Things Seen from Above

by Shelley Pearsall

  Since Joey was smaller than most fourth graders—and not sporty at all—he liked this viewpoint a lot.

  But it was also impossible to tell the difference between enemies and friends.

  Joey had learned this lesson the hard way. He’d learned that if you wanted to protect yourself—or be left alone—the best thing to do was lie down. From above, this made you look much larger—and most people, except teachers, would go away.

  Another thing Joey had learned:

  From above, the insides of most things were a mystery. Which meant Joey usually had to guess about them. He often guessed wrong. So things like sandwiches and people were mysteries to Joey. He couldn’t figure them out.

  But the top of a pizza was easy.

  Sometimes he wished the world were more like a pizza.

  “So how did it go this week?”

  This was the first question Mr. MacArthur (otherwise known as Mr. Mac) asked our Buddy Bench group on Friday. He was the guidance counselor at Marshallville, and he ran the Buddy Bench program. We sat around the table in his small office after school, sharing a bag of half-burned microwave popcorn.

  I was surprised that there were only four students at the meeting, including me. In the past, it seemed like there had been a ton of Buddy Bench volunteers from the sixth grade. Hadn’t anyone else applied?

  The two other sixth graders at the table didn’t exactly fill me with joy either. Although they weren’t in any of my classes this year, I knew who they were. They’d been virtually inseparable since first grade. Everyone—including the teachers—called them the two Rs.

  Rochelle Dobbins was loud and pushy (and, I’d like to point out, she once stole markers from me back in kindergarten). Rachel Tallentine was her ever-present dark shadow who favored black everything—nail polish, T-shirts, sneakers…you name it. Fortunately, they had been assigned to an earlier recess than mine because they had a different lunch.

  At the opposite end of the table was a fifth grader who looked completely petrified. She was a new student from India. Apparently, Mr. Mac had just recruited her because he needed more volunteers.

  “This is Veena,” Mr. Mac said cheerfully. “She came all the way from India to check out what Marshallville is like, right?”

  Looking embarrassed, the girl nodded slightly.

  “I invited her to join us and see what the Buddy Bench is all about,” Mr. Mac added.

  I was convinced the girl wouldn’t last very long. She was the size of a third grader. Her eyes blinked nervously behind a pair of round aqua frames. She seemed so shy that she could barely manage to smile.

  “Okay, so how did it go this week?” Mr. Mac asked again, since nobody had jumped in to answer his first question yet.

  The two Rs each grabbed another handful of popcorn and chewed loudly, saying nothing. The girl from India stared at her folded hands on the table.

  Feeling self-conscious, I glanced down at my notebook—the one where I’d jotted down all my Buddy Bench observations and questions from the week. Of course, no one else had a notebook in front of them. No one else looked as if they’d even thought of bringing a notebook.

  Rochelle and Rachel noticed and smirked at each other.

  “Go on, April.” Mr. Mac gave one of his goofy grins. “Don’t be shy. Why don’t you get the ball rolling? Tell us how the week went for you. We’re all friends here.”

  More sideways smirks passed between Rochelle and Rachel, but I don’t think Mr. Mac caught on.

  Despite being a guidance counselor, Mr. Mac couldn’t seem to understand or relate to older kids very well. He was the kind of person who liked to wear Disney ties, and he always carried his lunch around school in a Mickey Mouse lunch box—which all the little kids loved, of course. But his style definitely didn’t work with sixth graders.

  “Okay…” I tried to come up with something entertaining to say about recess. I knew I needed to work on this skill—being less serious and more jokey.

  “It was crazy how many bloody noses there were,” I said finally.

  Which was true. There had been at least one or two at every recess.

  “I swear it was like the kids literally rammed their faces into each other on purpose. Like…I don’t know…a fourth-grade zombie apocalypse or something.”

  Surprisingly, the whole group cracked up at my lame joke. Rochelle spit out her popcorn, laughing and coughing, and Rachel had to pound her on the back. Even Veena covered a smile with her hand.

  I felt this warm rush of pride. Maybe there was hope for me yet.

  “Oh my gosh,” Rochelle gasped when she could talk again. “We had the exact same thing during the third-grade recesses, and we couldn’t remember what to do. You lean forward to stop them, right?”

  “No, backward, idiot”—Rachel smacked her arm.

  Suddenly, Veena spoke up from the end of the table—a slight, whispery voice from a slight, whispery person. “Actually, I would like to say that for a nosebleed, it is best to sit up and lean forward slightly. Then you pinch your nose together lightly until the bleeding stops.”

  The two Rs gawked at her, and I felt like standing up and cheering for Another Smart Person. At the same time, I wanted to warn her to be careful. Speaking up could be dangerous. Especially when she got to sixth grade. To speak or not to speak. That was always the dilemma.

  “My mother is studying medicine,” the girl added softly, and hid behind her glasses again.

  “Excellent.” Mr. Mac clapped. “Thank you, Veena. Outstanding. So what else is going on out there at recess?”

  Again the group fell silent. You could hear Mr. Ulysses, our school janitor, mowing outside. And the waspish buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead. And some teacher (probably the gym teacher) yelling in the distance.

  I wasn’t sure why dead silence always made me feel so guilty, especially in class, but it did. Why did I think it was my job to say something when other people weren’t saying anything? To speak or not to speak.

  “Well, actually, I do have a question I wanted to ask,” I said.

  Mr. Mac gave a relieved smile. “Okay, great. What’s your question, April?”

  Since the bloody-nose comment had turned out okay, I decided maybe it was safe to bring up the more serious problem from my assigned recess: Joey Byrd.

  After observing the fourth grader all week, I had no idea what to do about him. He acted so bizarrely, I thought something had to be wrong with him. Although I didn’t know exactly what it was, I had some possible theories.

  At home, I’d researched a little bit about autism, and I thought it was possible Joey Byrd might be autistic. He definitely had some of the characteristics: someone who wasn’t very social (he never played with anyone at recess), someone who did repetitive things (the tree circles), someone who didn’t make eye contact (lying on the ground with his eyes closed).

  There was a boy in sixth grade named Wally Rensbacher who had a type of autism called Asperger’s syndrome, so that’s why I was sort of familiar with it. Wally’s mind was like a presidential encyclopedia. If a president came up in any lesson, he would immediately raise his hand and begin reciting a bunch of facts about that president. Sometimes the teachers had to send him out of the room so they could keep teaching.

  Although the other kids often avoided him, I didn’t mind Wally. We’d actually worked on a research project together back in third grade. The teacher had assigned us to do a report on the moon (which, yes, morphed into a report on President Kennedy, who had a big impact on the moon landing program). Overall, it went pretty well.

  Still, I felt uneasy bringing up my theory about Joey in front of the group. I wasn’t an expert. Plus, I realized that whatever I said about him would definitely get passed around the school later on, courtesy of Rochelle and Rachel. And I wasn’t sure if it was wrong to imply that someone
might be autistic if they weren’t.

  I couldn’t just ignore the problem, though. Maybe that was the Advice Box side of me. The side that always had to find the answers, even if they created more problems.

  “Okay, so my question is about Joey Byrd, who’s in my fourth-grade recess,” I said carefully. “I was just wondering if, well, maybe he might be something like autistic?”

  Notice I said something like—not that he was autistic.

  “Autistic?” Mr. Mac leaned forward on his elbows, appearing confused by my question. “Why do you say that?”

  Before I could answer, Rochelle jumped in with a sarcastic snort. “Because pretty much everybody knows that kid is abnormal.”

  “Autistic,” I repeated, turning to glare at Rochelle. “I didn’t say abnormal.”

  “Oh, okay.” Rochelle rolled her eyes, and the table shifted as she kicked Rachel underneath it. Veena seemed to have turned herself into a block of stone.

  “Let’s stop the name-calling and allow April to finish talking,” Mr. Mac warned.

  Now I totally regretted opening my mouth to say anything. I knew I needed to find a way to get out of the conversation—or change the subject, which was probably impossible by that point.

  “I just didn’t know if I should try to talk to him, or help him make friends at recess, or what,” I stammered. “Right now it seems like everybody ignores him, and he, um, spent most of Wednesday’s recess just lying on the ground with his arms out—”

  Of course, this brought another sarcastic snort from the two Rs.

  Mr. Mac shot a glare at them before saying, “Maybe he was just looking up at the clouds.”

  “Maybe,” I replied slowly. “But his eyes were closed, so he couldn’t really see them.”

  The counselor reclined in his chair. “Do you think it’s possible he might have been daydreaming?” He tented his fingers under his chin. “You know, I remember being somewhat of a daydreamer like Joey when I was a kid. And people didn’t always understand me either.”

  I tried to picture Mr. Mac as a daydreaming kid. Actually, you could kind of see it with his cartoon ties and the way he didn’t seem to catch on to some things at first.

  The counselor leaned forward. “But here’s the irony: Daydreamers are the ones who often notice the things that nobody else does. They may seem like they’re not paying attention, but then they end up being geniuses like Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison when they grow up.”

  A mocking eye roll passed between the two Rs. I couldn’t tell if Mr. Mac was saying Joey was a daydreamer, or a genius, or if he was avoiding my question altogether.

  “So, um, you’re saying he’s not autistic,” I repeated.

  The counselor frowned a little. “Does it matter?”

  The table moved again. I could tell Rochelle and Rachel were enjoying my public humiliation. My face got warmer. “I guess not.”

  “Good.” Smiling, Mr. Mac crumpled the empty popcorn bag and tossed it toward the garbage can. He missed. He got up, retrieved it, and tried from just a step or two away. He missed again. Sighing, he dropped the crumpled bag into the can from directly above.

  It landed in the right place this time.

  “The point is—every child at Marshallville needs to feel like they are a valued member of the Tiger community,” Mr. Mac said as he sat down again.

  You could almost hear the silent groan from those of us who were sixth graders. We knew what was coming next. We’d heard this same speech since we were in kindergarten. We Are All Tigers. It was painted above the entranceway of our school. In large tiger-striped letters.

  The counselor continued, “And it is our job as Buddy Bench leaders—as school leaders—to be role models.” His gaze focused sharply on the two Rs, and I held back a smile. “We need to show the younger kids how to get along with each other and accept each other’s talents and differences. We need to show them we are all Tigers, right?”

  Everybody nodded politely.

  “So, April”—the counselor turned his attention to me again—“maybe you could try asking the other fourth graders to include Joey in their games, or you could engage Joey in conversation when he is by himself.”

  “Seriously? He actually talks?” This time it was Rachel whispering to Rochelle.

  Rochelle hit Rachel’s arm and snort-laughed. “Gosh, you are so rude….”

  How could anyone possibly consider them good role models for younger kids? I wondered. Was Mr. Mac hoping the Buddy Bench would magically transform them into nice people somehow?

  Pretending not to hear the side comments (or maybe he didn’t), Mr. Mac turned toward Veena and changed the subject. “So—what do you think? How do you feel about sharing a recess with one of the big sixth graders here to learn the ropes?”

  Veena looked as if she had suddenly swallowed an egg. Whole.

  “Share?” she repeated, carefully avoiding the gaze of the two Rs. It was clear she disliked them as much as I did.

  “I was thinking perhaps you could partner with April since you both have the same lunch period,” Mr. Mac added, smiling and pointing at me. (There were two fifth grade classes who ate lunch at the same time we did, so I figured she was in one of those groups.)

  A wave of relief crossed Veena’s face.

  “Would that be okay with you, April?” the counselor asked.

  I shrugged. “Sure. That’s fine.”

  But I’ll admit that I was a little annoyed by the idea. I’d applied for the Buddy Bench job so I could be alone, so I wouldn’t have to be social. I didn’t want to be in charge of entertaining a fifth grader every recess. I’d actually hoped to read a book or work on my writing when things weren’t busy.

  Mr. Mac stood up. “Excellent. Good meeting, everybody. That’s all for today, ladies. See you next Friday.” He herded our group toward the door.

  As we left, I had to hold back a sigh. Nothing had really been accomplished in the meeting—well, except for assigning me a helper I didn’t need.

  I tried to tell myself that if the guidance counselor wasn’t worried about Joey, maybe I shouldn’t be either. No one else seemed to be wondering: Why does the kid walk in circles? Why does he lie down in the middle of things? Why does he spend all recess alone?

  Maybe I was overthinking everything—which, I’ll admit, I have a bad habit of doing. I knew I should focus on something else. Writing. Or school stuff. Or learning Mandarin Chinese (just kidding). Or whatever.

  But ignoring Joey would turn out to be impossible.

  On Monday, he brought the entire school to a standstill.

  Our principal, Ms. Getzhammer, was fanatical about fire drills. We had at least one a month (or so it seemed). She carried a thick pad of detentions to hand out to anyone who dared to talk, laugh, or even breathe during the drills. You could hear her steely voice echoing down the hall. “THIS IS SERIOUS, FOLKS. I BETTER SEE EVERYONE—AND I DO MEAN EVERYONE—TAKING THIS DRILL SERIOUSLY.”

  That’s when Joey Byrd flopped down in the hallway and refused to move. Right in the middle of the orderly school evacuation drill. It was something no kid in their right mind would do. Maybe Joey did it back in third grade—the K–3 classrooms were in the opposite wing of the school—but I’d never seen it happen before.

  I noticed the commotion as my class headed for our usual exit at the end of the hall. Even from a distance, I recognized Joey. He resembled an exotic butterfly on the hallway floor. Pale mop of hair. Bright blue shirt.

  The rest of his class stood silently against the lockers gawking like open-mouthed fish while his flipped-out substitute teacher waved his arms in the air and tried to figure out what to do next.

  As my class stopped in its tracks, the whispered comments flew down the line: “That’s it. We’re all gonna burn. We’re all gonna be trapped here. We’re all gonna die in a b
lazing inferno. Ahhh….”

  “DO I HEAR TALKING?” Ms. Getzhammer’s voice cut like a wedge through the fake-panicked hum around me. The sixth graders spun forward and quickly shut up.

  “Okay. Let’s get going,” Ms. Getzhammer barked, waving at Tanner Torchman, who was at the front of our line, bouncing from one Nike-clad foot to the other. His dad was the high school basketball coach. His mom was a vice president at Kellogg’s. He could lead the sixth grade over a cliff, and, trust me, we would all follow him.

  After my class left, I wasn’t sure what happened next to Joey. I didn’t know whether or not the principal hauled him away herself, or if she left him lying in the middle of the floor. Or if he finally got up and wandered outside on his own.

  When the all-clear bell sounded a few minutes later, the hall was empty.

  * * *

  —

  Everybody was convinced Joey would get a suspension—or at the very least a detention—for what he did. Ms. Getzhammer had been a middle school vice principal before she came to our school, so she wasn’t the kind of person who let people off the hook. A lot of sixth graders referred to her as the Hammer.

  Because the principal was normally pretty strict, I was shocked when Joey showed up for recess that afternoon, the same as always. I was leaning against the Buddy Bench, waiting for Veena to appear. (Later I found out that she’d been assigned to work with me on Wednesdays and Fridays only.) Suddenly, at the back of the fourth-grade crowd streaming through the playground doors, I spotted a blue flicker. Joey’s shirt.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  First he waited for everyone else to go ahead of him. Then he opened the right-hand door to the playground as if it weighed about a thousand pounds. Making just enough room to squeeze past—nothing extra—he slid his skinny body through the smallest sliver of space.