story. And then, with no warning at all, the book was snatched out of his hands. Startled, he looked up to see Ethan Roeder smirking at him, the book held just out of his reach.
“Watcha’, smart-boy?” Ethan’s mocking voice grated on his ears.
Josh shoved his chair back, rising to his feet. “It’s just a book. Give it back.”
“Why should I?” Ethan danced away, holding the book out of Josh’s reach. “Whatcha gonna do? Call a teacher?”
“Just give it to me,” Josh pleaded. “It’s not anything you’d like anyway!”
Ethan Roeder’s mocking sneer turned angry. “Says who? You think I’m too dumb to read it?” Keeping the book away from Josh’s frantic efforts to snatch it back, Ethan opened it.
For the first time, he realized the book wasn’t in English. “Holy shit,” he cried. “The little creep’s reading some other language.”
“It’s French, all right?” Josh wailed. “It’s what the book was written in. So give it back, okay?” He reached for the book once more, but Ethan was too quick for him.
The older boy grabbed Josh’s arm, squeezing hard, his fingers digging into the younger boy’s flesh. By now the kids at the next table were staring at the confrontation, but none of them made a move to help Josh. Panicking, Josh glanced around wildly, searching for a friendly face, for someone who would help him. But no one moved. In that instant, as he realized that he was totally alone, something inside him snapped.
“Leave me alone, you asshole,” he yelled. Jerking hard, he pulled his arm free, then picked up his chair and swung it at Ethan. The bigger boy ducked, then grabbed one leg of the chair and twisted it out of Josh’s hands.
Frustrated, Josh groped behind him, felt the carton of milk and closed his fingers on it. As Ethan’s fist drew back to smash his face, Josh hurled the milk at him. From another table a wave of laughter erupted as the white liquid cascaded over Ethan’s face and ran down his shirt.
“Jesus,” Ethan yelled. “What did you do that for?”
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Josh snatched his book up from where it lay in a puddle of milk on the floor. He tried to wipe the milk off the already wrinkled pages of the book, but it was too late.
He’d had the book less than a week, and it was already ruined.
“Look!” he yelled. “Look what you’ve done to my book!” He hurled the damp volume at Ethan Roeder, and was about to fling himself on the bigger boy when a booming voice rang out from the door.
“All right, break it up!”
Arnold Hodgkins had been principal of Eden Consolidated School long enough to know how to put a quick end to a disruption in the cafeteria. Now he strode from the door, wading through the crowd gathered around the two boys, one of his thick hands clamping hard on a shoulder of each of the combatants. “That’ll be enough! Got it?”
Josh winced as the principal’s fingers tightened on his shoulder, but he said nothing.
Ethan Roeder, though, glared angrily at Josh. “I didn’t do anything!” he cried out, his voice quivering with fury. “He started it! We were just sitting here, and he threw milk all over me! Look at my shirt! It’s soaking!”
Josh’s mouth dropped open at the magnitude of the lie, but before he could say anything at all, one of the other boys, José Cortez, moved in next to Ethan. José and Ethan were buddies. “It’s true,” José said, his eyes burning into Josh as if daring him to challenge his words. “Ethan didn’t do nothin’. Josh just went nutso. He’s crazy!”
Josh’s eyes darted from one face to another, praying that someone—anyone—would tell the truth. But all the kids gathered around Ethan Roeder were his tormentor’s friends, all of them kids from his own class. Kids who already hated him.