As you might have guessed, Mom had always wanted a girl. Since she got two boys, she was big on helping us explore our feminine sides. My brother, Matt, was having none of it, so I got to be the sweet one.
At the time, I thought the ugly duckling story was just a story, like the kid who went where the wild things were, or the one about Sam, who rightly rejected green eggs. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized it was more than that. Really, it was Hans Christian Andersen reaching across the centuries with a hand pat and an “It gets better” to homely kids everywhere.
That realization started on the first day of kindergarten.
I didn’t go to preschool. Maybe Mom was overprotective, or maybe she just liked having me around. So it wasn’t until the first day of kindergarten that I realized I was kind of an ugly duckling.
That was also the first day I met Amanda Lasky.
And the first time I learned that Amanda Lasky was a badass.
I didn’t cry that day when Mom dropped me off at school. This was partly because my dad had told me, before he left for work, that only girls and babies cried, and partly because my mother had bought me a Pose and Stick Spider-Man. She said I could take it to school as long as I didn’t cry and promised to put Spidey in my backpack when the teacher said it was time to work.
The Pose and Stick Spider-Man was possibly the most awesome toy ever made. It was soft, with wires in its arms to make it poseable and suction cups in its feet so you could hang it on walls. I’d gotten one the Christmas before, but I’d played with it so much and stuck it to the refrigerator and waved it around and hit stuff with it and fought about it with Matt, and eventually, Spidey’s arms came out of their joints and the wire started protruding through so it was kind of dangerous, and my mom had to throw it out so I wouldn’t lose an eye. I had cried then, quietly in my bedroom, so my dad and Matt wouldn’t hear, but anyway, I was really happy to get a new one.
I was sitting at the table with my name, Christopher B., on it. A lot of kids had missed the memo about not crying. There were so many of them, and they moved around too fast for me to count, but it seemed like about a third of them were crying, and half of those were boys. The chair I sat on was cold and hard, but just my size, and I was sitting, sort of hugging Spidey, when a blond boy, who was bigger than I was and looked as old as Matt, came and took the seat by mine. I couldn’t read his name at the time because I couldn’t read. But now, I know it was Nolan Potter.
“Why’d you bring a doll?” he asked.
At first, I didn’t think he was talking to me. But when he repeated his question, and no one else answered, I realized he was.
“It’s not a doll.” I hugged it. “It’s Spider-Man.” I couldn’t believe anyone wouldn’t know the difference.
“Let me see it,” Nolan said, and without waiting for my okay, he yanked Spidey by the arm.
“Hey! Don’t do that! You’ll break it!” I looked around for the teacher, but she’d been swallowed up by a tidal wave of kids and parents.
“I just want to see it. You need to learn to share.”
“No, I don’t. Stop it.” I tried to hold Spidey’s elbow with my fingers, to keep the wire from coming out, but Nolan’s hands were twice the size of mine, and he crushed my fingers. “Ow!”
I felt my eyes get hot and hurty. I didn’t want to cry, not just because I’d promised I wouldn’t, but also because I knew Dad and Matt were right. Only babies cried. I didn’t want to be a baby, especially since a quick look around told me I was the shortest, smallest boy there. I was smaller than some of the girls. A little runt like the ugly duckling. I looked down so no one could see my eyes getting red, but I was also slowly realizing that the only way to keep Spidey’s arms from being ripped from their sockets on the very first day was to let go. I was about to do that when suddenly Nolan lost his grip, and I was tossed back, almost falling out of my chair.
“Let go, Nolan!” a voice said. “Stop being a bully!”
I looked up, hugging Spidey close. In front of me stood a red-haired girl. She was one of the girls who was bigger than me—a lot bigger. Several inches taller and what my mom would call “heavyset,” she’d apparently just karate-chopped Nolan, because he was holding his arm like it hurt.
“Ouch! Why don’t you get a Barbie, Amanda?” Nolan reached for Spidey again.
Amanda got between Nolan and me. “Why don’t you get a Barbie, Nolan, or steal one from a three-year-old girl? If you keep taking other people’s stuff, I’ll tell your dad, and he’ll spank your butt.”
“He won’t care,” Nolan said.
Amanda shrugged. “Then go ahead and take it, I guess.”
I hustled to get Spidey into my backpack, but I was sort of amazed Amanda had said butt in school.
Nolan sat down. “Aw, forget it.”