"Myako

"Myako!" I cried. "Stop squishin' me!"

"I'm not squishing you Cody, you're squishing me!" Myako yelled, shoving me towards the car window.

I started crying. "Mommy! Myako's squishin' me against the win'ow again!"

"Lauren," My mommy looked at Myako's mommy. "Would you do something about this please?"

"Myako, move on your own side." Lauren said.

"But then I'll be squishing Brett!"

Brett was Myako's little brother. She has an older brother and sister, but they went on the train to school. Brett's five, like me, and we're kind of friends. "How about this?" Mommy suggested. "Cody, you can sit in the front, on my lap."

"No fair!" Brett yelled. "I wanna sit in the front!"
"Well," Lauren said. "You're not going to get squished by Myako. She seems to want to squish Cody. You can sit in the front on the way home."
My mommy and Myako's mommy are best friends. So I have to play with Myako, even though I hate her. And I hate Taryn and Phip, and I would've hated her sister Mariko, but she died before I was born. Luck'ly, I don't hate Brett.

"How come we're not taking the bus Mommy?" Myako asked.
"Because, that way I have an excuse to hang out with Trina, and she can get away from her father. If you kids took the bus, none of us would have this nice time together."

Trina is my mommy's name. But why would she want to get away from Grandpa? I wanna take the bus. I hate this. I don't like Myako, and Brett's mad at me, 'cause I get to go in front! Lauren drove over to a cub, and Mommy let herself out. She opened the backdoor, and took me out, and brang me into the front. She closed the door, and Lauren re-started the car.
We kept driving for a while, and then we finally got to the school. I held onto

Mommy tightly. "School looks scary." I said.

"You'll like it sweetie." She said, kissing me. She and Lauren got out of the car, and let us kids out. "Do you want to go in on your own, or with me?"
"Come with me." I hugged her harder.
"Okay baby." She put me down when we got out of the car. Lauren was talking to her kids.
"Myako, you can get in fine yourself?" Lauren said.

Myako nodded miserably. "Yeah. But why can't you come in with me?"
"As much as I hate it that I can't go in with both of you, I really should go in with Brett, since this is his first year."

"Oh. Stupid Brett!" She kicked a rock, imagining it was her brother.

"Darling, I went in for you when you went to kindergarten, instead of Taryn. And I went in for Taryn when she went to kindergarten instead of Phip. I'd like to go in with both of you, but I have to be fair."

Myako was still mad, but went with that answer. My mommy smiled at Lauren. "I warned you only to have one kid."

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway. I love 'em all."
"Well don't have more. You've had five already, that's enough."
"I only have four." Lauren said, in a really sad voice.

"Oh, gawd, I'm really sorry…" Mom said. I guess it wasn't very nice of her to remind her of her dead kid.

Mommy walked me up to the third floor, and said I was supposed to be in Mr. Bét's class. "Come on baby." Lauren walked the other way, taking Brett to Miss Hihato's class. "Excuse me?" She said.

"Yes?" Mr. Bét walked up to her. "Is this another student?" He looked down at me. I hid behind Mommy's leg.

"Yes. This is Heta Iori. But everyone calls him Cody." She looked at me. "Cody…get off my leg."

I walked to a desk. "Bye-bye Mommy!" I yelled.

"Bye-bye baby."

I sat down, next to some random kid. I didn't pay attention to who it was. "Alright." Mr. Bét said. "Why don't I hand out these worksheets?" He gave us some worksheets. They looked kinda hard. It took me 'bout an hour to finish. About the second I finished, Mr. Bét picked it up.

"Did I get it right?" I asked, while he looked over my paper.

"Most of it." He said. "See, you got these five wrong. Would you redo them please?" I had heard rumors that Mr. Bét hadn't always expected his students to do perfect work. But a long time ago, he got a really smart kid in his class, and later on, last year I think, he taught an after school thing that two other geniuses went to. So he's a lot tougher now.

"Okay." He said. "When you all finish, you can just…go do whatever you want. I had finished, and I thought I had it all right. I looked around the room. I couldn't find anything to do, so I started feeling all mad.

"Iori!" Someone yelled. "What are ya doin' standin' around for?"

"I don't have anything to do!" I snapped angrily.

"Jeezis Iori…"

"It's Cody!"

"Okay…Cody, I was goin' ta ask ya ta play with me, but if yer gonna be a jerk, then ferget it!"

"I'm not a jerk!" I went over to the books. I picked up one that looked interesting. I tried reading it, but I can't really read so good yet. So I mostly just looked at the pictures.

Then, I don't know why I did it, but I threw the book across the room. "Mr. Bay-ett!" A kid yelled for the teacher. "Cody threw the book!"

Mr. Bét walked up to me. "Did you throw that Cody?"

"Yes…"

"We do not throw things in here."

For some reason, he was making me really mad again. I took off my shoe. "Cody put your shoe back on." He said. I threw it at him.

"Alright, that's it! You're getting a timeout!"

"No!" I yelled, and stomped out of the room. I kinda lost my shoe, and so I took off the other one, so it would be easier to walk. Allota people were staring at me. Myako, who was out in the hall to, walked up to me. "Cody, where are your shoes?"

"I lost them. So what?"

"So…so nothing. Bye-bye." Myako ran into the girl's bathroom.

I walked around for a while. An hour or so later, I saw my class lining up for lunch. Mr. Bét walked over to me. "Are you ready to join us now Cody?"

I nodded, but glared at him angrily. "Yes…"

"You will act like a decent human being, you hear me? And where are your shoes? I have your other one…but it's no use if the other ones gone to."

"I took it off so it'd be easier to walk."
"Okay…guess your not going outside today. You can't go out without shoes."

We walked down to the lunchroom. People kept asking me where my shoes were. I said, "It's a new style. No shoes." That seemed to satisfy them.

I got my lunch, and it was french-fries, and tiny stinky patties. I ate the French fries, and threw the rest away. I ate real slow, so that I would have something to do while I waited to go back up.

In fact, I wasn't even done by then. I still had two french-fries left when Mr. Bét called us up. So I ate them on the way up.

"Okay." Mr. Bét said. "This class has music for the next two periods. After that, you will play in the yard until your parents come." He took us back downstairs, and into a big room with a stage. A lady, Ms. Enrico, was the teacher.

Mr. Bét left the room. "Okay class." Ms. Enrico said. "Can everyone do Do Ray Mi Fa So La Ti Do?"

Allota kids nodded their heads, only a couple of kids didn't know it. But she taught it anyway. And we had to sing, 'Do Ray Mi Fa So La Ti Do!' over and over, 'til Ms. Enrico said it was perfect. Then she had us sing stuff like, 'I'm a Little Teapot.' It was kinda fun, but we did the same thing over and over.

She dismissed us outside. But she wouldn't let me out, because I wasn't wearing shoes. "Why can't I just because I'm not wearing shoes?" I asked.

"Because you might step on glass or something." Ms. Enrico said. So I sat there for forty-five minutes, and then my mom came in.

"Where is my son!?" She was yelling hysterically. "Why isn't he outside?" Then Lauren came in.

"Trina, c'mon, it's time to go. Where's Cody?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know? Okay this is bad." I couldn't tell exactly where they were. I could only hear their voices. But Myako went behind the piano where I was sitting.

"Mama!" She yelled. "Ms. Heta! I found Cody!"

Mom came running over to me. "Why weren't you outside?" She looked at my feet. "And where are your shoes?"

"Um…"

"Well…"

"How 'bout, I explain that in the car."

Authors Note: Myako's dead sister, Mariko, who was mentioned here, is a made up character. So don't tell me she doesn't have one, because I know. If you are interested in it, then read 'Love Will Stay Alive.' (Look in my profile) I know, I shouldn't self-advertise, but I thought I should explain the Mariko thing, and just in case you're interested…