Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul (6 page)

Seeing, Really Seeing

His nose was all smooshed looking, like maybe his mom had dropped him when he was a baby. His ears were two—maybe even two and a half—sizes too big for his head. And his eyes! His eyes bulged like they were ready to pop right out of their sockets. His clothes were nice, Tim had to admit. But he was still the homeliest kid he’d ever seen.

So why was the new kid leaning on Jennifer Lawrence’s locker like they were best friends or something? She was a cheerleader and one of the coolest girls in school. And why was she smiling at him instead of twisting her nose all funny like she did when she looked at Tim?
Strange
, he thought.
Really strange.

By lunchtime, Tim had forgotten about the new kid. He sat down at his usual table—in the corner, all alone. Tim was a loner. He wasn’t as ugly as the new kid—just a little on the heavy side and kind of nerdy. Nobody talked to Tim much, but he was used to it. He had adjusted.

About halfway through his peanut butter and ketchup sandwich (he put ketchup on everything), Tim looked up and saw that kid again. He was holding his lunch tray and standing over Jennifer, grinning like he’d just aced a math test. And she was grinning, too. Then she moved over and made room on the bench next to her.
Strange.
Really strange.

But even stranger was what the new kid did. Tim would have plunked into that seat so fast, his lunch bag would have been left behind, just hanging in the air. But not this new kid. He shook his head, looked around and walked straight to Tim’s table.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

Just like that.
Mind if I join you? Like the entire eighth grade was fighting to sit at my table or something,
Tim thought.

“Sure,” said Tim. “I mean no. I don’t mind.”

So the kid sat down. And he came back, day after day, until they were friends. Real friends.

Tim had never had a real friend before, but Jeff—that was his name—invited Tim to his house, on trips with his family and even hiking. Right—Tim hiking!

Funny thing was . . . one day Tim realized he wasn’t so heavy anymore.
All that hiking, I guess,
thought Tim. And kids were talking to him, nodding to him in the hallways, and even asking him questions about assignments and things. And Tim was talking back to them. He wasn’t a loner anymore.

One day, when Jeff sat down at the table, Tim had to ask him. “Why did you sit with me that first day? Didn’t Jen ask you to sit with her?”

“Sure, she asked. But she didn’t need me.”

“Need you?”

“You did.”

“I did?”

Tim hoped nobody was listening.
This was a really dumb conversation,
he thought.

“You were sitting all alone,” Jeff explained. “You looked lonely and scared.”

“Scared?”

“Uh huh, scared. I knew that look. I used to have one, too, just like it.”

Tim couldn’t believe it.

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m not exactly the best-looking guy in school,” Jeff went on. “At my old school I sat alone. I was afraid to look up and see if anyone was laughing at me.”

“You?” Tim knew he sounded stupid, but he couldn’t picture Jeff by himself. He was so outgoing.

“Me. It took a friend to help me see that I wasn’t alone because of my nose or my ears. I was alone because I never smiled or took an interest in other people. I was so concerned about myself that I never paid attention to anyone else. That’s why I sat with you. To let you know someone cared. Jennifer already knew.”

“Oh, she knows, all right,” Tim said as he watched two guys fighting to sit near her. Tim and Jeff both laughed.
It felt good to laugh and I’ve been doing a lot of it lately,
realized Tim.

Then Tim looked at Jeff. Really looked.
He isn’t so bad looking,
thought Tim.
Oh, not handsome or anything like that. But he isn’t homely. Jeff is my friend.
That’s when Tim realized that he was seeing Jeff for the first time. Months earlier all he had seen was a funny-looking nose and “Dumbo” ears. Now he was seeing Jeff,
really
seeing him.

Marie P. McDougal

Kim Li, the Great

N
o one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Dara liked school until the day Kim Li came. She didn’t like Ms. Royson saying, “It’s great how well you’re learning English, Kim Li.” Kim Li’s English wasn’t that great.

Dara always sat at the front of the class. But the day Kim Li came, Ms. Royson asked, “Kim Li, would you like to sit here in front? Dara won’t mind.” Kim Li smiled and said yes. Dara turned away.

Before Dara moved to a new seat, she whispered, “Kim Li, you’re too tall to sit up front. I can’t see Ms. Royson. Move! I want my seat!”

Kim Li kept smiling. “My father too tall. He tall American.”

“Kim Li, you talk funny. Yuck!”

“Now, Dara,” said Ms. Royson as she stood beside Kim Li’s desk, “we all want new students to feel welcome, don’t we?” And that very afternoon, Ms. Royson asked, “Kim Li, would you dust the erasers for me?”

As Kim Li did Dara’s job, she asked Dara, “I do right?”

“No,” said Dara, but Ms. Royson said, “You’re doing just great.”

“Don’t play with Kim Li the Great,” Dara told everyone at recess. Other children began to chant: “Kim Li the Great! Kim Li the Great!”

Kim Li said, “Thank you,” and smiled and hung jackets on the top hooks that were too hard to reach. After school, Dara added more words to the chant: “Down with Kim Li the Great!”

The next day, Timmy pushed Kim Li really hard against the game box and said, “Down with Kim Li!”

Ms. Royson came over. “Here, here! Kim Li needs to choose.”

Dara said, “Don’t you choose the big blue ball, Kim Li!”

Kim Li picked an ordinary jump rope. “Thank you. I like jump.”

“Kim Li sure talks funny,” Dara said loudly. Everyone laughed. Then someone noticed Kim Li doing “hot peppers” with her jump rope. Kickball was forgotten. Everyone watched Kim Li do crisscrosses. And double crisscrosses! Kim Li said, “This fun doing.”

Dara shouted, “Kim Li the Great, you’re a show-off!” Everyone laughed so hard that Ms. Royson came running. “What happened?”

“I talk more badder. I try. Everybody laugh.”

Ms. Royson’s face tightened. “Recess is over. Back inside.” Dara smiled and put her arms around two friends. Kim Li was not included.

Kim Li didn’t know that every Friday was fire drill, room art and sharing day.
Good thing
, thought Dara. She would have come with something great.

At the next recess, Dara did her grandest somersaults, forward and backward. Kim Li did them while running. “We be friends?” she asked.

Dara thought she might quit school—until Ms. Royson said, “Dara, if you don’t mind skipping workbooks, we need our mural finished.” Dara didn’t mind at all. When Kim Li came to help color the big mural, Dara was way too busy to get up and leave—or even argue.
Br-r-r-ringing-ing!
It was the fire bell. Quickly and quietly, Dara joined the line to walk outside in an orderly way. Where was Kim Li?

“For goodness sake, Kim Li, that’s the fire bell!” Dara pulled her hand and didn’t let go until they got outside. Kim Li threw both arms around Dara and yelled, “Dara save my life. Dara the Great!”

Everyone started laughing and dancing around the playground, chanting: “Dara the Great!”

“It was only a fire drill,” said Dara.

“Will you teach me to do crisscrosses?” she asked Kim Li.

“I help you,” Kim Li said.

“Say ‘I will help you,’” whispered Dara to her new friend.

Kim Li said, “You will help me. I will help you.”

For days they helped each other, and when Ms. Royson said, “Kim Li, you’re picking up English so quickly,” Dara was pleased. She thought she might even do crisscrosses during sharing time. But Kim Li got up first, smiling. Finally, she spoke. “I have good good friend. Dara!”

Dara didn’t correct Kim Li. She let it go. Just this once.

Berniece Rabe

“Me 'n Jackson are exactly the same age,
only heʼs different. He's left handed!”

Reprinted by permission of Hank Ketcham.

Edna Mae: First Lesson in Prejudice

T
he chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.

Descartes

Edna Mae was one of my best friends when I was in the first grade. When it came time for her birthday party, all the girls in the class were invited. Each day in school there was great excitement.

“What kind of cake you gonna have?” we’d ask.

“Are you gonna have games with prizes? And decorations? Birthday hats?”

Edna Mae would just smile and shake her head. “Wait and see,” she’d say. Together we counted down the days until Saturday, the date on the invitation.

Finally the day arrived. I wrapped my gift, put on my best party dress and waited what seemed like hours for my mother to say, “Time to go!”

I was glad that I was the first to arrive because I got to help place the candy cups all around—one for each of the twelve guests. The table was covered with a special “Happy Birthday” tablecloth with matching plates and cups. Balloons were everywhere. Streamers crisscrossed the ceiling in the hallway, the living room and especially the dining room, where the table was all set. It looked like a fairyland.

“Oh, Edna Mae! Oh, Edna Mae!” was all I could say.

Edna Mae’s mom sent us out to the front porch to wait for the other girls. Edna Mae lived on the edge of town, and most of the other girls had never been to her house before.

“Some might be having trouble finding us,” her mother said.

We sat down on the steps and waited and waited and waited. Edna Mae began to cry. I felt so awful that I didn’t know what to say. Finally her mother came out and announced, “Let the party begin!” She ushered us into the house, tied a blindfold around our eyes, put a tail with a pin in our hands and led us to the donkey taped on the wall.

“Whoever gets the tail closest to the right place wins the first super prize!” she said. My tail ended up near the donkey’s nose. Edna Mae’s tipped the right front hoof. We laughed and laughed.

Together, Edna Mae and I played all the games and shared all the prizes. We even got to eat two pieces of cake each.

In the car on the way home, I asked my mother, “Why didn’t the other girls come? Edna Mae felt so bad.”

My mother hesitated and then said sadly, “Honey, the others didn’t come because Edna Mae is black.”

“She’s not black,” I protested. “She just looks like she has a tan all year long.”

“I know, honey. But Edna Mae is not like any of the other girls in the class, and some folks are afraid of those who are different from them. People are prejudiced, honey. That’s what adults call it: prejudice.”

“Well, those girls are mean. They made Edna Mae cry. I’m never gonna be prejudiced!” I said.

My mother put her arm around me and said, “I’m glad, honey. And I’m glad that Edna Mae has a good friend like you.”

Sandra Warren

The Connection

I
t was the summer after fourth grade that I came to realize that the connection we have with other people is necessary for our survival.

Joel Walker, age 11

“I’m gonna die! I’mgonna die!” I was screaming over and over, hanging on for dear life. Suddenly, my toes slipped out of the crack that had been supporting me. “I’m gonna die!” I screamed again.
If I don’t find a place to secure my foot,
I thought,
I’ll fall in!
I felt around with my toes and found a place to steady myself. Looking up through the steam, I could see my friend Warren kneeling above the pit.

“Grab my hand!” he shouted. I stretched my hand as far up as I could without losing my balance. I couldn’t get a grip on Warren’s hand because of the sulfur that covered my hands.

“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you,” he assured me. “We’re gonna get you out, Joel.”

Warren stayed next to the steam vent and talked to me while some of the other boys ran to get help. I knew they’d do everything in their power to save me.

Our friendships had grown out of the connection we had made, and the trust we had built with each other, while on a club soccer team called the Ameba. We had really learned how to communicate with each other while playing by saying things like “Behind you” and “Open over here.”

We kept the team together for the whole year. That summer we had the chance to go to Hawaii for the Big Island Cup Tournament. It was the first time in ten years that a team from our area would have the opportunity to go. All we needed was the money to get there! Our team went door-to-door in our community, and the generous donations we received paid for our tournament costs. We were on our way to Kona for a nine-day adventure.

We got to the hotel and put in a few hours of practice the first day. The following day, we weren’t scheduled to play a game, so we decided to do some sight-seeing.

We went to see the ruins of a burned-down village that had been in the path of an erupting volcano’s river of molten lava. There wasn’t enough time to hike up to the volcano’s opening, so we went to see the steam vents at the Volcano National Park. A steam vent is a crack in the earth’s surface caused by the pressure and heat of a volcano. The same steam that erupts from the volcano also comes out of the steam vent. Some vents are large and easy to spot by their steam, which rises into the air. Others are small and difficult to see, so we had to be careful where we walked because they are sort of hidden in the grass throughout the park.

I wanted to take some pictures, so I went exploring with Warren in search of a steam vent to photograph. Just as I heard Warren call out, “Joel, you’re walking past one,” I turned too sharply and tripped over some weeds. The next thing I knew, I found myself wedged into a steam vent that was just large enough for me to have fallen into.

That’s when I began screaming for my life. Warren tried to rescue me, but the slippery brown sulfur that is a byproduct of volcanoes burned my hands and made it impossible for us to connect.

My mind sent screaming panic signals all through my body. I pushed against the sides of the steam vent with my hands, which were being burned so badly by the smoldering sulfur that the blisters rose two inches high on my fingers and palms. I felt that if I slipped down any farther, I’d surely die from the deadly heat of the steam. Or worse, fall into the mysterious black passageway that led to the volcano’s boiling lava center.

Somehow my shoes slipped off my feet. I don’t know how that happened because I had socks on, and the socks should have kept my shoes on. Losing my shoes saved the soles of my feet from having rubber melt into my skin. The hot sulfur, which smelled like rotten eggs, still burned my soles right through my socks.

I tried to look up through the scalding, rising steam. This time, I saw a man—a stranger—calling down to say that help was on the way. Warren, reassuring me, added, “They’re coming, Joel. Hang on!” The team chaperones got there and quickly made a human chain, so that the person pulling me up wouldn’t fall in with me. One of our team chaperones reached down and finally made the connection that saved my life.

The instant that our grip was locked, she pulled as hard as she could. I landed on the ground, just outside of the steaming vent. Without hesitation, the adults stripped me of my scalding hot clothes before the burns got any worse. I didn’t even care that I was naked in front of everyone! I was shivering and shaking all over, and in the most terrible pain I’d ever experienced. But I was just glad to be alive!

The stranger who had come to help quickly carried me to my coach’s car. We headed for the visitor’s center, where they could call the paramedics. A park ranger passed us in his truck. We flagged him down, and he had us follow him to the park office. The first thing he did was to put me into a sink of cold water, to keep the burns from getting any worse. The paramedics arrived not long after that. Halfway to the hospital, after the paramedics had taken my blood pressure and temperature, I had to be transferred to a second ambulance because of some crazy territory line or something. I kept pleading with the driver, “Just go! Please, don’t stop.” I was in so much pain; all I wanted to do was get to the hospital. The paramedics in the second ambulance had to do all of the same tests again! It seemed to take forever.

It wasn’t until I had finally reached the hospital and had been treated for my burns that the initial shock began to wear off. I realized how important friends are—people are—to all of us. They saved my life! If I had been alone, I would have died.

The news of my accident spread over the television stations from Hawaii to California. My mom flew to Hawaii on the first plane she could catch, to bring me home. On the plane, and even at the airport in Los Angeles, people recognized me as “the boy who had fallen into the steam vent.” They’d stop to talk to me, and I felt that they honestly cared. Many people told me that they had been praying for me.

My family and friends were there for me throughout my painful recovery. My parents took me for treatment to a hospital near my home, and I had to go there every day for four weeks to have whirlpool therapy. Either my mom or dad would go with me every single time. Getting into that water was the most painful thing that I’ve ever had to go through. I would kiss my mom or dad’s hands over and over again, to keep my mind off the pain. That seemed to make the pain less unbearable.

I have learned a lot since that summer day, which came so close to being my last. The experience has changed my relationships with my friends. We talk a lot more, about anything and everything. I am more interested in being there for my family, too, just as they were there for me. When my mom got stitches in her thumb, I stayed with her in the emergency room the whole time and held her hand. I understand the importance of moral support, of just being there for people. I reach out to others more than I used to.

Once that summer was over and all of the therapy was behind me, I got right back out there to play soccer again. I had really missed the sport. But mostly I had missed my friends, the people—the connection.

Joel Walker, age 11