Wonder (16 page)

Then all of a sudden Ms. Rubin started pointing to kids around the class. “Reid and Tristan, Maya and Max, Charlotte and Ximena, August and Jack.” She pointed to us when she said this. “Miles and Amos, Julian and Henry, Savanna and …” I didn’t hear the rest.

“Huh?” I said.

The bell rang.

“So don’t forget to get together with your partners to choose a project from the list, guys!” said Ms. Rubin as everyone started taking off. I looked up at August, but he had already put his backpack on and was practically out the door.

I must have had a stupid look on my face because Julian came over and said: “Looks like you and your best bud are partners.” He was smirking when he said this. I hated him so much right then.

“Hello, earth to Jack Will?” he said when I didn’t answer him.

“Shut up, Julian.” I was putting my loose-leaf binder away in my backpack and just wanted him away from me.

“You must be so bummed you got stuck with him,” he said. “You should tell Ms. Rubin you want to switch partners. I bet she’d let you.”

“No she wouldn’t,” I said.

“Ask her.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Ms. Rubin?” Julian said, turning around and raising his hand at the same time.

Ms. Rubin was erasing the chalkboard at the front of the room. She turned when she heard her name.

“No, Julian!” I whisper-screamed.

“What is it, boys?” she said impatiently.

“Could we switch partners if we wanted to?” said Julian, looking very innocent. “Me and Jack had this science-fair project idea we wanted to work on together.…”

“Well, I guess we could arrange that …,” she started to say.

“No, it’s okay, Ms. Rubin,” I said quickly, heading out the door. “Bye!”

Julian ran after me.

“Why’d you do that?” he said, catching up to me at the stairs. “We could have been partners. You don’t have to be friends with that freak if you don’t want to be, you know.…”

And that’s when I punched him. Right in the mouth.

Some things you just can’t explain. You don’t even try. You don’t know where to start. All your sentences would jumble up like a giant knot if you opened your mouth. Any words you used would come out wrong.

“Jack, this is very, very serious,” Mr. Tushman was saying. I was in his office, sitting on a chair across from his desk and looking at this picture of a pumpkin on the wall behind him. “Kids get expelled for this kind of thing, Jack! I know you’re a good kid and I don’t want that to happen, but you have to explain yourself.”

“This is so not like you, Jack,” said Mom. She had come from work as soon as they had called her. I could tell she was going back and forth between being really mad and really surprised.

“I thought you and Julian were friends,” said Mr. Tushman.

“We’re not friends,” I said. My arms were crossed in front of me.

“But to punch someone in the mouth, Jack?” said Mom, raising her voice. “I mean, what were you thinking?” She looked at Mr. Tushman. “Honestly, he’s never hit anyone before. He’s just not like that.”

“Julian’s mouth was bleeding, Jack,” said Mr. Tushman. “You knocked out a tooth, did you know that?”

“It was just a baby tooth,” I said.

“Jack!” said Mom, shaking her head.

“That’s what Nurse Molly said!”

“You’re missing the point!” Mom yelled.

“I just want to know why,” said Mr. Tushman, raising his shoulders.

“It’ll just make everything worse,” I sighed.

“Just tell me, Jack.”

I shrugged but I didn’t say anything. I just couldn’t. If I told him that Julian had called August a freak, then he’d go talk to Julian about it, then Julian would tell him how I had badmouthed August, too, and everybody would find out about it.

“Jack!” said Mom.

I started to cry. “I’m sorry …”

Mr. Tushman raised his eyebrows and nodded, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he kind of blew into his hands, like you do when your hands are cold. “Jack,” he said, “I don’t really know what to say here. I mean, you punched a kid. We have rules about that kind of thing, you know? Automatic expulsion. And you’re not even trying to explain yourself.”

I was crying a lot by now, and the second Mom put her arms around me, I started to bawl.

“Let’s, um …,” said Mr. Tushman, taking his glasses off to clean them, “let’s do this, Jack. We’re out for winter break as of next week anyway. How about you stay home for the rest of this week, and then after winter break you’ll come back and everything will be fresh and brand new. Clean slate, so to speak.”

“Am I being suspended?” I sniffled.

“Well,” he said, shrugging, “technically yes, but it’s only for a couple of days. And I’ll tell you what. While you’re at home, you take the time to think about what’s happened. And if you want to write me a letter explaining what happened, and a letter to Julian apologizing, then we won’t even put any of this in your permanent record, okay? You go home and talk about it with your mom and dad, and maybe in the morning you’ll figure it all out a bit more.”

“That sounds like a good plan, Mr. Tushman,” said Mom, nodding. “Thank you.”

“Everything is going to be okay,” said Mr. Tushman, walking over to the door, which was closed. “I know you’re a nice kid, Jack. And I know that sometimes even nice kids do dumb things, right?” He opened the door.

“Thank you for being so understanding,” said Mom, shaking his hand at the door.

“No problem.” He leaned over and told her something quietly that I couldn’t hear.

“I know, thank you,” said Mom, nodding.

“So, kiddo,” he said to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Think about what you’ve done, okay? And have a great holiday. Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas! Happy Kwanzaa!”

I wiped my nose with my sleeve and started walking out the door.

“Say thank you to Mr. Tushman,” said Mom, tapping my shoulder.

I stopped and turned around, but I couldn’t look at him. “Thank you, Mr. Tushman,” I said.

“Bye, Jack,” he answered.

Then I walked out the door.

Weirdly enough, when we got back home and Mom brought in the mail, there were holiday cards from both Julian’s family and August’s family. Julian’s holiday card was a picture of Julian wearing a tie, looking like he was about to go to the opera or something. August’s holiday card was of a cute old dog wearing reindeer antlers, a red nose, and red booties. There was a cartoon bubble above the dog’s head that read: “Ho-Ho-Ho!” On the inside of the card it read:

“Cute card, huh?” I said to Mom, who had hardly said a word to me all the way home. I think she honestly just didn’t know what to say. “That must be their dog,” I said.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on inside your head, Jack?” she answered me seriously.

“I bet you they put a picture of their dog on the card every year,” I said.

She took the card from my hands and looked at the picture carefully. Then she raised her eyebrows and her shoulders and gave me back the card. “We’re very lucky, Jack. There’s so much we take for granted.…”

“I know,” I said. I knew what she was talking about without her having to say it. “I heard that Julian’s mom actually
Photoshopped August’s face out of the class picture when she got it. She gave a copy to a couple of the other moms.”

“That’s just awful,” said Mom. “People are just … they’re not always so great.”

“I know.”

“Is that why you hit Julian?”

“No.”

And then I told her why I punched Julian. And I told her that August was my ex-friend now. And I told her about Halloween.