Chapter 13
Maddy hates recess. She never knows where to go.
The Popular Boys are on the monkey bars.
Sydney and the Mean Girls are at their picnic table over by the slide, comparing pictures on their phones.
Maddy senses their presence at all times like heat—when they have entered the cafeteria, the classroom, when they are behind her at kiss-and-ride drop-off.
Clutching her lunch box, she debates hiding in the library and eating behind the science-and-technology bookcase, but there is no food or beverages in the library and she got caught once already and she doesn’t like breaking rules and getting in trouble.
She decides to go to the science room to eat with Mrs. Gower, but it is too late. They have spotted her.
“Hey, Maddy! Over here.” Sydney is standing on the picnic table bench now, waving her over with a big smile, and Maddy thinks maybe, just maybe, this one time Sydney will be kind.
My voice matters, she reminds herself.
Eyes lowered, she clutches the insulated lunch box before her with both hands. It knocks against her knees as she walks over. She wishes Mommy was here to make her Nervous Tummy Tea. Even though she is wearing her short dress, she is sweating.
“Look, guys,” Sydney says in her Sydney voice, “it’s Ms. Maddy.”
Maddy’s stomach is tight and her throat is tight and she worries she might cry. She tells herself, I tried my best today.
“Nice lunch box,” Girl Dylan says. “Is that a dino on it?”
Still staring at the asphalt, Maddy nods.
“You can look at us, you know,” Sydney says. “You do know how to make eye contact?”
Maddy forces herself to lift her gaze. Everything is so bright all of a sudden, so bright it hurts her eyes. The girls’ cell phone screens flash, and the metal slide is glinting in the hot afternoon sun.
“Dylly asked you a question,” Sydney says. “Is that a dino on your big-girl lunch box?”
Maddy nods again, her chin quivering. They have been hard at work on their “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things” displays for student showcase night, and Maddy’s crayon drawings feature dinosaurs prominently.
“What kind of dino?” Sydney says. “A . . . Maddysaurus?”
Maddy hates that they overheard Mommy call her that.
She answers quietly: “Stegosaurus.”
Brayed laughter.
“That’s so cool,” McKenzie says in a not-nice voice. “Can you tell us something about stegosauruses?”
I am still growing and learning.
“They were as long as a bus,” Maddy says quietly. “And they had tiny brains the size of a walnut.”
“Kinda like you?” Sydney says, and they all laugh.
“I have what it takes.” Maddy is horrified to hear that she has spoken her last affirmation out loud.
“Do you? Do you really, Maddy?”
Tears spill, hot on her cheeks. She looks around, but the yard monitor is over by the recycle bin, scolding Boy Dylan, who is almost as bad as Girl Dylan.
Her hands are starting to shake, and she doesn’t want to stim, not here in front of everyone, but the sensations are overpowering, the girls’ laughter and the tightness in her stomach and the hot, hot sun.
She wishes Mr. Fox were here, and she remembers that even though fennec foxes are small, they can jump as high as a meter, and she feels a sudden fierce pride to be as mighty as a fennec fox.
“Yes,” she says fiercely, hearing her lisp on the s.
Sydney eases off the bench and walks over to her. Sydney is taller, so Maddy is looking at her necklace, a pendant with Choose Kindness written in cursive.
“If you have what it takes . . .” Sydney stoops down to find Maddy’s eyes with hers. It feels like getting stabbed in the brain. “Then why don’t you show us?”
Maddy wipes at her cheeks roughly, sets her jaw. “How?”