Mom
walked me to the bus stop. "Your ready?" She asked.
I nodded.
"Your sure?"
I nodded again. I knew she wanted me to
say no, I wasn't ready to go to kindergarten, I wasn't going. But I knew I had
to go sooner or later.
Shin, who was eight and in third grade,
was already on the street corner, talking to some friends of his. There were a
lot of little kids, who had a death grip on their parent's hands. I didn't. I
was wandering over to Shin. "Hi Shin." I said.
"Get
lost squirt." He said, shoving me away. He was right; I was a 'squirt.' If it's
supposed to mean little that is. I was really skinny. He shoved me away.
"I just
wanted to play with you." I said, sulking away. The bus pulled up by the curb.
All the kids got onto the bus, some of them waving to their parents, all the
parents waving to their kids.
Mom said Shin had to sit with me today.
He did. But as soon as the bus pulled out of her sight, he went to go sit with
his friends. "Sayonara sucker!" Shin shouted.
"Bye-bye…" The bus was going pretty
fast. It went over a road bump. Suddenly I didn't feel so good. My stomach
really hurt. I threw up. The icky blob of grossness was sitting there on the
floor, making me feel even worse. I threw up again. Kids were starting to
scream at me.
One kid screamed to the bus driver
about it. The bus driver made me get off the bus to finish throwing up. He
wouldn't let me back in until I had nothing left to throw up. Finally, he let
me back on, and my seat was taken. I sat next to some random kid. "You know how
disgusting that is?" The kid said.
"What…?" I asked, not really paying
attention.
"All that barfing. That yucky."
"Sorry…"
"Your disgusting. Me and anyone on this
bus with brains hates you."
"That doesn't make sense. If hating me
involves having brains, then why do you hate me?"
The kid stared at me for a while and
said, "My head hurts." Apparently he didn't understand. I guess I don't really
talk normally for a five-year-old. It's not my fault my dad was trying to make
me really smart, so I know half the dictionary, what meiosis is, and how to do
algebra. Dad just crammed everything there is to know into my head.
The kid went to another seat. "I'm
gonna go sit somewhere else before you throw up again."
So I sat alone for the rest of the ride
to school.
The bus arrived at school. We got off,
and I walked up to the third floor and into my class. The teacher was telling a
kid how to spell cat. How simple. I can spell a lot harder things then that.
When the teacher walked over to me and
said, "Oh really?" I realized I'd said it out loud.
"Yessir." I said quickly.
"Can you spell…onomatopoeia?"
I nodded. "O-N-O-M-A-T-O-P-O-E-I-A."
"Wow." The teacher was astonished.
"Wow…I never met a kindergartener who even heard of the word. I never met a
high school student who could spell it. What are you, some kind of genius?"
I shook my head.
"Oh, now he's being modest." Someone
said. I looked back. Everyone was talking…about me. And they weren't saying
anything very good.
"Kid," A girl came up to me. "That is
the dorkiest outfit I ever saw." She said it as if it were a compliment, so I
said,
"Arigato." And I walked to my
seat. Everyone was staring at me. Another girl walked over to my desk.
"Hey, Becky just insulted you, and your
saying thank you? We should insult you more often then, since you like
it so much."
"Class." The teacher said. "Here is your
assignment. Jyou, will you please hand these out?"
Snickers of 'teachers pet,' were heard
in the room. Becky yelled, "I'm not doing the work if he touches it!"
"Alright fine." The teacher said.
"Tony, you do it." A fat little boy came up to the teacher and grabbed the
sheets of paper. The teacher wrote his name on the board. 'Mr. Bét.' I copied
it down. My dad told me to write down everything that goes on the board.
I got my assignment. I wrote my name on
the sheet. I completed it in one minute. This was easy stuff. No one else
seemed to think it was as easy as I did. I just sat at my desk for an hour
while I waited for everyone else to be done.
Finally, Mr. Bét said to turn in the
assignment. Most people weren't even done yet. And no one but me got everything
right. Mr. Bét complimented me, but everyone else just laughed.
Mr. Bét had us sit on the rug. He read
us a story, which I read myself many times. I didn't pay any attention. It was
impossible to anyway. I was allergic to the stuff in the rug and I sneezed a
lot. Everyone yelled at me to shut up. I tried to, but I couldn't stop. "Jyou?"
Mr. Bét said. "Are you okay?"
I nodded, but continued sneezing.
"Sorry..." I said, when I could finally stop for a minute. "I'm allergic to the
stuff on the rug."
"Why don't you go sit at your desk
then?" He suggested. I ran to the desk. Mr. Bét continued to read the story. It
was boring.
Soon, it was lunchtime. I wasn't
planning on eating, so I just went outside. I found out that that was a bad
idea. A really big kindergartener, walked up to me. "So…" He said. "I hear
you've got a pretty bad reputation around here."
"I guess I don't really have the
best reputation…" I said, looking down at my feet.
"Damn right." This kid was how old? He
looked like he was ten. Maybe I'm wrong. He can't be a kindergartener. "I'm in
the other kindergarten class, but word travels fast."
So he is a kindergartener. How stupid
is this guy? I don't speak. "You," he said, "are known as an official, 'nasty
person,' 'dork,' 'nerd,' 'geek,' and 'teachers pet.' I don't take kindly to
people like that, so I'm going to have to beat you up." With that, he punched
me in the face, and my glasses shattered into pieces. He kept hitting me, and
kicking me, over and over again. It hurt so bad! I was crying and bleeding, and
trying to get away. I saw someone, I think it was Shin, running over and
screaming at the kid, but I blacked out before I could see.
I woke up in the nurse's office. I was
covered in bruises and dried blood. I was still crying. It hurt to move. My mom
was staring at me. "Mommy, what are you doing here?" I asked.
"Shin called me, and said you got
beaten up really bad. I came over here to see what was going on." She said.
"What happened? Who beat you up?"
"I don't know…some really big kid. But
he said he was a kindergartener." The nurse walked over.
"Oh him? That's Anton. He's in the
fifth grade. He just pretends to be in the same grade as whoever he's talking
to."
"Oh…" Mom was hugging me really hard.
"Why would he beat you up?" She
asked.
"Because I got a bad reputation…"
"Why?" She pulled away from me. I told
her everything that had happened that day. She mumbled under her breath, "I
knew your father shouldn't have made you so damn smart…"
"Mommy…" I started to cry harder. "I
hate school. I never want to go back here again!"
"Sorry honey." She said, kissing
me. "Nothing I can do."
I grabbed onto her and kept crying. She
just hugged me for a long time.