Real
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© 2020 Carol Cujec and Peyton Goddard Irrevocable Special Needs Trust
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®, at permissions@shadowmountain.com. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
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Characters and events in this book were inspired by the life of Peyton Goddard but are represented fictitiously.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cujec, Carol, author. | Goddard, Peyton, author.
Title: Real / Carol Cujec, Peyton Goddard.
Description: Salt Lake City : Shadow Mountain, [2020] | Audience: Grades 7–9. | Summary: Sometimes Charity cannot control her body and because she has low-functioning autism, Charity cannot communicate her thoughts to anyone else, even though she feels all of the frustrations, fears, and doubts of a typical thirteen-year-old.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033163 | ISBN 9781629727899 (hardback) | eISBN 978-1-62973-964-9
Subjects: CYAC: Autism—Fiction. | Selective mutism—Fiction. | People with disabilities—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | LCGFT: Fiction. | Bildungsromans.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C827 Re 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033163
Printed in the United States of America
Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover art: Archv / iStock / Getty Images
Book design: © Shadow Mountain
Art direction: Richard Erickson
Design: Heather G. Ward
To all teachers who see their students
with possibilities instead of limitations.
—Carol Cujec
To all awed by feeling you are nothings,
know you are pertinent to the whole of creation.
Know you are real to God and me.
—Peyton Goddard
Real is being loved. It is the quest of all.
—Peyton Goddard
Contents
The R-Word
Charity Case
Bert and Ernie
Boredom Academy
Long Walk off a Short Pier
Flavor of the Week: Freedom
Barbecued
The Interview
Chance of Snow in Mexico
Humiliation Served Fresh
A Warm Hornet Welcome
Breathe in Hope
Down the Rabbit Hole
My Rebirth Day
First Words
Pandora’s Box
Coming Out Party
This Is Only a Test
Slam Dunk
Cool Genes
Homework Help
Operation Isabella
The Welcome Table
Mission Improbable
Pep Rally Princess
Diagnosis: Delusional
Math Knights
Least Valuable Player
Hornet Sting to the Head
Basketball Savant
A Place Pity-Free
Principal Pointless
Voice Thief
Attack of the Purple Elephants
Breadcrumbs of Truth
Sounds like Torture
Disco Drama Queen
Godzilla’s Revenge
Over and Out
Final Words
Mission Possible
Afterword by Carol Cujec
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Authors
The R-Word
My name is Charity. I am thirteen years old plus eighty-seven days. I love sour gummies and pepperoni pizza. That last part no one knows because I have not spoken a sentence since I was born. Each dawning day, I live in terror of my unpredictable body that no one understands.
…
“Little surfer, little one . . .” Dad’s music echoed from the bathroom. I watched steam escape under the door.
“Scrub all the sand out from between your toes!” Mom yelled to him from my bedroom across the hall. Then she stood me in front of the full-length mirror with a see-how-pretty-you-look grin. Her white teeth smiled for both of us. Her green eyes opened wide, hoping I would agree.
I did not.
My own face, minus expression, stared back at me. My mouth hung open like a sea bass. Some people think if I do not show emotion that means I do not feel any.
That is like saying if someone is asleep, they are dead.
Page 254: Giant sea bass can change color to warn members of their group about potential danger.
If I were a sea bass, my body would be blinking bright red now.
Mom smoothed my mousy-brown hair, braided into pigtails, and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Beautiful. My precious girl.”
People besides my mom have called me beautiful. Except they say it with a frown, so that “beautiful” sounds like “what a pity.”
I begged for words to yell at Mom.
What are you thinking? I look like a prissy pink cupcake clown in this dress! Itchy lace is strangling my neck. And a giant bow at my waist . . . Really? You think I am still five?
Thoughts flooded my head, oozed from every pore. But all that escaped my lips were noises with no meaning. I could not complain like other teenagers. Only grunt like a horse. My tongue stuck out of my mouth, my palms slapped my hips, and my knees swayed apart-together, apart-together in those pink, ridiculous knee socks. Mom planted a silk flower in my hair—the cherry on top of a dog-poop sundae.
You think if I look cute, people will forgive my weird behavior?
My knees swayed apart-together, apart-together.
Probability: low.
My whole life, I have lived with this brain/body disconnect. The Thinkers—the people with fancy initials after their names—have examined, poked, analyzed me a million times. After all the tests, I am labeled, like a strange species of toad they have discovered. Most people see me only as that label, not as a real person.
If they stuck a nametag on my shirt, it would say: “Hello, my name is Autism.”
My official diagnosis: low-functioning autistic. Nothing like setting high expectations.
Some call me special. Is that supposed to make me feel good?
And do not get me started on the R-word. I mean, think of a really disgusting food. For me, that’s oatmeal. Hello? A lukewarm cereal that looks like barf? Even if Mom stirs in chopped apples and walnuts, then it’s just chunky barf. Anyhow, that R-word, every time I hear it, tastes like oatmeal to my ears.
After taking so long to tug on my clothes and torture my hair, Mom had to get herself dressed in a flash. Not so hard, since her one and only dressy dress was a baggy peach thing that reminded me of a nightgown. Mom is so pretty and graceful she managed to look beautiful in it anyway.
Dad shuffled into the room, stiff as a soldier, wearing his cream-colored suit and sky-blue tie. He hated wearing long pants any day of the year. Since he owned a surf shop on the pier, he did not have to suffer too often.
One look at my ridiculous outfit and he said, “Gadzooks, Gail! What have you done to her?”
That’s why I love my dad.
I wish people could see inside my head. It’s amazing in here. First of all, my memory is infinite. Scenes from my past play back like high-def IMAX films
with surround sound. I can hear a melody once and know it forever.
This can be irritating too, like when that Tubby Trash Bag commercial gets stuck on repeat in my brain.
Na na na na—icky, yucky, stinky mess!
Na na na na—Tubby Trash Bags are the best!
Everything I read, my mind archives in color-coded folders tucked into alphabetized filing cabinets. That’s how I imagine it, anyway. Since forever, Mom gave me books to keep my hands busy. My favorite book—the one I still take everywhere, even with its well-worn cardboard cover and silver duct-taped spine—is The Amazing Kids’ Animal Encyclopedia. People think I like looking at the glossy pictures. They do not realize I have memorized all the animal facts—all of them—a total of 327. My mind flashes back to these facts like a prayer, especially when I get jittery nervous.
Numbers, too. My mind soaks them in like thirsty paper towels mop up my spilled oatmeal. (Mom does not get why my oatmeal bowl keeps falling on the floor.)
Na na na na—icky, yucky, stinky mess!
I can keep track of how much money our grocery cart will cost with each item Mom puts in. I want to scream when she weighs the organic, steel-cut oatmeal from the bulk bin: Do NOT buy $6.49 worth of that barf. You could get a whole POUND of gummy worms for that price.
Could I solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than thirty seconds? In my head? Probability: high. Getting my hands to cooperate in making all the turns? Probability: zero.
In the car, Dad strapped on my seatbelt, and Mom handed me my sippy cup. Yes, a sippy cup of watered-down apple juice . . . for a thirteen-year-old.
Could I get a caramel frappuccino JUST ONCE?
Even worse, she covered my lap with the fluffy Barbie princess blankie I’ve had since I was three, in case I spill.
Did I mention I am thirteen?
“You’re going to see your cousin Mason today, sweetheart. Can you believe it? How long has it been?”
Eight years, fifteen days and five hours, to be exact. It was the one thing that made this day bearable. My long-lost cousin was moving back to our town. At last, a friend for Charity.
Then Mom handed me my animal encyclopedia and turned on a Disney CD, probably so I could not hear them talking. It played “When You Wish upon a Star” from my least-favorite movie, Pinocchio, about the puppet who wants to be a real boy. I sang a different song inside my head and flapped my fingers in front of my eyes to make the sunlight dance.
Flap, flap, flap.
If my brain moves like lightning, my body sometimes moves like it’s been invaded by aliens. For no apparent reason, I might jump, flap my arms, clap my hands, shrug my shoulders, squish my lips out like a duck face. Sometimes I am in control of my body, sometimes I am not. Even I do not understand how my body works. And no one can imagine how scary that feels.
My cousin Mason is one of the only kids who never looked at me weird. That’s because cousin = friend. It’s a rule.
Adults are even worse than kids. They just shake their heads and whisper that disgusting R-word. They think that because I cannot talk, I do not understand what they say. They think I cannot see the such-a-tragedy look on their faces.
Fact: my senses work great—maybe too well. My five senses notice everything. Except sometimes the input gets jumbled, or becomes so growling and intense, I feel I will explode.
I have a sixth sense, too. I can often sense the emotions of people around me. They flow through me and pound on my heart. A painful talent for someone who most people consider brainless.
Mom’s prickly anxiety in the car, for example, hit me hard.
Mom fastened her pearl earrings in the mirror. “Steve, we have to make this work.” She flashed me a smile in the back seat. I noted a dribble of sweat running down her neck.
Luckily, Mom’s constant code-red worry is balanced by Dad’s aloha cool. Their competing emotions rumble in my chest—Dad’s spring rain usually drenches Mom’s forest fires.
“It’ll be fine, Gail. Cherry and I will take a walk when she gets fidgety.”
Cherry, that’s Dad’s nickname for me. One of many.
Wherever we go, Dad takes me for little strolls to calm my restless body. We sashay, gallop, and skip all over town. For me it’s scary to stay still for too long. My body begs to move most of the time—dart, turn, tap, jump, flap, rock. My hands beg to touch things around me—books on shelves, pebbles on the ground, people’s faces, or lint on their clothes.
In second grade, a boy screamed when he saw me reaching for his throat. I only wanted to feel the silver, shiny buttons on his coat.
“Fishface tried to strangle me!” That was his nickname for me—Fishface. How come I was the one sent home for the rest of the day?
Dad parked the car across from a white church overlooking the ocean and unbuckled me. “Hang in there, princess,” he whispered. “I stashed our favorite T-shirts and shorts in the trunk. We won’t have to suffer too long.”
He helped me out of the car, and I breathed the salty, fresh air. My body hopped, and Dad hopped along with me while Mom finished painting her lipstick on perfectly.
Hop. Hop. Hop. Hop.
“Hey, remember our first trip to that beach?” Dad pointed to a ribbon of sand below the cliff.
Of course I remembered that day: July 30th. I was five years old. Dad promised to take me to the beach, and I was expecting the usual splashing and bobbing in my crab floatie. Instead, Dad zipped me into a small wetsuit and strapped an orange life vest around my chest. Then he walked me toward the water, holding his surfboard under one arm. “This is the day Princess Charity gets her mermaid tail.”
I had watched The Little Mermaid eight times, and I knew she did not ride a surfboard. Dad was goofy to think I could.
Goofy Dad did not give me time to panic. Once in the water, he laid me belly down on the board in front of him and paddled us out toward the waves. I clung tight with both hands and squinted my eyes almost closed. I tried to calm myself by imagining manta rays swimming below, the rubbery ocean bats we once pet at SeaWorld. Maybe they would scoop me up if I sank too deep. But after a few minutes of feeling the rhythm of the ocean, the lightness of floating up and down on the waves, I felt I was one of them—a manta ray, gliding through the water on my fishy wings.
Dad eyed the horizon and turned the surfboard to face the shore. “We’re gonna stand up on the count of three.” He said it calmly, as if we did this every day. Sure enough, in one . . . two . . . three . . . Dad pulled me up and held on to me as we rode the breaking wave all the way back to the beach. I giggled and grinned bigger than a spotted hyena.
Dad and I caught dozens more waves that day, and, with each one, my muscles slowly learned the pattern. Near sunset, he looked at his watch and realized Mom was probably going to kill us for being so late. “Don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do, Cherry Girl,” he said to me as he tied his board onto the roof of the car. “Life’s an adventure. Dive in!”
…
“We’d better get in there.” Mom smoothed my hair for the tenth time that day and poofed out the skirt on my prissy princess dress.
Where is a fairy godmother when you need one?
Then she fastened my hand to hers like superglue to cross the street. She always worried I might dart into traffic.
She was right to worry. My body had done that before—darting into the street to the sound of screams and screeching tires.
We walked through a giant wooden doorway into the church entrance hall. As soon as people saw me, whispers buzzed in my ears. Everyone was probably wondering the same thing: Would Charity have one of her famous freak-outs?
I could make a prediction. An hour-long service . . . with a hundred people watching . . . including all my family . . . and all their friends.
Pressure: high. That is a bad start.
Page 30: The Madagascar chameleon c
an change its skin color to blend into its surroundings.
My dumb pink dress was doing the opposite for me.
Maybe Mason can help me.
My eyes scanned the room for my cousin’s grin, stained with grape Kool-Aid the last time I saw him. Would he grab me in a monkey hug like when we were five?
My nose drifted toward a smell. Lilac hand cream. The next second, I felt Grammy’s warm cheek on my ear.
“Pretty as a September peach. ’Bout time your mother bought you some nice clothes.”
She said that last part with a wink to Mom. Gram grew up a true Southern lady before she moved here with Pops. The wild water’s edge, she called it.
Next, I caught a whiff of black cherry, flavor of the week at Pops’ ice cream shop.
“There’s my chipmunk!” Pops offered his hand for a fist bump—I am good at those—then bent down for a whisper. “Bet you can’t wait to get out of that silly getup they put you in.”
I tried to nod and smile, but I think all I did was wiggle a little.
Pops was royally right. I just hoped I would not rip my dress off in the middle of the ceremony.
Mom turned me around. “Charity, you remember your cousin Mason?”
Thank goodness.
My eyes searched. Mom pointed to a boy in a navy blazer wearing gold, glossy sunglasses.
Could it be him? Who wears sunglasses inside?
This was not the monkey boy I used to splash in the kiddie pool. Now he looked like one of the surfer boys at Dad’s shop, the kind who say dude and gnarly.
His mom, my Aunt Kiki, pushed him in my direction. “Mason, sweetie, go hug your cousin.”
My heart wanted him to squeeze me like toothpaste. But he just stood there. The corners of my mouth melted down.
Mason tilted his head and scanned me over the top of his sunglasses. My lips puckered in a duck face. He took a step back.
“What the flip is wrong with her?” he whispered to his mom.
Aunt Kiki pretended not to hear as she shoved Mason into the church.
Just keep smiling and pretend everything is fine. That’s how my Aunt Kiki handles problems. I guess she never told Mason what a disaster I had become.