Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick (1993)

The deal is, Freak and I get to be in the same classes. He made the Fair Gwen go in and see all these people at the school, because I wasn’t supposed to be in the smart classes, no way, and finally they all agreed it would be good for Freak, having someone to help him get around.

Gram acts kind of worried about it and she doesn’t want to sign the papers, like she thinks the L.D. class has done me a lot of good or something, and being in the genius class is just going to make me slower and dumber than ever. But one night I come up the cellar stairs real quiet and Grim is saying, “Let’s give it a try, nothing else has worked, maybe what he needs is a friend, that’s the one thing he’s never had with all those special teachers.” And the next morning she signs the papers, and when we get to school the first day, Freak helps me find my name on the list and it’s true, we’re in all the same classes.

At first all the other kids are so into looking cool and acting cool and showing off their new outfits, they hardly notice us in the hall, Freak riding high on my shoulders, or the deal where his desk is always right next to mine. That wears off, though, and by the time we leave math, which is just passing out the textbooks and a bunch of numbers chalked on the blackboard, you can hear the whispers in the hall.

Like, hey, who’s the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf; and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh, my gawd that’s disgusting.

“Maxwell Kane?”

This is from Mrs. Donelli, the English teacher, she’s new to the school, and when I nod and raise my pencil, she goes, “Maxwell, will you please stand up and tell the class something about your summer?”

Which, if she wasn’t new to the school, she’d know better, because getting up in the class and saying stuff is not something I do.

“Maxwell,” she goes, “Is there a problem?”

By now there’s a lot of noise and kids are shouting stuff like, “Forget it, Mrs. Donelli, his brain is in his tail!”

“Ask him to count, he can paw the ground!”

“Maxi Pad! Maxi Pad! Ask him quick about his dad!”

“Killer Kane! Killer Kane! Had a kid who got no brain!”

Mrs. Donelli has this look like she stepped in something and she can’t get it off her shoe. The shouting and singing goes on and on, and pretty soon some of the kids are throwing stuff at us, pencils and erasers and wadded-up paper, and it’s like Mrs. Donelli has no idea what to do about it, the room is out of control.

Then Freak climbs up on his desk, which makes him about as big as a normal person standing up, and he starts shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Order!” he shouts. “Order in the court! Let justice be heard!”

For some reason, maybe because he looks so fierce with his jaw sticking out and his little fists all balled up and the way he’s stamping his crooked little feet, everybody shuts up and there’s this spooky silence.

Finally Mrs. Donelli says, “You must be Kevin, is that right?”

Freak has this look, he’s still acting really fierce, and he goes, “Sometimes, I am.”

“Sometimes? What does that mean?”

“It means sometimes I’m more than Kevin.”

“Oh,” says Mrs. Donelli, and you can tell she has no idea what he’s talking about, but she thinks it’s important to let him talk. “So, Kevin,” she says, “can you give us all an example?”

Next thing I know, Freak has his hands on my head and he’s getting himself on my shoulders and he’s tugging at me in a way that I know means “stand up,” and so I do it, I stand up in class and I can see Mrs. Donelli’s eyes getting bigger and bigger.

I’m standing there with Freak high above me and it feels right, it makes me feel strong and smart.

“How’s this for an example?” Freak is saying. “Sometimes we’re nine feet tall, and strong enough to walk through walls. Sometimes we fight gangs. Sometimes we find treasure. Sometimes we slay dragons and drink from the Holy Grail!”

Mrs. Donelli is backing up to her desk and she says, “Oh, my, that’s very interesting, I’m sure, but could you both just sit down?”

But Freak is riding me like he’s the jockey and I’m the horse, he’s steering me around the class room, showing off. He’s raising his fist and punching it in the air and going, “Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty!” and pretty soon he’s got all the other kids chanting, “Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty!” even though they don’t know what he’s talking about, or what it means.

I’m standing up straight, as tall as I can, and I’m marching exactly like he wants me to, right and left, backwards and forwards, and it’s like music or something, like I don’t even have to think about it, I just do it, and all those kids chanting our name, and Mrs. Donelli has no idea what’s going on, she’s definitely flipped out and more or less hiding behind her desk.

The whole class is raising their fists in the air and chanting: “Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty! Freak the Mighty!”

I can’t explain why, but it was really pretty cool.

Anyhow, that’s how Freak and I get sent to the principal’s office the first time together.

Mrs. Addison, she’s the principal, she takes one look at us waiting outside her office, and she goes, “What have we here?”

“I’m afraid there has been a slight misunderstanding,” Freak says. “If you’d be so good as to allow me to explain.”

Mrs. Addison is this really serious-acting black woman with tight gray hair in a bun and these suits that make her look like she works in a bank or something. She has this funny little smile like she’s sucking on a lemon and it quick turns sweet, and then she goes, “By all means. Let’s hear what you have to say. Convince me.”

I can’t really remember what Freak said, except that he used so many big words, she ahd to keep looking stuff up in his dictionary, which she seemed to get a real kick out of, but the important thing is, whatever Freak told her, she fell for it.

(page 75-79)

All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor (2016)

It is lunchtime in the new school. My meal card won’t swipe. The cashier tries again and again. Her name pin says “Miss Jenrik.” She’s not very old. In fact she looks like she should be down the block at the high school. She has pink spiky hair and long earrings with feathers at the ends. She is wearing rings on every finger. Each time my card fails she shakes her head and something on her jingles.

“Did you activate this?” she asks. She gives my card a hard look.

“Yes,” I say.

“Did it go through the washing machine?”

“Not yet,” I tell her.

Zoey is right behind me. She laughs. Miss Jenrik laughs too as she squints at the display on the machine and wiggles all her rings at it.

“I don’t know why this thing is asking me for a code,” she mumbles. “I’m new on the job. But I haven’t seen this all day…” She punches a few buttons. She tries the card again. The line is backing up behind us.

I tell Zoey, “You should have gone first. You could be eating by now.”

Zoey leans around me to speak to the cashier. “Hey, what if we swipe my card twice? Just for today?”

“It’s not going to let us do that.” Jingle-jingle. “Hmm…”

The line is pressing on Zoey now. I’m pretty sure the edge of someone’s lunch tray is in her back. She plants her feet like she’s holding our ground.

“What gives?” someone asks from the back of the line. I look and see a tall boy with his empty tray clamped in one hand. He points to himself with the other. “Starving here!”

“Well, look who’s holding things up.” I know that voice. It’s Brian Morris, and he’s leaning out of the line to sneer at me. “Not so fast today, are you?” he says. As if I ever sprint through a lunch line.

Miss Jenrik asks me, “Did you pick up this card here in the school office?”

I lean forward and tell her, “It was mailed to me. From the state.”

“The state? Oh! This is an assistance card!” She seems to get louder with each word. “You’re on assistance! That’s why it wants a code.”

Zoey lets a puff through her lips and shakes her head.

Brian Morris makes a duck-call with his hand from behind us. “It’s Perry Crook!” he squawks. “Escaped from Surprise!”

Miss Jenrik’s head snaps up when she hears that. Her face turns five shades of red beneath her pink hair.

“I’m s-sorry,” she says. She’s very quiet now. “My fault. Totally my fault.” She puts in a code. My card goes through.

Zoey and I sit across from each other at the very end of a long table. We both lean into the cranny where the table folds out from the wall. Zoey is giving her hot macaroni a cold stare. She’s mad about the card. I’m thinking that the harder won a lunch is, the more I want to eat it. I’m also thinking that soon I won’t have a card from the state. When Mom is paroled, my card will be like everyone else’s.

(Page 19-21)

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (2011)

Sadder Laugh

School!

I wake up withdragonflieszipping through my gut.

I eat nothing.

I take each step toward school evenly,trying to hold my stomachsteady.

It helps thatthe morning air glides coollike a constant washclothagainst my face.

Deep breaths.

I’m the first student in class.

My new teacher has brown curlslooped tight to her scalplike circles in a beehive.

She points to her chest:MiSSS SScott,saying it three times,each louderwith ever more spit.

I repeat, MiSSS SScott,careful to hiss every s.

She doesn’t seem impressed.

I tap my own chest:Há.

She must have heardha,as in funny ha-ha-ha.

She fakes a laugh.

I repeat, Há,and wish I knewenough Englishto tell herto listen forthe diacritical mark,this one directingthe tonedownward.

My new teacher tiltsher head back,fakesan even sadder laugh.

September 2Morning

Rainbow

I face the class.MiSSS SScott speaks.Each classmate says something.

I don’t understand,but I see.

Fire hair on skin dotted with spots.Fuzzy dark hair on skin shiny as lacquer.Hair the color of root on milky skin.Lots of braids on milk chocolate.White hair on a pink boy.Honey hair with orange ribbons on see-through skin.Hair with barrettes in all colors on bronze bread.

I’m the onlystraight black hairon olive skin.

September 2Midmorning

Black and White and Yellow and Red

The bell rings.Everyone stands.I stand.

They line up;so do I.

Down a hall.Turn left.Take a tray.Receive food.Sit.

On one sideof the bright, noisy room,light skin.Other side,dark skin.

Both laughing, chewing,as if it never occurredto themsomeone mediumwould show up.

I don’t know where to sitany more thanI know how to eatthe pink sausagesnuggled inside breadshaped like a corncob,smeared with saucesyellow and red.

I thinkthey are making funof the Vietnamese flaguntil I rememberno one here likely knowsthat flag’s colors.

I put down the trayand waitin the hallway.

September 211:30am

Loud Outside

Another bell,another line,this time outside.

Every partof the rainbowsurrounds me,shouting, pushing.

A pink boy with white hair on his headand white eyebrows andwhite eyelashespulls my arm hair.

Laughter.

It’s true my air hairgrows so long and black.

Maybe he is curiousabout my long, black arm hairlike I was curiousabout the golden fuzzon the armof the rescue-ship sailor.

He pokes my cheek.

Howls from everyone.

He pokes my chest.

I see nothing butsqueezed eyes,twisted mouths.

No,they’re not curious.

I want to pluck out every white hairto see if the boy’s scalpmatches the pink of his face.

I wish thisbut walk away.

September 2Afternoon

Laugh Back

The pink boy and two loud friendsfollow me home.

I count each stepto walk faster.

I won’t let themsee me run.

I count in English,forcing itto the frontof my mind.

I can’t help butglance back.

The pink boy shouts,showing a black holewhere sharp teeth glow.

I walk faster,count fasterin English.

Not that I careto understandwhat Pink Boy says,but I have toif I’m to laugh backat himone day.

September 2After school

(Page 139-148)

Save Me A Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan (2016)

RAVI

My school in India was called Vidya Mandir, which means “temple of knowledge.” My new school is called Albert Einstein Elementary. Perimma could hardly wait to show off to all her friends at home that her grandson had been accepted to a school named after a scientific genius.

I’m not a scientific genius, but I am a very good student. My favorite subjects are math, English, and sports-especially cricket.

“Boys and girls, please welcome our new student, RAH-vee,” Mrs. Beam says after she has taken the roll call. “He’s come to us all the way from India! Isn’t that exciting?”

Mrs. Beam is short and round. When she smiles, her eyebrows touch each other.

As I look around the room, a sea of mostly white faces stares back at me. I feel a little nervous. It is my first day of fifth grade in room 506, and I am the only Indian in my class. There is one other, a boy named Dillon Samreen, but he doesn’t count. He is an ABCD. American-Born Confused Desi. Desi is the Hindi word for Indian. I can tell Dillon is an ABCD, because he speaks and dresses more like an American than an Indian.

“Tell us something about yourself, RAH-vee,” Mrs. Beam says, smiling at me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, standing at attention.

Everyone laughs.

Mrs. Beam claps her hands. “Boys and girls, where are your manners?” she asks. “Go on, RAH-vee. We’re listening.”

I push up my glasses and continue. “My name is Ravi Suryanarayanan, and I just shifted from Bangalore.”

Everyone laughs again. What’s so funny? I wonder.

Mrs. Beam claps her hands. Her eyebrows are twitching like mad. “Boys and girls, is this how we welcome a new student to Albert Einstein?”

The room gets quiet. The spotlight is on me. I can feel the whole class staring. This is my first day of school in America, and things are not going well.

Mrs. Beam turns to me. “You can call me Mrs. Beam,” she says softly. “And RAH-vee? Here in America, students don’t need to stand up when the teacher calls on them. Do you understand?”

Of course I do. I push up my glasses and rub my nose. It’s something I do when I’m nervous.

Mrs. Beam comes over to my desk. She has a look of pity on her face.

“Don’t worry, RAH-vee,” she says, patting me on the shoulder. “You can introduce yourself to the class later, after you’ve had a little time to work on your English. We have a very nice teacher named Miss Frost in the resource room. I’m sure she can help you.”

I want to say:

1. My English is fine.2. I don’t need Miss Frost.3. I was top of my class at Vidya Mandir.

But here’s what I do instead:

1. Push up my glasses.2. Rub my nose.3. Sit down and fold my hands.

My friends and teachers at Vidya Mandir would have a good laugh if they could see me now—their star student taken for an idiot. What a joke!

Mrs. Beam is writing out our homework on the board. I open my notebook and carefully copy down the assignment. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dillon Samreen staring at me. He looks like a movie star straight out of Bollywood. His long, shiny black hair falls over one eye; with a quick jerk of his head, he shakes it away. Then he smiles and winks at me. I smile back. Dillon Samreen may be an ABCD, but I think he wants to be my friend.

(Page 5-8)

JOE

Today is the first day of school, and Mr. Barnes is the first person I run into when I get here. He's wearing a red bow tie with little blue whales on it. I'm pretty sure it's new, or at least I've never seen it before. Last year, Mr. Barnes had seventeen different bow ties that he always wore in the same order starting with the green one with white

diamonds and ending with the orange-and-purple-striped one. Mr. Barnes's bow ties were another one of my favorite sequences.

"Yo, Joe," he says. "How's it feel to be a fifth grader?”

"Good," I tell him. "At least so far."

Maybe this year will be different, I think. Maybe Dillon Samreen won't be in my class.

But when I get to room 506, there he is, standing over by the windows with his underwear hanging out. Polka dots.

Lucy Mulligan and a bunch of her annoying girl friends are standing around him, chanting, "Do it, do it, do it!" They want him to stick out his tongue, but Dillon won't.

"Come on, Samreen, let's give 'em what they want!" Tom Dinkins shouts before sticking out his own tongue and wagging it at the girls.

Tom Dinkins is a Dillon Samreen wannabe. The girls don't care about his tongue.

"I warn you," Dillon tells his fan club, "I think it grew a little over the summer."

Lucy and her friends start jumping up and down, screaming, "Eeeew!"

One thing I will say about Dillon Samreen: He really knows how to play a crowd.

All the screaming starts to get to me, so I do the in-two-three, out-two-three breathing Miss Frost taught me. If that doesn't work, I'll have to use my earplugs. I always keep a pair in my pocket just in case. They Come in different colors, but I like the tan ones best, because they don't show as much. They're made out of some kind of squishy foam rubber, and when I wear them, I can still hear people talking, only it's softer, like when you're underwater or have a pillow over your head. I'm allowed to wear my earplugs in school whenever I want, but mostly I use them in the cafeteria, on the playground, and in gym class.

"Settle down and take your seats," announces Mrs. Beam, my new teacher. This is her first year teaching at Einstein, and she looks a lot younger than any of the other teachers I've had. She's shaped kind of funny—wider on the bottom than the top—and she's shorter than me, which is weird, considering that she's my teacher. She seems nervous, and there's something freaky about her eyebrows.

At Einstein, kids have to sit in alphabetical order. Every year since kindergarten, my seat has been right behind Dillon's. I know the back of his head by heart. Mrs. Beam has made name cards for us and put them on the desks, but when I go to take my seat

behind Dillon, somebody's already sitting in it. He's a shrimpy-looking kid with thick glasses and greased-down black hair parted on the side. I've never seen him before, and I'm not sure where he's from. His skin is darker than mine, but not as dark as Dillon's or Caleb Burell's. When I look at the card sitting on his desk, I see his name is about a mile long and full of y's and a's.

He seems kind of nervous too. He keeps rubbing his nose and looking down at his hands, which are folded in his lap like he's in church or something. His shirt is so white it hurts my eyes to look at it, and he's got it tucked in and buttoned up all the way to the top. When Mrs. Beam asks him to tell the class about himself, he stands up like he's in the army and calls her ma'am—which is about the only word he says that you can actually understand. Everybody starts laughing, and for a minute, I think, Hey, maybe fifth grade isn't going to be so bad after all.

Maybe Dillon Samreen will decide to pick on this new kid with the weird name and the funny accent instead of me.

(Page 12-15)

The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Perez (2017)