Sandra Bell was hating every minute of this. Today was Gary's first day of school, which for most parents would be a proud day, but for Sandra, things were different. Her son was diagnosed with Autism as a three year old. Since then, she's had to put a lot of time- and money- in to helping her son. She hired the best doctors and took him to the best hospitals, and now enrolled Gary in the best specialized school for miles around.

She watched the other kids and was filled with something close to thankfulness, but not exactly. Why should she be thankful for this? Nevertheless as she looked around the room she said a silent thank you. She saw other boys and girls running around screaming and taking toys from each other. She saw others who kept hitting themselves on their chests* and even others who hid in the corners. Despite the research from the internet and the doctors' information, Sandra was scared. She'd never encountered anything like this before. She looked down at her son who seemed shy in a crowd like this. His hands were moving in front of his face and he was looking off into space, but he was silent.

Sandra saw the other parents look at her and knew they were jealous. The other parents would try not to be, but because Gary was a highly functioning autistic he acted differently and would be put in a separate class at school.

Just then, a group of happy teachers (they seemed too happy for a place like this, Sandra thought) came out to the waiting room. They introduced themselves and started calling the names of the kids that would be going with them. Gary was the fourth person called. Sandra grabbed his hand and pulled him gently towards a smiling brunette. "Hi Gary!" she exclaimed with so much enthusiasm he actually looked near her (never eye contact, though). "My name is Melissa. We are going to have such a fun time!"

Gary mumbled "fun time" under his breath. Sandra knew early on that his 'stim' was repetition. He repeated almost everything he heard. The doctors offered medication to reduce this, but Sandra would never. She put it off as a little boy being curious about new words.

With that, Melissa took Gary and five other kids off into a purple room. Sandra felt strange. For the first time in what seemed like ages, she had this enormous weight off her shoulder. As soon as he was out of sight, she missed him immensely, but felt so much relief. She hoped with all her heart that things would start going well for her and Gary.

At exactly 3:30PM, Sandra walked through the brightly colored doors to pick up Gary from school. A lot of the other parents were already there. The first class to come out was one with over twenty children. It was obvious they were lower functioning than the other classes. The two teachers were trying their hardest to make sure every child found their parent, but it was difficult because they were all so loud.

A few minutes later, Gary's class came out. Melissa and a helper with a name tag that said Joey were more successful at helping the kids find their parents. Gary ran over and hugged Sandra's legs.

"Hey, Gary!" she said. "How was your first day of school?"

He didn't reply, but she was fine with that. She decided to take him out for a bite to eat; maybe that would coax him to say a few words about his new school.

A/N: Hi! Thanks for reading. From this point on I'll be going WAY out of order. Next topic- Gary and Sandra meet Rosen! Whatever pops into my head is what I'm going to write. If you have any suggestions or ideas that pop in your head I would love to hear them and possibly write about them. Also, reviews make me write faster. Ball's in your court, reader :)

*For those of you who don't know a lot about autism, this is called stimming. It's basically a strange habit that they have which helps them calm down or deal with sensory overload or other emotions. (ie: hitting, flapping their arms, rocking back and forth, things like this)