Me at 5's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

After the first week the cab stops coming. My grandparents walk us to school instead and the route becomes familiar. The building is small and quiet and most days I sit at my desk without anyone asking me questions. But I notice something different about this place. There are other children who look like my sister and me. One boy uses metal sticks to walk. A girl wears thick glasses that make her eyes look huge. And there's a girl in a wheelchair with bright metal wheels who sits under the maple tree at recess every day. She doesn't run around like the others. She just sits there with a notebook in her lap. On Friday I walk past her three times before she looks up and smiles. My face gets hot but she's already looking back down at her page. The next Monday I walk past again and she says hello. I stop because stopping feels easier than walking away. She asks if I want to see what she's drawing. I sit down in the grass beside her wheelchair and she shows me a picture of a bird. I tell her it's nice. She asks if I want to try. I take the notebook and draw a tree that looks wrong but she says it's good anyway. After that we sit under the maple tree every recess. She tells me about her dog and I tell her about the pear tree at my grandparents' house. She doesn't ask me why I live there or why my face gets red when other kids look over at us. She just talks about normal things like what she had for breakfast or whether it might rain. Sometimes we don't talk at all and that's fine too. One day she lets me push her wheelchair back to the building when the bell rings. My hands grip the handles and I can feel the weight of her and the chair moving forward. Other kids stare as we go past but I'm looking at the back of her head and thinking about what she said about her dog. My face stays cool. When we reach her classroom she says thank you and see you tomorrow. I say see you tomorrow back. That afternoon my grandparents ask how school was and I say good. But this time something is different. I'm not just saying it to make them stop asking. I mean it because today I had somewhere to be and someone who wanted me there. Not because I was chosen or special but because I walked past her tree enough times that she said hello. Being normal isn't just sitting alone anymore. It's sitting beside someone who doesn't need me to be anything except there.