A Brand-New Me!

by Henry Winkler

  “I just wanted to share with you . . . well, actually, read a letter to . . . that I thought you might really like.”

  “If you must,” she said, taking off her gray glasses and staring at me with her gray eyes. “And what does this letter say that is so important?”

  I cleared my throat, stood as tall as I was ever going to get, and started reading.

  “Dear Hank. It was a real pleasure for—”

  She stopped me mid-sentence and held out her gray hand.

  “Let me see that letter, please,” she said.

  I handed it to her, but I was still in shock. She didn’t even let me get the first sentence out. And, I had practiced all morning.

  She read the letter without saying a word, but I noticed that her eyebrows went up in surprise, but just for a moment. I took a breath, waiting for her to respond. Would she say, “Congratulations”? Or would she say, “I’m happy for you, Hank”? Or maybe she’d say, “You finally did it, Hank.”

  None of that came out of her mouth. Instead, she swooped up her red pencil, and started marking up the letter.

  “Who are these people?” she said. “Definitely not educators of any reputation. They left out two commas, a period, and a capital letter at the beginning of the third sentence.”

  I know. You think I’m kidding. But I’M NOT.

  That gray faced woman sat there correcting my acceptance letter with a big, fat, great cloud hanging over her gray bun.

  “Ms. Adolf, may I have my letter back, please? I’d like to read you just one sentence from it because you might have missed it. Here . . . it says, we loved your imagination and positive spirit, and we are happyto offer you a spot in our middle school class.”

  “Well, I hope when you get there, you remind those free-spirited people that the English language has rules, and commas are an important part of those rules.”

  “Ms. Adolf, they are really good teachers there. They know all about my learning challenges, and they still want me. They looked at all of me, not just where I put my commas.”

  “Then it sounds like you and they will be a perfect match.”

  With that, she stood up and walked toward me. I had no idea what she was about to do. She reached out to me and touched my shoulder, and then she touched the other one. And then, she gave me the stiffest, boniest, grayest hug I’d ever received in my entire life.

  “Good luck to you, young man,” she said. Then she turned, sat down at her desk, picked up her red pencil and went back to work.

  She never looked up again.

  THREE MONTHS LATER . . . FIRST DAY OF MIDDLE SCHOOL

  At seven o’clock in the morning on a Monday in September, Frankie, Ashley, and I met in the lobby. That was normal. We all had our new backpacks for the first day of school. That was normal. Then we headed down 78th Street toward Broadway, in the opposite direction of PS 87. That was not normal. That was brand-new.

  When we reached the stop for the Broadway bus, I turned to them and didn’t know exactly what to say.

  “So . . . this is where I wait for my bus,” I finally said.

  “Our subway stop is one block up,” Frankie pointed out.

  We were all quiet for a minute. This was the first time in our whole lives we weren’t going to school together.

  “You’re going to be so great, Hank,” Ashley said, all of a sudden throwing her arms around me.

  “Zip, you’re going to wow them,” Frankie added, joining in our three-way hug.

  We just stood there holding on for a minute, like we were in a football huddle. We might have stood there forever, but my bus arrived, and the hiss of the doors opening told me it was time to go.

  “We’re still going to meet after school, right?” I hollered out to them as I climbed aboard.

  “The clubhouse,” Frankie shouted back. “Four o’clock.”

  Ashley shouted something, too, but I couldn’t hear her because the bus doors slammed shut when she was still in mid-sentence.

  “Put your money in the slot, son, and take a seat,” the driver said to me.

  I did. And as I turned to find a seat, I saw a sea of faces looking at me. I don’t know where I got the nerve, but suddenly I blurted out, “Hi, everyone. We haven’t met, but we’re going to see each other a lot, because I’ll be taking this bus to the Professional Performing Arts School. Today’s my first day. I’m Hank Zipzer, by the way.”

  To my surprise, some of the passengers answered back.

  “Hi, Hank,” a couple of them called out. “Good luck today.”

  I took a seat by the window. All summer, I had been practicing taking the bus with my mother, so I knew the bus-related rules like that you had to have exact change and ring a buzzer to let the driver know you were getting off at the next stop. But what I had never practiced was being all alone on the bus. That was new, too.

  As I looked out the window, I watched my neighborhood pass by—all the familiar buildings that I knew inside and out. It felt really strange to be leaving them, but it was exciting, too. I mean, I was doing what adults do. That could only mean one thing. I was growing up.

  Passing the corner of 77th and Broadway on our way downtown, I saw a bunch of kids walking to their new middle school, MS 245, including many of my friends from Ms. Adolf’s class. And wouldn’t you know it, Nick McKelty, being the Tick he is, was reaching his grimy thick hand into Ryan Shimozato’s backpack and pulling out the dessert from his lunch bag.

  It’s what he does best, I thought. Some things just never change. I myself felt very changed.

  As we drove on, my neighborhood drifted into new neighborhoods with stores and movie theaters and skyscrapers that I had only been to a few times. As we approached 48th Street, I pushed the buzzer to let the driver know I wanted to get off. As the doors hissed open and I turned to leave, I waved at everyone and shouted, “Nice riding with you.”

  It was great to hear the people on the bus laugh, and to know that I still had it—the old Zipzer attitude.

  There was a big sign hanging above the front door of my new school that said, “WELCOME STUDENTS!”

  “Thank you very much,” I whispered to myself. “I feel welcome.”

  The truth is, I felt a lot of other things, too: Scared because it was all new to me. Shy because these were all new people. And short because I am.

  I walked into the lobby and just stood there for a minute, realizing I had no idea where to go. Before I had time to panic, Trudi Ferguson came up to me in her black leotard with a clipboard in her hand.

  “Welcome, Hank. Glad to see you here. Your first period class is Language Arts with Garry Marshall. It’s in Room 4C, up two flights, first door on your left.”

  First problem solved. Now I knew where I was going. This middle school thing was turning out to be not so hard after all.

  The only thing I didn’t know was which direction was left. But I figured it out when I got upstairs by poking my head in the rooms on both sides of the hall until I saw Mr. Marshall.

  Uh-oh. I forgot. I have to call him Garry.

  Can you imagine if I had called Ms. Adolf Fanny? First of all, I would have cracked myself up just saying the word Fanny. And second of all, she would have put me in detention until I had a beard down to my knees.

  I took a seat in class. The seats were arranged in a horseshoe shape, not in rows like I was used to at my other school. The first thing I noticed was that when we were sitting like that, you could see everybody’s face. That was a good idea. I wasn’t going to have to spend three years looking at the hairs on the back of the neck of the kid in front of me.

  The other students all seemed nice, and a little nervous, just like me. When the bell rang, Garry welcomed us all to his class.

  “We’re going to be examining creativity in here,” he said, “which I believe is as necessary to human beings as food and water. Think of creativity as a great cheeseburger for the soul.”

  “I’ll have two of those,” the kid next to me in a bowling
shirt with his name over the pocket called out. I’d tell you his name, but of course, I couldn’t read the letters. I was surprised that the kid just shouted out his comment without raising his hand. And I was even more surprised that Garry didn’t seem to mind.

  “Now, who thinks they know what creativity is?” Garry said, leaning against one of the empty desks.

  “I feel creative when I play the drums,” one of the boys commented. I could have guessed that because he was wearing a T-shirt that had a picture of a drum set on it.

  “Drumming is good,” Garry answered, “and I’m happy for you. But does anyone here know what creativity is?”

  I raised my hand because that’s what I was used to.

  “Ahh, Hank,” he said. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”

  “I think creativity is when you let your feelings swirl around in your brain and then let them explode out of you in a way that can only come from you.”

  Garry paused for a long time. I didn’t know if that was good or bad, if my answer was right or wrong.

  “You know something, Hank,” he said at last. “You are really smart. And smart is good.”

  Smart? No teacher had ever said that before.

  Wow.

  This was a brand-new me!

  About the Authors

  HENRY WINKLER is an actor, producer, director, coauthor, public speaker, husband, father, brother, uncle, and godfather. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Stacey. They have three children named Jed, Zoe, and Max, and three dogs named Monty, Charlotte, and Linus. He is so proud of the Hank Zipzer series that he could scream—which he does sometimes, in his backyard!

  If you gave him two words to describe how he feels about the Hank Zipzer series, he would say: “I am thrilled that Lin Oliver is my partner and we write all these books together.” Yes, you’re right, that was sixteen words. But, hey! He’s got learning challenges.

  LIN OLIVER is a writer and producer of movies, books, and television series for children and families. She has created over one hundred episodes of television, four movies, and over twelve books. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alan. They have three sons named Theo, Ollie, and Cole, and a very adorable but badly behaved puppy named Dexter.

  If you gave her two words to describe this book, she would say “funny and compassionate.” If you asked her what “compassionate” meant, she would say “full of kindness.” She would not make you look it up in the dictionary.