The Magic of Light

Chapter

Eight

Sawyer

(Age Eight)

I received one hundred percent on my spelling test, and Mrs. Barnes said she was proud of me and that I could do the advanced word list next time.

I pulled my blue coat tight, but it didn’t make me any warmer. The cold wind blew on me as I walked from the school building to the bus. It was missing three buttons. I couldn’t wait to see my friend Abel.

Mrs. Thompson brought me to school today, so I didn’t get to ride the bus this morning. I liked sitting with Abel because he was nice. He made everything better. I climbed the steps and walked toward our seat. He was already on the bus. As I was walking past the fifth row, a foot shot out and tripped me. I hit the floor with an oomph . The weight of my faded blue backpack held my thin body down. Tears stung my eyes, but I wouldn’t give Jimmy Johnson the satisfaction of letting him know my knees hurt from the fall. Jimmy was always mean. This wasn’t the first time he’d pushed me around. I wasn’t sure what I had done to the fifth grader to make him bully me, but I wished I had never met him. But there were a lot of people I wished I had never met. Abel leaned his head out into the aisle and saw me on the ground. His big greenish eyes widened, and he rushed toward me.

“You okay, Sawyer?” His eyebrows were squished together.

“Yeah.” He reached for my upper arm to help me up. I gasped. He didn’t know there was a bruise on my arm, but I needed his help because the backpack was too heavy.

“Awww . . . Seth, look. Abel has a thing for Bony Baloney.”

Jimmy snickered, and I tugged my jacket closer. Seth laughed.

“Bony Baloney?” Seth asked, still laughing.

“Yeah, she’s bony, and she smells like baloney!” Jimmy and Seth laughed like it was the best joke they had ever heard. They were mean and dumb.

I wanted to scream that I wouldn’t be bony if someone fed me regularly. When you only ate Monday through Friday at school, I guess things like that happened. As far as the smell. I didn’t like it either. I hated being dirty. I hated when my fingernails were dirty and my head felt itchy. I hated that there wasn’t a lock on the bathroom door. I had tried to figure out how to work the washer and dryer at the Thompson's house, but I wasn’t tall enough to reach the knobs. I had to drag a bar stool to the laundry room to climb atop to reach. The last time I tried that, Mr. Thompson had found me in there and by the time he was done, I didn’t care what my clothes smelled like. I felt dirtier than my clothes, except it was the kind of feeling that water couldn’t wash away.

I hated Mr. Thompson. I hated Dawton. Sometimes I hated Dawton worse than Mr. Thompson. I hated all of them. Dawton was the reason my arm was bruised. He was a bully like Jimmy Johnson half the time, and the other half . . . well, he was a lot like Mr. Thompson.

“Jimmy Johnson, you shut it or I’ll tell your dad what a stink face you are!” Abel replied. As if by some miracle, Jimmy quieted. I didn’t understand why, because Abel was much smaller than Jimmy. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to be safe by the window seat and have Abel sitting beside me. I made my way to the bench seat we always shared.

“Sawyer?”

I turned to look at him and lugged off my backpack. Set it in my lap and wrapped my skinny arms around it. I used it as a pillow sometimes because I could actually sleep on the bus. I didn’t know why, but sometimes I wondered if it was because I felt safe enough to sleep.

“I’m sorry Jimmy is so mean.” Abel’s brown hair fell across his forehead.

“Why’d he leave you alone? I thought for sure he’d beat you into the ground.” I wanted to figure out how I could get him to leave me alone, too.

“His dad works for my dad,” Abel answered, as if that explained everything, and to him it probably did. I nodded, although I didn’t exactly understand.

“I wish I could be brave like you,” I said quietly.

“My grandpa wore these when he was a soldier and my grandma said soldiers are the best kind of men there are. When I grow up, I’m gonna be just like him!” Abel declared, pulling out a chain with two metal pieces on the end with words written across them.

I looked closer.

“What are they?” I tipped my head to the side to study the words.

“She says they’re dog tags.”

“That’s a weird name, but how does it work? Is it like magic?”

“Yeah,” he said, like they were very special.

“I wish I had dog tags to make me brave.” If these things really worked, maybe I wouldn’t be scared at home all the time.

“Why do you need to be brave?”

I’d never told Abel what happened when I wasn’t at school. I tried to tell my social worker, but she’d mostly sit outside with Mrs. Thompson and they’d talk while they smoked cigarettes. I was scared to tell her with Mrs. Thompson watching. She’d always say I was lying again and pull my hair. I hated when she did that. She always got spit on me when she talked and I hated that too.

“I don’t like living with the Thompsons.”

“Why?” His forehead wrinkled.

“Sometimes it’s scary.” I looked out the window as the rolling hills passed by before turning back.

Abel stared at me like he was looking for secrets, and then before I knew it, he took off the dog tags and slipped them over my head.

“You can have them. They can make you brave too.” I wrapped my bony arms around Abel and gave him a tight hug.

“What? Really? You’re the best friend ever!”

“Awww naww,” he mumbled, ducking his head. “Are you going to take a nap, like always? You can lean on me.”

Abel’s cheeks were pink, and I settled into the seat and laid my head against his shoulder. I held the dog tags in my hand, rubbing my thumb across the words until I fell asleep. The last thing I remember thinking, as the rocking of the bus made me fall asleep, was I wanted to be like Abel one day.

Every time I saw him, he made everything better. It was like he was magic. He was a warm light, and it made things not seem so dark and cold. If I could make people feel that way, I wanted to do that more than anything else in this world.