Chapter 2: School
***Author's Note***
Hello everyone, just to set the scene for this chapter… Socks has ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder. She is high-functioning, but she does have some tendencies typical of girls of her age with ASD. As someone who grew up neurologically atypical I incorporated some of the experiences I had into these interactions and melded them with some common symptoms. Hopefully I did everything okay, thanks for being gracious!
***PT***
"Bye Socks! See you later!" Muffin said as she walked to her classroom. The older students were further down the hall in the school, which meant that Muffin always dropped off her little sister on the way to her room.
Socks stood hesitantly at the doorframe, looking in at the other students who'd arrived before her and were milling about, moving between centers that their teacher had set up for morning time before instruction began. As the other kids continued playing she felt her stomach tighten into a knot. She patted her arms against her side. She did it again. And again. And again. It wasn't until Mrs. Nelson came over that she realized she was doing it and stopped.
"Hi Socks, why don't you put your bag on your hook? Then you can choose a center to get started at." Her teacher smiled, gesturing to the room.
"Oh, okay." Socks nodded, quietly moving toward the coat hooks and putting her bag up. Her hook was number 12, just like her birthday. It made it easy to remember. She smiled a half-second as she looked at the hooks. Socks loved math. She knew all her numbers, even the big ones. She could read anything up to six digits and tell you what number it was. Even Muffin couldn't do that yet, and she was two years older. Socks gently pushed her hair back out of her eyes and fastened it in place with the butterfly hairclip her mother had put in that morning. It was Monday, which meant it was a butterfly day.
She looked at the centers that had been set up. Kindy was different from preschool. For one, her class in preschool had only been 12 kids. Now she had 23 classmates. And worse, it was the whole day. She was there from 8:00 to 3:30. She didn't care about the length of the day because she was in school; she loved school-especially when she got to learn new things. But I don't like being around everyone for that long… the centers were the usual batch, which meant that Socks immediately knew a few she was going to avoid.
The free play center was always too chaotic, toys thrown all over and the other kids talking too loudly. She'd tried it once and had ended up in tears because of the headache she'd gotten. The exercise center was tempting, but right now two boys were using it. It was Patches and Mark, they were both nice enough… But they talk too much. I don't think I can handle that right now. The last center that was out was arts and crafts. There was still glitter there and Socks refused to go near it until the glitter was gone. I don't like glitter. She frowned as she thought about how it felt when it touched her. It was one of her bad feelings.
Trixie and Stripe had helped Socks make a list of things she did and didn't like touching. That was the main manifestation of her condition. She couldn't stand certain things touching her. If they did she'd break down sobbing or try to get away. Her parents discovered this when she was three and they moved her to a proper bed and she sobbed when she felt the sheets. They were flannel, and she hated the little ridges they had. Since then she'd added things to her bad and good feeling list. When she was especially upset she could use one of the good feeling things to help her feel better. She always carried a jumper in her backpack for that reason; the knit cuffs were easily the best feeling on her good feeling list. She rarely got to wear them-as the temperature usually wasn't cold enough to justify it-but she loved sweaters because of how the cuffs felt on her wrists.
She decided to do the same center she had done on Friday, blocks. Usually there weren't too many other students at the block center-it was tucked away in the back of the room and the old wooden blocks weren't as flashy or interesting as some of the newer toys. When she arrived she was alone and she breathed a silent sigh of relief as she started stacking the blocks to make a tower.
It was fine for about ten minutes, then Jenny arrived. Jenny was nice enough, but Socks always felt odd around her. She was the most popular girl in their class, and she had lots of friends. I wish I could be like her. Socks tried to hide a frown by looking down and focusing on her tower. She knew she didn't have a reason to dislike Jenny-she'd never been anything but kind to her-but for some reason she felt odd around her. Little did the small grey heeler know, but it was jealousy that she was feeling.
"Hi Socks, do you mind if I play with you?" She asked, pointing to the blocks.
"Um, sure." Socks nodded.
Jenny started using some of the other blocks that Socks hadn't moved from the bin. "What did you do this weekend? My sister had a gymnastics meet so we all got to go and watch her, and after my dad took us out for ice cream!"
"I don't like ice cream, it hurts my teeth." Socks replied immediately.
Jenny frowned slightly, "Oh, sorry. Um…"
"And it tastes weird. It's like milk, but too thick." She added, explaining her earlier statement. Dad says I need to make sure to explain when I say things, because it can sometimes make people confused when I don't.
Jenny looked away, glancing at some of the other girls who were at the craft center. She looked at the blocks, at Socks, then back at the other girls. One, a husky named Penny was waving Jenny over. "Well, thanks for talking with me Socks. I'm, um, gonna do some crafts. If you want you can join me."
"No. I don't want to. Goodbye." Socks turned back to her tower and continued building.
Jenny left and Socks continued building. It wasn't for another few minutes that she realized that she might've done something to make Jenny go away. She replayed the conversation in her head, and everything seemed okay, but Jenny had seemed sad at the end-or maybe worried? Socks had trouble reading faces for emotion sometimes. No, I didn't do anything mean. I even said goodbye at the end. She tapped her arms against her side. But then why was she not happy? Tap. Tap. Tap. Did I do something? Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Socks?" She looked over, the other students were on the front carpet and Mrs. Nelson was looking at her, her glasses perched on the end of her long snout. The afghan hound smiled gently, "Socks, we're at carpet time. Come on over, okay."
Socks nodded and quickly hurried over, sitting in her spot. She was in the front corner, right beside Mrs. Nelson.
The teacher smiled, "Okay everyone, we're going to get started today talking about how we use letter sounds to make words…"
***PT***
After reading and science was lunch. Math wasn't until the end of the day. It was the best part of the day. Socks thought as she followed her line to the cafeteria. Kindergarten and year 1 had lunch at the same time, with the kindy students on the left and year 1 on the right. Socks sat at her class' table and opened her lunchbox, not even bothering to look up as the other students sat around her. She carefully unpacked her lunch. There was a sandwich, some carrot sticks, a juice box, a small pack of snack-cakes, and a note from her father. Trixie worked odd shifts, so it was usually Stripe who packed the girls' lunches.
Socks could read some of the words, but usually her father drew pictures. Today's message was "I love you!" with a picture drawn underneath of a large heart and their family together. There was Trixie and Stripe in the back and Muffin and Socks underneath. Socks smiled, she loved her family. It was nice. She carefully folded the note and placed it back in the lunchbox. She always took them home and added them to her collection in the box she kept in her room.
"Hey, do you wanna trade?"
Socks looked up; it was Jerry, the Bassett hound boy from her class who still sucked his thumb. Socks refused to let him touch her because she thought it was a definite bad feeling to have someone else's saliva on you. "What?" She asked.
"Do ya wanna trade? My pudding for your Tim-Tams?" He held up a vanilla pudding cup with a chocolate stripe down the middle.
"No." Socks replied, shaking her head.
"Okay… um, how about some chips?" He held up a small bag of chips.
"No." She reiterated slightly louder, sliding the food closer to her.
"Okay, what do you wanna trade?" He looked at her food. "Oh, maybe for this!" He poked her sandwich and accidentally touched her note in the process.
Socks froze. She didn't know how to react. Use my words… Use my words… The thought echoed through her head. Her mum had told her to do so whenever she had strong feelings. She quickly realized she was shaking before she spoke. "Please don't touch that!" She shouted. She grabbed her lunch things and stood up, moving to the other end of the table.
"What? I'm sorry!" He called after her, but she didn't look back.
After throwing her sandwich in the trash she raised her hand was dismissed to use the lavatory. She didn't have to go, but she carefully ran the note under hot water and used soap to try and clean it. Mercifully, her note had been in crayon so nothing faded or streaked. She patted it dry with a paper towel and returned to the lunchroom.
***PT***
Recess was the worst. All the other kids were screaming and running. It was too loud, too busy, and too difficult for Socks to deal with. She wished that they could just not have recess. Or maybe just sit quietly and enjoy the weather? She sighed internally. She could handle Muffin or her cousins at home when they played, but that was only three others at most-four if Austin was over-but with over a hundred kids screaming on a tiny play yard… it was too much.
Socks covered her ears as she ran to the rock-climbing structure at the far end of the playground. It was dated compared to the other climbing structures, and it was too far from the other pieces of equipment to be useful for tag or other games as a base. As a result it typically saw little use, well, little use aside from a certain grey heeler pup who hid under it away from the noise. When she arrived she was surprised to see another child there. It was the new boy from her class, Jeffrey. He'd started mid the previous week, so she knew little about him. He'd seen her meltdown on Friday though, so she knew he knew about her.
"Um… Hi." She said.
He looked up from his knees, "Oh, hi!" He waved. "Sorry, is this your spot?"
"Sort of. I like it here, so I usually hide here during recess." She explained.
"You don't like all the noise?"
Socks looked down, "No, not really."
"Me neither."
Socks glanced up, a furtive look at the boy. Jeffrey was a heeler as well, but he was more tannish. Unlike her cousins, he wasn't really a true red heeler. She was pretty sure there was dingo mixed in, not that she cared. It was silent a few moments, the dull sounds of the other children playing filling the air.
"My mum says I have to work on being 'outgoing'. That's why she isn't homeschooling me anymore." Jeffrey said, looking down at his feet. "Do you know what outgoing means?"
Socks shook her head; she hadn't heard that word before.
"It means I need to talk more to other kids." He explained.
"Oh, I guess I'm supposed to do that too." She said.
"But I do talk to other kids. See, I'm talking to you." He said.
Socks nodded. "Yeah."
"But I just have trouble." He balled his fist and tapped it on the ground twice. "I can't focus a lot, even with my medicine, and so I don't like talking to people because I get distracted and want to do something else."
"You take medicine too?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "They're supposed to help me concentrate, but they don't always work."
"Mine's supposed to help me be less anxious."
"What's anxious?"
"I get worried a lot, and I have trouble doing stuff." She explained.
"Oh, okay." He nodded. "Do you have ADHD too?"
"No, my mum says I'm just different, but I heard her and my dad once tell a doctor I had 'ausism'."
"What's that?"
"I dunno." She shrugged.
"You seem nice and normal enough to me." He said, smiling as he glanced at her a moment.
Socks blushed. She'd never been called normal before. "Thank you. You seem nice too, and I think you're outgoing."
He smiled. After a moment of comfortable silence he spoke, "Hey, um, do you think you want to be friends?"
"Friends?"
"Yeah. Like, if you're okay with it." He quickly amended, looking away.
Socks nodded. "Yeah, we can be friends." She stuck out her hand. "My name is Socks Antoinette Heeler."
He looked at it before he shook. "I'm Jeffrey David Cattle."
The bell rung as they shook.
"Um, do you think you wanna be my afternoon buddy?" Jeffrey asked as they walked to line up.
"I've never had an afternoon buddy before." Socks remarked, "Yes."
The two walked back to the building, tails wagging as they joined the line to head back to class.
***Author's Note***
Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed this! Up next is a chapter focusing on Bluey, Bingo, and Russell. I appreciate all reviews, but you are not required to leave one! Thanks again for reading!