This was written for the Free For All Fic For All at Ask the Squishykins. Prompt: Jonathan Crane has a quiet childhood moment.

Trigger warning: bullying

"It was a dark and spooky night."

Oh, that's original, Jonathan Crane thought. Then, pleased with himself for knowing how to spell the big word, he wrote that sentence on the back of his coloring worksheet. Miss Green wouldn't mind if he didn't pay much attention. Sometimes she let him sit in the book corner while she taught the rest of the kindergarten class the ABCs because he was already reading, she said, on a college level. He didn't know what that meant, but he liked to have time to himself. Anyway, no matter what he thought of the other kids' ideas for the class's Halloween story, he wasn't going to say anything out loud. They got mad when he did.

"Now let's spell that," said Miss Green. Jonathan stopped coloring and joined in. "I-T," everyone said together. Miss Green wrote the letters on the chalkboard. "W-A-S." At the beginning of the year, Jonathan had been the only one who could read and write. Now most of them could spell out easy words, but they were still slow. "A." Jonathan wanted to take charge and speed things up, but even his teacher didn't like it when he showed off and left the rest of the class behind. "D-A-R…" Here everyone hesitated, some saying C, others K.

"What's next?" asked Miss Green. She said it nicely, not like she was mad that they didn't know. She was a good teacher.

Jonathan waited until everyone else was talking, then said, "K!" like he hadn't been sure until he'd heard them saying it. Nobody liked him to be a know-it-all. They didn't all fall for it, though. Some of them still gave him dirty looks.

"K," said Miss Green. "Does that sound right to everyone?" She waited for them to say it did before she went on.

"A-N-D." That was an easy one. The next one was hard, but Jonathan could to it.

"S-P-"

"O-O," Jonathan said quickly, before anyone could get it wrong.

"P, and Jonathan says O-O," Miss Green said, with a smile for him so everyone knew he was right. The other kids were really getting mad, but who cared what they thought? He was smarter.

"K," they continued after some debate, and Jonathan all but shouted, "Y!"

Peter Powell was really glaring at him, and Jonathan was afraid he was about to get kicked, but then Miranda grabbed his arm and they started whispering to each other.

"N-I…" Jonathan hesitated while the rest of the class added, "T." That wasn't right. There were silent letters in there, but he didn't remember what they were.

"Is that how you spell it?" asked Miss Green. Jonathan really wanted to fix it. He knew Miss Green would spell a word wrong on purpose if the whole class agreed on it. But Peter and Miranda were up to something.

"E," someone suggested, and Miss Green added it to the board.

"Is this right?"

Even Jonathan wasn't sure. With a silent E, that could spell night, but it still didn't look right to him. Too unsure to blurt it out, he raised his hand.

Miranda jammed her fingers into his armpit.

Shocked, Jonathan twisted away. It hadn't hurt, exactly—more of a tickle, like a caterpillar walking across his skin. But it was weird to be touched by another person, and she had almost made him laugh out in the middle of class.

The class went on with the story, spelling out the words without any help from Jonathan. He was too busy keeping an eye on Miranda, in case she decided to poke at him again.

She didn't, so when Miss Green asked for a volunteer to help get the art supplies from the closet, Jonathan raised his hand.

And there went the tickling fingers. Jonathan doubled over, arms clamped tight against his sides, breath held to keep from making a sound. This was, Jonathan decided, much less nice than a caterpillar crawling up his arm. His glasses slipped down, and he glared at Miranda over the tops of them. She smirked back. So that's how it was going to be.

He wanted to slap her across the mouth, which his granny said was just what an impertinent child always needed. (He thought tickling was "impertinent," although he wasn't completely sure.) But he would get in trouble for hitting a girl, and even if he didn't, she was friends with Peter, and Peter would shove him in the duck pond again.

Miss Green was asking for a strong boy to get the boxes of construction paper down. She always asked for a strong boy, or sometimes just a boy, which was the dumbest thing because half the girls, including Miranda, were bigger and stronger than Jonathan. He never volunteered to carry heavy things, but it seemed like a good escape, so he raised his hand about as high as the top of his head, keeping his upper arm pressed against his body.

Miss Green frowned at him. "Jonathan, why are you raising your hand like that? You know, I'm to going to call on you if I can't see your hand."

He twisted his body to make his hand go higher without exposing his underarm. Her frown deepened, like she was mad at him for dong something wrong. "Jonathan, does your arm hurt?"

Jonathan glanced at Miranda, who was still smirking at him. He could tell on her, but Miss Green probably wouldn't even think tickling was that bad. Even if she did, he knew what happened every time a girl was mean to a boy, or a boy was mean to a girl. She would say that Miranda was just picking on him because she liked him, because all grown-ups were idiots.

And if he got Miranda in trouble, Peter would do something really bad. Without a word, Jonathan put his hand down. And kept it down for the rest of the day.