This was harder question. No one had ever bullied me in school. I slid a sideways glance at Abby, wondering how much she really wanted to know.
“I guess I would have just talked to them. Tried to get them to cool it. They’d probably stop if someone stood up to them.”
Other kids were forming lines that snaked out along the brick walls. Abby and I caught up with Nat, and we paused, trying to figure out which line we were supposed join.
“Fifth graders on the far left!” A pretty young teacher was standing on the concrete steps, calling out instructions to the milling crowd. The three of us walked to the left, keeping our steps slower to match Nat’s.
For the first time, we were all three in different classes. At Marian Johnson, there were only two classes per grade, so every year at least two of us were together. We separated into our assigned lines. Nat never looked back at us. He stood in the back of his line, his eyes fixed on the back of the girl who stood in front of him. Abby looked from him to me and back again. She was still worried.
I caught her eye and shrugged. There wasn’t any mid-morning recess at Herbert Andrews Elementary, so we’d have to wait for lunch to see each other again. Abby’s class was the first to go into the building, followed by Nat’s line. I watched them leave me behind.
Chapter 2: Abby
When Nat, Jesse and I say we’ve been friends since before we were born, it’s true. Everyone thinks we’re exaggerating or being funny, but we’re not. See, our moms all went to the same birth class, where people go to learn what it’s like to have a baby. For my mom and Nat’s, it was their first time having a baby, so they really needed the class. But Jesse’s mom already had two boys, so she always says she was just there for a refresher course. I guess she had forgotten how to do it, which sounds weird, but why else would she go back to a class?
Anyway, it sounds like a movie, but our moms got talking and sort of became friends. They went out for coffee or whatever pregnant women drink (because I think they’re not supposed to drink coffee), and they were going to do it again, like every week, but then Nat’s mom ended up having him early. Not just a few weeks early either; my mom told me once that at first they weren’t sure Nat was going to live. He was in NICU, which is a really scary place for babies, my mom said, for like two months. So all during that time, while my mom and Jesse’s were waiting for us to finally be born, they helped out Nat’s parents. My mom used to make food for his family and drive his mom to the hospital to sit with Nat.
That’s why Nat is different from Jesse and me. Something happened when he was born that early, and it left him with a lot of health problems. I can actually remember when Nat started walking. His legs were weak, something to do with the muscles, and we were four by the time he could really move around by himself without this walker he used to have. He was always smaller than us, too, even though he’s the oldest.
I didn’t realize how different Nat was until we started pre-k. Nat had been in special schools when we were younger, but by the time we were four, he was able to come to school with us. I was glad we were all going to be together, and I was really happy that Jesse and I were finally going to school. I had been a little jealous of Nat up to then, because he would talk about people he knew and stuff he did at school. It sounded like a fun place, even though Nat didn’t always want to go.
In pre-k, though, it was easy to see that Nat wasn’t like the rest of the kids. It wasn’t just his special way of walking, which in those days was a lot worse than it is now. He would almost throw himself from one leg to the other. Jesse and I were used to it, and we always walked on either side of him, at just the same speed he did. The other kids in pre-k definitely noticed that. They also saw that Nat was smaller than the rest of us. But what really made him stand out was his way of talking.
I guess it wasn’t really how he talked so much as what he said. Jesse’s mom said once that Nat didn’t have a filter. For a while I thought that meant there was something else that was wrong with him from when he was born, but then my mother explained that it meant that Nat just said whatever he thought.
“I thought that was telling the truth,” I said.
My mother sighed and thought for a minute. “Abby, if I asked you how I looked in my new dress, what would you say?”
This was easy. “I would say you looked pretty.”
“Okay, thanks, but what if I didn’t? What if it made me look fat or something?” At the look on my face, my mother laughed. “That’s what I mean. See, you’re trying to think about how you can tell the truth and not hurt my feelings, right?”
I nodded.