excerpt #1
The autumn after Steve turned six, he’d started attending Kindergarten in the public school for half-days. That was when he’d first learned that being around other kids wasn’t anything like he’d imagined from his chair. It wasn’t really nice or fun or exciting. Or maybe it was—just not for him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known that he was different, understood it, as much as a young child can grasp that different rules apply to different groups of people. But he hadn’t really grasped what his differences, his rules, meant to others.
Steve comes with his own, unique set of rules that make it so he can’t be around people very much, especially snot-nosed, finger-sucking, unwashed people. He can’t run wild outside. Can’t kick or throw a ball around, chase, tag, rough-house, wrestle, hide or seek. But there is a lot he can do, as his Ma always says. He started reading when he was only four. He can color and draw things that the nuns gush over. He can build elaborate block castles and put them under siege in detailed campaigns conducted by wooden soldiers. He can talk to grown ups in a way that sometimes gets them to go: “Huh. Never though of it that way.”
But none of that mattered much to other kids, he’d discovered. Not when he was so pale and squinty-eyed and crooked. Not when he wheezed if he laughed too hard and had a hard time hearing if you were on his right. It didn’t take him long to realize: no one wants to be friends with the sickly kid. The best block towers are only so interesting until someone else comes along and says “everyone’s gonna play Red Rover, come on!” Everyone except Steve.
It also didn’t take Steve long to realize that other kids were kind of stupid overall, and not very interesting. They were all pushy whiners for the most part, barging around trying to get everyone to do what they said no matter how dumb it was, refusing to do what anyone else needed or wanted (even grown ups!) and then pitching fits when the smallest things didn’t go their way. And some of them were downright mean. Bullies who mocked and shoved—he’d once seen a boy in his class kick a cat during recess. It still made him sick to think about.
Steve’s in first grade now, and he’s decided that he’s better off without the lot them. He’s gotta stay focused anyway. If he wants his Ma to let him walk between home, school, and the orphanage by himself in the spring, he’s gotta get stronger. And that means walking, walking, walking around the orphanage, stopping only when he absolutely has to rest, breathe.
It’s not so bad. The Christmas decorations are up, and each window offers a different view of the white winter snow. Through some of them he can see the other children, the orphans, building snowmen.
